Japheth and the White Supremacy at the Heart of Christian Nationalism
Bill Grady travels the United States spreading two Christian doctrines: Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy.
The two doctrines are united in the racist interpretation of the enlargement of Japheth and the Curse of Ham.
The basic definition of Christian Nationalism is deceptively simple: Christian Nationalism is the belief that America is a Christian nation, not a culturally diverse secular democracy.
In the abstract, if you’re a Christian, and you’re inclined to believe that Christians are just a bunch of people who like to pray and go to church on Sundays, the idea that the United States is a Christian nation may not seem very troubling.
There is a greater trouble within Christian Nationalism, however. It comes from the origin of the belief that the USA is a Christian Nation. It doesn’t begin with the founding fathers, or the Declaration of Independence, or any of that.
It begins in the Christian bible, in the book of Genesis.
Christian Nationalism is not just a generic attempt to use the power of the federal government to promote Christianity above all other religions. Christian Nationalism is a religious doctrine that arises out of a profoundly racist reading of the Christian bible.
There are people who claim that Christian Nationalism is an imposter Christianity, that Christian Nationalists are fake Christians. The racist Christian ideology that fuels Christian Nationalism isn’t a new invention, however. It’s part of a centuries-old Christian tradition that was accepted as literal historical truth by most Christians until science and secular historians proved it was a load of nonsense.
This doctrine is known as the Curse of Ham, and Christian Nationalists link it with the founding of the United States of America.
Last month, Bill Grady, an evangelist who preaches at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee, defending this racist doctrine in a recent sermon. Grady said,
“The race card, everybody jumps. It is a bible position. When you push, when you attack white people for white privilege and white power and white this and white that, listen, that’s an attack on god. He said the Europeans were going to be the folks that were going to run the world one day, and it was ultimately to get energized spiritually, to get the gospel to the world. I mean, that’s, who, who, who sends more missionaries out than America? Britain used to, and now it’s America. That’s the plan that god had way back in Genesis 9.”
For the record, chapter 9 in the book of Genesis says nothing at all about a prophecy that Europeans are going to rule the world.
Genesis chapter 9 does say that Noah liked to get drunk and lay around naked a lot, and that he lived to be 950 years old. What that has to do with Europeans ruling the Earth, it’s difficult for most people to figure out.
If you were raised in Christian Nationalist circles, however, the connection will seem obvious to you. Bill Grady was making a reference to a centuries-old belief that three sons of Noah became the fathers of all the people of Europe, Asia, and Africa. One son, named Japheth, was believed to have been the ancestor of all Europeans. Another son, named Ham, was believed to have been the ancestor of all Africans. The third son, Shem, was supposed to be the ancestor of all Asians.
According to this belief, Ham was cursed by Noah, and as a consequence of that curse, all the descendants of Ham were categorized by the Christian god as an inferior race that should be owned as slaves. This story, embroidered from chapter 9 of the Genesis, was one of the Bible verses used by Christians in the American South to justify their practice of slavery.
This belief is completely unsupported by historical and scientific evidence, of course. There was no Japheth, no Ham, no Noah from who all the people of the world were descended living just a few thousand years ago. There is no evidence that these people ever existed. To say that these people were anything more than mythological characters is willful ignorance. Willful ignorance, however, is often a significant element in what some people like to call faith.
The sermon by Bill Grady was worse than just factually wrong. It was ideologically malicious. Bill Grady uses the doctrine of the Curse of Ham to teach Christian congregations that their racial prejudices are divinely inspired and morally righteous.
Bill Grady travels around the United States, preaching in churches to spread his Christian Nationalist theology, and he preaches his message of white supremacy over and over again. He’s obsessed with it.
Bill Grady says that to deny white supremacy is to deny the Christian god. In his view, white supremacy isn’t a problem. It’s a promise made in the Christian bible. Bill Grady believes it’s okay for Christians to be racist because the Christian god is himself a racist. He draws this connection explicitly in a separate sermon given in May 2022 at the Clover Hill Baptist Church in Chesterfield, Virginia.
