Christian Identity (also known as Identity Christianity)[1] is an interpretation of Christianity which advocates the belief that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic nations, or people of the Aryan race and people of kindred blood, are the descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God's "chosen people". It is a racial interpretation of Christianity and is not an organized religion, nor is it affiliated with specific Christian denominations. It emerged from British Israelism in the 1920s and began to take shape during the 1940s-1970s. Today it is independently practiced by individuals, independent congregations, and some prison gangs.
No single document expresses the Christian Identity belief system, and some beliefs may vary by group. However, all Identity adherents believe that Adam and his offspring were exclusively White. They also believe in Two House theology, which makes a distinction between the Tribe of Judah and the Ten Lost Tribes, and that ultimately, European people represent the Ten Lost Tribes. This racialist view advocates racial segregation and opposes interracial marriage. Other commonly held beliefs are that usury and banking systems are controlled by Jews, leading to opposition to the Federal Reserve System and use of fiat currency, believing it to be part of "the beast" system. Christian Identity's eschatology is millennialist.
The Christian Identity movement emerged in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s as an offshoot of British Israelism.[1][3]: xii–xiii While early British Israelites such as Edward Hine and John Wilson were philo-Semites, Christian Identity emerged in sharp contrast to British Israelism as a strongly antisemitic theology.[3]: xii The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes the emergence of Christian Identity from British Israelism as an 'ugly turn':
Once on American shores, British-Israelism began to evolve. Originally, believers viewed contemporary Jews as descendants of those ancient Israelites who had never been "lost." They might be seen critically but, given their significant role in the British-Israel genealogical scheme, they are usually not seen with animosity. By the 1930s, however, in the U.S., a strain of anti-Semitism started to permeate the movement (though some of its adherents maintained traditional beliefs – and a small number of traditionalists still exist in the U.S.).[1]
In his book Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion, Chester Quarles describes the emergence of Christian Identity from British Israelism as a "remarkable transition", because traditional British Israelites were advocates of philo-Semitism which paradoxically changed to anti-Semitism and racism under Christian Identity.[4]: 13 In fact, British Israelism had several Jewish adherents, and it also received support from rabbis throughout the 19th century. Within British politics it supported Benjamin Disraeli, who was descended from Sephardic Jews.[4]: 13–19 The typical form of the British Israelite belief held that modern-day Jews were only descended from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, while the British and other related Northern European peoples were descended from the other ten tribes. However, as Christian Identity took shape during the 1940s to 1970s, it began to turn antisemitic by teaching that contemporary Jews were either descendants of Eurasian Khazars or literal descendants of Satan.[5]
Early influences
British Israelism can be traced back to Great Britain in the 1600s, but in terms of its relationship to Christian Identity, a key text was Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin by John Wilson (1840).[6]: 11 Wilson was the first to formalize a distinction between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. Although Wilson's views were not originally antisemitic, they came to have great significance for modern Christian Identity adherents who believe that the northern tribes were carried off by the Assyrians and remained racially pure as they migrated into modern Europe, while the southern kingdom eventually became allied with Satan.[6]: 11
In the 1920s, the writings of Howard Rand (1889–1991) began to have an influence.[3]: 27 [7]: 9–10 Rand is known for coining the term "Christian Identity".[6]: 18 Raised as a British Israelite, his father introduced him to J. H. Allen's work Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright (1902) at an early age.[7]: 9 Around 1924, Rand began to claim that the Jews are descended from Esau or the Canaanites rather than the tribe of Judah, although not going so far as to advocate the "serpent seed" doctrine.[3]: 45–54 Rand is considered a 'transitional' figure from British Israelism to Christian Identity, rather than its actual founder.[7]: 9
During the late 1920s, Anglo-Saxon writers began to compile research from 19th century writers Dominick McCausland, Alexander Winchell, and Ethel Bristowe, using them to develop five basic beliefs that would become the core tenets of Christian Identity doctrine. These were that Adamites represented Aryans as the chosen, that nonwhites were tainted through race-mixing, that the serpent in the story of the Fall was not a reptile, but the Devil himself, that the seedline of Cain came through a union of Satan (the serpent) and Eve, and that the Jews were descended from this unholy line and thus had a natural propensity for evil.[6]: 17–18
