Shofar archives:
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.white-power
Subject: Paranoia as Patriotism: Jack Mohr & the CPDL
Last-Modified: 1995/08/22
Colonel Gordon “Jack” Mohr
and the Christian Patriots Defense League
Gordon “Jack” Mohr, a retired U.S. Army colonel, heads the
Citizens Emergency Defense System (CEDS), a militant civilian
“defense” group restricted to white Christians. CEDS, based in
Mohr’s home town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, has been
closely associated with John Harrell’s Illinois-based
Christian Patriots Defense League (CPDL), an anti-Semitic
survivalist group which has been involved in paramilitary
activity and “martial arts” training.
Exploiting Christian terminology for his own extremist
purposes, Mohr has described CPDL as “made up primarily of
Christians and/or Patriots, who see what is happening in our
government and are preparing for difficult times we believe
are ahead.” Mohr has described himself as an evangelist as
well as an author and lecturer. For many years he has
stridently promoted anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and white
supremacy, as a leader of the “Identity Church” movement.
(“Identity” is a pseudo-theological hate movement which holds
that white Anglo-Saxons are the Biblical “chosen people” and
that non-whites are “mud people.”)
In the summer of 1982, Mohn participated in a CPDL-CEDS
“festival” and was listed as “National Director of Plans and
Training” and “National Director of Defense Coordinators,”
among other titles, in the gatherings “Guide Book.” Others
attending the meeting were the late William P. Gale, an
anti-Semite who later helped found the Committee of the
States, and the late Robert Miles of Michigan, an ardent
racist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon.
The March 1984 issue of “Faith for the Family,” an
evangelically oriented periodical, published an article titled
“Apostles of Darkness,” which criticized groups promoting a
“gospel of racial superiority [that] twist the scriptures and
pervert the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The
article pointed out that at the CPDL’s annual Freedom
Festivals, “Special Weapons Attack Training (SWAT), knife
fighting, hand-to-hand combat, homemade explosives, combat
patrols, and ‘streetsweeper shotgun’ [sic] are among the
subjects taught.”
Other extremist group gatherings in which Mohn participated
include the 1988 Aryan World Congress and a 1988 “Freedom
Festival” in Licking, Missouri, where classes were offered in
“survival techniques for the times of crisis….”
Mohr has also written books and pamphlets and has produced
videos espousing his anti-Semitic ideology. These materials
are often advertised in extremist publications. _The Great
Conspiracy_, for example, is a 60-page book covering “the
Talmudic conspiracy to rule the world.”
Over the years, Mohn has participated in many extremist
activities in addition to writing and publishing hate
materials. He has been involved in the prison ministry of
Crusade For Christ and Country, a program promoted in _The
Christian Patriot Crusader_, as designed to involve
incarcerated Identity members in the CPDL and to offer them
support and spiritual “guidance.”
The August 1990 “Christian Vanguard Newsletter” (published by
anti-Semite James K. Warner’s Louisiana-based New Christian
Crusade Church) reported that Mohr attended a June 1990
Identity “camp” meeting. Warner disclosed to his readers:
“Brother Jack Mohr informed those attending that this was to
be his last appearance at camp – due to his health – He is not
giving up the fight; he will continue to put out tracts,
books and tapes on conspiracy and Bible truths from his Bay
St. Louis, Mississippi home….” (Anti-Defamation League,
24-25)
Work Cited
Anti-Defamation League. [Special Report] Paranoia as Patriotism:
Far-Right Influences on the Militia Movement. 1995.
