Speaker 1: So a few weeks ago, now several weeks ago, a
study came out which decried the use of the phrase
Christ is King in certain contexts. The study was put
out by, or at least people that I know and
am friends with, were involved in this study. I didn't
really know about the study until one day before when
we sent me the video and the study saying that
they were going to put this out, you know, decrying
the use of the phrase christis King. When I saw
it at the outset, I was very angry about the
study because I thought that the purpose of the study,
which was to decry the use of christis King in
certain contexts in order to stop anti Semitism, was going
to backfire, that it wasn't going to do what you
think it was going to do. I think that in
the final analysis, my interpretation was right, but you know,
I have some sympathy a little bit for the reason
why this stuf that he was put out not completely
as you can imagine. So I thought that I would
go through a little bit of the history and a
sense of the symbolism of this notion that Christ is
a king. Well, look at it, we'll explain it. We'll
kind of trace a little bit of the history of
where it comes from and how it developed. And then
we will also look a little bit at the resurgence
of the phrase Christ is King in popular parlance and
try to evaluate a bit what it is that's going
on here. This is Jonathan Pegel, welcome to the symbolic world.
And so the notion that Christ is king is there.
Of course, in the New test we find it right
at the outset when the magi come to worship Christ.
You know, they say, you know, they are coming to
worship the King of the Jews that has been born.
They saw his star in the sky, and so they're
coming to find him and to worship him. And then
several times in the scriptures Christ is called king. In
the Gospel of John, one of the disciples says, Rabbi,
you are the son of God. You are the King
of Israel. This happens several times. Of course, the biggest
moment when this happens is when Christ enters into Jerusalem
and the people greet him on Palm Sunday and they
call him king. You know, they call him Basilaos, you know,
which is the term for king. This is all through
the scriptures and of course it is reiterated then in
the prophetic texts, when we see Christ as the king
of king and the Lord of lords, who is sitting
on the throne. There are also the moments where it's
it's darker or more ironic, when Christ is being mocked
as king, when Pilot is having him flogged and is
putting on his head a crown of thorns and read
in his hand, and all the Roman soldiers are kneeling
in front of him to mock him and calling him
the king. Of course, the sign at the top of
the cross where he is said to be the King
of the Jews. So all of these images are there
all through the scripture. Now the tradition, of course of
talking about Christ is king, the notion of Christ as
the pantocrats or which is when you see icons of Christ,
especially Eastern Orthodox ones, the ones that you see up
in the dome in the church, where Christ is dressed
as a nobleman. He has a clavy which is a
kind of ornament on his vestment, and he wears a
kind of toga around his vestment. He's holding a book
and he's blessing. This is an image of Christ as
as king, as emperor as a great leader. That is
the representation of him in the Book of Revelation as
the King of the universe, as the as the king
of kings and the Lord of lords. And so this
representation is quite traditional, it's quite normal. The thing is
that usually the way that we talk about it is
not necessarily to say Christ is king. The phrase Christ
is King is actually not particularly used. It you can
find it exceptionally, it's not something that is normally used.
And the reason is because when you say Christ is King,
who are you you saying it to? You know, when
you celebrate Christ is King, it's more like a title.
You know, we say Christ the King, Christ the King
of Kings, Christ the King of the Jews, Christ the
King of you know, the great, the great King. So
when we do that, what we're doing is we're attributing
a title to him, and you were celebrating him with
that title. And that is, of course the usual way
that the term Christ is King is used. But what's
interesting is that the phrase became more prominent, or that
notion of Christ the King in the West became more
prominent in the twentieth century because in nineteen twenty five,
the post the Pope piss of twelfth started a was
it Pisi twelfth or pist the eleventh? I always mixed
them up. I'm sorry for the Catholics watching this if
I'm mixing them up. The pope started a feast in
nineteen twenty five called Christ the King, and in that feast,
of course Christ as King is being celebrated more explicitly.
But interestingly, enough about that feast is that the reason
for the feast was in some ways to combat excessive
nationalism and to remind people after World War One, you know,
after all these European nations massacring themselves for a kind
of nationalistic impulse, to remind them that we all have
Christ as King, and that Christ transcends the national divide,
and that we have to be careful not to put
too much of our love into our nation, so that,
you know, so that we remember that we have a
transcendent king, we have a king in heaven, we have
an eschatological king. So what's interesting, then, is what's going
on now? You know, why is the phrase being used? Now?
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are certain political figures in the last few years that
have bragged that they have brought back the phrase Christ
is King, and that they've done so in order to
do two things. I think. One is in some ways
to remind kind people of their allegiance to a transcendent
good again. You know, obviously that is part of it.
