By ROBERT CLOUD
Waupaca County Post
Waupaca clergy are organizing a protest at the entrance of Riverside Bible Camp in Portage County to challenge an alleged hate group scheduled to meet there Labor Day weekend. The camp is in the town of Lanark, about six miles southeast of Amherst.
The four-day conference, organized by Scriptures for America, opens Friday, Sept. 1, and includes speakers who have written such works as "Death Penalty for Homosexuals Prescribed in the Bible" and "America: Free, White and Christian."
"Their message is one of intolerance," according to Rev. Sean Motley, youth pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Waupaca. "Under the guise of the Gospel, they claim the only real human beings, the only people who have any hope of salvation, are Anglo-Saxon Germanic people. They believes Jews are the offspring of Satan and Eve."
Motley spent most of Monday contacting area clergy to attend a meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, at Trinity to plan a community-wide organized response to the conference.
Those participating in the protest will meet at noon Friday at Trinity Lutheran Church, 206 E. Badger St.
An ecumenical prayer service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 3, at Faith Community Church, N2541 County Trunk K, Waupaca.
At first glance, the flier announcing the Bible camp looks harmless enough. It promises great family music, food and fellowship, baptism and classes for children at an inexpensive, rustic campground on the Tomorrow River.
But the flier also shows apparent signs of bigotry: a hook-nosed caricature saying people should stay away and the claim that "Throughout history, the people of Israel have gathered from time to time with others of their faith, race and heritage, to enjoy the company of their own kind."
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and other civil rights groups say the keynote speaker at the event, Pete Peters of Church of Christ in LaPorte, Colo., is a catalyst in the Christian Identity movement, a religious sect that claims white northern Europeans are God's true chosen people.
In his books and sermons, Peters depicts a vast Jewish conspiracy against Christian culture that requires a determined response.
"Once God's laws are obeyed by His People, the body of the people shall be healed," Peters writes. "Healthy bodies throw off parasites. When there is repentance and obedience to His laws, the porno shop will no longer be on Main Street, the Jewish Hollywood filth will no longer be tolerated, the prostitute-scribe reporter will no longer be allowed to lie, the homosexual and murderer will be removed, the Jewish bankers will no longer be allowed to charge interest."
Rev. David Ostendorf, a United Church of Christ minister with the Center for New Community in Quincy, Ill., notified the Chain O' Lakes Ministerial Association regarding Peters' Bible camp and encouraged local clergy to oppose the event.
"His positions are plain and clear: 'Put people to death,'" Ostendorf said, regarding Peters. "His ideology is a heresy of the Christian faith. And any faith community should be concerned about the racism and hatred it builds and reinforces."
Ostendorf said the local community should also be concerned because Peters' organization may be drawing recruits from the central Wisconsin area.
"There's been a history of that kind of activity in some pockets of Wisconsin," Ostendorf said, referring to activities of the currently inactive Posse Comitatus out of Tigerton.
Other speakers scheduled for the Labor Day weekend at Riverside Bible Camp include Richard Kelly Hoskins, Charles Weisman and Earl Jones
Hoskins, a Lynchburg, Va., investment advisor, is known for his book, "Vigilantes of Christendom." It portrays a secret priesthood of terrorists who gun down gays, assassinate inter-racial couples, rob banks and bomb porn shops.
Hoskins also produces an online newsletter that advocates outlawing racial "interbreeding" and "root(ing) sodomites from the land."
Charles Weisman is based in Burnsville, Minn. His tracts include "Discrimination: The Key to Sanity" and "America: Free, White and Christian."
In a 1991 tract, "Who is Esau-Edom?," Weisman writes, "Why is it no other group, nation or race or people is as worried and concerned about the concept of genocide as the Jews are? It is because in God's Script for the world the Jews are scheduled to be exterminated."
Last Sunday several area ministers brought the upcoming Bible camp to the attention of their congregations during their sermons.
"This particular group is using Christianity to spread a message of hate," said the Rev. Martin Nolet of Parfreyville Methodist Church, who asked members of his congregation to set aside time for individual prayer.
The Rev. Paul Nulton of First United Methodist Church in Waupaca delivered a sermon on tolerance and intolerance, and used the Scriptures for America group as an illustration.
"We want to be tolerant and inclusive of many points of view, yet take a stand against beliefs that are obviously destructive," Nulton said.
"Christian Identity is a viewpoint that white people are the true descendent of God's chosen people and therefore more pure and righteous than other races," Nulton said. "This is a racist philosophy and is not supported by the God who is shown in the Bible. It uses twisted logic, a narrow selection of verses, and unbalanced interpretation. By reading the whole Bible we meet a God who includes all races in God's realm, and who has us share power with all races."
"It makes me sad," said the Rev. Ray Robinson, who heads the Chain O'Lakes Ministerial Association. "This is not what Jesus said in any way. He talked about loving all our neighbors."
Robinson said he was concerned about the implicit violence in Christian Identity writings.
"Whether they are active or not in planning the killings, the way they state the evilness and need for other people to die provides rationale and incentives to kill," Robinson said.
Robinson believes a local response is needed to send an important message to the alleged hate group coming to Waupaca.
"They have a right to hate other people if that's how they believe," Robinson said. "But we also have a right to say that it's not appropriate and we have a right to say, 'You're not welcome to our community.''