this, too, became an element in the emerging political theology of the empire.
When the British Empire declined and lost its colonies during the twentieth
century, thereby putting the whole theory in jeopardy, the rising United States
would become Ephraim, and England would be demoted, albeit implicitly, to
being Manasseh, as the two traded places in the schema.^125
Like Mormonism, Anglo-Israelism can be described as another Christian
derivation of the hope of Israel. Both rework the story of loss, wanderings, and
restoration into a new theology that through revelation identifies Israel in an
existing human group. Anglo-Israelism, like Mormonism, overcomes loss,
replacing it with an aggressive restorative theology. Whereas Mormonism
restores the loss through conversion, Anglo-Israelism does so by reminding
the Anglo-Saxons of their lost identity. In both cases, the original fervent search
for the lost tribes dissipates. The romanticism and the passion of searching
fades, since, as one later Anglo-Israelist proclaimed, the “lost tribes: found!”^126
But, of course, they were not. Despite the revelatory power of Mormonism and
Anglo-Israelism, the ten tribes persist as one of the geographical mysteries of
an exposed world.