“God said he was going to enlarge Japheth, not Shem, and not Ham. That’s a hate crime. All people aren’t the same. God was going to use Japeth’s descendants as the enlarged race, and that’s what all these charges of white supremacy and white privilege, if you’ve got a problem with that, go talk to god. He put that in the bible a long time ago. But, you’ve got to get the spiritual explanation for it that you never hear anybody talking about.”
Bill Grady dismisses complaints of white supremacy as irrelevant because, according to him, white supremacy is biblical. If you have a problem with white supremacists, he says, you have a problem with the Christian god. As far as Bill Grady is concerned, upholding Christianity is more important than upholding basic human decency. So, because he believes that his god tells him white people are naturally entitled to power, he’ll go along with the racist agenda, and spread it to his followers.
This racist Christian theology is not just a problem with Bill Grady, of course. White supremacy is rife in American churches, especially in those that align with Christian Nationalism. Preachers like Bill Grady have been teaching the doctrine of the Curse of Ham for generations.
Christian Nationalism is inevitably racist because it is based upon and obsessed with a concept of nations that is ethnically defined. The problem arises out of Christianity’s anxiety with the idea of Chosen People. Christianity is centered around the idea that there are people who have been chosen by a god to be special, to be better than everyone else. The Christian bible often frames this concept of the Chosen People as one based on ethnic identity.
The doctrine of the Curse of Ham teaches that black slaves deserved to be in chains because their ancestor, Ham, disrespected his father thousands of years ago. The same Christian Nationalist ideology teaches that the United States was founded by the Christian god as a white nation for the descendants of Japheth.
In the United States of America, this kind of national identity doesn’t make sense, because the United States is a pluralistic culture, both in terms of ethnic identity and religious identity. Many Americans are Christian, but many Americans are not. Many Americans are of European origin, but many Americans are not.
To Christian Nationalism, this pluralism is terrifying. That’s because they believe in a mythological past in which all Americans were Christians of European descent. It never was that way, but in recent decades, the diversity of Americans has been increasing. Christianity is declining. Ethnic diversity is on the rise.
Christian Nationalists can’t handle this diversity because their identity is based upon the idea that there’s only one correct way to be human. As Bill Grady’s words remind us, Christian Nationalists have been taught by their church leaders that White Christians are better than everyone else.
In this context, simple equality amongst all ethnicities and all religious identities feels like an insult to Christian Nationalists. So, they talk about Christians being persecuted, and white people being persecuted.
There’s no real persecution going on, of course. What’s happening is that white privilege and Christian privilege are no longer being universally accepted. Christian Nationalists believe that they are entitled to be given more respect, more legal rights, and more power than everyone else in America.
Christian Nationalists like Bill Grady call it “an attack on god”. The rest of us call it the right thing to do.
Racism At The Root Of Christian Nationalism
You may find yourself wondering what Bill Grady’s white supremacy has to do with Christian Nationalism in the United States. It’s a nasty racist Christian theology, to be sure, but isn’t that a separate issue? Couldn’t Christian Nationalists simply remove the white supremacism of Bill Grady and just support a more simple and pure version of Christian Nationalism that rejects racism?
Unfortunately, separating white supremacist racism out from Christian Nationalism isn’t possible. The reason is that Christian Nationalism and Christian white supremacy have their theological foundation in the very same part of the Christian bible: Chapter 9 of Genesis.
In a sermon at the Victory Baptist Church in Clarkston, Michigan just five days after the January 6, 2021 Christian Nationalist insurrection in Washington D.C., Bill Grady explained how white supremacism and Christian Nationalism have the same origin in the Christian bible. He said,
“People ask: Can you find America in the bible? I can find America in genesis and I can find America in Revelation. One scripture, then we’ll pray and jump into things, verse number 27, ‘God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant. Can you find America in the bible? Genesis 9 verse 27 is the greatest place to find America. It really is.
God shall enlarge Japheth. Now what does that mean? Most of you have been saved for long enough that you know what that’s all about. After the flood was over, Noah and his three sons and their wives came out of the boat up their, and they hung around there, and their descendants hung around.
They went off Mount Ararat in three different directions. Japheth, that’s the one son, he goes up north up into Russia and west into Europe, all the way across Europe, eventually crossing into England through the English Channel, then all the way across the ocean to this, to North America. So if you, if your parents are European, I mean, you’re a descendant of Japheth, okay?
