The short version
Six things, one minute. Click a card or a tab for more.
TL;DR
- What it is: a racist religion dressed as Christianity. It says white Europeans are the real Israelites, God's chosen people.
- About Jews: its "two-seed" teaching says Jews descend from Satan through Cain. The ADL sums it up: "all Jews, therefore, are children of the devil, literally demonic."
- About everyone else: non-white people are taught to be "pre-Adamic," made before Adam, with no souls, called "mud peoples."
- It armed a movement: Aryan Nations, The Order, the CSA and the "Phineas Priesthood" all grew from it. Murders, bombings and robberies followed.
- It is small: 2,000 to 50,000 believers by scholars' counts, and the SPLC lists 10 groups in 2025.
- Why watch: its words keep leaking into wider white power, Klan and online accelerationist circles.
Real movement
Founded on Wesley Swift's 1940s church, carried on by Aryan Nations.
Real doctrine
Jews as Satan's children, non-whites without souls. Taught openly.
Real killings
A radio host murdered in 1984, children shot at a Jewish centre in 1999.
Real limits
Sued into bankruptcy in 2000. Ten groups left. Mainstream churches reject it.
This page is about one racist religious movement. It is not about Christians or Christianity as a whole; Christian Identity rejects mainstream churches and they reject it.
Who they are
An American offshoot of "British Israelism," turned into a theology of race war.
The father: Wesley Swift
A former Foursquare minister. In the 1940s he started a church in Lancaster, California, later renamed the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (1957). Scholar Michael Barkun calls him the "central figure" of the movement until his death in 1970.
The FBI watched Swift and his protege William Potter Gale. People around them were suspected in assassination plots, including against Dr. King.
Wesley Swift, 1951. Image: Wikipedia.
📜 1920s to 1930s
Grows out of British Israelism. Howard Rand, who founded the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America in 1933, is credited with the name "Christian Identity."
⛪ 1957
Swift's church takes the name Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Aryan Nations still uses it.
🏔️ 1973 to 2001
Richard Butler moves the church to Idaho and builds Aryan Nations as its "paramilitary wing," with a compound near Hayden Lake.
👥 Today
Small independent churches, online preachers, and some prison gangs. The Aryan Brotherhood follows Identity but puts crime first.
Richard Butler and Aryan Nations
Butler mixed Identity with Nazism. From 1981 he hosted a yearly "Aryan Nations World Congress" at the compound. The RAND Corporation called the group the "first truly nationwide terrorist network" in the US and Canada; the FBI called it a "terrorist threat" in 2001. Butler died in 2004.
Richard Butler at his Aryan Nations church, 1984. Image: Wikipedia.
How many?
ADL, 2017
"A low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000" in North America, probably nearer the low end.
Barkun, 2014
2,000 to 50,000 adherents in the US.
SPLC, 2025
10 Christian Identity groups listed. The number is "stagnant."
In their own words
This is the doctrine, as its teachers put it and as the researchers who track them record it.
🐍 "Two-seed": Jews as Satan's children
The teaching: the serpent in Eden fathered Cain with Eve, and the Jews descend from Cain. So Jews are not God's people but Satan's. The SPLC: Jews are "descendants of the devil." The ADL: "all Jews, therefore, are children of the devil, literally demonic."
Barkun calls Swift's version, that non-whites and Jews are the "biological offspring" of Satan, "the most distinctive element" of the theology.
Rubens, Cain Slaying Abel. Image: Wikipedia.
🧬 Non-whites: "mud peoples"
Adam was white. Other races were made before him, "pre-Adamic." Swift taught they have no souls and cannot be saved. Seedliners call them "mud peoples."
🏦 The banks
"Most of the owners of the largest banks in America are of Eastern European (Jewish) ancestry." Identity preacher Sheldon Emry.
⚔️ The end times
No rapture. The ADL: the apocalypse is a racial battle, and believers expect to fight it.
📣 Pete Peters
The SPLC says this Colorado pastor's writings and events "glorified violence against Jews and other 'undesirables.'"
🗡️ The "Phineas Priesthood"
In his 1990 book Vigilantes of Christendom, Richard Kelly Hoskins used Numbers 25, where Phinehas kills an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, to justify violence against mixed-race couples. "Phineas actions" now names attacks on mixed-race and same-sex couples, abortion clinics and Jews.
