World Church of the Creator
 (W.C.O.T.C.)

Quotation:

"Our unswerving committment [sic] to a Whiter and Brighter World, a world intolerant of that which militates against the health of our [white] people, will insure that from this mayhem will come order, a White order. RAHOWA! [RAcial HOly WAr]," Rev. Mat Hale, PM of the W.C.O.T.C

Overview:

The W.C.O.T.C. is a non-Christian, non-profit, religious organization, with their head office in Illinois. ₁ They have 24 regional and local branches. ₁₁ They have members "all over the world." They promote the religion of "Creativity, based on the eternal laws of nature." Their prime objective is: "The survival, expansion and advancement of the white race."

They regard themselves as being motivated by a love for the white race. This also implies extreme hatred of non-white races. They are overwhelmingly hate-filled towards Jews, Afro-Americans, and other non-whites. They are opposed to homosexual behavior; but their concern in this area appears to be muted in comparison to other white-supremacist organizations

History:

Ben Klassen (1918-1993) was the main founder of the religion of Creativity. He organized the Church of the Creator (COTC), a predecessor organization to the W.C.O.T.C. in 1973. He attracted several hundred white supremacists as members, from the U.S., Canada, Sweden and South Africa. The fortunes of the COTC started to unravel when one of their ministers, George Loeb, was found guilty of an apparently racially-motivated killing of an Afro-American veteran. Following Klassen's suicide in 1993, the Church lost much of its drive. The family of the homicide victim was able to win a lawsuit against the COTC, forcing it out of business. ₆

Rev. Matt Hale, PM (Pontifex Maximus) (1971 -) reorganized the group in 1996, as the World Church of the Creator (W.C.O.T.C.). Hale was formerly the head of the National Socialist White American's Party. He has since built up its membership from hundreds of Creators (members) to about 3,000. He has completed law courses at Southern Illinois University, graduated and passed his bar exams. He has been denied a law license because of his religious beliefs and activities.

Symbol, flag and slogans:

• The church symbol is composed of three images on a white background. From top to bottom, they are: 

  • a halo, which symbolizes that race is "unique and sacred above all other values."

  • a red and black crown which indicates that their group form the elite,

  • a large black letter W which stands for the white race.

• Their flag consists of the church symbol on a red background. The blood-red color symbolizes their "struggle for the survival, expansion and advancement of the White Race." There is a white triangle at the right side of the flag which symbolizes the emergence of a "Whiter and Brighter World." 

• Their slogans include:

  • "A Whiter and Brighter World."

  • "RAHOWA" (RAcial HOly WAr)

Beliefs:

• Racial beliefs of the W.C.O.T.C.:

  • Their race is their religion.

  • Their religion and philosophy called "Creativity" is based on the external laws of nature, the experience of history, on logic and common sense.

  • The white race is the finest achievement of nature.

  • Hatred for Jews, Afro-Americans, and other "mud races" flows naturally from their love of their fellow whites.

  • All of the progress in society has been due to the white race. 

  • The entire white race is an extension of each white family. 

  • Persons who are not white are of a "mud race." They may be a sub-species who share a common ancestor with the white race. Black people form the bottom level of humans, barely above monkeys and chimpanzees.

  • The percentage of white people on the earth has dropped from 33% in 1920 to about 8% today. There are 500 million white people alive today. 

  • Founder Ben Klassen envisioned a racial holy war (RAHOWA) in the future between the white and non-white races.

• Morality:

  • "...what is good for the White Race is the highest value..."

  • "...what is bad for the White Race is the ultimate sin."

  • They believe that the American culture is becoming more decadent. Symptoms are: black crimes, growing acceptance of homosexuality, interracial marriage, increasing drug use, and lack of racial identity among white people.

  • Love and hate are the most powerful emotions; having both is healthy and essential to life. 

• Anti-Christian beliefs:

  • Christianity is a violent religion. They have killed 1000 fellow Christians down through the years for every Christian that the Romans killed.

  • They do not believe that Jesus existed in the 1^st century CE. They point to the complete lack of evidence from any non-Jewish source that verifies his existence in Palestine.

  • They reject the Christian principle to love your enemies. Enemies should be hated.

  • They reject the ethic of reciprocity which is expressed in the Christian golden rule and in many similar statements in other religions.

• Anti-Semitic beliefs:

  • Jews were responsible for World War II.

  • The Nazi holocaust never happened.

  • Jews control the U.S. federal government, which they call the JOG (Jewish Occupational Government)

  • Jews are in control of the United Nations.

• Un-Christian beliefs:

  • They do not believe in life after death; heaven and hell are a fantasy.

  • They do not believe in the existence of a God, angels, devils, spooks, etc. However, they do not use the term Atheist to describe their religion.

  • They do not know how the universe began. They remain agnostic on matters relating to the origin of life, the world and the rest of the universe.

