EITHER CHRISTIAN OR NATIONALIST, NOT BOTH:

As the bishop of El Paso, Texas, one of us is all too familiar with the hate and violence this conspiracy theory has inspired: On Aug. 3, 2019, a white terrorist killed 23 people in a shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. In his manifesto, the shooter mentioned the great replacement theory and said he feared a "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

It was another in a string of violence tied to the theory: the August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which Heather Heyer was killed; the October 2018 synagogue attack in Pittsburgh that claimed 11 lives; the March 2019 terrorist attacks on mosques in New Zealand that left 51 people dead.

The theory has moved from the so-called fringes of society to even some members of Congress, as well as prominent television commentators. But it is far from new: Its roots date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it helped give rise to national socialism in Germany and its murderous horrors.

In 1916, Madison Grant, a eugenicist, conservationist, and promoter of scientific racism, wrote The Passing of the Great Race. The book promoted the superiority of the white, Nordic, Aryan "race" in Northern Europe and warned that it was being threatened by "inferior" races.

Grant was also a major proponent of immigration restriction-his ideas had a part in the restrictionist 1924 Immigration Act. Even more to the point, his ideas caught on in Germany: Adolf Hitler called Grant's book "my bible."

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