Jeremias van Winghe, Phinehas slaying Zimri and Kozbi. Image: Wikipedia.
What they have done
Dated, documented, and tied to Identity believers or Identity-based groups.
The Order, 1983 to 1984
Founded by Robert Jay Mathews, with Aryan Nations ties. Armoured car robberies took $4.1 million, $3.8 million from one near Ukiah, California. Mathews died in a shootout and fire on Whidbey Island on 8 Dec 1984. Ten members were convicted under racketeering law.
Robert Mathews at an Aryan Nations meeting, June 1983. Image: Wikipedia.
18 Jun 1984: Alan Berg
The Jewish Denver radio host was shot dead outside his home by Order members. Bruce Pierce fired the gun. He got 252 years; David Lane got 190.
Alan Berg. Image: Wikipedia.
Feb 1983
Posse Comitatus member Gordon Kahl kills two federal marshals. He becomes a martyr to the movement.
1985
David Tate, an Identity believer in The Order, kills a Missouri State Highway Patrol officer.
1996, Spokane
"Phineas" bombers hit a Planned Parenthood clinic and The Spokesman-Review newspaper and rob banks. Three got life sentences.
10 Aug 1999, Los Angeles
Ex-Aryan Nations guard Buford Furrow shoots five, including three small children, at a Jewish centre, then kills postal worker Joseph Ileto.
⚖️ Bankrupted in court
Sept 2000: an Idaho jury found Butler and Aryan Nations "grossly negligent" after guards attacked Victoria Keenan and her son. $6.3 million. Butler went bankrupt; the compound was lost and later became a peace park.
⚖️ Not every charge stuck
At the Fort Smith sedition trial, 13 of 14 white supremacist leaders were acquitted and the 14th had charges dropped.
Now, and what online gets wrong
Fewer churches, more podcasts. The ideas outlive the groups.
2025: stagnant
SPLC: 10 groups. Kingdom Identity Ministries is collapsing after its leader's death and may have folded into the Sons of YHVH.
2025: online
SPLC: active on Telegram, Bitchute, Rumble and X. Wikipedia names William Finck as today's best-known teacher.
2025: spreading
SPLC: its rhetoric shows up more in Christian nationalist and neo-Confederate circles, with growing overlap with Klan groups.
2020s: accelerationists
Wikipedia: some accelerationist cells, including Terrorgram and the Atomwaffen-aligned "Angelwaffen" crew, follow an Identity strain.
Myths online
🗣️ "Christian Identity is just Christianity"
Online posts mix it up with ordinary churches or with Christian nationalism in general.
✅ Fact
It is a separate racist theology with its own Bible readings. Christian nationalists are a wider, different group, though the SPLC sees Identity talk leaking into some of their circles.
🗣️ "It's a huge hidden army"
Posts make it sound massive and organised.
✅ Fact
Scholars count thousands, not millions, and 10 groups in 2025. The danger is lone believers, not an army.
Why watch
It turns hate into a religious duty. That is what makes a lone believer dangerous.
🙏 Murder as worship
The Phineas idea tells a believer that killing is a priestly act, not a crime.
🧩 The glue
The ADL says its reach goes well past its own churches into Klan, neo-Nazi, militia and sovereign citizen groups.
📱 Easy to find
Sermons and podcasts sit on mainstream and fringe platforms, ready for someone looking for a reason.
Red flags to watch for
🚩 "Two-seed" or "serpent seed" talk: Jews as children of Satan or Cain.
🚩 Claims that white Europeans are the "true Israel."
🚩 Calling non-white people "pre-Adamic," "soulless" or "mud people."
🚩 Praise for "Phineas" or for Furrow, The Order, or Mathews.
🚩 End-times talk framed as a coming race war.
🚩 Sermons, podcasts or Telegram channels mixing Bible verses with Nazi symbols.
Bottom line
A small, old movement with a body count. Its teaching that Jews are Satan's children and non-whites have no souls is not hidden; it is the core of the faith. The groups have shrunk and been sued into ruin, but the sermons are online and the "Phineas" idea needs only one reader.
Hayden Lake, Idaho. Image: Wikipedia.