But there's also another aspect, which is the idea of
the exclusion of people that don't have crisis king. You know,
in this very context, of course, the exclusion of Jews
from the statement, and this is of course the aspect
of the statement that is particularly offensive to the people
who put out the study. Now, one of the reasons
why I was annoyed with the study is because there's
a problem. I mean, I can understand when some people
are being annoying about it and being kind of jerks
about the statement in the exclusionary way. The problems that
you can't avoid that it is part of a statement
like that, which is that, just like every single identity,
when you announce the allegiance of your identity, you are
doing two things. You are both rallying people to it.
You're saying, I'm telling you who my king is, and
now all of you that recognize the same king as I,
you will see that we are together in our allegiance
to the king. But it's also simultaneously saying people that
don't have an allegiance to this king will be excluded.
So the problem, of course is that every single act
of identity is both inclusion and exclusion. Now it's not
particularly to this case, it's not particular to the case
of crisis King. You know, when I was a teenager,
for several years. A few years I lived in the
United States and I was going to a middle school
in Wheaton, Illinois, where every Friday they would stand and
they would say the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, when they
stood together and they put their hand over their heart
and they said the Pledge of Allegiance, one of the
things they were doing was excluding me from that. And
that was completely normal. It was completely normal that I
was being excluded because I did not pledge allegiance to
the flag of the United States, because I wasn't an American,
I was a Canadian, I was a visitor, I was
a stranger in their land. And therefore I stood up
out of respect. You know. The teacher said, well, maybe
you can at least stand and just stand out of respect,
you know, not say the pledge, but show that you
have respect for the allegiance that these people have towards
their flag. And so that's what I did. I would
stand up and in respect, even though I didn't pledge
allegiance to it. But I was excluded. And that is
part of every single statement. And so the phrase Christ
is King does definitely exclude Jews, and you know, and
like I said, it's part of the Christian identity. Now,
there are, of course things in Judaism that exclude Christians.
There are many practices in Judaism that exclude Christians. You know,
a very simple one is just kosher. You know, the
fact of eating kosher is both a rallying of people
together in one you know, together recognizing each other as
you know, sharing the same body, you could say. But
then at the same time it excludes. You know, if
you invite an Orthodox Jew to your house, they will
not eat your food, they will not eat with you.
And that is a major act of exclusion. And that
is just part, like I said, of how identity functions.
You see the same in Islam or in any type
of religious identity. It is both inclusion, including and excluding.
So then what right, So now we have a problem,
which is that in the study that was put out
several I would say most actually most of the people
in the study were not Christians. And they are calling
out and they are telling Christians to decide within themselves
between those that are using the statement to include and
to exclude. Now, I can be annoyed, and I'll be
honest with you, I am annoyed with not particularly a
fan of some of the people that are using that
phrase in this context, that are using the the phrase
to just exclude There are people, by the way, in
that group that aren't even Christians themselves, who are just
using it as a kind of annoying move to exclude
other people. But I also think that it is not
a very good move when you are not part of
a group to try to shame them into deciding, you know,
who gets to use the statement of allegiance. So, you know,
not particularly great. Now we have to say that, like
I said, it's quite ironic that originally in the twentieth century,
in relationship to all these questions of nations, the sense
of Christ is King was the Christ the King was
used mostly actually to transcend nations. Now we're in this moment,
let's say, after a long time after World War Two,
we are now facing the problem a kind of you know,
vapid globalism, and people are trying to get a sense
of more local identity. You know, there's a kind of
return of the sense of nation. And I think that's
that's fine, that's a good thing. But always remember that
if you say Christ is King, actually what you're pointing
to is something beyond the nation, and if you try
to use it only to restore some kind of national identity. Yeah,
you know, that phrase has its own reality and its
own life, and it won't do what you think it's
going to do, you know, because it it does point
beyond our identities. And so uh it was these were
just a few thoughts. I thought it was important to
kind of think about it, to look at it, and
to realize that exclusion is part of identity. And we
also have to be reasonable because you know, especially as Christians,
we are asked to love our neighbors. We were asked
to love our enemies. And so when we say when
we call our allegiance to Christ, we are obviously excluding
people from that and that is completely normal and we
should not be ashamed of how it excludes people. But
we should also remember to always if you're going to
say that phrase, always say it in the spirit of Christ,
which is which is the one who was crucified, which
is the one who was willing to give everything for
the salvation of the world. So hopefully this was a
little useful in thinking about this. And you know, for me,
this is the uh right after Pasca. For all of you,
this is after Eastern and so I want to kind
of end this video and tell you that Christ has risen.
And if you love the way that we're talking about
symbolism and you think this is very useful, don't forget
that I am starting a symbolism masterclass. I am kind
of bringing all of the symbolic ideas together into an
eighteen hour intense class that will start with an introduction,
but we'll bring you all the way deep into symbolic thinking.
We are starting that this week, and so I'd love
to see you there. Thanks, bye bye,