Conrad Gaard (d. 1969) was an American minister and a key figure in the emergence of Christian Identity from British Israelism. He was one of the first to incorporate the serpent seed doctrine into Christian Identity teaching.
Background
Gaard was the pastor of the Christian Chapel Church in Tacoma, Washington, an Identity congregation. He broadcast over three radio stations, and published a newsletter titled The Broadcaster, formerly titled The Interpreter. He headed the Destiny of America Foundation until his death in 1969.
Gaard was a faculty member of the Dayton Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, an Anglo-Israel training center.
Being involved with the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America, Gaard traveled the United States and western Canada giving lectures on British Israelism and pyramidology.
Gaard was one of the most influential theologians in the early formation of Christian Identity. He was one of the four primary theologians responsible for the emergence of Christian Identity out of British Israelism, along with Wesley Swift, William Potter Gale, and Bertrand Comparet.
In the 1940s, Gaard was among a number of British Israel organizers who were mentored by Gerald L. K. Smith, along with Bertrand Comparet and San Jacinto Capt.
Beliefs
Conrad Gaard's origin teaching considered the serpent a pre-Adamite "beast of the field". Although the assumption is that the serpent fathered Cain through adultery with Eve, Gaard considered that made little difference since Cane married a pre-Adamite anyway, resulting in a "mongrel, hybrid race". In Gaard's view, the original sin then was miscegenation. This line was continued through Ham, allowing Cain's line to survive the flood. This continued when Judah had offspring with a Canaanite woman. This line was carried of into Babylonian exile where they joined with "the various Edomite-Amalekite Shelanite-Canaanite elements of the serpent race" which, "under Satanic inspiration they were united in one Conspiratorial group, which became known as the 'Diaspora,' or Dispersion, of the 'Jews'". Gaard's teaching on serpent seed doctrine first appeared sometime in the 1960s, in his book Spotlight on the Great Conspiracy.
Gaard's teachings on eschatology rejected amillennialism and presented a combination of elements from postmillennialism and premillennialism. He believed sin would continue until things were as in Noah's generation, and that Christ would return prior to a millennial reign on Earth under God's law. Gaard rejected the idea of a secret rapture of the Church, teaching that the Church would be saved in the Great Tribulation, as opposed to being saved from it.
Works
- God's Kingdom Plan Revealed in the Scriptures
- Spotlight on the Great Conspiracy (1955)
Footnotes
- ^ Davis 2010, p. 21.
- Barkun 1997, p. 177.
- ^ Schamber & Stroud 2001, p. 188.
- ^ Roy 1953, p. 107.
- Melton 1992, p. 70.
- Pierard 1996, p. 50.
- Roy 1953, p. 110.
- Shreveport Times 1941.
- Barkun 1997, p. 58.
- ^ Wexler 2015, p. 44.
- Wexler 2015, p. 28.
- ^ Barkun 1997, p. 177-178.
- Gardell 2003, p. 121.
- Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 239.
- Wexler 2015, p. 44-45.
- Wexler 2015, p. 45.
References
- Barkun, Michael (1997). Religion and the Racist Right: the Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2328-7.
- Davis, Danny W. (2010). The Phinehas Priesthood: Violent Vanguard of the Christian Identity Movement. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio. ISBN 978-0-313-36536-2.
- Gardell, Mattias (2003). Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822330714.
- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2002). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York, New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3124-4.
- Melton, J. Gordon (1992). Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. New York, New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-0502-8.
- Pierard, Richard V. (1996). "The Contribution of British-Israelism to Antisemitism within Conservative Protestism". In Locke, Hubert G.; Sachs Littell, Marcia (eds.). Holocaust and Church Struggle: Religion, Power, and the Politics of Resistance. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-0375-0.
- "Prophetic Revelation", The San Juan Record, vol. 29, no. 12, Monticello, Utah, p. 4, December 9, 1943
- Roy, Ralph Lord (1953). Apostles of Discord: A Study of Organized Bigotry and Disruption on the Fringes of Protestantism. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Schamber, Jon F.; Stroud, Scott R. (September 2001). "Mystical Anti-Semitism and the Christian Identity Movement: A Narrative Criticism of Dan Cayman's "The Two Seeds of Genesis 3:15."". Journal of Communication & Religion. 24 (2): 175–201.
- "Tacoma Editor is Heard Here", The Shreveport Times, vol. 46, Shreveport, Louisiana, p. 2A, December 5, 1941
- Wexler, Stuart (2015). America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious Terrorism in the United States. Berkeley, California: Counterpoint. ISBN 978-1-61902-558-5.