"Christ Is King, You Nasty Jew"

A Christian truth was twisted into a cudgel for sanctimonious, unrepentant sinners. It needs to be called out.

The most recent example of the “Christian love” blooming on Twitter over Holy Week. Seth is a professing Christian, but this fact alone is not enough to deter people who want to hate him for his ethnicity under the guise of “Christianity”.

Now that we've got a bit of distance from the debacle, I'll give my observation on the "Christ Is King" dialog. Over the weekend, the term burgeoned into popularity, spurred by a combination of Easter-oriented Christians, likely mostly Catholics and orthodox Christians, and actual antisemitic alt-right ne’er-do-wells. By Monday it was impossible to tell who really meant what they said, and who was trying to troll. Some notes:

• The term "Christ is King" became a sly, two-edged catchphrase as quickly as "Black Lives Matter" did. The exact term is demanded in every instance, which is what makes it clear to the neutral observer that it’s a dog-whistle. No one is saying "Jesus is King”, “Christ is Lord”, "Jesus Christ is King", "Christ is King of Kings," etc. It is ONE specific term, every time, just like it is "Black Lives Matter," not "Black Lives Deserve Protection", "Preserve Black Life", "Black Life Matters", or "Protect Black People". No, in every instance, it's the same wording. It's fellows beckoning fellows under their breath. This veil of plausible deniability is crucial for an effective dog-whistle because it makes it easy to feign shock and outrage when it's called out for what it is, or what some bad actors use it as.

• As previously stated, not everyone who uses the term is using it as an antisemitic cudgel, but it’s very obvious that some are. "Christ is King, you nasty jew," "Christ is king, you jewish scum" are just two examples of Tweets I've seen firsthand, along with this:

  

  These people make no secret of their true intentions. This is not everyone who uses it, but of note, there seems to be an air of aggressive victimhood-seeking in this dialog: No one is "victimizing" anyone by pointing out that some people are using the term disingenuously - this is that ever so handy veil of plausible deniability. I see Candace Owens applying that shocked, indignantly injured air liberally. If you want to know what sanctimonious means, look no further than someone who's actively applying shocked feigned righteous indignation to what casual observers can clearly see is meant to insult, denigrate, and invite other insulters to dogpile.

When Andrew Klavan observed correctly that Christians welcomed him, a jewish convert, to the fold "with open arms - except this 'Christ is King', antisemitic crowd", he was making an accurate observation, whether unserious troublemakers want to admit it or not. When anyone converts to Christianity, Christians have a responsibility to accept their conversion in good faith and with much rejoicing, as the father did in the parable of the prodigal son.

As an aside, this overlaps closely with the common Twitter 'Christian' stance of mockery and belittlement for conversion from a life of sexual promiscuity a la the recent outspoken new belief of a former OnlyFans creator known as "Nala". A common thread between antisemitic tropes for new converts from judaism and misogynistic, cruel mockery for the OnlyFans-repentant is that bitter social media denizens who apparently do not believe they have ever done anything in need of forgiveness feel they have a place to stand in judgment on both former jews and former OnlyFans creators. They are wrong, of course. Neither jews - including the jews who advocated crucifying Jesus - or prostitutes, such as Jesus actively forgave and bade to “sin no more”, a la repentant OnlyFans creators, are more or less fallen than the run-of-the-mill social media user who derides them from an illusory high ground. God rejects this kind of arrogance and reminds us that “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)

The only solution is the realization that ALL, yes all of us, "have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), but that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8b). Good news for everyone, but a contrite heart is demanded first. If we want to say that “Christ is King” in good conscience, we must remember that we should actively seek to avoid being what Jesus called “a brood of vipers”, speaking sweet, lovely words while choosing to remain evil (Matt. 12:34), and that the Gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16). And it should never be used as a cudgel.

King of Kings, Lord of Lords, very God of very God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. There are so many beautiful names of God. I loved this poster as a teen. Even now reading through it brings me a great sense of peace. At the end of the day, what man intends for evil, God will use for good - and I am sure of that because we're talking more about God than we have in a long time. That's amazing. I find great peace in that, and I know that will tick the disingenuous off, so it's a win/win for my petty soul (I'm sure I will repent of that in time).