Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement

While I highly enjoyed this book and found it meticulously, yet engagingly, researched, I will try to refrain from repeating what other reviewers have already stated. What I would like to add, is that I was unexpectedly impressed with the tortuous connections Barkun unearthed between the Identity/British-Israel sects/movements and other strains of Protestants and Pentecostals. I felt that I learned not only about Identity, but also gained a wider perspective on America's colorful religious history. Barkun also did an admirable job of maintaining a degree of objectivity and emotional distance from his subject, preventing a preachy or moralistic tone from overwhelming the book.

"Religion and the Racist Right" traces the origins and development of the Christian Identity movement, a particularly virulent strain of racist theology that constitutes the religious undergirding of many violence prone white supremacists groups on the radical right of our political culture. These are groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the Order, the Posse Comitatus, and the Militias. The author, Michael Barkun, also argues that Identity doctrine is conspicuous within the circles of David Duke supporters. Mr. Barkun finds the origin of Identity within a distant and little known 19th century religious movement called British Israelism. This movement emerged from within Victorian English Protestant circles and claimed that the British were descendants of the "lost ten tribes" of Israel. Barkun then asks, and sets about to answer the question as to how this rather curious notion devolved into the three central religious doctrines of Christian Identity; first and most important, that the Jews are the literal biological offspring of Satan who have from the beginning of time been engaged in a cosmic conspiracy to rob the white race of its birthright as the true "chosen people of God"; that the white "Aryans" are descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel; and that the world is on the verge of a final, apocalyptic struggle between good and evil, in which Aryans do battle with the Jewish conspiracy and its allies so that the world can be redeemed. The question is important because, as Mr. Barkun argues, these strange ideas are at the heart of much of the political activity of the radical right. They serve as religious justification for the conspiratorial paranoia so prominent among Identity followers. Over time, Identity writers have elaborated on the extent of this conspiracy's malevolence and cunning. They portray it as reaching into every facet of American life, the churches, universities and mass media, but particularly the Federal government. "A worldview premised upon such ideas sees politics in confrontational terms, with choices that range from disengagement to violent overthrow." In the introduction Mr. Barkun describes the development of Identity as a strange story that "unfolds in a subculture few know,.. where deviant religion, spurious scholarship, and radical politics intersect". This might be regarded as an apt description of how the book reads. It is like reading a well crafted mystery novel in which the many clues from diverse sources painstakingly build toward answering the question of how this deadly ideology ever emerged. The book is devided into three parts. Part one pieces together the development of British Israelism with a focus on three main aspects: its' origins and consolidation as a social movement up to the mid 19th century in England, its racial explanations for its central idea and the early development of its' anti-Semitism and millenariansim, and its

This is really the only complete history of the Christian Identity movement, a modern descendent of the anglo-centric British Israelism movement of the late 19th century. Identity is the overtly racist religion practiced by Aryan Nations, the Freemen, and many other fringe White Supremacist movements. Among the beliefs subscribed to by a variety of Identity groups are that Jews are descendents of Satan, and that all non-Whites are descendents of sub-human "beasts of the field" created before Adam and Eve. Identity believers claim that they are the "remnant" of the lost tribes of Israel, and will have dominion over the earth after a racist holy war in which God will smite all their enemies. This is a fascinating book that sheds light on an obscure and shadowy movement that has united many disparate elements of the racist fringe for the past couple of decades. I could't put it down! While Identity has been covered in passing in other books or articles, nobody has researched and explained this movement quite like Barkun, a professor of Political Science at Syracuse. Tad Cook

This is really the only complete history of the Christian Identity movement, a modern descendent of the anglo-centric British Israelism movement of the late 19th century. Identity is the overtly racist religion practiced by Aryan Nations, the Freemen, and many other fringe White Supremacist movements. Among the beliefs subscribed to by a variety of Identity groups are that Jews are descendents of Satan, and that all non-Whites are descendents of sub-human "beasts of the field" created before Adam and Eve. Identity believers claim that they are the "remnant" of the lost tribes of Israel, and will have dominion over the earth after a racist holy war in which God will smite all their enemies. This is a fascinating book that sheds light on an obscure and shadowy movement that has united many disparate elements of the racist fringe for the past couple of decades. I could't put it down! While Identity has been covered in passing in other books or articles, nobody has researched and explained this movement quite like Barkun, a professor of Political Science at Syracuse. Tad Cook

This is really the only complete history of the Christian Identity movement, a modern descendent of the anglo-centric British Israelism movement of the late 19th century. Identity is the overtly racist religion practiced by Aryan Nations, the Freemen, and many other fringe White Supremacist movements. Among the beliefs subscribed to by a variety of Identity groups are that Jews are descendents of Satan, and that all non-Whites are descendents of sub-human "beasts of the field" created before Adam and Eve. Identity believers claim that they are the "remnant" of the lost tribes of Israel, and will have dominion over the earth after a racist holy war in which God will smite all their enemies. This is a fascinating book that sheds light on an obscure and shadowy movement that has united many disparate elements of the racist fringe for the past couple of decades. I could't put it down! While Identity has been covered in passing in other books or articles, nobody has researched and explained this movement quite like Barkun, a professor of Political Science at Syracuse.