Ellison, James (?–)

James Ellison was a preacher from Texas who in 1971 founded Zarephath-Horeb, a peaceful fundamentalist Christian group, in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. He eventually adopted Christian Identity, a race-based theology, and changed the name of his group to the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA). Ellison and antigovernment Christian survivalist groups such as the Christian Patriots Defense League eventually turned the CSA's 224-acre compound into a training camp for white supremacists.

By 1982, Ellison, who was calling himself King James of the Ozarks, had about 150 followers. This number decreased dramatically that year when he announced that he would take a second (polygamous) wife. In the debate over polygamy, Ellison made clear that he would act against the wishes of the other [Page 123]church elders; in response, almost two-thirds of the congregation defected because they regarded Ellison's actions as the adoption of a one-man ministry.

Ellison and those who stayed, particularly his second-in-command, Kerry Noble, tried for a while to underplay the group's right-wing stance. That changed, however, after the 1983 Aryan Nations World Congress that commemorated the death of Gordon Kahl, a member of Posse Comitatus who had refused to pay his taxes. After killing two U.S. marshals, Kahl was considered a martyr by the extreme right when he, in turn, was killed during a skirmish with federal authorities. Ellison has often been quoted as saying at that conference that he was sorry he was not with Kahl at his death and announced that he was “here to tell you that the sword is out of the sheath, and it's ready to strike. For every one of our people they killed, we ought to kill a hundred of theirs.”

Ellison's terrorist activities included arson—he and his followers set fire to an Arkansas church with a largely homosexual congregation and to a Jewish center; they also bombed a natural gas pipeline in Arkansas. He later admitted to having plans to assassinate key government officials and national personalities and to bomb the Oklahoma federal office building, but none of these came to fruition because of what he took to be signs from God.

In 1985, after a four-day standoff with federal authorities at the CSA compound ended peacefully, Ellison was convicted on racketeering and weapons charges. At age 38, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1988, he agreed to be the chief prosecution witness at the sedition trial of 14 other white supremacists, including some former CSA members. Although the defendants in that case were found not guilty, Ellison's sentence was reduced to 10 years for testifying. Released in 1991, after serving only six years in prison, he returned to prison briefly for violating parole and was released in April 1995. He reportedly moved to Elohim City, a Christian Identity camp located in Adair County, Oklahoma.