‘Phineas Priests’ Take Name From Bible
(From For the Record, Thursday, April 4, 1996): Two people shot in the Greyhound bus depot in 1992 by white supremacist Chris Alan Lindholm didn’t die from their wounds, as stated incorrectly in Wednesday’s editions.
“Phineas priests” are respected among white supremacists for acts many consider racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic.
The term is a biblical reference to the Priest Phinehas, who was honored for killing a mixed-race couple.
The name is spelled Phinehas in the Bible’s Book of Numbers, but white supremacists spell it Phineas.
A 23-year-old skinhead pointed to Phinehas as his justification for fatally shooting a black man and white woman in 1992 at the Spokane Greyhound terminal.
The Bible’s Old Testament teaches that mixed-race couples should be killed, said the gunman, Chris Alan Lindholm, who’s now in prison.
“I wasn’t mad at them or anything,” Lindholm said. “I just knew they should die for what they had done. I think he put his arm around her or something.”
Phinehas, chief of the Korahite Levites, was known for his strong moral indignation and integrity.
He took a leading role in “cleansing Israel from whoredom,” according to the “Classic Bible Dictionary.” He slayed an Israelite prince with a spear when the man brought a Midianite woman into camp - a woman Phinehas considered ungodly.
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