The Lost Tribes and the Found Lie: Exposing British-Israelism

🇬🇧🇺🇸Article 1 of The Age of Counterfeit Kingdoms, The Lost Tribes and the Found Lie

British-Israelism and the Recasting of Covenant Identity

> “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.”

— Romans 9:6–8

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The Empire’s Covenant Illusion

The British Empire once claimed the sun never set on its lands. For some, that boast extended to the covenant of God itself. A strange teaching emerged from the drawing rooms of Victorian England: that the British people were not merely a ruling empire, but the literal descendants of the “lost tribes” of Israel.

It was a seductive idea—imperial ambition clothed in biblical destiny. Under its gilded rhetoric, British-Israelism offered an intoxicating blend of national pride, racial theory, and prophetic certainty. The empire’s reach was recast as divine inheritance, its monarchs as heirs to David’s throne, its language and culture as the ordained medium of the gospel.

But in trading the cross of Christ for a genealogical chart, this movement recast the very heart of covenant identity.

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The Architects of the Lie

Two names stand at the beginning of this error: John Wilson and Edward Hine.

John Wilson (1799–1870) was a lecturer whose book Our Israelitish Origin gave shape to the claim that Anglo-Saxons were the physical descendants of the ten northern tribes of Israel exiled by Assyria.

Edward Hine (1825–1891) took Wilson’s theory further, explicitly identifying the British as the chosen nation through whom God’s promises would be fulfilled.

Their writings appealed to Victorian racial theory, which saw Anglo-Saxon heritage as the pinnacle of civilization. Coupled with the era’s colonial theology—that the empire’s expansion was God’s instrument for Christianizing the world—British-Israelism offered an almost irresistible “biblical” validation of imperial destiny.

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The Transatlantic Drift

Like many theological errors, the teaching did not remain in its birthplace. British-Israelism crossed the Atlantic, finding a home among fringe prophecy teachers in the United States. Here it morphed into Anglo-Israelism, interweaving with apocalyptic timelines, end-times speculation, and even racial segregationist ideologies.

By the early 20th century, it had seeded other movements—some outright heretical—that tied God’s covenant blessings to skin color or national heritage. In these circles, the gospel was subtly rewritten: Christ died to restore our nation to its rightful place, rather than Christ died to redeem sinners from every nation.

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Theological Refutation

Scripture leaves no doubt:

1. True Israel is defined by covenant, not bloodline.

Romans 9:6–8 makes plain that not all physical descendants of Abraham are “Israel.” The children of the promise are those united to Christ by faith.

2. Abraham’s children are believers, not ethnic heirs.

Galatians 3:7–9 declares that those of faith are the true sons of Abraham—and they are blessed with him, not by DNA, but by the same covenant grace.

3. Christ has broken down the wall of division.

Ephesians 2:11–22 proclaims that Jew and Gentile are made one in Christ, reconciled in one body through the cross. Any teaching that rebuilds walls of ethnic separation is waging war against the gospel itself.

British-Israelism, by tying God’s plan to a genetic narrative, subtracts Christ from the center and replaces Him with heritage.

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Why It Still Echoes Today

Some might think British-Israelism is a quaint relic of the Victorian era, but its DNA persists. We hear it in:

Prophecy teachers who speak of “Anglo-Israel” or America as the new covenant nation.

Racial-identity theologies (like kinism) that argue for God’s plan being tied to preserving a specific ethnic makeup.

Political movements that recast the Great Commission as securing cultural dominance for “our people” first.

The appeal is the same as it was in the 19th century: to merge God’s promises with our genealogy, to sanctify our politics with selective proof texts, to make “us” the axis of God’s plan.

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The Cost of the Lie

This thinking is not harmless. It:

Feeds national idolatry by making the health of the nation the measure of the Kingdom.

Undermines global mission by viewing other nations as secondary or adversarial to God’s purposes.

Breeds further error as “lost tribes” mythology often spawns new, extra-biblical revelations to sustain itself.

The more our covenant identity is tethered to anything but Christ, the more easily we are swayed by the next voice promising to restore “our” rightful place.

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A Pastoral Plea

Beloved, adding ethnicity to the gospel is subtracting Christ from it. The Church must remember:

Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20).

Our unity is in Christ, not in heritage (Colossians 3:11).

Our mission is to disciple the nations, not replace them with our own (Matthew 28:19).

The true “lost tribes” are not hidden in old census records—they are the unreached peoples still waiting to hear the gospel. That is where our prophetic mission lies.

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Next in the series: We will see how the same prophetic-nationalist impulse took new shape in the Americas, birthing movements that claimed fresh revelation, divine mandate, and a new Zion—while drifting ever further from the gospel of the Kingdom.

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