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References.pdf

References

Atkins, S. (2011). Encyclopedia of Right Wing Extremism in Modern American History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN E-Book 978-1- 59884-351-4; or Hardcover Book 978-1-59884-350-7.

RootsoftheChristianIdentityMovement.pdf

Roots of the Chris�an Iden�ty Movement

The background of historical backdrop of the Chris�an Iden�ty movement first saw its movement in Great Britain during the late 18th- century during the Israelite movement. Richard Brothers, a former Bri�sh naval officer, wrote a book in 1793 �tled A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times, in which he claimed to have received divine revela�on that he was descended from King David. Brothers borrowed from Puritan thinkers of the 17th century in conjecturing about the fate of the lost tribes of Israel. He claimed in the same book that members of the Bri�sh royal family and other prominent Bri�sh subjects were also descended from King David.

Brothers had a strange career. He was born on December 25, 1757, in Newfoundland, Canada. His father had a lengthy career in the Bri�sh navy, and a�er a�ending the naval school at Woolwich, Brothers too entered the Bri�sh navy, eventually a�aining the rank of lieutenant. By the �me he le� the navy in 1789, Brothers' religious views had become extreme. He claimed that he was the apostle of a new religion. Because of his an�monarchist and pro-French Revolu�on views, the Bri�sh government had him arrested for treason in 1795. Brothers spent most of his confinement in prison as a mental pa�ent. His case ended up in Parliament, where his friends managed to have him sent to a private mental asylum, where he remained un�l 1806. Brothers con�nued to write religious pamphlets throughout the remainder of his life. He died in London on January 25, 1824, s�ll proclaiming himself the Prince of the Hebrews. Despite Brothers' apparent mental problems, his claim about his descent from King David a�racted a�en�on from other religious writers. By the �me of Brothers' death in 1824, most of his followers had become disillusioned and dri�ed away.

Academic interest in the origins of European na�onali�es led to further specula�ons about the fate of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. John Wilson, a Sco�sh academic, began to surmise about the possibility that the Anglo-Saxons were one of the lost tribes of Israel. Wilson's original interest was looking at similari�es between Hebrew and European languages, and he concluded that "many of the Sco�sh, Irish, and Bri�sh words were Hebraic in origin." He then claimed that the Bri�sh were the descendants of the tribe of Ephraim, and he traced links between the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, and the Bri�sh monarchy.

RootsoftheChristianIdentityMovementContinued.pdf

Roots of the Chris�an Iden�ty Movement Con�nued

Wilson had an unconven�onal academic career. He was born on June 8, 1799, in Kilmarnock, Scotland. His parents were both well- educated and religious. He a�ended Glasgow University, where he had a solid classical educa�on. His academic specialty was languages. Then he studied theology at Greville Ewing's Theological Academy. A�er considering and then rejec�ng entering the Scotch ministry, Wilson became an independent scholar, combining academic subjects and religion. Wilson was par�cularly interested in the science of phrenology (study of the skull for personal characteris�cs). A�er conduc�ng research in England and Ireland, Wilson started studying in 1837 the likelihood that the Anglo-Saxons of early English history were descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel. A�er lecturing extensively on the subject in both England and Ireland, Wilson published his research in book form in Lectures on Our Israeli�sh Origins, which appeared in five edi�ons between 1840 and 1876. Throughout the rest of his life, Wilson lectured on his theory of the lost tribes of Israel and on phrenology. Shortly before his death in 1870, he published his last work, The Migra�ons of the English People. Wilson had a "fraternal and patronizing a�tude toward the Jews."

The next significant proponent of Bri�sh Israelism was Edward Hine, born in 1825. Hine claimed that he had converted to Bri�sh Israelism in 1840 as a teenager when he heard Wilson speak on the subject. Hine's strength was as a publicist and pamphleteer, not in organiza�onal ma�ers. Therefore, he le� organiza�onal ma�ers to others and began to popularize his Bri�sh Israelist views. He wrote a book, Forty-Seven Iden�fica�ons of the Bri�sh Na�on with Lost Israel, in 1871. In this book, Hine claimed that the Bri�sh, not the Jews, were the chosen people of the Bible. He also claimed that Jesus was an Aryan, not a Jew. Finally, he concluded that modern Jews are descendants of the Mongolian-Turkish Khazars tribe. Hine's book was a best seller, and by 1880, it had sold 250,000 copies. His associa�on with the Bri�sh Israel Federa�on and the publica�on of two Bri�sh Israelist magazines, The Na�ons Leader and Life from the Dead, helped popularize Bri�sh Israelism. His idea about the origin of modern Jews was further popularized by Arthur Koestler in the 1976 book The Thirteenth Tribe, in which Koestler claimed that there was no Jewish race and that a large percentage of Eastern Jews came from the Khazars.

