Is there anything in the Bible that justifies racism, anti-Semitism and slavery?
Most Christians would be horrified at such a idea -- but that hasn't stopped white nationalists from twisting select Bible verses toward their own ends, just as members of terrorist groups such as ISIS selectively use passages from the Koran to justify committing mass murder.
In an interview with Religion News, scholar Damon T. Barry -- who has written a book on the links between Christianity and white nationalism called Blood and Faith: Christianity in White American Nationalism -- explains how white nationalists have appropriated Christianity and used it to defend their own racist ideology as God's holy word.
Of particular importance are verses contained in Genesis that white nationalists claim outline the biblical basis of white supremacy.
"They use the Bible to teach that the Jews derive from Cain, himself the product of a sexual liaison between Eve and the Serpent in Eden, and so are biologically evil, and that the beasts of the field were non-whites created to do manual labor," Barry explains. "And they use various stories from the Bible, like the Tower of Babel, as scriptural evidence that God wants racial segregation."
Christianity isn't the only religion that white nationalists have latched onto, however, as Barry notes that some white nationalists have clung onto the Pagan beliefs associated with Norse mythology to justify white supremacy as well.