In 1933, Rand founded the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America, an organization which began to promote the view that the Jews are not descended from Judah. Beginning in May 1937, there were key meetings of British Israelites in the United States who were attracted to this theory, and these meetings provided the catalyst for the eventual emergence of Christian Identity. By the late 1930s, the group's members considered Jews to be the offspring of Satan and demonized them, and they also demonized non-Caucasian races.[3]: 140 [7]: 11–15
William Dudley Pelley, the founder of the clerical fascistSilver Shirts movement, was influenced by British Israelism in the early 1930s.[8] Links between Christian Identity and the Ku Klux Klan were also forged in the late 1930s, but by then, the KKK was past the peak of its early twentieth-century revival.[3]: 60–85
Emergence as a separate movement
Christian Identity began to emerge as a separate movement in the 1940s, primarily over issues of racism and anti-semitism rather than over issues of Christian theology.[9]: 59 Wesley Swift (1913–1970) is considered the father of the movement; so much so that every Anti-Defamation League publication which addresses Christian Identity mentions him.[9]: 296 Swift was born in New Jersey, and he eventually moved to Los Angeles in order to attend Bible college. It is claimed that he may have been a "Ku Klux Klan organizer and a Klan rifle-team instructor."[10] Swift was a minister in the Angelus TempleFoursquare Church during the 1930s and 1940s before he founded his own church in Lancaster, California and named it the Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation, reflecting the influence of Howard Rand.[9]: 296 [3]: 61 In the 1950s, he was Gerald L. K. Smith's West Coast representative of the Christian Nationalist Crusade. In addition, he hosted a daily radio broadcast in California during the 1950s and 1960s, through which he was able to proclaim his ideology to a large audience. Due to Swift's efforts, the message of his church spread, leading to the founding of similar churches throughout the country.
The future Aryan Nations founder Richard Girnt Butler, who was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, was introduced to Wesley Swift by William Potter Gale in 1962.[12]: 110 Swift quickly converted Butler to Christian Identity. When Swift died in 1971, Butler fought against Gale, James Warner, and Swift's widow for control of the church. Butler eventually gained control of the organization and moved it from California to Hayden Lake, Idaho in 1973.[13][9]: 298
Lesser figures participated as Christian Identity theology took shape in the 1940s and 1950s, such as San Jacinto Capt, a Baptist minister and California Klansman (who claimed that he had introduced Wesley Swift to Christian Identity); and Bertrand Comparet (1901–1983), a one-time San Diego Deputy City Attorney (and a lawyer for Gerald L. K. Smith).[citation needed] Later Identity figures of the 1980s include Sheldon Emry and Peter J. Peters.[7]
The Christian Identity movement first received widespread attention from the mainstream media in 1984, when The Order, a neo-Nazi terrorist group, embarked on a murderous crime spree before it was suppressed by the FBI. The movement returned to public attention in 1992 and 1993, in the wake of the deadly Ruby Ridge confrontation, when newspapers discovered that former Green Beret and right-wing separatist Randy Weaver had a loose association with Christian Identity believers.[14]
These groups are estimated to have two thousand members in the United States and an unknown number of members in Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth. Due to the promotion of Christian Identity doctrines through radio and later through the Internet, an additional fifty thousand unaffiliated individuals are thought to hold Christian Identity beliefs.[3]: x
Beliefs
Christian Identity is a theology that promotes a racial interpretation of Christianity.[15][16] Some Christian Identity churches preach with more violent rhetoric than others, but all of them believe that Aryans are God's chosen race rather than Jews.
Christian Identity beliefs were primarily developed and promoted by two authors who considered Europeans to be the chosen people and considered Jews to be the cursed offspring of Cain, the "serpent hybrid" (or the Serpent seed) (a belief which is known as the dual-seedline or two-seedline doctrine). Wesley Swift formulated the doctrine which states that non-Caucasian peoples have no souls and therefore they can never earn God's favor or be saved.[4]: 68 [17]
No single document expresses the Christian Identity belief system; there is much disagreement over the doctrines which are taught by those who ascribe to CI beliefs, since there is no central organization or headquarters for the CI sect. However, all CI adherents believe that Adam and his offspring were exclusively White and they also believe that all non-white races are pre-Adamite races because they belong to separate species, a doctrinal position which implies that they cannot be equated with or derived from the Adamites.[18] CI adherents cite passages from the Old Testament, including Ezra 9:2, Ezra 9:12, and Nehemiah 13:27, which they claim contain Yahweh's injunctions against interracial marriages.
