In 2003-2004, Christian Identity continued to operate largely beneath the public radar, with only the September 2004 death of Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler and the upcoming trial of Identity adherent and suspected bomber Eric Rudolph drawing significant media attention (Rudolph faces trial on charges he bombed an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998, killing an off-duty police officer and wounding another person).

In its typically low-key way, however, the movement has been quite active.  In the summer of 2004, for example, three major Christian Identity groups—Aryan Nations, the Church of True Israel, and America's Promise Ministries—all held important gatherings in the Pacific Northwest at the same time.  Also during 2004, Identity minister Pete Peters amassed audiences numbering in the hundreds at events in Tennessee, Arizona and elsewhere.  Another Christian Identity event in Missouri drew 500 attendees, a substantial number for any extremist gathering. 

Richard Butler's death was, nonetheless, probably the most important event of 2004.  Butler was not only a legendary "elder statesmen" of the white supremacist right, but also perhaps the most well-known Christian Identity figure in America, even though his openly neo-Nazi Aryan Nations was not a typical Identity group.  Following his death, Aryan Nations followers scrambled to seize the remains of the organization.  A cadre of Butler supporters moved the group's "headquarters" to Alabama but has been strangely quiet since.