Christian Identity is
a religious ideology popular in extreme right-wing circles. Adherents believe
that whites of European descent can be traced back to the "Lost Tribes of
Israel." Many consider Jews to be the Satanic offspring of Eve and the
Serpent, while non-whites are "mud peoples" created before Adam and
Eve. Its virulent racist and anti-Semitic beliefs are usually accompanied by
extreme anti-government sentiments. Despite its small size, Christian Identity
influences virtually all white supremacist, conservative, and extreme anti-government
movements. It has also informed criminal behavior ranging from hate crimes to
acts of terrorism.
Quick Profile
·
Origins: Mid-20th Century (origins date to
mid-19th Century)
·
Background: A racist and anti-Semitic religious sect
whose adherents believe that white people of European descent are the
descendants of the "Lost Tribes" of ancient Israel.
·
Influential
Personalities: Howard Rand,
William Cameron, Wesley Swift, Bertrand Comparet, Richard Butler, William
Potter Gale, James K. Warner, Sheldon Emry, Dave Barley, Pete Peters
·
Ideology: Anti-Semitic, racist, anti-government,
conspiratorial
·
Outreach: Churches, pamphlets, tracts, books,
shortwave radio, Web sites Estimated Size: 25,000 to 50,000
·
Criminal
activity: Overall level of
criminal activity is high, ranging from hate crimes to acts of terrorism
The "Lost Tribes" Found
One of the most remarkable developments in the
extreme right in the United States in the past few decades has been the rise of
an obscure religious ideology known as Christian Identity. Penetrating existing
racist and anti-Semitic groups and movements, it has inflamed their bigotry
with religious fervor and also sparked the creation of many new groups.
Adherents have committed hate crimes, bombings and other acts of terrorism.
Identity's current influence ranges from Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups to
the anti-government militia and sovereign citizen movements-yet most Americans
are unaware that it even exists.
Christian Identity's origins can be traced
back to the nineteenth century in Great Britain, where a small circle of
religious thinkers advanced the idea, known as British-Israelism or
Anglo-Israelism, that modern Europeans were biologically descended from the
ancient Israelites of the Old Testament-specifically, from the "Lost
Tribes" scattered by invasions of Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians. The
Lost Tribes had purportedly made their way to Europe, and from them descended
the modern European nationalities.
These peculiar views-arrived at through
creative interpretation of scripture, language, and history-never became widely
popular. According to Michael Barkun, the leading historian of Christian
Identity, the British-Israel movement in Great Britain peaked in the 1920s with
approximately five thousand adherents. Although eccentric, British-Israelites
seem to have had no ambitious political agenda or animus, and were probably no
more racist or anti-Semitic than the mainstream of Western culture at that
time.
By the late 19th century, British-Israelite
doctrines began to migrate to the United States; they had a particular appeal
to some of the many Americans who believed that the country had a special
destiny in God's eyes. British-Israelites began to lecture and publish across
the nation, especially in New England, the Midwest and along the West Coast.
The foremost American believer was New Englander Howard Rand (1889-1991), whose
Anglo-Saxon Federation distributed thousands of pieces of literature.
Nevertheless, British-Israelism remained small and obscure.
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, not usually with animosity. By the 1930s, however, in the
U.S., a strain of anti-Semitism started to permeate the movement (though some
maintained traditional beliefs - and a small number of traditionalists still exist
in the U.S.).
Taking hold in this country at a time when
anti-Semitism was as well, British Israelism increasingly advanced the idea -
common in anti-Semitic circles in the early twentieth century - that most Jews
were not really descendants of ancient Israelites, but were instead descended
from an Asiatic people known as the Khazars, who settled near the Black Sea
during the Middle Ages. European (Ashkenazic) Jews were thus "false"
Israelites who further obscured the fact that it was really white Europeans who
were the "true" Israelites. One of the most influential
British-Israel advocates of this and other anti-Jewish ideas was William J.
Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent, the weekly newspaper published by
automobile magnate Henry Ford in the 1920s, and Ford's press adviser until the
1940s. Under Cameron's leadership, the Independent popularized the infamous
anti-Semitic hoax, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
The anti-Semitic strain of British-Israelism
was particularly strong on the West Coast of Canada and the United States. The
key figure in the transformation of British-Israelism into what was
increasingly called "Christian Identity" was Wesley Swift
(1913-1970), a former Methodist minister from Southern California. In the
1940s, Swift started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ
Christian. He was active in extreme right-wing groups, including the Ku Klux
Klan, and developed a close friendship with the nation's most prominent postwar
anti-Semite, Gerald L. K. Smith. Because of the activities of Swift and
associates such as Bertrand Comparet and San Jacinto Capt, Christian Identity
increasingly became linked with extreme right-wing ideologies.
A Theology of Hate
Under the leadership of Swift and his
disciples, Christian Identity theology diverged sharply from traditional
British-Israelism. It remained loosely organized, however, without one
"orthodox" set of dogma; instead, Identity came to involve a variety
of ideas and theories orbiting around several core precepts.
The core of the system, as with
British-Israelism, was that white Europeans were descended from the Israelite
people of the Bible: this was their true "identity." Volumes of
Identity writing is devoted to revealing this hidden history. As anti-Semitism
came to be folded into these accounts, the result was a fanciful but ostensibly
Biblical rationale for hatred of Jews.
The most extreme expression of Identity
anti-Semitism is the so-called "two-seed" (or "seedliner")
theory, developed by Swift, his associates and his disciples in the 1960s.
According to the two-seed theory, the seduction of Eve by the Serpent in Eden
was sexual, Cain was the product of their liaison and Cain, in turn, was the
father of the Jewish people; all Jews, therefore, are children of the devil,
literally demonic. The other seedline in the two-seed scheme traces from Adam
and Eve's other son, Abel, through the lost tribes to today's white
European-derived believers.
"One-seed" Identity adherents do not
believe that Jews are physically descended from Satan, though in other respects
they are no less anti-Semitic than the two-seedliners.
Many adherents, especially seedliners, also
believe in pre-Adamic races. That is, they contend that Adam and Eve were not
the first people created by God, but were the first created in God's image.
Other previous creations, not endowed with the divine likeness, were the
forerunners of all the nonwhite peoples of the Earth, the "mud
peoples," who had no soul. Adam and Eve, and their Israelite descendants,
were the first whites, a fact "proven" by the suggestion that the
very name "Adam" means "to show blood," or blush, which
they claim is only possible for whites.
Another significant aspect of Christian
Identity theology is its millennialism-the belief that the world is in its
final days. Millennialism is widespread among Protestants around the world, but
Identity diverges sharply from traditional forms of Protestantism. Like many
evangelicals, Christian Identity adherents believe that Jesus Christ will return
to the Earth following a period of "tribulation."
However, Identity
adherents reject the popular evangelical contention that devoted followers of
Jesus will be "saved" or "raptured" before the Tribulation
begins (a concept known as premillennialism). Identity is postmillennial: it
holds that Jesus will not return until after the Tribulation. Many believe they
are in or are about to enter into the time of Tribulation, a great battle
between good and evil in which they will take part. While some Protestants are
also postmillennial, Identity Christians view the apocalypse as a racial
battle, which helps to create a hothouse atmosphere wherever Identity thrives.
Because they believe in the imminent collapse
of worldly institutions, Identity adherents tend to devalue and distrust
secular institutions in ways that make extreme anti-government ideologies (such
as those of militia groups or sovereign citizens) appealing. They hold
themselves to "God's laws," not "man's laws," and many do
not feel bound to a government that they consider run by Jews, the New World
Order or some other sinister entity. This anti-secularism has led to
reclusiveness among Identity Christians, with some living by themselves or with
like-minded people in isolated locations (such as the "Elohim City"
compound in eastern Oklahoma).
A Movement Develops
By the 1960s, a new group of Christian
Identity leaders had emerged. In the ensuing decades, they would spread
Identity throughout the far right. Most prominent among them were California
disciples of Wesley Swift: James K. Warner, William Potter Gale and Richard
Butler. Warner (1939-), who moved to Louisiana and became active in the
segregationist struggle against civil rights, was the head of the Christian
Defense League and the New Christian Crusade Church. Gale (1917-1988) was an
early leader in the Christian Defense League as well as its paramilitary arm,
the California Rangers. In the 1970s he founded the Posse Comitatus (the group
that helped spawn the sovereign citizen movement), while in the 1980s he
created the Committee of the States and served as the "chief of
staff" of its "unorganized militia." Most famous of all, Butler
(1918-) moved Swift's Church of Jesus Christ Christian to northern Idaho in
1974, where he recast it as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations.
