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More Anti-Semitism from the Religious Right
As the recent rolling exposes of Texas evangelist John Hagee and Ohio theocrat Rod Parsely show -- there are influential leaders with dangerously bigoted and often anti-democratic views. And these leaders are so signficant, that someone like John McCain -- well actually John McCain himself, and his side- kick Joe Lieberman -- are willing to turn a blind eye to their very public views. Mike Huckabee certainly had his share of problematic pastors as supporters as well -- although prior to the blow-up over Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, most people and certainly the media were less than curious about the views of even important leaders of the religious right, most of whom supported Huck's campaign.
One such Huck supporter and campaign contributor was Arnold Murray, an 81 year old Arkansas-based evangelist with a national following. Less well-known is that his theological roots run deep in the anti-Semitic and racist "Christian Identity" movement that has shaped much of the white supremacist movement in modern America. Murray is the subject of an an investigative report by Casey Sanchez, published today in Intelligence Report, the quarterly magazine of the Southern Poverty Law Center. |
First, according to Pastor Murray:
From the Shepherd's Chapel in Gravette, AR we have been presenting our Father's Word via satellite since 1985 and today our daily one-hour Bible class is viewed on over 225 television stations in the United States and Canada. We have thousands of home satellite dish students throughout the western hemisphere who can view our Bible study 24-hours each day and thousands more listen via shortwave around the world. And now you too can join our Bible study over the Internet.
Acording to Casey Sanchez, writing for Intelligence Report, Murray is a raving anti-Semite:
Despite these ties to the roots of the Christian Identity movement, Murray today publicly disavows racism, and his followers include a tiny minority of non-whites. Even so, Murray preaches often about a race of evil people, descended from Cain, borne out of "the Serpent Seed" of Eve's sexual union with Satan in the Garden of Eden. He calls them the "Kenites" and identifies them in his 1979 Shepherd's Bible as people "who slipped in among the Jewish people in Jerusalem and claim to be God's chosen people, when in fact they are of Lucifer." He also mentions that "in 1967 ... Jerusalem fell to the Kenites during the 6 day war"; the Israelis, in fact, won the Six-Day War. In one sermon, Dennis Murray speaks of "the Kenites, who are responsible for the slaying of Christ." (In most Judeo-Christian traditions, the Kenites are a nomadic clan of Midianites and a tribe into which Moses married.)
The Serpent Seed is a belief ripped straight from the pages of "seedline" or "two-seed" Christian Identity theology, the hard-line version of the theology that holds that Eve was impregnated by Satan and gave birth to his son, Cain, described as the first Jew. That is, Jews are seen as biologically descended from Satan, and are allegedly hard at work preparing the earth for his rule. Identity adherents also argue that whites, not Jews, are the real Hebrews of the Bible, and that non-whites are sub-human "beasts of the field" created without souls.
While Murray doesn't outright endorse these hardliner views, by promoting the "Serpent Seed" doctrine on 225 broadcast stations he's gone further than any Christian Identity preacher in pushing what seem clearly to be anti-Semitic Identity teachings into the mainstream.
"This is certainly Identity theology, inasmuch as he presents a two-seedline argument, identifies the [present] inhabitants of Israel with the descendants of Cain, and calls the mating of the Serpent with Eve the primal sin," Michael Barkun, the leading scholar of Christian Identity and a political science professor at Syracuse University, told the Intelligence Report.
Or, as Murray puts it more cautiously on his website: "What about teaching Serpent Seed? I make no apology for teaching the word of God."
With the exception of New York City, "Shepherd's Chapel" airs in every major market in the country, in one- to four-hour slots, usually between midnight and six a.m. For hardcore fans, a 24-hour, seven-day a-week satellite broadcast of Shepherd's Chapel is available on DirecTV. A prophecy hotline is also available where callers can listen to a two-minute loop of Murray's commentary on events of the day.
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