This series is also important regarding Tucker Carlson’s thinking.
Interview with Nick Fuentes
In his interview with Nick Fuentes in October 2025, Tucker Carlson said the following words, something he repeated in other settings since then.
My Christian faith tells me that there’s no such thing as blood guilt, and virtue or sin is not inherited. It’s not a feature of DNA. So every person must be assessed individually as God assesses each person individually. And that’s like a foundational view. I always thought it’s great to criticize and question our relationship with Israel because it’s insane and it hurts us. We get nothing out of it. I completely agree with you there. But the second you’re like, well, actually, it’s the Jews. First of all, it’s against my Christian faith. I just don’t believe that and I never will, period.
He also said this to Fuentes.
One of the reasons that I’m mad about Gaza is because the Israeli position is [this]: Everyone who lives in Gaza is a terrorist because of how they were born, including the women and the children. That’s not a Western view. That’s an Eastern view. That’s a non-Christian that’s totally incompatible with Christianity and Western civilization. They say, or the defenders of Western civilization. Not with that attitude. You’re not collective punishment. He’s the enemy of Western civilization. I hate that attitude. It’s genocidal.
Interview with Megyn Kelly
Carlson repeated the same type of accusation in his interview with Megyn Kelly on November 6, 2025.
We don’t believe in collective punishment because we don’t believe in blood guilt. We don’t believe that you are born guilty. And we also don’t believe that you’re born virtuous. We believe that God created every person as an individual.
He also said this to her.
Guilt or virtue are not in your DNA. We don’t believe in a chosen people and we don’t believe in a damned people, period. We don’t believe that in the West. We don’t believe that some peoples are inherently better or worse than other peoples. We believe in individuals—in the capacity of every person to make individual choices and change for the better or the worse.
What About the Claims?
What is Carlson saying and then what does the Bible say, even as Carlson makes claims about what is incompatible with Christianity and Western civilization?
When I read the comments of Tucker Carlson in these instances, some of what he says rings true with what scripture says, but more often, it does not. It is a mix, which can cause some confusion. I would guess that he would just get defensive about these comments and use rhetoric and play with words to defend what he says. “Genocide” is a hot button word, that is, accusing someone or a nation ironically of genocide. This goes along with calling someone a “Nazi” that Carlson mocks, because of certain Jews labeling him a Nazi or a Fascist.
Blood Guilt in the Bible
First, is there such a thing as blood guilt? Blood guilt stems from something specific in the Old Testament related to manslaughter and the cities of refuge in Old Testament Israel. Maybe someone has, but I haven’t heard anyone using that language “blood guilt” as buttressing their philosophy of Israel’s dealing with Gaza. It’s not an espoused Israeli government policy.
Bloodguilt (Hebrew: dāmîm or ḥēṭʾ dāmîm, often translated as “guilt of blood” or “bloodshed guilt”) is a moral and legal concept denoting the profound liability incurred by shedding innocent human blood. It stems from the ancient belief that human life is sacred—embodied in the “life” (nephesh) residing in the blood (Leviticus 17:11)—and that unpunished murder pollutes not just the individual but the land, community, family, and even the divine order. This idea generates inevitable consequences, demanding retribution or expiation to restore balance.
Further than Just Individual
This guilt not only stains the individual perpetrator but pollutes the land itself, rendering it defiled and inhospitable to God’s presence (Numbers 35:33–34; Psalm 106:38). Unatoned blood guilt invites divine judgment, as God vows to avenge it (Genesis 9:5–6; Deuteronomy 32:35), and it can extend collectively to a community or nation if justice is neglected (2 Samuel 21:1–9; Jeremiah 26:15). The concept emphasizes retributive justice: the principle of “life for life” (Exodus 21:23–24) demands that the murderer’s blood atone for the victim’s, often executed by the victim’s nearest kin, known as the “avenger of blood” (go’el haddam).