In 1783, this was by the second president of Yale, Dr. Ezra Styles, a Christian man. Ready? ‘Heaven has provided this country, not indeed derelict, but only partially settled, and consequently open for the reception of a new enlargement of Japheth.’ Christians have believed what I just told you forever. Modern day Christians are just dumb and scared of their own shadows, and they, and every time someone says ‘Boo,’ they jump, and they’re scared of standing with what the scriptures are teaching.
God said he was going to take the white man, duh, and do something special with him. That’s the idea.
Oh, that’s where I thought he was going! See? A bunch of wimps!
Let me read you the rest of this quote. It’s mind-blowing. ‘America, Europe was settled by Japheth. America is settling from Europe, and perhaps this second enlargement bids fair to surpass the first. In two or three hundred years, this second enlargement may cover America with a population of three hundred million.’ That’s quite a prophecy that was wound up being fulfilled to almost the number. ‘The United States may be two hundred million souls, whites. Can we contemplate their present and anticipate their future increase and not be struck with astonishment to find ourselves in the midst of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Noah?’”
Bill Grady’s analysis is based on false history and superstition, but he shows why it’s impossible to separate Christian Nationalism from white supremacist ideology. The two ideologies have an identical theological origin within Christianity. They come from a racist interpretation of the ancient writings of Genesis as a prophecy of American history rather than a mythological rendering of a prehistoric Jewish past.
Those who claim that Christian Nationalism is not Christian are engaged in wishful thinking. Bill Grady’s racist nationalism is cruel and insane, but it is also based on a thoroughly Christian worldview, relying on Christian texts and Christian doctrines. It’s not shamanism, Hinduism, or atheism that inspired Bill Grady’s hatred. His white supremacism is located firmly within Christianity.
Christian Nationalism arises from the Christian belief that the United States is somehow an outgrowth of ancient Middle Eastern desert prophecies rather than a product of the Enlightenment and politics within the British Empire. It’s an elaborate fantasy that supposes that Jewish people living many thousands of years ago, who didn’t even know about the existence of the British Isles, much less North America, nonetheless were having magical adventures just so that United States could be created, and then destroyed, because there could be no other way for the Christian god to enact his elaborate themes.
It's a conspiracy theory of epic proportions, and more than just a little bit crazy, but it’s been maintained through the efforts by Christian Nationalists over the generations who prefer to see themselves as characters in an archaic mystery cult rather than as ordinary human beings. Democracy is absent from Christian Nationalist ideology because democracy is foreign to the mindset of the Christian bible, obsessed as it is with conquest through war and the power of kings.
The Christian Nationalism represented in Bill Grady’s sermons was also present in the cruel ideology of Manifest Destiny, which treated North America as a new Canaan, a divinely promised land that just so happened to be already occupied by indigenous people. It’s a Christian ideology that operates completely outside of the authority of human law, under the pretense that whenever political leaders claim to have been given authority by invisible spirits, they can do whatever they want, because prophecy always trumps government of the people.
So it is that the enslavement and subsequent oppression of people with African ancestry, the genocide of North American indigenous people, and Christian Nationalism always go together. Christian Nationalism is never only about using the power of the government to force everyone in America to practice Christianity. In all its forms, Christian Nationalism fuels white supremacy, even when racism is not explicitly present, because Christian claims to power in the United States are rooted in Christian doctrines that also justify white supremacy.
So, when children in public schools are forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with its claim of One Nation Under God, they are being indoctrinated in a white supremacist ideology. When Americans are forced to implicitly agree with the statement In God We Trust whenever they want to use money, they are pulled into a ritual celebration of racism. When there are Christian prayers at the beginning of government meetings, the government is positioned as a defender of white privilege. Whenever government and Christianity are mixed in America, the consequence is the strengthening of racist oppression.
Nazi Conspiracy Theories About Jews Rife In Christian Nationalism
White supremacy is never just targeted at a single group. So it is that the racism of Christian Nationalism doesn’t just aim to oppress African-Americans and indigenous groups. It targets Jews as well.
