Creativity (religion)

Creativity, historically known as the (World) Church of the Creator, is an atheistic (nontheistic) white supremacist new religious movement espousing white separatism, antitheism, antisemitism, anti-Christianity, scientific racism, homophobia, and religious/philosophical naturalism. Creativity is an openly racist religion urging for "White pride" and has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. It was founded in Lighthouse Point, Florida, United States, by Ben Klassen as the Church of the Creator in 1973. It now has a presence in several states of the U.S. as well as Australia, Eastern Europe, and the United Kingdom.

Creativity is promoted by two organizations: the Creativity Alliance (CA also known as the Church of Creativity), and the Creativity Movement. The two groups have common origins, both being created in 2003 after Klassen's successor Matthew F. Hale (who had renamed the organisation New Church of the Creator) was arrested and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Creativity claims a naturalistic and racialistic worldview, based on the "survival, expansion and advancement of the White race", according to what the group classifies as the "eternal laws of nature, the experience of history, on logic and common sense". Members of the group believe in a "racial holy war" between "white and non-white races", such as Jews, black people, and mixed-race people.

The religion was originally founded as the "Church of the Creator" by Ben Klassen in 1973, when he self-published Nature's Eternal Religion. Adherents of Creativity refer to themselves as Creators, a term derived from Hitler's autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, wherein his classification of "races" falls into three categories, with the "white race", deemed the "Master race", termed the "creators". Klassen attempted to recruit neo-Nazis into the church because, apart from disagreements over Nazism's embrace of Positive Christianity, its insistence on nationalism (rather than racialism), anti-Slavic and other sentiments against non-Germanic European ethnic groups, Klassen highly revered Adolf Hitler as a "great pioneer" and Nazism as admirable in many contexts. He developed a rapport with National Alliance leader William Luther Pierce; he met Pierce twice in 1975, and they maintained an "on and off" relationship for the next 18 years. According to Klassen, he "never did understand the logic of what [Pierce] called his Cosmotheism religion ... it has not been of any significance as far as our common goal of promoting White racial solidarity was concerned."^{[citation needed]} In Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs, Klassen called Pierce "a great man and an outstanding intellectual thinker, and ... one of us."

In 1982, Klassen established a Creativity headquarters in Otto, North Carolina. Although his family expected resistance from local residents, Klassen wrote: "We were not quite prepared for the viciousness of the onslaught by the local paper." Opposition grew, and a May 13, 1982 Franklin Press headline read: "Pro-Hitler, anti-Christ Leader Headquarters Here".^{[page needed]}

In August 1993, Klassen died of suicide at the age of 75 on the grounds of the Creativity headquarters in Otto by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. His motives were not explained by him at the time but writers studying neo-Nazi groups have suggested that Klassen's reason for his suicide involved the possible depression caused by the death of his wife, the legal and financial issues his church endured during the years 1992 and 1993 leading up to his death and the fact he was diagnosed with cancer. Unlike other religions such as Judaism or Christianity, Klassen's Creativity religion does not believe that suicide is a sin and in circumstances such as that faced by its founder Klassen in the early 1990s, is considered a suitable way to die. Klassen was buried on his Creativity headquarters at Otto with his grave in an area that he had already previously designated as "Ben Klassen Memorial Park".

In 1996, Matthew F. Hale, along with other ministers of the original Church of the Creator, formed a successor group known as the "World Church of the Creator". Hale's right to use the name "Church of the Creator" in the United States was lost to the Church of the Creator, an unaffiliated religious organization based in Ashland, Oregon, in a trademark infringement case.

In January 2003, Hale was arrested and charged with attempting to direct security chief Anthony Evola to murder judge Joan Lefkow; he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment. Following the demise of the World Church of the Creator after Hale's arrest in 2003, there formed two distinct groups, known as "The Creativity Movement" and the "Creativity Alliance" or "Church of Creativity". An Australian man, Colin Campbell, co-founded Creativity Alliance.