Christ is King!

Solemnity of Christ the King Year B

The declaration that “Christ is King” seems innocent enough for us Catholics, albeit somewhat hackneyed. But this has not been the case in America’s highly polarised political climate. On the one side you have people saying this is an affirmation of the Christian faith and a desire to not give in to secular culture. On the other side, you have people saying the phrase Christ is king is antisemitic, or expresses contempt for Jewish people, as the gospels seem to lay the blame on them for killing Jesus, although the actual executioner is Pontius Pilate as we had heard in today’s gospel. And in the weeks leading up to the highly contested presidential elections in the United States, the statement has been construed by those on the left as a pro-Trump dog whistle.

It is obvious that the title has political connotations. It is for this reason that the Jewish leaders brought our Lord before the Roman authorities on charges of treason. In the Empire, only Caesar was truly sovereign and all other client puppet rulers within his domain would have to seek his mandate before they could claim any title or authority. Since the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council, was unable to impose capital punishment under their religious blaspheme laws, getting the Romans to adjudicate the case and pass the death penalty was the only option. So, the “crime” of Jesus had to be elevated from a religious sin into a political high crime of treason.

When our Lord was given an opportunity by Pilate to refute the charges of claiming to be “king”, He in fact confirmed the title when the question was put to Him: “Are you the king of the Jews?” And after clarifying that His “kingdom is not of this world,” our Lord proceeds to unequivocally declare: “Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” For having affirmed the truth of His kingship instead of denying it, our Lord was condemned to die by crucifixion. He could have lied even when it was inconvenient and politically incorrect to state the truth. He could have protested that it was all a misunderstanding, but He didn’t.

So, for those who clutch their pearls whenever they hear this statement as an anti-Semitic and right-wing slogan, here are some salient truths which is bound to trigger you, rather than lower the temperature: The good news is that Jesus Christ is really king. But He’s also a Jew and in fact hailed as “King of Jews,” the very charge written on the titulus placed on the cross. So, it is an oxymoron to claim that an esteemed royal Jewish title given to a Jew would be anti-Semitic. In fact, this feast was inaugurated by Pope Pius XI as the Church’s challenge to the secularist fascist regimes which were not just anti-semites but also anti-Christian.

It is also important to remember that the “Jesus is King of the Jews” language would have been self-evidently a kind of joke, making fun of both Jesus and his fellow Jews under Roman occupation. The joke is that a king on the throne of David would not be drowning in his own blood, helplessly fixed to a Roman cross. To call him that would make a cruel point not just to any future insurrectionist but to the hopes of Jewish people generally—No one is coming to liberate us. Caesar is king and will remain king. Furthermore, the motives of Pilate’s soldiers in applying the “Christ is king” imagery was even clearer. The purple cloak and the crown of thorns were meant to be a parody—as the Roman soldiers sarcastically saluted Jesus, yelling, “Hail, king of the Jews!” (Mark 15:18). They mocked Jesus both for His alleged claim to kingship and for His Jewishness, both seen as being beneath the majesty of Roman power.

But Jesus is not making any claims to the Roman imperial throne. He has no desire to do so. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a true and better Caesar. His kingship is something altogether different, in fact, it is not of this world. That’s because the kingdom of God is not a capstone of the aspirations and power games of this present order; it’s a repudiation of them.

If the kingdom of God were about external conformity, tribal membership, or “winning” in the sense that we define it, Jesus could have embraced all of that from the crowds around Him or would have trained His closest associates to become a more effective group of insurgents. The kingdom of God cannot be understood or articulated without seeing that the Crucifixion is not a plot obstacle on a hero’s journey. The way of the Cross is, in fact, the Way to victory and glory, while the way of Caesar leads to death and humiliation. The Cross is indeed our Lord’s true throne. Pope Pius XI taught that Christ the King “has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but His by essence and by nature.” The cross is not what robbed us of our king but in fact, gave us a king.