Toward the end of his sermon in the Clarkston church, Bill Grady proudly declared himself to be a racist. In a tirade that slipped into antisemitism, Grady said:
“What a bunch of filthy animal hypocrite people. Brother Grady’s a racist. You know what the word ‘racist’ means if you look it up in the dictionary? Do you know what the word ‘racist’ means? In shows up in 1902 for the first time in the English language in the Oxford Dictionary, and this is what it says: ‘The belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one.’ If you believe that, what I just told you about Japheth is different from the other two lines of people, then you’re a racist if you believe that’s true. You’ve got to believe that they’re all the same. Huh? Have we got any racists here in the building tonight? You’re forced to believe this.
But see, most Christians tonight are scared to death about this subject, and they won’t defend the King James bible. They call themselves bible believers. They’re going to deny Genesis 9:27 is in the bible. Do you know that that’s what god told you to look for to know that you’re in the last days, this winnowing out thing now that’s starting to happen here? Second Timothy chapter 4 verse 3 tells you that times will come when they will not endorse sound doctrine. Saved people won’t endure what the bible teaches. It’s too politically incorrect.
Do you think all the races, all the races are the same? Are you on drugs? Can I read you what god said about, how about if you hear what, you’re going to hear what god said. Well, he’s a racist too?
How about when it comes to money? How many of you have ever been, how many of you have ever been into a pawn shop where the owner was a black dude and the guy trying to pawn something was a jew? Anybody home? How many, are you learning anything? You think blacks and jews or whites and jews even, normal gentiles and a jew are on the same level when it comes to handling money? You think we’re all the same?
God gave the jew a supernatural ability to make money. Duh!
Ruckman used to say the reason gentiles hate jews so much is because gentiles love money and jews know how to make it. God just made them that way. You can’t, you can’t mess with a jew when it comes to money. You’ve got to be crazy to think that.
You know why the jews wandered 40 years in the wilderness in Moses? Because somebody lost a quarter. You remember hearing that joke? These jokes are in our culture for a reason.”
What did people at the Victory Baptist Church in Clarkston, Michigan do in response to this blatantly racist and antisemitic sermon? They didn’t stand up and walk out in protest. They applauded.
“What a blessing,” one church member said in response to Bill Grady’s racism and antisemitism. “Love you, sir,” another said to Grady. Pastor Bob Nogalski, who runs the church, put Grady’s sermon online with the comment, “It is our great desire that you will be blessed and challenged by these messages. God has blessed us through them, and we expect that you will be as well.”
The “Ruckman” that Bill Grady referred to over and over again in his sermon was Peter Ruckman, founder of the Pensacola Bible Institute. For his entire career, Ruckman was an infamous racist who campaigned in favor of racial segregation. Ruckman once wrote, “Every reader should study the documented works on why all Negroes have to be socialists or communists while other races do not. Negroes have to be carried. Where they are left to themselves they resort to mugging, rape, slavery, dope traffic, and eventually cannibalism.”
Yes, Peter Ruckman’s racism was so extreme that he accused African-Americans of resorting to slavery.
The leaders of Baptist churches know who Peter Ruckman was, and what he stood for. They know that when guest preachers praise Peter Ruckman, the message is one of white supremacy. Not all Baptist churches support this ideology, but too many do.
It ought to go without saying that the stereotype of Jewish people having a supernatural hunger for money is associated with Nazi propaganda. It was this Christian belief in Jewish avarice that motivated the murder of millions in the Holocaust. Unfortunately, Christian Nationalism promotes these old Nazi bigotries, because Christian Nationalism and Nazism arose from the same source: The Christian doctrine of the enlargement of Japheth and the Curse of Ham.
In right wing Christian communities, the basic reality of the Nazi Holocaust if often disputed. So, we can’t let it go without saying: Nazi ideology and Christian Nationalism are two outgrowths of the same vile cultural cancer.
The Christian Nationalist Genocide To Come
All of this talk of white supremacy from Bill Grady and his Baptist followers isn’t just an abstract hate. Bill Grady is urging his Christian Nationalist followers to begin planning for a massive slaughter of Americans who refuse to convert to Christianity.