Christian Identity adherents assert that the white people of Europe in particular or Caucasians in general are God's servant people, according to the promises that were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It further asserts that the early European tribes were really the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and therefore the rightful heirs to God's promises, and God's chosen people. Colin Kidd wrote that in the United States, Christian Identity exploited "the puzzle of the Ten Lost Tribes to justify an openly anti-Semitic and virulently racist agenda."[19]: 44 According to Michael McFarland and Glenn Gottfried, they developed their racist interpretation of Christianity because of its status as a traditional religion of the United States, which allowed them to advocate the belief that white Americans have a common identity, and because of the variety of possible interpretations of the Bible in the field of hermeneutics.[20]
While they seek to introduce a state of racial purity in the US, Christian Identitarians do not trust the Congress or the government, allegedly controlled by Jews, to support their agenda. In their view, this means that political changes can only be made through the use of force. However, the failed experience of the terrorist group The Order has forced them to acknowledge the fact that they are currently unable to overthrow the government by staging an armed insurrection against it. Thus, the Christian Identity movement seeks an alternative to violence and government change with the creation of a "White Aryan Bastion" or a White ethnostate, such as the Northwest Territorial Imperative.[20]
Two House theology
Like British Israelites, Christian Identity adherents believe in Two House theology, which makes a distinction between the Tribe of Judah and the Ten Lost Tribes. While British Israelites believe that modern Jews are descended from the tribe of Judah, Christian Identitarians believe that the true lineal descendants of Judah are not contemporary Jews, but are instead the modern-day Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and kindred peoples.[7]: 40–60
Origin beliefs
Identity teaches that "Israel" was the name given to Jacob after he wrestled with the angel at Penuel as described in Genesis 32:26–32. "Israel" then had twelve sons, which began the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In 975 BC the ten northern tribes revolted, seceded from the south, and became the Kingdom of Israel. After they were subsequently conquered by Assyria at c. 721 BC, the ten tribes disappeared from the Biblical record and became known as the Lost Tribes of Israel.[21]: 101
According to Identity doctrine, 2 Esdras 13:39–46 then records the history of the nation of Israel journeying over the Caucasus mountains, along the Black Sea, to the Ar Sereth tributary of the Danube in Romania ("But they formed this plan for themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the nations and go to a more distant region, where no human beings had ever lived. ... Through that region there was a long way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that country is called Arzareth"). The tribes prospered, and eventually colonised other European countries. Israel's leading tribe, the Tribe of Dan, is attributed with settling and naming many areas which are today distinguished by place names derived from its name – written ancient Hebrew contains no vowels, and hence "Dan" would be written as DN, but would be pronounced with an intermediate vowel dependent on the local dialect, meaning that Dan, Den, Din, Don, and Dun all have the same meaning. Various modern place names are said to derive from the name of this tribe:[21]: 101
Macedonia – Macedonia – derived from Moeshe-don-ia (Moeshe being "the land of Moses")
Some followers claim that the Identity genealogy of the Davidic line can be traced to the royal rulers of Britain and Queen Elizabeth II herself.[21]: 102–105 Thus, Anglo-Saxons are the true Israelites, God's chosen people who were given the divine right to rule the world until the Second Coming of Christ.[21]: 101
Identity adherents reject the label "antisemitic" by stating that they cannot be antisemitic because the true Semites "today are the great White Christian nations of the western world", with modern Jews being considered the descendants of the Canaanites.[21]
A major tenet of Christian Identity is the pre-Adamite hypothesis. Christian Identity adherents believe that Adam and Eve were only the ancestors of white people, because according to Christian Identity, Adam and Eve were preceded by lesser, non-Caucasian races which are often (although not always) identified as "beasts of the field" in Genesis 1:25. For example, the "beasts" which wore sackcloth and cried unto God in Jonah 3:8 are identified as black races by Christian Identity adherents.[citation needed] To support their theory on the racial identity of Adam, Christian Identity proponents point out that the Hebrew etymology of the word 'Adam' translates as 'be ruddy, red, to show blood (in the face)' often quoting from James Strong's Hebrew Dictionary and from this they conclude that only Caucasians or people with light white skin can blush or turn rosy in the face (because hemoglobin is only visible under pale skin).[23]
A seminal influence on the Christian Identity movement's views on pre-Adamism was Charles Carroll's 1900 book The Negro a Beast or In the Image of God? In his book, Carroll sought to revive the ideas which were previously presented by Buckner H. Payne, he described the Negro as a literal ape rather than a human being.[24] He claimed the pre-Adamite races such as blacks did not have souls and that race mixing was an insult to God because it spoiled His racial plan of creation. According to Carroll, the mixing of races had also led to the errors of atheism and evolutionism.[19]: 150
Dual Seedline Christian Identity proponents –those who believe that Eve bore children with Satan as well as with Adam – believe that Eve was seduced by the Serpent (Satan), shared her fallen state with Adam by having sex with him, and gave birth to twins with different fathers: Satan's son Cain and Adam's son Abel. This belief is referred to as the serpent seed doctrine. According to the "dual seedline" form of Christian Identity, Cain then became the progenitor of the Jews in his subsequent matings with members of the non-Adamic races.[1]
The serpent seed idea, which ascribes the ancestry of legendary monsters such as Grendel to Cain, was widespread in the Middle Ages.[26] It also appears in early Gnostic Christian texts as well as in some Jewish texts, for example, it appears in a 9th-century book titled Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer. In Cain: Son of the Serpent (1985), David Max Eichhorn traces the idea back to early Jewish Midrashic texts and he also names many rabbis who taught the belief that Cain was the son of a union between the Serpent and Eve.[27]
Some Kabbalist rabbis also believe that Cain and Abel were of a different genetic background than Seth. This teaching is based on the theory that God created two "Adams" (adam means "man" in Hebrew). To one Adam he gave a soul and to the other Adam he did not give a soul. The Adam who is without a soul is the creature who Christians call the Serpent. The Kabbalists call the serpent the Nahash (Nahash is the Hebrew word for serpent).
