Religious Musings on The Turner Diaries: Reading the Bible of the Racist Right

Religious Musings on The Turner Diaries: Reading the Bible of the Racist Right

Domestic religious terrorism doesn't figure very strongly in the modern American consciousness. However, this may be more of an embarrassing oversight than an encouraging reflection of reality. Juergensmeyer did me quite a service by starting out his forceful documentation and analysis by looking at the actions of the American religious right. Though he focused on those responsible for the attacks against abortion clinics, he also brought up the Christian Identity movement, the group connected with Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City bombing fame. Their theology (that they are the only true Jews) caught my attention, and your comments in class led me to be interested in reading The Turner Diaries, a work which has been called the "Bible of the racist right." I thought it a fitting conclusion to the semester to look at something I was introduced to in the course through the new lens which the course has ground over the past semester.

The Turner Diaries is ostensibly the day-to-day account of Earl Turner, a footsoldier in the White Revolution in America to overthrow the rule of the Jews and their imposition of "racial equality" (a term which they take to mean license for Black Americans to do as they please with impunity). Over the course of a couple of years, he details his experiences within the "Organization" as it is forced underground by an ever-more-repressive government. It eventually begins fighting back militarily, engaging in acts ­ such as the destruction of the FBI building and the mortar-shelling of the Capitol ­ that we would undoubtedly recognize as terrorism. In the end, the Organization succeeds in achieving its goals, first liberating California, and then, as the epilogue summarizes, the rest of the world, ridding the Earth of the twin scourges of Jewish domination and non-white contamination.

Oddly enough, the text makes very few references to religion, other than to say that Earl himself became religious only after his induction into a secretive Order within the Organization. And yet the entire tale bears the markings of religion, especially the trappings of a culture of religious opposition. Of course, their religion, their theology, is their belief in the superiority of the white race - but this is no less a religious belief, taken as an article of faith by adherents.

From the beginning, we are led to understand these people's participation in the Organization as an act of desperation; they will be punished, most likely killed, by their enemies if they don't go into hiding and work against the System.