In his investigation of private spies, author Jim Hougan learned that Nelson Bunker Hunt, the close confidant and fund raiser for such Religious Right luminaries as Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson, once organized a para-military force called the "American Volunteer Group" which - Hogan alleges - Hunt intended to use, death squad style, against political opponents.[1] Hunt is also a member of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, a racist "brotherhood" modeled after the Hospitalers.

The Order of Saint Lazarus, to which Hunt belongs, has been linked to Lady Malcolm Douglas Hamilton. Lord Hamilton was the host to Rudolph Hess, Hitler's second in command, when - in 1940 - Hess made his secret flight to England. Hess was seeking to meet with the British aristocratic circle known as the "Cliveden Set." Sympathetic to Hitler's war aims - including his policies towards the Jews - the Cliveden Set tried to get England out of the war it had declared against Germany in 1939. Over the years, the British have tried to play down the pre-war influence of the Cliveden Set - but its influence was, nonetheless, very great, indicating strongly fascism's pre-war popularity in England, especially in certain church and upper middle-class circles.

And these are the people who are financially backing the Religious Right in its effort to return America to morality? Maybe Christians should take a second look at just exactly who they're getting themselves mixed up with.

1. Please see Jim Hougan, Spooks (New York: Bantam, 1978), pgs. 55-56; also Christianity Today, July 18, 1980, pg. 67; see also Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare, pg. 250, footnote # 34, chapter.