Two beings [Adam and Nachash] had intercourse with Eve, and she conceived from both and bore two children. Each followed one of the male parents, and their spirits parted, one to this side and one to the other, and similarly their characters. On the side of Cain are all the haunts of the evil species; from the side of Abel comes a more merciful class, yet not wholly beneficial – good wine mixed with bad.
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism or racialism, the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism, is the core tenet of Christian Identity, and most CI adherents are white nationalists who advocate racial segregation and the imposition of anti-miscegenation laws. Some CI adherents also believe that Jews are genetically compelled to carry on a conspiracy against the Adamic seedline by their Satanic or Edomite ancestry and they also believe that the Jews of today have achieved almost complete control of the Earth through their claim to hold the white race's status as God's chosen people.[28]
Identity adherents also assert that disease, addiction, cancer, and sexually transmitted infections (herpes and HIV/AIDS) are spread by human "rodents" via contact with "unclean" persons, such as "race-mixers". The apocrypha, particularly the first book of Enoch, is used to justify these social theories; the fallen angels of Heaven sexually desired Earth maidens and took them as wives, resulting in the birth of abominations, which God ordered Michael the Archangel to destroy, thus beginning a cosmic war between Light and Darkness. The mixing of separate things (e.g., people of different races) is seen as defiling all of them, and it is also considered a violation of God's law.[21]: 85–86
Identity preachers proclaim that, according to the Bible, "the penalties for race-mixing, homo-sexuality, and usury are death."[21]: 86
Views on racial politics and economics
The first documents which advocated Christian Identity's views on racial politics and economics were written by Howard Rand and William J. Cameron after the Great Depression. In 1943, Rand published the article "Digest of the Divine Law" which discussed the political and economic challenges which existed at that time. An excerpt from the article states: "We shall not be able to continue in accord with the old order. Certain groups are already planning an economy of regimentation for our nation; but it will only intensify the suffering and want of the past and bring to our peoples all the evils that will result from such planning by a group of men who are failing to take into consideration the fundamental principles underlying the law of the Lord."[3]: 202
While Rand never formally named the groups which he was specifically referring to, his hatred of Jews, racial integration, and the country's economic state at that time made the direction of his comments obvious. Identifying specific economic problems was not the only goal which Rand had in mind. He began to analyze how these changes could be made to happen through legal changes; thus, making strategic plans to integrate the Bible into American law and economics. The first goal was to denounce all man-made laws and replace them with laws from the Bible. The second goal was to create an economic state which would reflect the teachings of the Bible.[3]: 203
While William Cameron agreed with Rand's initial argument, he specifically focused his writings on changing American economics. One of Cameron's articles, "Divine System of Taxation", spoke of the Bible supporting individualism and social justice with regard to economics. He also believed that the government had no right to tax land or other forms of property. In accordance with this doctrine, tax refunds should be applied to family vacation trips or they should be applied to national festivals which are observed by adherents of Christian Identity. Also, for the betterment of the United States' economic future, no interest should be charged on debts which are paid with credit, and no taxes should be collected during the traveling time of goods from a manufacturer to a consumer.[3]: 205-206
The mutual point which Rand and Cameron both agreed upon, was that while they may have disagreed with how the government was operating, neither of them resisted the government's current tax policies. Gordon Kahl was the first CI believer to study the founding principles of Rand and Cameron, and apply them in order to take action against the government. Kahl believed that they were on the right track with regard to what needed to be accomplished in order to change public policies. However, he felt that if no actions were taken against violators, no real changes would be made. In 1967, he stopped paying taxes because he felt he was paying "tithes to the Synagogue of Satan". Kahl killed two federal marshals in 1983. Before he was caught for the murders, Kahl wrote a note in which he said "our nation has fallen into the hands of alien people. ... These enemies of Christ have taken their Jewish Communist Manifesto and incorporated it into the Statutory Laws of our country and thrown our Constitution and our Christian Common Law into the garbage can."[3]: 206
Identity doctrine asserts that the "root of all evil" is paper money (particularly Federal Reserve Notes), and that both usury and banking systems are controlled by Jews.[21]: 87 Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35–37 and Deuteronomy explicitly condemn usury.[21]: 92 Ezekiel 18:13 states "He who hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? He shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him" and it is quoted as a justification for killing Jews.
