Our History

Our tenets of faith, as a denomination, have been documented back to at least the third century Gnostic Gospels in the Gospel of Philip, a text of the New Testament apocrypha somewhere between 150 and 350 A.D. It should be noted that the Gospel of Philip is not considered a canonical book of the Bible.

The Gospel of Philip was lost and was only discovered in 1945 when an Egyptian man discovered it by accident, buried in a cave in Nag Hammadi.

According to Wikipedia: “According to Brackney (2012) and Fine (2015), the French Hugenot magistrate M. le Loyer’s The Ten Lost Tribes, published in 1590, provided the first expression that “Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic, and associated cultures”[6] were direct descendants of the ancient Israelites.[1] Anglo-Israelism has also been attributed to Francis Drake and James VI and I,[6] who believed he was the King of Israel.[1] Adriaan van Schrieck (1560-1621), who influenced Henry Spelman (1562-1641) and John Sadler (1615-1674), wrote in the early 17th century about his ideas on the origins of the Celtic and Saxon peoples. In 1649, Sadler published The Rights of the Kingdom, “which argues for an ‘Israelite genealogy for the British people'”.[6]

Aspects of British Israelism and its influences have also been traced to Richard Brothers’ A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times in 1794, John Wilson’s Our Israelitish Origin (1840s), and John Pym Yeatman’s The Shemetic Origin of the Nations of Western Europe (1879).”

The tenets of our faith were well known to the men and women who came to colonize the United States. Most presidents allude to John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.”

It is also known as the “Shining City on a Hill speech.” The sentence in that sermon quoted most often is:

“For we must consider that we shall be as a “city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

A few things that are left out are quotes like the following:

“First, in regard of the more near bond of marriage between Him and us, wherein He has taken us to be His after a most strict and peculiar manner which will make Him the more jealous of our love and obedience. So He tells the people of Israel: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your transgressions.

…Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into Covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord has given us leave to draw our own articles; we have professed to enterprise these actions upon these and these ends; we have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then has He ratified this Covenant and sealed our commission, [and] will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it.”

The reference to the “bond of marriage between Him and us” deals with the marriage of God to his people, Israel (Exodus 19: 8) wherein the punishment for transgression deals with God’s divorce of Israelites (which are to be reunited and “remarried” to God.)

The “Covenant” refers to the Mosaic Covenant that God made with Abraham. This sermon shows that our founders were well aware of their Israelitish origins and destiny.

The faith grew steadily with several major factions, but in 1890 the Anglo Israel Association had acquired 300 members and its founder, George Moore, came to the United States in order to spread the Gospel.

By 1914 Anglo Israelites had started referring to its groups as Kingdom Identity groups and their Anglo Israel Almanac boasted of groups all over the world, including the United States.

Again, Wikipedia sums up the history from here pretty well:

In 1919, the British-Israel-World Federation (BIWF) was founded in London, and Covenant Publishing was founded in 1922. William Pascoe Goard was the first director of the publishing house. During this time, several prominent figures patronized the BIWF organization and its publisher; Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was Patron-in-chief in pre-World War II days. One of the highest profile members was William Massey, then Prime Minister of New Zealand. Due to the expansive nature of the British Empire, believers in British Israelism spread worldwide and the BIWF expanded its organization to the commonwealth. Howard Rand promoted the teaching and became National Commissioner of the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America in 1928. He published The Bulletin, later renamed The Messenger of the Covenant. More recently, it has been renamed Destiny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

Since then various factions of the original have operated, the most popular being the Worldwide Church of God under the late Herbert W. Armstrong. The oldest of the churches is the Christian Israelite Church founded by John Wroe in 1822 which is a single seedline denomination.

Howard B. Rand was the leader of the Anglo Saxon Federation of America and was also the editor of Destiny Magazine from 1937 to 1968.

Rand evolved into a believer of the dual seedline belief (though his earlier books may not reflect it as much as his later material.) Dual seedline maintains that Satan has a physical presence on this earth whereas Anglo Israelism taught Satan was merely a spiritual being.

Rand was a predecessor to Bertrand Comparet. Comparet, a Stanford Graduate, attorney, former assistant district attorney in San Diego and deputy city attorney for San Diego began preaching his message in “Kingdom Identity” groups along with Wesley Swift where they attracted the attention of James K. Warner, William Potter Gale and Richard Butler.

Of that was born a “movement” called Christian Identity. Comparet, Swift and Warner were content with the Kingdom Identity message and Comparet even started the American Institute of Theology Bible Course with the help of Wesley Swift. While that course is the main training for Kingdom Identity, the movement of Christian Identity (which is a movement) has tried to copy the basic message and now all forms of ideologies permeate the “Christian Identity” movement as contrasted from Kingdom Identity.

The Anglo Israelite Church (DS) seeks to become a separate denomination incorporating the ideologies of the earliest founders of Anglo Israelite churches and those works of Howard B. Rand, Bertrand Comparet, Wesley Swift and others who influenced the tenets of our faith. In short we are much like the original Anglo Israelite congregations, but emphasize the Dual Seedline ideology of a real Satan and a real Hell for unrepentant sinners.