Bri�sh Israelism came to the United States in the 1880s. An early convert was Joseph Wild, the minister of the Union Congrega�onal Church in Brooklyn, New York. Wild had converted to Bri�sh Israelism a�er reading John Wilson's book in the late 1850s. He was preaching on Anglo-Israelism topics already when he was exposed to Edward Hine's works in the late 1870s. Wild accepted the theory that the tribe of Manasseh had migrated to the American colonies and had established the ins�tu�ons of the United States. Another early convert was Reuben H. Sawyer, a pastor of the East Side Chris�an Church in Portland, Oregon. His conversion to Bri�sh Israelism connected to his right-wing viewpoint. Later, in the 1920s, Sawyer became ac�ve as a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon.

An early adherent also introduced an�-Semi�sm into Bri�sh Israelism. He was W. H. Poole, a Canadian clergyman from Toronto who operated in both Canada and the United States. His virulent an�-Semi�sm introduced a new element into Bri�sh Israelism that

proponents of Chris�an Iden�ty were able to seize upon later. Further, among those converted in the 1930's was Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith, a future leader of the white supremacist movement in the United States, and Wesley Swi�, the founder of the modern Chris�an Iden�ty movement. Smith employed Swi� as a chauffeur and bodyguard in California, and in the process, Swi� converted Smith to his brand of Chris�an Iden�ty (Atkins, 2011, Kindle Loca�ons 2128-2136.

ChristianReconstructionismandOtherWhiteSupremacistChurches.pdf

Chris�an Reconstruc�onism and Other White Supremacist Churches

Chris�an Reconstruc�onism is a modern form of theocracy in which church and state are united by biblical law. Roots of this movement come out of dominion theology. Dominion theology claims that God gave humankind dominion over the animal kingdom based on the text in Genesis 1:26 of the Old Testament. This idea became popular in the Chris�an Right and soon became the theological jus�fica�on for Chris�an Reconstruc�onism. What makes Chris�an Reconstruc�onism movement unique is the idea, belief and theory that Jesus Christ will not return un�l White Chris�ans have established a thousand-year authority over all creatures on Earth.

Rushdoony was a Calvinist theologian who is credited with providing the inspira�on for Chris�an Reconstruc�onism and the modern homeschooling movement. He was born on April 25, 1916, in New York City. His parents were recent Armenian immigrants. His father was a minister at an Armenian-speaking Presbyterian church in Kingsburg, California. A�er gradua�on from a local high school, he a�ended the University of California at Berkeley, where he obtained a BA in English in 1938. He followed this by earning a teacher's cer�ficate in 1939 and a master's in educa�on. Rushdoony then a�ended the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. A�er gradua�on from this school in 1944, he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church (USA), and he spent the next eight-and-a-half years as a missionary to the Shoshone and Paiute Indians on the Duck Valley Indian Reserva�on in Nevada. Leaving missionary work, Rushdoony served as a pastor of a small church in Santa Cruz, California. By this �me, Rushdoony had joined the conserva�ve Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Rushdoony's poli�cal and religious views tended toward extremism. He became an early member of the John Birch Society because of his life�me obsession with an�-communism. In 1965, Rushdoony founded the Chalcedon Founda�on and published the Chalcedon Report to advance his views. Rushdoony was a prolific writer. One of his chief projects was to advance homeschooling as a way to combat the secular nature of the U.S. public school system. Rushdoony was a follower of the Princeton University theologian Cornelius Van Til. Despite the fact that Van Til's ideas provided the theological basis for Chris�an Reconstruc�onism, Van Til never became a Chris�an Reconstruc�onist.

Rushdoony's theology has been accepted by a small group of scholars who are iden�fied with Reformed or Orthodox Presbyterianism. Since the death of Rushdoony, it has had no charisma�c leader or a single text, but its ideas are passed around through magazines, conferences, publishing houses, think tanks, and bookstores. Leaders of this movement, however, consider themselves to be the theological and poli�cal heirs of John Calvin. Just like Rushdoony, most of the leading Chris�an Reconstruc�onists have had close �es to the John Birch Society, and many have been ac�ve members.