Dave Barley (DECEASED)

Dave Barley - Sandpoint Idaho
Dave Barley

Dave Barley is the head of America’s Promise Ministries (not to be confused with the just-as-bad Promise Keepers, or Colin Powell’s America’s Promise) a Christian Identity organization that acts as the outreach arm of the larger Lord’s Covenant Church, of which Barley is pastor. Barley took the lead of America’s Promise sometime after 1985, when its anti-semetic founder, Sheldon Emry, went over to meet a pissed off Jewish God after leading the ministry for 18 years. In 1990, Barley moved the organization to Sandpoint, Idaho, a town known for a retirement spot for old LAPD officers, and where by the way Mark Fuhrman moved to after his anti-black comments chased him out of LA. He has since formed, with Bill Smyth, the Idaho Citizens Awareness Network, a so-called Christian patriot organization. Barley applied for a seat in the Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce, but his application was rejected.

Barley has been linked to such far-right figures as Dick Butler of Aryan Nations and Richard Kelly Hoskins who authored the handbook for the terrorist Phineas Priesthood. In the last year and a half, Barley has appeared at or led rallies in Mountanair, N.M. and Clearwater, Fla. The latter meeting included Holocaust deniers and several known racist preachers on the speakers list. Barley typically denies any links between his organization and hate groups, but he does admit to prejudices against Jews and non-White races. “We are guilty of believing that Jesus Christ chose only those of His own race to be his 12 disciples, and that he did not go out and choose two Chinese, two blacks, two Indians, two Arabs, two women or two homosexuals, therefore he would be called a Supremacist, Racist and Bigot by today’s wordly standards,” he was quoted as saying in a 1991 newsletter in the Dallas Morning News.