Christian Identity Reborn: The Evolution and Revitalization of an Antisemitic Theology

By Stuart Wexler,  Jon Lewis,  Jessa Mellea,  M.B. Tyler

This report traces the evolution of the Christian Identity milieu in the United States. From its origins in 19th-century Great Britain through its subsequent transnational spread, the Christian Identity movement has long enjoyed a small but fanatical following within the American far right. A racist and antisemitic theology whose followers believe that white people are God’s chosen ones, the Christian Identity ideology has long influenced a wide range of white supremacist and anti-government extremist movements in the United States.[1] Christian Identity militants have engaged in terrorist violence since at least the late 1950s, working under the idea that God will endorse an end-times racial holy war against “demonic” Jews and the sub-human minority groups they have manipulated for centuries.[2] In contextualizing the Christian Identity movement within the broader domestic violent extremist landscape, this report finds that Christian Identity militants often sought to downplay their apocalyptic, genocidal goals to infiltrate, appropriate, and influence more “mainstream” religious extremists, enabling individuals like white Christian nationalists to engage in provocative acts of dangerous violence. In assessing this movement, this report examines the prevalence of two well-worn tactics used by Christian Identity extremists — propaganda of the deed and entryism — and offers a new strategy of necessity evidenced by the movement: co-optive extremism. Through this effort, this report argues that Christian Identity extremists are likely to attempt co-optive extremism to manipulate or provoke larger and more robust (but less outwardly violent) groups, such as militant, white Christian nationalists, into potential acts of mass violence. It also explores the modern strands of Christian Identity ideology that has emerged in a range of domestic extremist movements and ideologies as a result of the mainstreaming of antisemitism within this ecosystem.    

Washington DC:  Program on Extremism at George Washington University, 2024. 37p.