Christian Exodus holds seminar

About 130 attend conference to learn more about separatist group

The State, South Carolina/October 16, 2005
By Christian Lee Knaus

Greenville — By 6 p.m. Saturday, Cory Burnell had had a long day.

He'd spent the bulk of it running from one corner of the Greenville Hilton Hotel to another, giving interviews, leading panel discussions and listening to speakers offer their perspectives on everything from terrorism to anti-sodomy laws as part of the weekend-long meeting for Christian Exodus, the Christian constitutionalist separatist organization Burnell, 29, founded in 2003.

About 130 people had come from around South Carolina and from as far away as Minnesota, southern California, Texas and Virginia to attend the three-day conference, which had the goal of offering people more information about Christian Exodus' mission.

That mission: Move thousands of evangelical, conservative Christians to South Carolina to influence government and eventually form a new state government based on the Bible and strict interpretation of the Constitution.

The day had been mostly smooth, Burnell said, except for a few glitches.

"We're still in our infancy, and we had a group of speakers here all with different opinions and perspectives," Burnell said, looking tired but still crisp in a light tan suit.

"We couldn't put together a lineup where we weren't going to have some fires pop up and where we weren't going to have to put a line in the program like the one we have that says that speakers' opinions are their own, not necessarily Christian Exodus’."

Burnell was referring to speakers like Larry Kilgore, who is running for governor of Texas in 2006 on a platform that calls for Texas to secede from the United States and become an independent republic with laws based strictly on the Bible, especially on Old Testament rules set down in the Book of Leviticus.

"The one thing that is the biggest misconception about Christian Exodus is that our ultimate goal is to secede from the Union — and then we end up having a speaker talking about Texas seceding," Burnell said.

"But that's going to happen. There are going to be a lot of differences of opinion among those who come to these meetings, and within the group. But we kept things unified today and we will keep things unified if we remember our commonality as Christians."

It was Burnell's strong beliefs in evangelical Christianity, as well as his interest in strict interpretation of the Constitution, that gave him the idea to form Christian Exodus in 2003 after what he describes as "three things that set (him) off."

"First I heard about the Free State Project (a plan to move masses of Libertarians to New Hampshire to form a state with Libertarian government) and that interested me, even though I'm not a Libertarian," Burnell said.

"Then there was the Supreme Court decision striking down Texas' anti-sodomy law. and then Justice Roy Moore having to remove the Ten Commandments from a judicial building in Alabama. Those were states' rights issues, and I decided the states really needed to govern themselves because the Republicans weren't standing up for states' rights."

Burnell, who at the time was living in Texas and running a cell-phone sales business, hadn't been extremely active in politics up until 2003, although he'd been a county contact for the Constitution Party and at one time was a member of the League of the South.

Burnell and a few others came up with the idea of Christian Exodus because, he says, it was becoming obvious that the federal government was not standing up for the beliefs of conservative Christians.

He said the group looked at moving masses of Christians to Mississippi and Alabama but eventually decided on South Carolina because of its mountains and beaches, its small population and strong conservative base of voters.

Burnell, his wife, Nicole, and their two children are currently living in California, but Burnell said they hope to move to the state by the end of 2006. Exactly where? "I've looked at the Upstate and the Lowcountry — I think my wife would like to be near the water," Burnell said.

He admitted that because he's been so busy with the nuts and bolts of Christian Exodus business, he hasn't had much chance to interact one on one with South Carolinians to talk to them about the program. But, Burnell said, he's basically happy with the group's fledgling status, with five families who have moved to the Upstate and more than 1,000 people registered as members on the group's Web site.