Practices:

• General:

  • They hope to expand the white race, to gain control of all of the land, and crowd out everyone else (i.e. members of the mud races). Everything is geared towards populating the earth with only white people.

  • They refer to black people as "niggers" rather than Negroes, Afro-American or blacks. This is because the latter terms indicate excessive respect.

  • They refer to their faith as a racial and natural religion.

  • Their primary mission is to convert other white people to their religion.

  • Membership is restricted to persons whose genetic heritage is "wholly or predominantly" from Europe.

  • A Creator (church member) should not meet with non-whites socially.

  • A Creator shuns "sexual deviation" which apparently includes homosexual behavior.

• Location: 

  • They urge that members relocate to central Illinois. Their reasoning is that they need an "area in which our influence and numbers are so widespread that we can be said to dominate that area."

• Diet: 

  • They recommend "Salubrious Living" which involves the eating of natural foods in a proper balance, advocating a clean environment and organic farming.

• Deception, and illegal activities:

  • When trying to participate on a call-in radio show, they urge their members to "Do whatever it takes to get on the air..."

  • They suggest that Creators call numbers at random from the telephone book. If the person who answers is not white, they are to say that a wrong number was dialed.

  • If they are in a country that has laws against the distribution of hate literature, Creators are to ignore those laws.

• Rituals: 

  • Creators (members) are expected to engage in a religious ritual five times a day. They recite the five fundamental beliefs of Creativity. All five relate to race, including the first belief: that their "Race is their Religion."

  • They have a wedding ceremony which can be performed only by church ministers. The bride and groom exchange their vows before nature.

  • They have a Ceremony of Pledging to Raise the Child Loyal to the White Race. It can be performed only by church ministers, ideally within the first week after birth. Both parents pledge to raise their child as a loyal member of the White Race and faithful to the church.

  • A Ceremony of Confirmation of Loyalty to the White Race can be performed by a minister on or after the child's 13^th birthday. 

• Calendar: 1973 was the date of the first publishing of Nature's Eternal Religion; it is regarded as the year in which the W.C.O.T.C was founded. They have abandoned the Gregorian calendar. 1973 is considered the Incepto de Creativitat (Inception of Creativity), or I.C. Years following are called "Anno de Creativitat." Thus 1974 CE is called 1 A.C. The years before I.C. are called Prius Creativitat (Before Creativity). Thus 1972 CE is called 1 P.C. 

• Holidays:

  • Klassen day on FEB-20, the anniversary of their founder's birth.

  • Founding Day on FEB-21, the anniversary of the first publishing of the book Nature's Eternal Religion.

  • Kozel Day or Martyrs' Day on SEP-15: the date at which a Creator minister was killed in action.

  • West Victory Day on DEC-29, commemorating the white victory over the last organized native America resistance in 1890 CE (83 PC).

• Internal Organization:

  • Their  Pontifex Maximus (PM; supreme leader) holds almost complete power in the organization. He serves for a 10 year term.

  • 12 leading ministers form the Guardians of the Faith Committee. They either renew the term of the PM or select a new PM. In unusual situations, they have the power to remove a PM who is partway through a term, if three quarters of the ministers on the committee agree. 

  • Within the U.S., a director will be appointed for each state. These directors will respond to a national director who reports directly to the P.M. Under the state directors come country directors and city directors.

  • A "Primary Group" is a cell which consists of a minimum of 2 members, and an optimum level of 5. Each group selects a leader and a unique name.

  • Experienced, committed members with strong leadership potential may be ordained as a minister. This requires that he pass a written text and sign an oath.

  • The church's Security Legions are the only uniformed members. They consist of two groups:

    • White Rangers: they derive their symbolism from the "White conquerors of the North American continent" (pioneers, cowboys, Texas Rangers...) They wear a white cowboy hat and cowboy boots

    • White Berets: they derive their symbolism from the military. They wear a military beret and paratrooper boots.

The church and violence:

Their founder, Ben Klassen, wrote: "We have a non-violent religious movement. We have a comprehensive plan as to how to achieve a Whiter and Brighter World. Every step along the way is legal, constitutional and non-violent..." ₃

The Creator Membership Manual says that: "any member of the Church who either commits crimes (other than unconstitutional violations of our right to freedom of speech, assembly, etc.) or encourages others to do so, will be subject to expulsion from the Church." ₄ They view illegal or violent behavior as counter-productive. It subjects their own members to arrest. They feel that the public is craving for order, security and stability; people will reject any group that appears to advocate anarchy. 

Although the organization itself considers itself non-violent, some of its members have allegedly engaged in racially an religiously-inspired criminal acts:

• 1991: George Loeb was arrested for the killing of Harold Mansfield Jr., an Afro-American military veteran in Florida. Leob was found guilty and received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. His wife was arrested and jailed on a lesser crime. Loeb was a minister in the COTC.

