Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

266 • IDENTITY CHRISTIANITYpopulism, and a postmillennialist version of Anglo-Israelism thathas become a major ideological inspiration for extreme right-wingterrorist groups operating in North America.In the 18th century, the Englishman Richard Brothers developedthe Anglo-Israelite doctrine claiming that the true Israelites werenot contemporary Jews but rather people of the northern Europeannations, and especially the British, who supposedly were descendedfrom the northern “lost” tribes of Israel deported by the Assyrians inthe eighth century B.C. This doctrine was modified by some Americansto identify North America rather than Britain as being the newpromised land. The modern form of Identity Christianity that grewout of Anglo-Israelism was first propounded during the Depressionera by a nondenominational preacher, Wesley Swift, who combinedit with anti-Semitism and extreme anti-Communism defined broadlyenough to include socialists and most liberals. The modern doctrineasserts that nonwhites are descendants of “pre-Adamites” createdonly as prototypes of true humans. There are two schools of thoughtin Identity Christianity regarding the modern Jews: The “single seed”doctrine holds that modern Jews are not Israelite in origin but ratherdescendants of the people of Edom or of the Khazars, a Central Asiantribe that lived near the Caspian Sea, who converted to Judaism inthe eighth century A.D. The “dual-seed” doctrine holds that the Jewsare the descendants of a sexual union between Eve and the temptingserpent that appeared in the Garden of Eden.The postmillennialist component of Identity Christianity impliesthat the realization of God’s kingdom on Earth requires the true believers(identified with white, Identity Christians) to struggle activelyagainst the forces of darkness (identified with Jews, nonwhites, andCommunists). What distinguishes Identity Christianity from evangelicalChristian fundamentalism proper is that most evangelicals believein premillennialism, which asserts instead that the realization of God’skingdom on Earth will proceed according to an inscrutable divine planthat can neither be helped nor hindered by human political efforts. Inaddition, most evangelicals regard modern Jews as the true descendantsof the original Israelites and regard the creation of the State ofIsrael as a manifestation of God’s gracious intervention in historyfulfilling certain biblical prophecies. By contrast, most Identity Christiansregard the existence of the State of Israel as proof of a hidden,sinister conspiracy at work in the world that they must fight.