Christian Identity penetrated most of the
major extreme-right movements. Thanks to Aryan Nations, some neo-Nazis became
believers. Klan leaders such as Thomas Robb and Louis Beam adopted the faith,
as did some racist skinheads, such as the Hammerskins. Christian Identity also
found a welcome home in extreme anti-government activism, notably the tax
protest movement, the sovereign citizen movement (descended from Gale's Posse
Comitatus) and the militia movement. The resurgence of right-wing extremism in
the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge and Waco standoffs further spread Identity
beliefs.
The influence of Identity often extends beyond
Identity circles. The Militia of Montana, which helped create the militia
movement, is headed by Identity adherents, though they do not promote the
theology. Similarly, one of the most popular anti-government magazines, Media
Bypass, was recently purchased by the Identity journalists Chris Temple and
Paul Hall, Jr., who have so far only rarely injected Identity messages into the
magazine's anti-government, conspiratorial contents.
At the start of the 21st century, Christian
Identity is strongest in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, but Christian
Identity groups or churches can be found in virtually every region of the
United States (outside the United States, it is much weaker, but there are
Identity groups in Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa).
Yet while spread far it is also spread thin. Estimates of the total number of
believers in North America vary from a low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000; the
true number is probably closer to the low end of the scale. Given this
relatively small following, its extensive penetration of the far right is all
the more remarkable.
Violence and Hate
Christian Identity's racist and apocalyptic
qualities helped lead to several well-known incidents of domestic terrorism
during the past quarter century. In North Dakota in 1983, Gordon Kahl
demonstrated how radical Identity adherents could be when he killed two U.S.
Marshals who had come to arrest him for a parole violation (a mourner at one
funeral was Assistant Attorney General Rudolph W. Giuliani, later to become all
too familiar with such funerals). A four-month manhunt ended in another
shootout in Arkansas, where Kahl killed a local sheriff before he himself was
killed.
That same year, the white supremacist
terrorist group known as The Order began its series of armed robberies (to
which it would add additional crimes ranging from counterfeiting to
assassination). Several members of the gang were Christian Identity, including
David Tate, who in 1985 killed a Missouri State Highway Patrol officer attempting
to reach an Identity survivalist compound called the Covenant, the Sword, and
the Arm of the Lord (CSA). An ensuing standoff resulted in the demise of the
CSA and the arrest of its leadership. During the 1980s, several Identity groups
attempted to follow in the footsteps of The Order, including The Order II and
the Arizona Patriots, who committed bombings and an attempted armored car
robbery, respectively.
In the 1990s, Identity criminal activity
continued apace, including efforts by an Oklahoma Identity minister, Willie Ray
Lampley, to commit a series of bombings in the summer of 1995 in the wake of
the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. The following year, the Montana
Freemen, whose leaders were Identity, made headlines for their "paper terrorism"
tactics and their 81-day standoff with the federal government. In 1998, Eric
Rudolph, who had been associated with Identity ministers such as Nord Davis and
Dan Gayman, became a fugitive after bombing gay bars, the Atlanta
Summer Olympics, and an abortion clinic. The following year, Buford Furrow, a
former Aryan Nations security guard, went on a shooting spree at a Jewish
Community Center in Los Angeles, wounding four children and an adult, and later
killing a Filipino-American postal worker.
Perhaps the most chilling manifestation of
Identity terrorism can be found in the concept of the Phineas Priesthood, set
forth by Richard Kelly Hoskins in his 1990 book Vigilantes of Christendom. The
Priesthood is based on the concept of the obscure Biblical character Phinehas,
an Israelite who used a spear to slay a "race-mixing" fellow
Israelite and the Midianite woman with whom he had sex. Hoskins conjured up the
idea of an elite class of "Phineas Priests," self-anointed warriors
who would use extreme measures to attack race-mixers, blacks, gays, or abortionists,
among other targets. Over the years, some have committed crimes using the
Phineas Priest label, including a group of about eight who committed bombings
and bank robberies in the Spokane, Washington, area in 1996 (four of whom were
caught and sentenced to lengthy prison terms). In 2002, two Aryan Nations
splinter groups openly adopted Phineas Priest names or symbols.
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