Pillar of Fire International - Ku Klux Klan, Historical Intolerant Ideologies, and Ku Klux Klan Repudiation

Ku Klux Klan, Historical Intolerant Ideologies, and Ku Klux Klan Repudiation

In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the Pillar of Fire Church was vocal in its support of the Ku Klux Klan, to an extent which was unique for a religious denomination. Alma White spoke and wrote prolifically of her and the Pillar of Fire Church's support for the Klan and many of the Klan's principles including anti-Catholicism, white supremacy, anti-semitism, nativism, and temperance. In 1943, shortly before her death, she and the Pillar of Fire Church significantly but not completely distanced themselves from the then discredited and nearly bankrupt Klan organization, while continuing to promote many of the Klan's intolerant principles. In a 1920's sermon she republished in 1943 she said

"We have no connection with the Klan organization. We endorse them in the principles for which they stand. However there is no room in our hearts for racial prejudice."

Yet White and the Pillar of Fire advocated for white supremacy in the same 1943 book-set which asserted distaste for racial prejudice. In her chapter titled "White Supremacy" she wrote

The slaveholder, in many instances, was as much to be pitied as the slaves. He, too, was a victim of the system.....Where the slaves were well treated they were happy and contented...But some radicals could never see this side of the question. They dwelt continually on the cruelties of a few hard taskmasters and ignored the good people who had the welfare of their dependants at heart. No matter what the better class of slave owners might do, they had to bear the stigma of cruelty with the worst of tyrants.....Where property rights are involved, supported by the government, the only safe and sane way to make wrongs right is by cool-headed procedure.

She also said to the New Brunswick Daily Home News,

"My people are not members of the Klan, but we agree with some of the things that they stand for to assert our American right of free speech. We have always stood for one hundred percent Americanism and so does the Klan, so naturally we agree there."

Yet the Pillar of Fire's pulpit and the Pillar of Fire's printing operation were used extensively to advocate for many of the most intolerant of Klan values. In 1922 Bishop Alma White preached a sermon promoting the Klan at the Pillar of Fire Church in Brooklyn, New York (which coincidentally was incinerated by the 1960 New York air disaster) and published that sermon in The Good Citizen. The speech was titled "Ku Klux Klan and Woman's Causes" and one section was subtitled "White Supremacy."

The Klansmen stand for the supremacy of the white race, which is perfectly legitimate and in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Writ, and anything that has been decreed by the Almighty should not work a hardship on the colored race...It is within the rights of civilization for the white race to hold the supremacy; and no injustice to the colored man to stay in the environment where he was placed by the Creator.... When the black man was liberated it was time for women to be enfranchised, without which the colored man with his newly-acquired rank became her political master. ...The white women bore the sting of humiliation for more than half a century in being placed in an inferior position to the black men in the use of the ballot and the rights of citizenship... To whom shall we look to champion the cause and to protect the rights of women? Is there not evidence that the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan are the prophets of a new and better age?

The Pillar of Fire Church strongly argued against social and political equality for African Americans and advocated for racial segration and repeal of the fifteenth amendment. The Pillar allowed the Klan to hold meetings or cross burnings on at least several of the church's numerous properties including numerous documented Klan gatherings in Zarephath, NJ; Brooklyn, New York; Bound Brook, New Jersey; Longmont, Colorado; and Westminster, Colorado. White participated directly in many of these meetings. During this time, the Pillar of Fire Church published The Good Citizen, a monthly 16 page political magazine and three books, The Ku Klux Klan In Prophecy, Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty, and Heroes of the Fiery Cross, all of which heavily promoted the Klan and its agenda from 1921 until 1933. Ideologically, in these publications, the Pillar of Fire Church promoted anti-Catholicism, antisemitism, nativism, and white supremacy, all primarily under the guise of patriotism.

The organization has since repudiated its historical relationship with the KKK at its website in 2009:

Much talk has also arisen over her brief but significant association with the KKK, which has also been publicly condemned and repented of by the POF leadership with a request for full forgiveness. Despite these and other errors in its history, the Lord in His grace and mercy has chosen to bless the ministry.

And in the local paper in 1997:

We regret, repudiate and repent, and ask for full forgiveness for anything in our past that is short of Christian standards based on God's Word, following Jesus' model prayer that teaches us to ever pray and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. (Luke 11:4) We specifically regret mistakes and bad judgement by previous generations or anyone in our membership of the past.

While the Pillar of Fire's repudiation characterized its association with the Klan as brief, it continued for at least several decades to promote its ideologies of intolerance for religious and racial minorities and of equality for white Protestant women. In 1943, 22 years after the church began publicly working with the Klan, it republished Alma White's pro-KKK books as a three volume set under the name Guardians of Liberty, reaffirming its positions in support of anti-Semitism, white supremacy, nativism and most notably, anti-Catholicism. Volumes II and III of Guardians had introductions by Arthur White, affirming his support for his mother's intolerant ideologies, primarily but not exclusively in regard to anti-Catholicism. After his mother died in 1946, he was the Pillar of Fire's general superintendent until 1981.