• 1994: Some COTC members in California planned two bombing sprees that were designed to attack Afro-American, homosexual and Jewish institutions. Police thwarted the terrorists' plans.

• 1997: Some skinheads (neo-Nazis) were distributing W.C.O.T.C. pamphlets at a rock concert in Florida. About 11 of them attacked a Afro-American man and his son. Several W.C.O.T.C. members were arrested, tried and sentenced for this crime. The police classified it as a hate crime.

• 1999-JUN/JUL:  The Sacramento (CA) Bee reported on 1999-AUG-20 that two brothers are suspected in the murder of a gay couple (Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder), arson at three synagogues, and arson at an abortion clinic at the Country Club Medical Center in Sacramento CA. The two brothers are Benjamin Williams and James Matthews. The newspaper commented "Authorities also have reportedly linked the brothers to the World Church of the Creator..." ₁₀

• 1999-JUL-3/4: A senior W.C.O.T.C. member, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, went on a shooting rampage through the mid-west, killing one Afro-American and one Korean-American. Six orthodox Jews and three Afro-Americans were wounded. Smith then committed suicide. He had earlier testified at Matt Hale's law hearing. When Hale was asked what he had to say to Smith's surviving victims and the families of the people who died, he commented: "We really just don't have anything to say to them. And that's part of our church. We do not socialize with the other races." ₈
  
  In an ironic twist of logic, on his July 6 episode of The 700 Club Pat Robertson, predicted that this type of violence will continue into the future. "There will be many more of them." He blamed Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) for the "violence, killing, mayhem [and] hatred." His rationale was that if the ACLU, the AU and similar groups succeed in their goal of attaining true separation of church and state in the U.S., that the public will have have no religious influence to restrain them. Robertson said that in order to minimize racial assassinations, "...we must pull together to once again reestablish the Bible as our guidebook for faith and conduct." The AU requested an immediate on-air apology for these statements. ₇ 
  
  The Federal Justice Department is studying whether it has the authority to investigate the W.C.O.T.C. The FBI is severely limited in its investigative powers of groups that teach hatred, unless there is an immediate link to committing violence. 

• 1999-JUL-15: Jim Ryan, The Attorney general of Illinois is asking a court to decide whether the W.C.O.T.C. should have status as a charitable organization. Their tax payments are also under review.

In the 12 months following Benjamin Smith's 1999-JUL-3 shooting spree, the W.C.O.T.C. has added 35 chapters and about 100 members. According to Associated Press for 2000-JUL-4, Richard Hirschhaut
of the Anti-Defamation League said: "All indications point to a stronger or a better-supported organization."  

We suspect that that even though the Church professes non-violence, that its white supremacist teachings will continue to be effective in inspiring some of its members to commit homicide and other serious terrorist acts. It is a good group to stay away from.

Publications:

• Their "Holy Books of Creativity" are:

  • Ben Klassen: "Nature's Eternal Religion" (1973)

  • Ben Klassen: "The White Man's Bible." (1981) 

  • Arnold DeVries & Ben Klassen, "Salubrious Living" (1982)

  • Ben Klassen, "On the Brink of a Bloody Racial War," (1993)

  • and other books and correspondence by Klassen, 

• The Struggle is their monthly periodical

• Other books, flyers, brochures, calling cards, video tapes, audio tapes, clothing, flags, posters, stickers, refrigerator magnets, etc. are listed on their web page. ₁

References:

1. The "World Church of the Creator" has an official home page at: http://www.creator.org/frames.html Their address is P.O. Box 2002, East Peoria, IL, 61611. Telephone: (309) 699-0135 E-Mail: PMHale1@aol.com 

2. Maranatha Daywatch, Issue 30, 1999-JUL-9, at: http://www.mcjonline.com

3. Ben Klassen, "On the Brink of a Bloody Racial War," (1993), Page 375.

4. Rev. Matt Hale, "The Creator Membership Manual," Edition 2 (1999), Page 8

5. Skinheads of the Racial Holy War has a web site at: http://www.rahowa.com/ 

6. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a brief guide to the W.C.O.T.C. at: http://www.adl.org/special_reports/hate_on_www 

7. Americans United press release at: http://www.au.org/pr7899.htm. See also AU spokesperson Barry Lynn's letter to Pat Robertson, at http://www.au.org/7899let.htm, and transcripts of Pat Robertson's on-air comments, at http://www.au.org/7899tr.htm

8. "The hate crimes question," 1999-AUG-11, PBS NewsHour on 1999-AUG-11, at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec99/ 

9. "My fiancé wants me to be a racist!", transcript of a 1997 Jerry Springer Show featuring the W.C.O.T.C., is at: http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/feature/

10. "Report: Abortion fire investigation focused on brother suspects," Associated Press, 1999-AUG-20, at:  http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/news100o.htm

11. "Church sites for a new era of evolution" at http://www.wcotc.com/