Editing Christian Identity (section)

===Early influences===
British Israelism can be traced back to Great Britain in the 1600s, but in terms of its relationship to Christian Identity, a key text was ''Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin'' by John Wilson (1840).{{Sfn|Davis|2010|p=11}} Wilson was the first to formalize a distinction between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. Although Wilson's views were not originally antisemitic, they came to have great significance for modern Christian Identity adherents who believe that the northern tribes were carried off by the Assyrians and remained racially pure as they migrated into modern Europe, while the southern kingdom eventually became allied with Satan.{{Sfn|Davis|2010|p=11}}

In the 1920s, the writings of [[Howard Rand]] (1889–1991) began to have an influence.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|p=27}} Considered a transitional figure from British Israelism to Christian Identity rather than its actual founder,{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|p=30}} Rand is known for coining the term "Christian Identity".{{Sfn|Davis|2010|p=18}} Rand's father raised him as a British Israelite, introducing him to [[J. H. Allen]]'s work ''Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright'' (1902) by offering him five dollars {{USDCY|5.00|1920}}{{void|Fabrickator|comment|no precise date but presumably not later than 1924}} if he would read it and write a report on it.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|p=29}} Around 1924, Rand began to claim that the Jews are descended from [[Esau]] or the [[Canaanites]] rather than the tribe of Judah, although not going so far as to advocate the "serpent seed" doctrine.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|pp=45–54}}

During the late 1920s, Anglo-Israelite writers began to compile research from 19th century writers [[Dominick McCausland]], [[Alexander Winchell]], and [[Ethel Bristowe]], using them to develop five basic beliefs that would become the core tenets of Christian Identity doctrine. These were that Adamites represented Aryans as the chosen, that [[person of color|nonwhites]] were tainted through race-mixing, that the serpent in the story of the Fall was not a reptile, but the Devil himself, that the [[Serpent seed|seedline of Cain]] came through a union of Satan (the serpent) and Eve, and that the Jews were descended from this unholy line and thus had a natural propensity for evil.{{Sfn|Davis|2010|pp=17–18}}

In 1933, Rand founded the [[Anglo-Saxon Federation of America]], an organization which began to promote the view that the Jews are not descended from Judah. Beginning in May 1937, there were key meetings of British Israelites in the United States who were attracted to this theory, and these meetings provided the catalyst for the eventual emergence of Christian Identity. By the late 1930s, the group's members considered Jews to be the offspring of Satan and [[Demonization|demonized]] them, and they also demonized non-Caucasian races.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|p=140}} Rand, however, rejected the satanic origin theories. This doctrine came to confirm the explicit separation between British-Israelism and Christian Identity.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|p=174}}

Links between Christian Identity and the [[Ku Klux Klan]] were also forged in the late 1930s, but by then, the KKK was past the peak of its early twentieth-century revival.{{Sfn|Barkun|2014|pp=60–85}}