In May of 2022, at the Victory Baptist Church in Hartland, Michigan, Bill Grady issued an unmistakable threat: He’s planning the genocide of one billion non-Christians… for a start. Grady told the congregation there,
“Outside tonight, outside of America tonight, that’s the lord fixing to straighten this country up. The wicked shall be thrown into, cast into hell, thrown into hell in all nations that forget god. You know, those first billion body bags that Revelation talks about that are going to get wiped out at the beginning of the tribulation, or the second half, you know where those body bags are going to be needed? Listen, they’re not going to be needed in China. That’s why they’re going to have a 200 million man army coming in after all those initial deaths. They’re not going to be needed in India. They’re not going to be needed in Vietnam or North Korea. They’re going to be needed in America, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Why? You’ve got a hymn book that will tell you why: ‘Let those refuse to sing who never knew our god.’ Isn’t that what the verse says in Proverbs that I quoted earlier? The wicked shall be cast into hell, thrown into hell, and all nations that what, forget god. You can’t forget someone that you never met. China never knew the god that you knew. America knew god and told god where to go now.
We’re going to be the ones filling up those body bags, because Peter reminds us that judgment must begin at the house of god, not the heathens. They don’t know any better.
They’ll get theirs later.”
There’s no gentle way to say this: Bill Grady has the same fundamental ideological presumptions as Adolf Hitler.
To be fair, Bill Grady has not taken explicit action to thrust the world into a massive war and genocide of millions.
That’s not because he wouldn’t like to.
When Bill Grady says he’s looking forward to a “billion body bags” filled with the bodies of dead non-Christian Americans, Canadians, Britons, Australians, and New Zealanders, slaughtered as punishment for refusing to follow his religion, we understand the threat.
Bill Grady and his Baptists followers are looking forward to genocide.
Bill Grady isn’t an electrifying speaker. He meanders from topic to topic in bloated sermons that last between one and two hours, filled with irrelevant asides. Bill Grady lacks the charisma and self-discipline necessary to become a new Adolf Hitler.
His ambitions are the same, however.
When Bill Grady talks about the “billion body bags” Christian Nationalists will fill with the bodies of dead non-Christians who have been slaughtered as punishment for refusing to follow his religion, it’s clear that he’s looking forward to the bloodshed. Remember how approvingly Grady spoke of the idea that the Christian god cleared North America of its indigenous inhabitants so that European settlers could seize the land for themselves in a bloody replay of the conquest of Canaan. The actual history was one of terrible genocide, but Grady doesn’t blink an eye at that. To him, the slaughter of non-Christian people is something to celebrate when it gives power to white people.
Bill Grady won’t himself be at the vanguard of Christian Nationalists leading any campaign of righteous Christian violence. There are other Christian Nationalists, however, who have the resources and more political savvy to make a genocide happen.
The idea of genocide is extreme, but Christian Nationalism in the United States has a history of genocide. Slavery and Jim Crow were Christian Nationalist projects. The genocide of indigenous peoples was as well.
Christian Nationalists have begun to take the steps that typically come before a genocide. They’ve dehumanized non-Christians, depicting them as demons or witches who deserve to die. They’ve created a media network that feeds hateful disinformation to Christian Nationalists while insulating them from alternative forms of information. They’ve established a religious culture that celebrates the firing of guns as a holy sacrament. They’ve begun dismantling the system of democratic laws and cultural expectations that would ordinarily prevent campaigns of genocidal violence from getting out of control.
Things have gotten to the point where it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility of genocide by Christian Nationalists against non-Christian Americans.
Messages of genocidal intent are coming too frequently now to ignore. Christian Nationalists are telling us exactly what they plan to do. Christian Nationalists plan to destroy America’s secular democracy and replace it with a totalitarian Christian regime that will use its power to force Americans to convert to Christian Nationalism.
Those who refuse to convert will be killed.
This isn’t a prophecy that’s destined to come true, of course. As much as Christian Nationalists like to believe in such things, the future is not predetermined by invisible magical spirits.
We can prevent the Christian Nationalist genocide from taking place. We can thwart Christian Nationalism’s plan to destroy American democracy. We can restore separation of church and state and contain violent Christian extremism.
If we’re going to stand a chance against Christian Nationalism, however, we need to act now. If we wait until the Constitution falls, it will be too late. If we wait until Christian Nationalists start firing their guns, we won’t stand a chance.
The time to stand up for secular democracy and a pluralistic America is now.