The Church of Jesus Christ–Christian is a white supremacist church, which was founded in 1946 by Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

 organizer Wesley A. Swift

Wesley A. Swift

Wesley A. Swift , was a former Methodist minister from Southern California. In the 1940s, Swift started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian....

. Swift was the son of a Methodist Episcopal Church, South

Methodist Episcopal Church, South

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or Methodist Episcopal Church South, was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference...

  minister and is considered a significant figure in the early years of the Christian Identity

Christian Identity

Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...

 movement in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

History

The church was originally known as the White Identity Church of Jesus Christ–Christian, assuming its present name in 1957. After Wesley Swift's death in 1970, the ministry was continued by his wife Lorraine Swift.

In February 2001, the names "Church of Jesus Christ–Christian" and "Aryan Nations

Aryan Nations

Aryan Nations is a white supremacist religious organization originally based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Richard Girnt Butler founded the group in the 1970s, as an arm of the Christian Identity organization Church of Jesus Christ–Christian...

" were transferred to Victoria and Jason Keenan when the Keenans won a US $6.3 million lawsuit against the organizations after being attacked by Aryan Nations paramilitary soldiers; the Aryan Nations compound was also transferred to the Keenans. In March 2001, the Keenans sold the compound to the Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

-based Carr Foundation, a human rights organization which plans to build a human rights center on the property.

The church resurfaced in September 2004 upon the death of Richard Butler

Richard Girnt Butler

Richard Girnt Butler was an American aerospace engineer for Lockheed, who later became the leader of the Christian Identity white supremacist group Aryan Nations.-Biography:...

, who resumed the ministry after the death of Swift. The church is now headed by a council of three men, including Senior Pastor Jonathan Williams and Senior Pastor Gerald O'Brien.