At a recently concluded Pax Liturgica Meeting in Rome, which went for the most part unnoticed because it was eclipsed by the hyped Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Gerhard Müller warned against bishops betraying their divine mission by relativising doctrine and failing to uphold the orthodox faith. "We must not give in to the following suggestion: If you want to reach people today and be loved by all, then, just like Pilate, leave the truth aside, then you will be spared persecution, suffering, the cross and death! Secularly speaking, the power of politics, media and banks is the safe side, while the truth defies contradiction, and promises suffering with Christ, the crucified Saviour of the world."

So, by declaring that Christ is King is not a triumphalist slogan weaponised against others but a humble acknowledgement that God comes first, above every political movement, above every economic option, above every ideological agenda, above every expression of our narcissistic world-view. To declare that Christ is King is not the symptom of a diseased mind but actually its antidote. To declare that Christ is King is not a refutation of the cross, but, the embrace of it!

Being redeemed in Christ is the antidote for toxic social dynamics. Rather than gaslighting, we have truth; in place of narcissism, there is humility; instead of manipulation, there is a guileless spirit; in place of helplessness and powerlessness, there is the armour of God; rather than oppression, there is deliverance; instead of exhaustion and exploitation, we are made new. So, let us not be abashed or ashamed of declaring with whole-hearted conviction: Christ is King!

Power vs Authority

 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Our discussion these days often revolves around power - who has it and who doesn’t? The powerless often decry that the powerful have a monopoly over power which they do not hesitate to abuse and the powerful would often justify the exercise of such power for a greater good, i.e. they are doing it for the people. But discussions on power often leaves everyone dissatisfied. The powerful will always claim that they need more power, and those who claim to be powerless will always complain that they do not have enough power. The problem is confounded when we conflate power with authority – we often think they are one and the same thing.

A distinction is made between power and authority in today’s gospel. We see the unrestrained power of evil and the liberating authority of Christ. The unclean spirit’s power over this man had subjugated his mind and will. The man was no longer free. On the other hand, we witness the unique authority of Christ, an authority which is not based on imposing one’s will on the other, an authority which does not rely on the wisdom of others, an authority which does not seek to dominate, but one which liberates.

Let’s be honest, if authority was exercised by any other person other than our Lord, it would immediately trigger an adverse response from most of us. "Authority" is a word that makes most people think of law and order, command and control, dominance and submission. We focus over and over again on the oppressive side of authority. One tragedy of our time is that "authority" has become almost a dirty word in our society, while opposition to authority in schools, families, society and the church generally is cheered upon and seen as something fine. The reason for this is that we are unable to distinguish authority from power.

Scripture, by using two Greek words, makes a distinction between power and authority.  “Dunamis” is usually translated as “power,” from which we get our word ‘dynamite.’ “Dunamis” implies power, strength or even violence. In the New Testament, this is often associated with the ability to do miraculous things. Whereas, the Greek word “exousia” is usually translated as “authority” and suggests jurisdiction, right, and strength. Jesus indeed had dunamis, but more importantly He had exousia, the authority of the Son of God. And that very same authority has been entrusted to the apostles and to the Church. Without such God-given authority, the exercise of power would be ruinous. Instead of being a gift, power without authority can become a great source of temptation.

In today’s gospel, our Lord exhibits power in driving out a demonic spirit but more significantly His teaching was recognised by the people as one “with authority.” But they do not fully understand that authority. At this stage of the gospel, only the demon is able to recognise Him, for the power of evil knows its adversary, it knows that the time of its defeat and destruction has come. The demon understands that our Lord comes with the authority of God. The story reflects the great cosmic battle between the power of God and that of evil, where God is always triumphant. At the very same time, this story helps us understand how authority can also mean freedom and liberty. The authority of Christ is one which frees man from enslavement to sin and evil.

