Christian Identity

Christian Identity

Christian Identity is a loosely organized religious movement associated with a issue of small-scale fundamentalist churches as well as extreme right-wing political as well as religious groups inwards the United States.

By the lastly 3 decades of the twentieth century, Identity had perish the organized religious belief of choice for a issue of conspiracy-minded survivalists, millennialists, as well as neo-Nazi groups, similar Aryan Nations, The Order—responsible for a moving ridge of law-breaking inwards the American West inwards the 1980s, including the murder of Denver radio host Alan Berg inwards 1984—and approximately factions of the Ku Klux Klan.

Because it is non an organized denomination, at that spot is approximately variation inwards Identity doctrine with its many churches as well as groups, but almost part its pith beliefs: that Anglo-Saxons are the truthful descendants of the 10 lost tribes of State of Israel as well as thus God’s chosen people; that Jews are the literal offspring of a sexual liaison betwixt Satan as well as Eve inwards the Garden of Eden; as well as that, equally a result, Anglo-Saxons are locked inwards battle over the redemption of humankind against a global Jewish conspiracy intent on the eradication of white Christians as well as consummate worldwide domination.


Christian Identity has its roots inwards British Israelism, a benign religious movement founded inwards Victorian England past times John Wilson. In his Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin (1840), Wilson sought to test empirically that the lost tribes of State of Israel migrated from the East over the Caucasus mountains as well as eventually settled inwards northern Europe.

In Wilson’s view, however, Jews were non the enemy. Rather, they were beau Israelites, though members of a dissimilar tribe. British-Israelism made its means to North America inwards the piece of cake nineteenth century as well as kickoff gained broad appeal inwards the the States inwards the 1920s as well as 1930s.

The spread of British-Israelism inwards the the States was due largely to the efforts of Howard Rand, a one-time structure worker turned British-Israelism organizer, as well as William J. Cameron, editor of Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent, which published approximately of the period’s almost explicit antisemitic writings, including “The International Jew,” the kickoff widespread U.S. popularization of Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Thus inwards the United States, British-Israelism came increasingly to live linked with extreme right-wing politics: nativism, racism, and, especially, antisemitism. From this strand of the British-Israelist movement inwards the United States, Christian Identity emerged.

Drawing on scriptural ascendence as well as peculiarly biblical prophecy, Identity followers sentiment all of human history equally a conspiracy past times Jews to subvert Christianity as well as constitute Satan’s kingdom on earth. In the writings of post–World War II Identity leaders such equally Gerald L. K. Smith as well as Wesley Swift, the international Jewish conspiracy to command the public begins at creation.

Jews are non solely distinct from Saxons, they are the straight descendants of Cain, the boy of Eve’s seduction past times Satan. Saxons, on the other hand, are descended from Adam’s boy Abel as well as are the truthful Israelites.

The Jews are only impostors performing the operate of Satan to eliminate the truthful Israelites precisely equally Cain, the progenitor of modern Jews, killed Abel. Identity followers believe World Jewry is behind the persecution of Jesus, the ritual killing of Christians at the Roman Colosseum, the invasion of Western Europe past times Gengis Khan to destroy Christian civilization, as well as Napoleon’s essay to conquer the world.

As foretold inwards the Book of Revelation, the lastly phase of the Jewish plot begins inwards the twentieth century with the Jewish-backed Communist revolution inwards Russia, Jewish command over the international banking scheme as well as peculiarly the Federal Reserve Corporation, as well as the institution of such international organizations equally the United Nations as well as the Council on Foreign Relations. Much of Identity doctrine, such equally the schism inwards the Nation of State of Israel inwards the 10th century B.C. that separated the southern tribes from the 10 northern tribes, follows scholarly orthodoxy.

However, scholars spend upwardly Identity’s “two-seeds” theory of Genesis too equally a issue of other spurious practices upon which Identity doctrine relies: numerology, pyramidology, as well as a cast of philology based upon similarities inwards the sounds of words. Because the movement lacks a fundamental organization, the issue of Identity Christians is hard to determine, but it continues to live the religious orientation of choice for white supremacist groups inwards the United States.