United States
See also:
Anti-abortion violence in the United States and
Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan with a burning cross
The End. Victoriously slaying Catholic influence in the U.S. Illustration by Rev.
Branford Clarke from
Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty 1926 by Bishop
Alma White, published by the
Pillar of Fire Church in
Zarephath, NJ.
After the
American Civil War of 1861–1865, members of the
Protestant-led
[59] Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organization began engaging in
arson, beatings,
cross burnings, destruction of property,
lynching,
murder,
rape,
tar-and-feathering, and whipping. They targeted
African Americans,
Jews,
Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in part on a "religious foundation" in Christianity.
[60] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time onward, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible", and they believed that "
Jesus was the first Klansman."
[61] From 1915 Klansmen conducted cross-burnings not only to intimidate targets, but also to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the ritual of lighting crosses was steeped in Christian symbolism, including saying prayers and singing Christian hymns.
[62] Within Christianity the Klan directed hostilities
against Catholics. Modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, detecting a "war" which allegedly aims to destroy "western Christian civilization."
After 1981, members of groups such as the
Army of God began attacking
abortion clinics and
doctors across the United States.
[63][64][65] A number of terrorist attacks were attributed by
Bruce Hoffman to individuals and groups with ties to the
Christian Identity and
Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ.
[66] A group called
Concerned Christians was deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in
Jerusalem at the end of 1999; they believed that their deaths would "lead them to heaven".
[67][68]
The motive for anti-abortionist
Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor
George Tiller on 31 May 2009 was the belief that abortion is not only immoral, but also a form of murder under "God's law", irrespective of "man's law" in any country, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.
[69][70] The group supporting Roeder proclaimed that any force used to protect the life of a born child is "legitimate to protect the life of an unborn child", and called on all Christians to "rise up" and "take action" against threats to Christianity and to unborn life.
[71] Eric Robert Rudolph carried out the
Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and on a lesbian nightclub.
Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist. James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues that religious considerations inspired Rudolph only in part.
[72]
Hutaree was a
Christian militia group based in
Adrian,
Michigan. In 2010, after an
FBI agent infiltrated the group a federal grand jury in Detroit indicted nine of its members on charges of
seditious conspiracy to the use of
improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.
[73] On 28 March 2012, the conspiracy charges were dismissed.
[74] Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed
The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord,
Defensive Action,
The Freemen Community, and some "Christian militia" as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component".
[75]