But not all exercise of power is liberating. When power is separated from authority, it descends into authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is authority corrupted, twisted. It is power without authority. It is the exercise of power without accountability. The unclean spirit had power over this man but it did not have the authority to be there. Its control over this man was an abomination in the eyes of God. Authoritarianism appears when the submission that is demanded cannot be justified in terms of truth or morality. Authoritarianism betrays an imperious mentality that thinks that one’s actions must always be without constraint. Authoritarianism often involves a greasy, sneaky and even manipulative abuse of power. But perhaps the most insidious distortion of authoritarianism is that it actually denies legitimate authority in order to hold that authority for oneself autonomously.

But true authority is sacrificial and giving. Such authority is a matter of service rather than one which lords over others. Our Lord demonstrated such authority in His ministry – He came to serve and not to be served. Secondly, true exercise of authority demands that we be accountable to another. Legitimate authority is needed to keep unbridled power in check. It is not meant to legitimise authoritarianism nor empower the ruthless.

Most people today would cite conscience as the licence to do whatever you will. Conscience, though it is the subjective moral seat of judgment, cannot unseat the objective source of moral authority which is God who communicates His will through Christ, through natural law, through reason and through the moral authority of the Church. When subjective conscience is raised to a level that supersedes all the others, when its primacy is declared above others, it does not liberate but enslaves or abandons us, making us totally dependent on personal taste or prevailing opinion. This is what Pope Emeritus Benedict called the “dictatorship of the subject.”

Today, modern man fails to recognise the irony of his predicament. He believes that the rejection of any external authority, especially in the area of moral authority, will guarantee his personal liberty and freedom. We live in a culture that is steeped in relativity, one that promotes the individual’s right to question all authority. In a world where there are no clear absolutes, everyone claims to speak with authority - dogmas are substituted for opinion, objective science is substituted by what is politically convenient, objective truth is substituted with subjective feelings (“I feel that this is the right thing to do” rather than “this is the right thing to do, even though I don’t feel like it”). Relativism is a form of enslavement – we are enslaved by our own thoughts and feelings, believing them to be the only valid truth that is worthy of submission to. But real freedom is only ever found under authority — God’s authority in Christ and that same authority now exercised by the Church. It is freedom not to do wrong, but to do right; not to break the moral law, but to keep it; not to forget God, but to cleave to Him every moment, in every endeavour and relationship; not to exploit others, but to lay down one’s life for them.

By rejecting authority, we are certainly not bringing about a correction of the abuse of power. On the contrary, those who abuse power do so precisely because they reject legitimate authority, they reject accountability. Aren’t tyrants observing this principle: “Rules for thee but not for me?” But if we recover the proper use of authority, an authority that is accountable to God, to His Christ and to the Church, then freedom is enhanced, power is channeled to its proper goal and the common good is served. True authority is motivated by love, it serves love and engenders love.

For God or Caesar?

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Just as our Lord was subjected to numerous interrogations by His detractors, many of us had witnessed a similar interrogation of Amy Coney Barret, the newest candidate for the position of Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. She was primarily drilled on the role and influence of her Catholic faith in her jurisprudence. One of her interrogators had earlier made this assertion, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” What was being called into question was her ultimate allegiance – would she choose God over Caesar? Would her allegiance to the state be compromised by her faith in God?

Let’s look at our Lord’s answer in today’s gospel. The enemies of our Lord, before asking Him His opinion, begin their questioning with a piece of false flattery, “Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you.” Instead of acknowledging His moral and doctrinal authority, the Pharisees were actually challenging it. The Pharisees believed that they, alone, were the authoritative interpreters of Jewish law. By appealing to Jesus' authority to interpret God's law, the questioners hoped to force Jesus into a corner by answering the question. If He taught that it was not lawful under Jewish Law to pay taxes to Caesar, He would be committing treason. If He agreed that it was lawful to pay such taxes, He would lose credibility with the Jewish people who hated the Romans and their taxes, a humiliating sign of their subjugation. It was a Catch 22 meant to trap our Lord: either answer would have condemned Him.

