He is My King

In Hebrews chapter 10, we can find encouragement to continue to proclaim the finished work of salvation, wrought by the hand of God through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Here is a passage from that chapter:
19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh,
21 and having a High Priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

In this passage, we see a number of roles of our Savior.  He is our perfect sacrifice - the Lamb of God, who shed His blood to bring forgiveness.  He is our great High Priest, who has made it possible to come into the very presence of Almighty God.  He is certainly our hope, and we are called to boldly declare that our hope is in our Lord, our Savior, and our King.  He is our faithful King, who loves us and desires for us to "draw near" to Him.

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Jesus Christ, our risen Savior and Lord, is also the King of the Universe, the King for those who would believe on Him, and the King for us personally. In 1st Timothy 6, we can read:
13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,
14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing,
15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.

The weekend of Palm Sunday and afterward, the phrase, "Christ is King," became a subject of debate. And, one could claim that it is beyond debate; that it is established fact.  But, there are apparently those who have used the phrase as a means to denigrate a group of people who were chosen by God, a group whom God continued to love, even though they rejected Him.

The head of the Standing for Freedom Center at Liberty University, Ryan Helfenbein, set up the series of the events at the organization's website:

Unbeknownst to me, some very bad actors have more recently used the phrase “Christ is King” as an antisemitic statement against Jews, specifically, while others have used it to be an extremist propagation of their own political white nationalism. Who am I talking about? You will understand part of this controversy if you’ve been following Candace Owens’ ouster at Daily Wire and her ongoing feud with Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro. Whether or not Candace is promoting, “Christ is King” as a pejorative, I cannot say and will let her speak for herself. It is clear, however, that figures like Nick Fuentes are using “Christ is King” as an anti-Jewish statement with absolutely no interest in the rule and reign of Christ, Christian doctrine, or longstanding theological beliefs.

Let's touch on the Candace Owens elements first of all. Based on what I've seen, it does appear that Candace has taken a misguided position toward the nation of Israel since the October 7; that is unfortunate.  The Christian Post stated:

Andrew Klavan, a podcast host at The Daily Wire — which parted ways with host Candace Owens following months of disagreements between her and Ben Shapiro and a controversial interview with a rabbi and her re-tweeting posts on social media that many deemed antisemitic — said the phrase “Christ is King” is being used as an antisemitic attack.

Shapiro is the co-founder of The Daily Wire and is Jewish.  The Christian Post article goes on to note:

Klavan, who identifies as a Christian, added that while he believes Christ is King and Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior, the phrase is being misused by an “antisemitic crowd” who are misquoting Scripture. He doesn't disagree with its substance — only its intent.

John Zmirak at The Stream, not one to mince words, jumped into the controversy: 

As far as I can tell, this phrase, once spoken with reverence by martyrs, was popularized as a racial cudgel by the vulgar online demagogue Nick Fuentes, a 25-year-old white supremacist who has openly praised Hitler and fantasized about marrying a 16-year-old girl. He purloined the phrase “Christ is King” and misuses it...

He goes on to say: 

Imitating Fuentes, other “alt-right” Gentile tribalists have taken up the “Christ is King!” chant — people who do little or nothing to demonstrate the actual sovereignty of Jesus over our lives and indeed the Cosmos. Instead, they abuse this holy thing (it’s called “blasphemy,” people) to “own” public figures whom they dislike...

Zmirak concludes by saying this:

Antisemitism is not about Christ, or even Christianity. It’s a tribal flinch of hostility on the part of Gentiles (Christian or not) at a tribe which they resent. It’s the impulse that drove Haman to want to wipe out the Jews of Persia.

What’s worse, Christians who have aggressively tried to “de-Judaize” the Church have reinvented the heresy of Marcion — which, by cutting off the Gospel from the truths of the Hebrew Bible, leaves Christianity an almost empty vessel that Caesar, Mammon, and Sodom can fill with whatever content they like. In Germany in the 1930s, it was pantheist racial narcissism. In America today, it’s woke pansexual hysteria and masochistic white guilt.

We need the Old Testament, with its concrete teachings about sexual sins, the value of national borders, and the authority of fathers, to protect us from such perversions. How ironic that those who despise the Jews for being too liberal are themselves opening the Church to hijack and corruption.

Joel Abbott, Editor of Not the Bee, a sister website to the uber-popular satire site, The Babylon Bee, provided some analysis in a column on the site, writing:

Even in Paul's day, there were those who saw Jews as the enemy. They were the ones who followed Paul from town to town trying to get him imprisoned and killed, after all.

Abbott writes, "No doubt there were many...intelligent, god-fearing, bold people...who fell into error there. And as you can easily see online with people who are becoming more racially charged, kinist, and elitist by the day as a backlash against all the anti-whiteness in our systems, there are people who go further still, not seeing the poisonous pride that's infecting them at the roots.

Helfenbein, at Liberty University, encourages Christians to be forthright in their confession.  He writes:

“Christ is King” and “Jesus is Lord” have always been statements that affirm the Supremacy of Christ. This is a central truth in the Christian faith that cannot be abandoned or forfeited. Even now, as there are both deceptive players and unsuspecting cons who are abusing and misusing the phrase “Christ is King,” I do not believe that this is in any jeopardy of being hijacked any time soon. Christians are charged to “earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). That earnest and sincere motive is needed now more than ever, even when foul play is afoot.

In today’s clown world, many hijacked terms and subtle phrases have been utilized as tools to perpetuate evil. Even biblical symbols, like the rainbow, are being used now as the banner and symbol to promote the LGBT’s Pride movement. This strategy has been so effective that the rainbow is scarcely viewed as a biblical symbol anymore. It is now synonymous with the alphabet mafia’s sexual revolution. Even as the rainbow flag waved over the White House lawn last June, no one believed Ken Ham was hosting an Ark exhibition at the invitation of Joe and Jill Biden. That’s because the rainbow has been hijacked.

But even as God’s bow has been successfully misused and abused — at least in the contemporary — to perpetuate the lies of the sexual revolution, that symbol in its current misuse is not indefinite. Even as the rainbow has been misrepresented for the last few decades, that still is a finite amount of time when accounting for the last six thousand years and the next ten thousand. We will get the rainbow back because permanent things always win and it belongs to Christ in the first place.

So, we can confidently and boldly declare that Jesus Christ is King.  We should, with all that we are, show that we honor Him as our King by living a life surrendered to Him. There will be those who would want to pervert the expressions of Christianity, but we must not be intimidated from our devotion to proclaiming the Lordship - and Kingship - of our great Savior. 

But, we should never respond in pride.  Certainly, we recognize that the practice of Christianity is more than a religion serving a dead founder; rather, it is a relationship with a living King, who willingly gave His life so that He could redeem fallen humanity.  But, we don't win others by denigrating or mocking them - we persuade by pointing to Jesus and living in a way that pleases Him.