Editing Creativity (religion) (section)

=={{anchor|Key people}}Figures==

===Gaede family===
{{main|Prussian Blue (duo)}}
April Harrington (Gaede), mother of Lynx and Lamb Lingelser (Gaede) of the band [[Prussian Blue (duo)|Prussian Blue]], was a longtime supporter of Creativity and a member of the World Church of the Creator, naming her third daughter Dresden Hale after its leader [[Matthew F. Hale]]<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7FVACwAAQBAJ&q=april+gaede+dresden+matt+hale&pg=PT48 | title=Far-Right Fantasy: A Sociology of American Religion and Politics| isbn=9781317334064| last1=Aho| first1=James| date=2015-12-22| publisher=Routledge}}</ref> before joining the National Alliance and then the splinter [[National Vanguard (American organization)|National Vanguard]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mhrn.org/publications/specialresearchreports/AprilGaede.pdf |title="Saving White Babies:" White Supremacists Raise Funds for Kalispell Crisis Pregnancy Center |date=January 25, 2010 |work=mhrn.org |publisher=Montana Human Rights Netwrork |access-date=July 19, 2013 |archive-date=March 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140312052858/http://www.mhrn.org/publications/specialresearchreports/AprilGaede.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Prussian Blue's song "Stand Up", written for [[David Lane (white supremacist)|David Lane]] (author of the [[Fourteen Words]]), was part of the unreleased ''Free Matt Hale'' CD intended to support the incarcerated Hale. Lamb and Lynx Gaede have denounced the movement, saying that they never chose it and were controlled by their mother.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-twins-lamb-lynx-gaede-deny-neo-nazi/story?id=14124412 |title=Teen Twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede Deny Neo-Nazi Past, Say 'It Was A Job' |website=abcnews.go.com |date=2011-07-21|access-date=2018-03-31}}</ref>

===Craig Cobb===
{{main|Craig Cobb}}
Craig Cobb, who operated the [[Video hosting service|video-sharing website]] Podblanc, has attempted to take over small towns in the [[Midwestern United States]].<ref>{{cite web|first=Ryan|last=Lenz |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/10/07/elsewhere-plains-craig-cobb-trying-once-again-build-home-racists |title=Elsewhere on the Plains: Craig Cobb is Trying Once Again to Build a Home for Racists &#124; Southern Poverty Law Center |website=Splcenter.org |date=2015-10-07 |access-date=2016-05-25}}</ref> He tried to establish an enclave in North Dakota and rename it "Trump Creativity" or "Creativity Trump" for [[Donald Trump]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/10/07/donald-trump-white-supremacist-town/ |title=Craig Cobb, White Supremacist, Wants To Rename City After Donald Trump « CBS New York |website=Newyork.cbslocal.com |date=2015-10-07 |access-date=2016-05-25}}</ref> A church building purchased by Cobb to establish an enclave was "burned to the ground" in [[Nome, North Dakota]].<ref name="CBS NEWS">{{cite web |title=Fire destroys N.D. church recently purchased by white supremacist |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fire-destroys-north-dakota-church-recently-purchased-by-craig-cobb-white-supremacist |website=cbsnews.com |date=March 22, 2017 |publisher=CBS NEWS |access-date=25 August 2021 |ref=www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fire-destroys-north-dakota-church-recently-purchased-by-craig-cobb-white-supremacist/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210531052515/https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fire-destroys-north-dakota-church-recently-purchased-by-craig-cobb-white-supremacist/ |archive-date=31 May 2021}}</ref>

===George Burdi===
{{main|George Burdi}}
George Burdi, also known as George Eric Hawthorne, was lead singer of the Canadian metal band RaHoWa, leader of the Toronto branch of the Church of the Creator, and founder of Resistance Records.<ref>''[[The Toronto Star]]'', August 14, 1993</ref> He was convicted of assault, and claimed he renounced racism after serving time in prison.<ref>Intelligence Report, Fall 2001, Issue Number: 103</ref> Burdi has been credited with a role in Creativity's survival after the death of Ben Klassen.<ref name=compass/> In 2017, Burdi returned to the White nationalist scene, though not to the Creativity religion itself.<ref name="YouTube">{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2EKphh-Cno | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818063841/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2EKphh-Cno | archive-date=August 18, 2017 | title=- YouTube | website=[[YouTube]] }}</ref>

===Matthew F. Hale===
{{main|Matthew F. Hale}}
Several years after Klassen's 1993 death, white supremacist Matthew Hale founded the New Church of the Creator (later the World Church of the Creator). Hale made national news when he was denied admission to the Illinois State Bar on three occasions due to his racist beliefs.<ref>[[Evan Osnos]] and James Janega. "ACLU Sides With Supremacist on Right to Obtain Law License." Chicago Tribune 12 Aug. 1999: 4. Print.</ref> On November 12, 1999, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to further consider the denial of Hale's law license, continuing "a decision by its Committee on Character and Fitness that said Hale lacked the moral character to practice law."<ref>"Review of Law License Denial." Washington Post 13 Nov. 1999: A5. Print.</ref> According to Hale, the committee's denial of his law license may have provoked Benjamin Nathaniel Smith's [[1999 Independence Day weekend shootings|drive-by shooting spree]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/06/smith.profile.01/|title=Suspected shooter said his hate-filled leaflets spoke 'the truth'|website=CNN.com|date=July 6, 1999|access-date=February 17, 2017}}</ref>