Our Lord immediately recognises the trap. Instead of jumping into the political discussion, our Lord raises it to a theological one. He curiously requests to see the coin. We need to remember that it is not necessary for our Lord to possess the coin to answer their question. He could certainly respond without seeing the coin. The denarius, minted with the image of the emperor, was truly the emperor’s currency and property. It was also a major instrument of imperial propaganda. The inscription proclaimed that the emperor is the “Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus”. It imposes the cult of emperor worship and his sovereignty upon all who transact with it. Either consciously or inadvertently, they were acknowledging that he is the son of God.

The questioners' quickness to produce the coin at our Lord’s request exposes their hypocrisy. The coin being in their possession implies that they routinely used it, whereas Jesus did not. Moreover, this episode takes place in the Temple, and by producing the coin, the questioners reveal their religious hypocrisy – they bring a profane and idolatrous item, a pagan currency, with a graven image, into the sacred precinct of the Temple.

After seeing the coin, Jesus then poses a two-part counter-question, “Whose head is this? Whose name?" This harkens to two central provisions in the Torah. The first commandment (or the second) prohibits worship of anyone or anything but God, and it also forbids crafting any image of a false god for adoration, God demands the exclusive allegiance of His people. Second, our Lord is alluding to the Shema. The Shema is the most important prayer a pious Jew can say. It commences with the words, “Hear (Shema), O Israel, the Lord is our God — the Lord alone.” This opening line stresses Israel's worship of God to the exclusion of all other gods. The Prophet Isaiah in the first reading reiterates this declaration of faith, “I am the Lord, unrivalled; there is no other God besides me.” The head or image of Caesar on the coin clearly violated all these provisions.

Having understood the scriptural background of this passage, we can see how this is a most richly ironic passage. In this deeply ironic scene, we have the Son of God and the High Priest of Peace, newly-proclaimed by His people to be a King, holding the tiny silver coin of a king who claims to be the son of a god and the high priest of Roman peace. The whole question raised by the Pharisees of whether one should pay taxes to the state dissolves into triviality in the face of the One who stands before them. Caesar, the pretender king and son of God, can never hope to hold up a torch to the true King and Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Finally, our Lord tells His interrogators, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.” This cryptic response begs the question: What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar? In the Hebrew tradition, everything rightfully belonged to God, even mankind, since we were made in the image and likeness of God. Our Lord is reminding His interrogators that we owe God exclusive allegiance and total love and worship. The problem is that the emperor also made similar claims, as does the modern state. But Caesar is not God. It is true that we owe civil authority our respect and obedience but that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. It must never be forgotten that all things belong to God, even Caesar’s.

Several principles can be drawn from this last axiom of our Lord:

First, all political leaders draw their authority from God.  We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil.  In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, through non-violent actions, such as exercising our right to vote.

Second, in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs. We have been having a slew of poor to horrendously corrupt leaders. If the current claims of a certain politician are true, we may be witnessing another historic moment in an already politically historic year – three Prime Ministers in the course of a single year. Although we must demand the highest standards from our elected (and sometimes unelected) leaders, let’s stop treating our politicians as messiahs.

Thirdly, as words and platitudes are useless if not translated into action, it doesn’t matter what we claim to believe in, if we’re unwilling to act on our beliefs. Our faith is not just one confined to the temple as if God is just confined to the Temple. Our faith permeates every aspect of our lives because all things belong to God and we should give back to God what belongs to Him.

As Archbishop Chaput taught, “We serve Caesar best by serving God first. We honour our nation best by living our Catholic faith honestly and vigorously, and bringing it without apology into the public square.  We’re citizens of heaven first.  But just as God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so the glory and irony of the Christian life is this:  The more faithfully we love God, the more truly we serve the world.” To the question, “Will our faith in God compromise our duties to the state?”, our answer is an unequivocal “No!” By being better citizens of the Kingdom of God, Christians do not become poorer but better citizens of the kingdoms of this world.

