The Christian Patriot movement is a movement of American political commentators and activists. They promote various interpretations of history and law with the common theme that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and individual rights behind the American Revolution, and America's Christian heritage.[1]
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The movement originally referred to the late 1980s' Posse Comitatus group, a militant far right organization. Posse Comitatus followed an ideology based on the teachings of Posse founder and Christian Identity minister William P. Gale, though the majority do not follow Identity's white nationalist Israelistic views. This ideology holds that state and federal governments are agents of an arcane conspiracy to deprive Americans of their rights as "sovereign citizens." This conspiracy can, however, be undermined through various legal pleadings from English common law and other sources, such as a motion to require a court to address a defendant in a particular way.[2] The ideology persists despite numerous court rulings that have declared its theories frivolous.[3]
The movement grew during the 1990s after the Ruby Ridge incident and the Waco Siege appeared to confirm the suspicions of Christian Patriots.[4] The movement maintained ties with the militia movement of the same period. A highly publicized federal confrontation with Christian Patriots occurred in 1996, when Federal marshals arrested the Montana Freemen.[2] After 2000, the original movement became defunct and the term Christian Patriot was increasingly adopted by conservative Christians self-identifying themselves as patriots. Conservative Radio Talk Show hosts like Jon Arthur and Alex Jones have taken the movement to the next level via radio broadcasting vowing to "Take America Back"!