Numbers 35
Numbers 35 provides a foundational legal framework for addressing blood guilt, emphasizing its defiling impact on the land and community. The chapter mandates the designation of six Levitical cities as “cities of refuge” (verses 6, 11–15), strategically placed (three east of the Jordan, three in Canaan) to offer asylum for those who commit unintentional killing (manslaughter). These cities protect the accused from immediate vengeance by the avenger of blood—a family member authorized to execute retributive justice (verses 12, 19–21, 24, 27)—ensuring a fair trial by the assembly (congregation) before execution can occur.
Chapter 35 of Numbers ties vengeance to divine order: the avenger’s role is legitimate but bounded by law, preventing rash bloodshed that would compound guilt (verses 12, 24). Ultimately, these provisions aim to purge blood guilt from Israel, preserving the land’s holiness since “I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel” (verse 34). Deuteronomy 19 expands on Numbers 35, reiterating and refining the laws on blood guilt within a broader covenantal context of justice and inheritance. It stresses that unpunished innocent blood brings collective guilt upon the land, hindering God’s blessings (verse 10).
Does unrequited murder result in the transference of blood guilt to a nation? That concept is in the Bible, which provides one basis of God’s temporal judgment upon a nation. It is personal with God according to the first prohibition of murder in Genesis 9:6, a basis there of human government. By taking a life, the murderer desecrates the divine imprint in that individual, effectively “striking at God’s image” or even attempting to assault God Himself. The land itself is seen as “defiled” by such bloodshed (Numbers 35:33-34), requiring atonement to restore God’s presence.
Blood Guilt Attaching to More than Individuals
Bloodguilt attaches generationally to families (2 Samuel 3:28–29), cities (Jeremiah 26:15), or nations (Deuteronomy 21:8), with God deferring punishment (2 Samuel 12:13–14; 1 Kings 21:21). In biblical theology, the moral and spiritual culpability incurred by shedding innocent blood, such as through murder, unjust killing, or practices like child sacrifice pollutes the land, defiles the community, and invokes God’s wrath, as “blood cries out” for justice (Genesis 4:10).
In 2 Samuel 21:1, Saul’s unauthorized bloodshed against the Gibeonites (protected by covenant) brings a three-year famine on all Israel. God declares, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites,” but the punishment extends collectively until seven of Saul’s descendants are executed to atone. In Joshua 7:1-26, Achan’s theft (a capital sin) incurs blood-like guilt, causing Israel’s defeat at Ai. It doomed them to destruction (verses 11-12). The whole community suffers until Achan’s execution purges the guilt.
Individual Salvation and Collective Judgment
Individually righteous people, like Daniel, went into Babylonian exile along with the entire nation because of the guilt of the entire nation. This is a legitimate concept. God can, does, and did spare individuals from destruction when He brings it on town, city, or nation, like He did with Jericho, sparing Rahab, who then was in the line of Christ. Before the destruction of Assyria, God sent Jonah to preach to Nineveh, its capital, for the conversion of many there. Even though God used Babylon and Assyria to judge Israel, He still later destroyed those entire nations for doing what they did without repentance.
The concept of collective judgment of God contrasts with individual judgment and salvation. God will save individuals from doomed nations. Eternal salvation, redemption, is individual. Individuals stand before God in the final judgment, but this does not contradict God’s judgment of nations, even using entire other nations to judge those nations. We can see from the Old Testament in many clear examples that entre nations bear collective guilt. The New Testament did not rescind this idea or concept. When nations fall, a Christian or Western interpretation is that God did this for their collective sins.
Judgment Further than Just Individuals
It seems that Tucker Carlson rejects any concept of collective guilt, and yet Jesus brings this concept many times in the Gospels. Broader New Testament themes of eschatological judgment extend beyond individuals to communal or societal implications, such as warnings to cities (e.g., Chorazin and Bethsaida in Matthew 11:20–24) or the fall of “Babylon” in Revelation 18 as a symbol of corrupt systems and empires. The tension underscores Christianity’s balance of personal salvation and communal ethics.
Nations do have a responsibility for national repentance, which can forestall divine judgment on them. When you see a nation deep in sexual sin, pervasively affirming of homosexuality, and the insanity of a reprobate mind, where they make laws to criminalize righteousness and to legalize gross evil, you know that nation’s under judgment. This relates to Romans 1, which is echoed from the Apostle Paul too in Acts 14:15-17.
More to Come