The King who comes in Humility and Silence

Palm Sunday

Public opinion is a fragile thing, especially for politicians. In a world, where polls often seem to take the place of prophets, the final outcome still remains an open question. You may be leading in the polls, but that doesn’t mean that you would get the most votes when the actual ballots are counted. Likewise, the underdogs should not throw in the towel too prematurely. Who knows? They may emerge as the unsuspected victor.

This is what happened during the first Holy Week. A descendent of David enters the city of Jerusalem and is hailed as king by the crowds but at the end of the week, he is condemned a criminal. At the beginning of the week, he is considered the best candidate, but as the week progresses, as public opinion wanes, he is regarded as the worst. This is reflected in the triumphant tone at the start of our liturgy which slowly evolves into a bitter story of betrayal and rejection. As far as public opinion is concerned, it had turned against this man. It is true that public opinion is a dangerous beast to try and ride, not even kings are safe from its force.

The transition in today’s liturgy reflects these two moments in the “political career” of Jesus. We heard in the gospel reading at the beginning of this liturgy, how the crowds came out to welcome Jesus greeting Him as the Son of David. They gave Him the Messianic title and acclaimed Him as the royal Son of God. Saint Matthew quotes from the prophet Zechariah who in a series of prophecies, tells of the coming of the last king who will be a true prince of peace. He was writing against the memory of failed kings whose inadequacies and vanity had brought about the end of the kingdom of Judah. Zechariah tells the returned exiles from Babylon that the true king will come not as a tyrant robed in power and might, but gentle and humble and riding on a donkey. They had seen enough of powerful rulers in the pagan kings. In other words, he would not seem like a king at all. His coming was to be so discreet that it would be possible to miss it altogether. No pomp and pageantry. This king would be characterised by humility and silence.

Saint Paul reminds us that “Christ Jesus did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are, He was humbler yet, even to accepting death on a cross.” He could have chosen to descend on the city of Jerusalem arrayed in His divine glory, surrounded by angelic courtiers, but instead, in His humility He chose to be “born of a woman.”(Gal 4:4) In His humility, He shows and manifests His own need for the Father, for the help of others, and for created things. The Creator of all things, who is complete and wholly sufficient, affirms His need for a steed, to ride on His journey into Jerusalem, “The Lord has need...” The King of glory chose to communicate His need for a room to keep the Passover with His disciples. The One who is all knowing, chose to allow one of His own intimate disciples to betray Him. The all-powerful One did not pretend or hide His sadness and distress from His disciples at the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. He who had the ready command of twelve legions of angels asked for the company of frail men, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and keep awake with me.”

As Holy Week progresses the contrast between the imperial liturgy that surrounded Caesar, the earthly Lord of the World, and Jesus, the Incarnate Word through whom all things were made, becomes more marked. He is dressed in the parody of the imperial purple. He wears the thorny crown as a mock diadem. He bears the reed as the fake scepter. Pilate presents Him to the crowds for their acclamation and finally He is enthroned on the cross. As his soldiers on a shield raised the emperor at his accession, so Christ is raised on the lofty eminence of the cross. Instead of the crowd of admiring courtiers shouting acclamations of praise, a motely group of frightened and insecure clerics, ruffians and disappointed idealists, shout insults at the foot of the cross. The drama of Holy Week is an exercise in pantomime. The true prince, whom nobody can really see, is present all of the time and his true identity is revealed in the last scene of the drama. The true Kingship of Christ is not revealed during His triumphant entry into Jerusalem with all its fanfare. No, His true Kingship is revealed on the wood of the cross where He willingly hangs in place of the shame and humiliation brought on by our sinfulness.