Christian Identity advocates the belief that the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 shifted the control of money from Congress to private institutions and violated the Constitution and the monetary system encourages the Federal Reserve to take out loans, creating trillions of dollars in government debt, and allowing international bankers to control the United States. Credit/debit cards and computerised bills are seen as the fulfillment of the Biblical scripture which warns against "the beast" (i.e., banking) as quoted in Revelation 13:15–18.[citation needed]
Identity preacher Sheldon Emry stated that "Most of the owners of the largest banks in America are of Eastern European (Jewish) ancestry and connected with the (Jewish) Rothschild European banks", thus, according to Identity doctrine, the global banking conspiracy is led and controlled by Jewish interests.[21]: 91 Emry used the radio airwaves to promote his Christian Identity message and his book Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People. Emry promoted abolishing the banks, which he suggested would solve most of society's ills, including unemployment, divorce, and women working outside the home.[12]: 181
Christian Identity eschatology is millennialist, including a physical return of Christ to earth and the final battle of Armageddon. However, in contrast with dispensationalism and some other millennialist forms of fundamentalist Christianity, Christian Identity adherents reject the notion of a rapture, believing that it is a Judaized doctrine not taught in the Bible.[29] Their predictions vary, and some include a race war or a Jewish-backed United Nations takeover of the US, and that they should wage a physical struggle against individuals and groups which serve the forces of evil.[30][31] While the Soviet Union has disappeared as a vital threat in their rhetoric, many Christian Identity adherents believe that Communists are secretly involved in international organizations like the United Nations, or the so-called "New World Order", in order to destroy the United States.[20]
Some Christian Identity groups have been associated with violence. Tax resister and militia movement organizer Gordon Kahl had connections to the Christian Identity movement. His death in a 1983 shootout with federal authorities inspired the founders of The Order.[36][37] The Order was almost entirely made up of individuals who were associated with various Christian Identity groups.
Within Christian Identity circles, the Phineas Priesthood is made up of individuals who have committed a "Phineas action"; a term which is broadly used in reference to murders of interracial couples, acts of antisemitism, and violent acts against members of other non-white ethnic groups.[38] According to Houston-area writer John Craig, mass shooter Larry Gene Ashbrook had ties to the Phineas Priesthood.[39]Byron De La Beckwith, the assassin of NAACP and Civil rights movement leader Medgar Evers, was linked to the Phineas Priesthood.[40] Just before he entered prison to serve his sentence, De La Beckwith was ordained as a minister in the Temple Memorial Baptist Church, a Christian Identity congregation in Knoxville, Tennessee by Reverend Dewey "Buddy" Tucker.[41]
Convicted murderer Chevie Kehoe was associated with Christian Identity adherents.[citation needed] Christian Identity and Posse Commitatus leader Michael W. Ryan was convicted of the violent murder of his own follower, James Thimm.[42]
Ingram, W.L., (1995). God and Race: British-Israelism and Christian Identity, p. 119–126 in T. Miller, Ed., America's Alternative Religions, SUNY Press, Albany NY.
Kaplan, Jeffrey, (1997). Radical Religion in America, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. pp. 47–48.
Quarles, C. L. (2004). Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.
Roberts, Charles H. (2003). Race over Grace: The Racialist Religion of the Christian Identity Movement, Omaha, Nebraska: iUniverse Press. ISBN0-595-28197-4.
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