This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, April 2, 2024
We just came off the highest holiday of the year for Christians, so what should we follow up that great event with? You guessed it, a stupid internet controversy. However, this particular controversy has to do with one of the central claims of Easter, so this does have some relevance to the season.
Because misery loves company, I have an account on X, formerly known as Twitter. Whenever I am feeling happy and upbeat and feel good about the world, all it takes is a quick scroll down my suggested posts to drain all optimism and hope I have for the future of humanity. So what should be trending on X around the Easter season than the phrase “Christ is King.”
At first glance, I was thrilled. I completely agree with the statement and fully endorse the idea that Jesus is King. But I couldn’t just leave it there. I had to go deeper into why that phrase was trending. Lo and behold, that phrase is now considered antisemitic. That’s right, apparently now to proclaim “Christ is King ” means I hate Jews.
That might seem strange for someone with the last name of Benjamin to hate Jews given that Benjamin is the 12th of the 12 original tribes of Israel. I am not sure how much Jewish blood I have in me, I had a DNA test run a few years back and I am almost exclusively Irish. But that is beside the point. I firmly and fully believe that Christ is King and at the exact same time, I bear no ill will whatsoever toward any race of people, specifically my Jewish sisters and brothers. Besides, to have faith in Jesus yet have bad feelings toward the Jews doesn’t make a lot of sense considering that Jesus was Jewish Himself.
What this reminds me of in our modern times is that we are standing on the slipperiest of slippery slopes. We are quickly moving toward a time when words are no longer going to have universally accepted meaning. That is dangerous because if I am slow on the update as to what the new definition is, I could offend whole groups of people without even realizing what I have done.
Think about how many words today mean something very different from what they meant a generation ago. Sure, some of that is to be expected, but instead of it just being funny that someone misused a word in a modern context, that misused word becomes a major offense and the backlash to that misuse can be savage and brutal in its reprisal against you.
Why does the world get to come into the church and redefine so many concepts and then expect the Church to just acquiesce to the new definition? I am not interested in having any of my vocabulary redefined for me. I am not looking to offend anyone, but I do believe that I have a right to use words in the way I understand them. Why does someone else’s redefinition of a word change what I mean when I use the word? This is about much more than the phrase Christ is King, the world has redefined fundamental concepts that everyone agreed upon until very recently. Examples are: marriage, gender, and even the beginning of life has been changed by the world. Who gave the world the right to change what is meant by a word that has a classical definition? Sure, words can ebb and flow in how they are used in one era to another, but that does not feel like what is happening here. This seems intentional so that people with an axe to grind can take issue with an otherwise innocuous statement.
This concerns me as to when words are going to be canceled so that no one can use them because they have been redefined. If anything to do with Jesus is attributed to something taboo, then His name drops out of use in the world and that is not a good thing. To be clear, I would never even consider going into a synagogue or a mosque and shouting “Christ is King” because that would be disrespectful to the people there.
But in my life and to me, the phrase “Christ is King” identifies the author and perfecter of my faith and no matter how the world may attempt to twist that phrase, I am not giving it up allow that phrase to be redefined as something hateful.