Serpent seed

===Christian Identity theology===
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Rev. Russel Kelso Carter (1849–1928) was a prominent Church of God (Holiness) minister and a follower of Totten. He became the first preacher of British Israelism to offer a theory on the origin of the serpent's seedline. Carter theorized that Cain was the literal Son of the serpent in his book ''The Tree of Knowledge'' which he published in 1894. Carter believed that "the tremendous pull of the sexual appetite, aroused by the excited state of the woman" caused humanity's fall in the Garden of Eden. He believed that Satan used the seduction of Eve to destroy God's pure race "at its fountainhead".{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}} Carter stopped short of speculating on who the descendants of Cain might be, but he connected the righteous seedline with the Anglo-Saxons. Carter's teachings on the subject were subsequently integrated into the overall teachings of British Israelism and they proved to be particularly appealing to members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who spread the teaching during the 20th century.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}}

Carter's theory was very similar to the theory which was first proposed by Daniel Parker, who may have been an influence on him.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}} Carter may have also been influenced by the [[pre-Adamite]] and [[Polygenism|Polygenist]] theories which were being promoted in the United States during the 19th century. In 1875, A. Lester Hoyle wrote a book titled ''The Pre-Adamite, or who tempted Eve?'' In his book, he claimed that multiple creations of races had occurred, but he claimed that only the [[White people|white race]], of which [[Adam]] was the father, had been made in God's image and likeness.<ref name="Kidd">{{cite book
|last=Kidd
|first=Colin
|author-link=Colin Kidd
|title=The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000
|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]
|location=Cambridge
|date=2006
|isbn=978-0-521-79729-0
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNT3q1HjY_MC
|access-date=February 18, 2021
}}</ref> Hoyle also suggested that Cain was the "mongrel offspring" of Eve's seduction by "an enticing [[Mongolia]]n" with whom she had repeated trysts, thus laying the foundation for the white supremacist bio-theology which states that [[miscegenation]] is "an abomination". Blending contemporary [[Evolution|evolutionary thinking]] with pre-Adamism, the [[Vanderbilt University]] [[Evolutionary creationism|theistic evolutionist]] and [[geologist]] [[Alexander Winchell (geologist)|Alexander Winchell]] argued in his 1878 tract, ''Adamites and Preadamites'', for the pre-Adamic origins of the human race, that [[Black people|Negroes]] were too racially inferior to be the descendants of the Biblical Adam.<ref name="Smith">{{cite book
|last=Smith
|first=Christian
|author-link=Christian_Smith_(sociologist)
|title=The Secular Revolution
|publisher=[[University of California Press]]
|date=2003
|isbn=0-520-23000-0
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jHHnv5FbzWgC
|access-date=April 23, 2021
}}</ref>

According to Professor Jon Schamber, Rev. [[Philip E. J. Monson]] began to separate from traditional British Israelism and develop Christian Identity theology.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=11}} During the 1920s, Monson published ''Satan's Seat: The Enemy of Our Race'' in which he adopted Carter's theory on the origin of the impure seedline and combined it with [[anti-Catholicism]].  Monson connected the work of the impure seedline to the activities of the [[Catholic Church]] and the [[Pope]]. Monson's ideas were popular among white supremacist organizations in the United States.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=11}} Rev. [[Wesley A. Swift]] (1913–1970), a minister and a former recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, and a follower of Monson, accepted the serpent seed doctrine and Christian Identity Theology and was instrumental in promoting the teachings among white supremacists in the United States.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}}

Swift was a minister at the [[Angelus Temple]], a church frequently visited by [[William Branham]]. Swift later separated and started a new church, [[Church of Jesus Christ–Christian]], which was later renamed [[Aryan Nations]] by Swift's successor, [[Richard Butler (white supremacist)|Richard Girnt Butler]]. Swift ordained several ministers who helped him to spread the theology. His lieutenants who helped him to spread the serpent seed teaching included two [[Nazism|Nazis]], Oren Potito and Neuman Britton, and the prominent KKK leader [[Connie Lynch]].{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=6}} Swift and his fellow white supremacists began to promote the doctrine even more heavily during the [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]] period of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Swift, the descendants of the serpent were "in violation of Divine law when they started to mutate species and mix races."{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}} The serpent seed teaching was used to justify [[racial segregation]] and the prohibition of [[interracial marriage]].{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}}

It was also during the desegregation period when William Branham (1909–1965) and Arnold Murray (1929–2014) first began to promote their versions of the serpent seed doctrine. Branham was the most successful promoter of the serpent seed doctrine, and his version of it was subsequently accepted by millions of his followers. During the desegregation era, a militant form of the doctrine was espoused, especially by Christian Identity groups, because its millennial teachings state that the pure race will wage a final battle with the evil descendants of the serpent in order to destroy them.<ref name="adl"/>{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=12}}

Butler continued to promote the serpent seed doctrine throughout his life, and it continued to be prominently featured at annual Aryan Nations World Congress meetings into the 1980s and 1990s. Butler's teachings on the subject influenced the [[Christian Defense League]], the [[American Nazi Party]], the ''Christian Vanguard'', [[David Duke]] and modern KKK organizations.{{sfn|Schamber|2000|p=9}}