Америкалық дін және саясат қайраткері: Бен Классен өмірі мен қызметі

American religious leader and politician

Bernhardt "Ben" Klassen (1918 02 20 (O. S. February 7, 1918) – 1993 08 06) was an American politician and white supremacist religious leader. He founded the Church of the Creator with the publication of his book Nature's Eternal Religion in 1973. Klassen was openly racist, antisemitic and anti Christian and first popularized the term "Racial Holy War" within the White Power movement. Klassen was a Republican Florida state legislator, as well as a supporter of George Wallace's presidential campaign. In addition to his religious and political work, Klassen was an electrical engineer and he was also the inventor of a wall mounted electric can opener. In 1952, Klassen sold his share of the company to Phillip Hess for $150,000 and retired. He campaigned for election to the Florida Senate in 1967, but was defeated. That same year, he was vice chairman of an organization in Florida which supported George Wallace's presidential bid. In July 1992, George Loeb, a minister in the church, was convicted of murdering a black sailor in Jacksonville, Florida. Fearing that a conviction might mean the loss of 20 acres of land worth about $400,000 in Otto, North Carolina, belonging to the church, Klassen sold it to another white supremacist, William Luther Pierce, author of the Turner Diaries, for $100,000. Klassen appointed himself Pontifex Maximus of the church until January 25, 1993, when he transferred the title to Dr. Rick McCarty.

Ben Klassen first popularized the term "Racial Holy War" (RaHoWa) within the white nationalist movement. He also consistently called black people "niggers" in public discourse as well as in the literature of the COTC, as opposed to many white nationalist leaders who use relatively more polite terms in public. Klassen wrote, "Furthermore, in looking up the word in Webster's dictionary I found the term 'nigger' very descriptive: 'a vulgar, offensive term of hostility and contempt for the black man'. I can't think of anything that defines better and more accurately what our position should be If we are going to be for racial integrity and racial purity we must take a hostile position toward the nigger. We must give him nothing but contempt." In his 1987 book Rahowa – This Planet Is All Ours he claims that Jews created Christianity in order to make white people weaker, and he said that the first priority should be to "smash the Jewish Behemoth".

Klassen was a natural hygienist who promoted a back to nature philosophy that espoused fresh air, clean water, sunshine and outdoor exercise. He recommended a raw food diet which consisted of fruits and vegetables and believed that medicine and processed foods create cancer inside the body. Klassen wrote that food must be "uncooked, unprocessed, unpreserved and not tampered with in any other way. This further means it must be organically grown without the use of chemicals." Klassen believed that fasting would cleanse the body of toxins, and he also believed that a fruitarian raw food diet would cure disease. and a diagnosis of cancer and considering suicide a suitable way to end his life, Klassen took an overdose of sleeping pills either late on August 6 or early on August 7, 1993. Klassen was buried on his North Carolina property in an area which he had previously designated "Ben Klassen Memorial Park".