On January 9, 2003, Hale was arrested and charged with attempting to direct security chief Anthony Evola to murder judge [[Joan Lefkow#Matthew Hale|Joan Lefkow]].<ref name=halearrest>{{cite web|url=http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/hale/ushale0103ind.pdf |title=United States of America v. Matthew Hale |website=News.findlaw.com |access-date=2016-05-25}}</ref> Hale was found guilty of four of five counts (one count of solicitation of murder and three counts of obstruction of justice) on April 26, 2004; in April 2005, he was sentenced to 40 years in a Federal penitentiary.<ref name=guilty>{{cite news | url=http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=News&id=1510781 | title=White supremacist found guilty | publisher=ABC7Chicago.com | date=2004-04-26 | access-date=August 17, 2007 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629052837/http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=News&id=1510781 | archive-date=June 29, 2011 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==={{anchor|Johannes Jurgens Grobbelaar and Jurgen Matthews White}}Johannes Grobbelaar and Jurgen White===
Johannes Grobbelaar and Jurgen White, [[Afrikaners|Afrikaner]] Creators and members of the National Socialist Partisans (the paramilitary branch of the [[Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging]]), were killed in a November 1991 gun battle with South African police near [[Upington]] while attempting to smuggle weapons and explosives into a survivalist compound in [[Namibia]]. They were stopped by police, who were suspicious that their vehicle had been stolen. According to the report, while being escorted to a nearby police station they detonated a smoke bomb and attempted to escape. Police discovered their abandoned vehicle five miles away; Grobbelaar and White ambushed them. Two officers were shot, one fatally.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1996/9607/s960717e.htm |title=SAPA – 17 July 96 – FEARS OF COMMUNISTS PROMPTED BRUTAL MURDERS |publisher=Justice.gov.za |access-date=November 24, 2012 |archive-date=May 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120523214609/http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1996/9607/s960717e.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Ron McVan===
Ron McVan, co-founder of the [[Wotansvolk]] racialist pagan group, was once affiliated with the Church of the Creator for two years as its second-in-command;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/lane.html |title=David Lane |website=Archive.adl.org |access-date=2016-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160526213017/http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/lane.html |archive-date=May 26, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> McVan contributed articles and artwork to its periodical, ''Racial Loyalty'', and was a martial-arts instructor for the church. Although Klassen and McVan shared anti-Christian beliefs, McVan sought a more spiritual approach and felt that Creativity needed spirituality. He moved to the Pacific Northwest and founded Wotan's Kindred in [[Portland, Oregon]] in 1992, saying that the group was rooted in the "genetic character and collective identity" of the white race.<ref>{{cite book|last=Goodrick-Clarke|first=Nicholas|author-link=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke|title=Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xaiaM77s6N4C&pg=PA274|year=2003|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-3155-0|page=274}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Kaplan|first=Jeffrey|author-link=Jeffrey Kaplan (academic)|title=Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nNWbbhUYv8oC&pg=PA201|year=2000|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-0340-3|page=201}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gardell|first=Mattias|author-link=Mattias Gardell|title=Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FIwwWSSL5JIC&pg=PA222|year=2003|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3071-4|page=222}}</ref>

[[David Lane (white supremacist)|David Lane]], McVan's associate and co-founder of Wotansvolk, drew inspiration from Creativity, particularly ideas of a "racial religion", but did not agree with Creativity's "atheistic" stance and considered himself [[Deism|deist]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dobratz|first1=Betty A.|last2=Shanks-Meile|first2=Stephanie L.|title=The White Separatist Movement in the United States: "White Power, White Pride!"|date=1997|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=9780801865374|page=144|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r59bGyH4lOAC&pg=PA144|access-date=11 December 2017|language=en}}</ref>

===William Christopher Gibbs===
William Christopher Gibbs, a Church of Creativity adherent in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and a member of the Creativity Alliance, was arrested for possession of the biological toxin [[Ricin#Chemical or biological warfare agent|ricin]]. Gibbs went to a hospital after he accidentally got the ricin on his hands while experimenting with it.<ref name="Gibbs">{{cite web|last=Cleary |first=Tom |url=http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/william-christopher-gibbs-georgia-white-supremacist-ricin-poison-photos-facebook-church-creativity/ |title=William Christopher Gibbs: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know |website=Heavy.com |date=2017-02-09 |access-date=2017-02-27}}</ref>

On September 21, 2018, a Federal judge ordered Gibbs' release from Federal custody because of a technicality: ricin had been inexplicably dropped from the list of illegal biological toxins which are known as "select agents" due to changes in the 2004 law and edits to regulations in 2005. The judge did not rule out the possibility that Gibbs could be potentially convicted under another Federal law. Gibbs continued to be incarcerated in the [[Fannin County, Georgia]] jail under a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct which stemmed from his 2017 arrest and a probation violation connected to a 2010 conviction for burglary.<ref>Joyner, Chris (October 2, 2018) [https://www.myajc.com/news/crime--law/ricin-charges-dropped-against-georgia-white-supremacist/0GWcj07MLSMvcthfnApsWM/ "Ricin charges dropped against Georgia white supremacist"] ''[[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]''</ref>

===Bobby Fischer===
Although chess grandmaster [[Bobby Fischer]] was not formally a member of  any Creativity organization, he did praise one of its founding texts, Klassen's ''Nature's Eternal Religion''. Fischer claimed that the book proves that "Christianity itself is just a Jewish hoax and one more Jewish tool for their conquest of the world. It is completely out of harmony with the Eternal Laws of Nature." However, Fischer also criticized other aspects of Klassen's writing, calling him an "extreme racist".<ref name=fischer>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/fischerbenko.html|title=A Letter from Bobby Fischer to Pal Benko (presented by Edward Winter)|website=www.chesshistory.com}}</ref> Fischer also owned a copy of ''The White Man's Bible''.<ref name=fischer2>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter59.html#6189._Bobby_Fischer_Uncensored|title=Chess Notes by Edward Winter|website=www.chesshistory.com}}</ref>