“Christian Identity” is an umbrella term for organizations and beliefs falling under a racial interpretation of Christianity which asserts that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as Anglo-Saxons and the Nordic nations, are the genuine descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God’s “chosen people.” It is not an organized religion, nor is it affiliated with specific Christian denominations, but is practiced by independent individuals, congregations, and some prison gangs. Anywhere from 3,000 to 70,000 Americans are believed to be affiliated with Christian Identity organizations.
The movement emerged in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s as an antisemitic offshoot of British Israelism, developing further through the 1940s to the 1970s. Early British Israelites believed that modern Jews descended from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, while the British and other Northern European peoples descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. This belief laid the groundwork for Christian Identity, whose adherents believe the northern tribes remained racially pure as they migrated into Europe, while the southern kingdom became allied with Satan.
The writings of Howard Benjamin Rand, the founder of the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America and a three-time Prohibitionist candidate for office in Massachusetts, were central to the beginnings of Christian Identity in the United States. Around 1924, Rand began to claim that Jews were descended from Esau or the Canaanites, rather than the tribe of Judah. Some early followers adopted the view that Cain was the child of Eve and Satan, not of Adam, and that Jews were descended from this union. Though Rand himself initially rejected this position, it gained prominence during the 1930s.
In 1937, those who adhered to this so-called “serpent seed” doctrine broke away from Rand’s group and forged ties with the Ku Klux Klan. In 1946, Wesley Swift, a former minister in Aimee Semple McPherson’s Foursquare Church, founded the Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation, which is considered the first true Christian Identity congregation. Swift became a close associate of America First Party leader Gerald L.K. Smith and headed Smith’s Christian Nationalist Crusade in the western U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, hosting a daily radio show. In 1957, Swift renamed his church “The Church of Jesus Christ-Christian,” a name now used by the Aryan Nations.
Swift’s associate William Potter Gale, a retired military officer, is suspected to have been behind the bombing of several Black churches during the Civil Rights movement period. By the 1970s, Gale was a key figure in the nascent militia movement, through which he connected future Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler with Swift. When Swift died, Butler became the leader of Swift’s church and moved it to Idaho. Aryan Nations developed an extensive network, affiliating with various extremist organizations, including neo-Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, and militia groups. Butler’s annual Aryan World Congress gatherings drew leaders of racist and white supremacist movements, serving to expand the group’s influence and integrate violent strategies into their agenda.
Another major Christian Identity church, the Assembly of Christian Soldiers, was founded in Alabama in 1971 by Jessie L. Thrift, a former Grand Wizard of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. At its peak, the Assembly of Christian Soldiers organized approximately 3,000 members across 16 congregations situated in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. The group was known for its active involvement in political and social issues, engaging in protests and public demonstrations against topics like abortion, same-sex marriage, and the separation of church and state. It also used tax-exempt donations in the 1970s to financially support private, all-white segregated schools in its areas of operation.
Christian Identity rejects the label “antisemitic,” arguing that its practitioners are the true Semites, while modern Jews are descendants of the Canaanites. They advocate for racial segregation, opposing interracial marriage, citing Old Testament passages like Ezra 9:2 and Nehemiah 13:27 as God’s injunctions against it. Christian Identity’s eschatology is millennialist and conspiratorial, predicting a race war or a Jewish-backed United Nations takeover of the U.S. Christian Identity doctrine also asserts that paper money is the “root of all evil,” and that usury and banking systems are controlled by Jews. They quote Ezekiel 18:13, which condemns usury, as justification for killing Jews.
Christian Identity received little mainstream notice until 1984, when The Order, a neo-Nazi terrorist group whose members gathered at a Christian Identity church, embarked on a murderous crime spree. The Order, also known as Brüder Schweigen (Silent Brotherhood), was founded by Robert Jay Mathews and inspired by and named for the fictional racist group at the core of William Pierce’s influential white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries. The Order financed its operations through a series of escalating criminal activities, initially targeting individuals like pimps and drug dealers, and later moving to counterfeiting and bank robberies. In a five-month span in 1984, it stole over $4 million. In June 1984, The Order assassinated Alan Berg, a Jewish talk radio host who was a vocal critic of right-wing extremism. A member of The Order who had been arrested for passing counterfeit money chose to cooperate with authorities, and Mathews died in a shootout with the FBI in December of that year, leading to the demise of the group.
Though Christian Identity experienced a peak during the 1980s and 1990s through groups like Aryan Nations and its association with individuals like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the movement has seen a decline in traditional membership since the early 2000s due to law enforcement actions, civil litigation like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s successful 2000 judgment against Aryan Nations, and the deaths of key leaders. Following Butler’s death in 2004, the group fractured into several splinter factions, which diminished its cohesion and ability to operate as a unified entity.
Despite this decline, Christian Identity persists, making use of new media outlets. Christian Identity proselytizers first turned to blogging before moving on to podcasting and dissemination through platforms like Rumble and Telegram.
Key Sources:
Barkun, M. (2014). Religion and the racist right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. UNC Press Books.
Burlein, A. (2002). Lift high the cross: Where White Supremacy and the Christian Right Converge. Duke University Press.
Davis, D. W. (2010). The Phinehas Priesthood: Violent Vanguard of the Christian Identity Movement. Praeger.
Lewis, J., Wexler, S., & Tyler, M.B. (2024). Christian Identity Reborn: The evolution and Revitalization of an Antisemitic Theology. The George Washington University Program on Extremism.
Quarles, C. L. (2004). Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion. McFarland.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2025, May 22). Christian Identity.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 