Eric Rudolf and the "Christian Identity" Movement

June 5, 2003

Source: Voice of America

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=C2B301AF-EC53-4B0C-8A95E2DBBE270BCA

On June 5, 2003 Voice of America reported that "the recent capture of the man believed responsible for the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta is an important reminder that 'Christian Terrorism' was in the United States long before its Islamic counterpart was unleashed on New York and Washington, DC... Eric Robert Rudolph was on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list for nearly six years, before police in rural Murphy, North Carolina, discovered him rummaging through a trash dumpster late one night at the end of May. Mr. Rudolph is believed to be responsible for the Olympic Park bombing in July of 1996, which killed one person. He's also been linked to a bombing at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed another person, as well as bombings at a gay nightclub and an abortion clinic in Atlanta... All of the attacks took place within a few months of one another and someone belonging to a group called the 'Army of God' claimed responsibility for three of them. The Army of God is an offshoot of a radical religious movement Eric Robert Rudolph once belonged to, known as 'Christian Identity...' Mark Juergensmeyer, a sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says members of the Christian Identity movement believe that people of white, northern European ancestry are the descendents of the Lost Tribes of Israel and are, therefore, God's 'chosen' people."