An overview of hate group activity notes its roots in the tensions, frustrations, and fears that always exist and notes that it consists of both public political activities designed to attract recruits and clandestine racist violence. Profiles of individual groups and their strategies focus on the major factions of the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazi groups, patriot groups, and rural groups like the Posse Comitatus. United Methodists are urged to study these groups and approaches for countering them, beginning with pastoral work in the local church and local community and efforts to talk directly before moving to confrontation. Clergy are also urged to stand by financially distressed farmers in their efforts to keep their land and homes. New efforts to secure racial justice are also recommended.