Earthly powers attempt to emphasise their might and dignity through inflicting ridicule and humiliation on those who oppose them, little do they realise that the joke is on them. It is their pretensions to supremacy that are being held up as vain and empty. Christ, the Lord of Glory, in His humility, questions the foundations on which all earthly power is founded. At the end of the crucifixion scene in Saint Matthew’s Passion, the Centurion ironically declares “in truth this was the Son of God.” The representative of Caesar, standing beneath the throne of the cross acclaims the true king whose identity is now clear for all to see. Christ who submits to the yoke of the cross holds out His arms and says ‘come to me all you who labour and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest.’ ‘I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls.’

Jesus Christ remains a central figure of interest for modern man. There isn’t much argument about whether He actually was a historical person, but nearly everything else about His life generates enormous, and sometimes rancorous, debate. Some love Him, others hate Him, some revere Him, others feel ambivalent about Him. Public opinion will always be divided. But our Christian faith is not built on public opinion. Even though we may be constantly under pressure to conform to the standards of the world, Christians should not allow mainstream public opinion, the standards of society, to dictate our conduct or decisions. Our faith is built on the conviction that He is indeed the long-awaited king, the Saviour of the World, “the stone rejected which has become the corner stone.” Things that the world considers foolish, weak, and ignoble, God views as wise, powerful, and honourable. (1 Cor. 1:25-28)

We Malaysians have suffered a double blow. In the face of a growing frightening pandemic unleashed upon an unsuspecting world, we saw a transition in our government through a “back door.” Within a week, we witnessed changing political alliances that seemed to move faster than the speed of light. The way the present government is dealing with the medical crisis and the implementation of the lockdown order have also seen shifting public opinion. One day we think they are doing a good job. Another day, we blame them for all and sundry. How will this all end? We have to admit in all honesty that we do not know. The outcome of this political upheaval is as uncertain as the course this pandemic will take in the coming weeks and perhaps even months.

Though I cannot give you a prediction about our political future or how this pandemic will turn out, I can confidently tell you how the story of Holy Week will end for Jesus. We don’t need political pundits or scientists to tell us how the story will end. We know how the story ends – His supporters will abandon Him, one will betray Him, His enemies will kill Him. But that’s not the real end of the story. His campaign will not end in defeat but in astounding victory. And if we have remained steadfast and faithful to Him, His victory will be ours too!   

Where God is honoured, not man

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Recently, I’ve been following a Taiwanese miniseries playing on the HBO Channel – The Teenage Psychic. I know – the name sounds “cheesy” and the plotline, perhaps, even ‘cheesier’. The protagonist is a teenage school girl, who also happens to work as a temple medium, a psychic who communicates with the spirit world. In its second season, we are witnessing a growing rivalry between our heroine’s guardian and care-giver, and his techno-savvy brother, both of them owners and operators of temples based on entirely different philosophies – the former runs a conventional traditional temple dedicated to a pantheon of Taoist deities and his techno-savvy younger brother operates a digital age New Age Spirituality centre – no stuffy incense smoke nor scary effigies – a modern religion for the modern man.

The rivalry between the two brothers escalates when one of the disciples of the former, the brother with the traditional temple, chooses to defect to his brother’s camp. When questioned by the younger brother on the reason for his defection, the disciple says that he wishes to move on with the times. The techno-savvy brother makes this poignant point by explaining the fundamental difference between his centre and his brother’s temple. He writes the Chinese character for ‘god’ or ‘deity’ and explains that in his brother’s more traditional temple, it is the gods who are honoured, the gods who are placated and it is the gods who matter. But in his popular and modern set-up, after writing the character for ‘man,’ he explains that the success of his enterprise is due to the fact that people are at the centre – “We cater to people’s needs, to their wants. The gods have nothing to do with it.”

This astute observation is why we are celebrating today’s feast. The Feast of Christ the King, originally celebrated on the last day of October, was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism; a way of life where man believes himself to be at the centre, which leaves God out of his thinking and living and organises his life as if God did not exist. In Quas Primas, the encyclical of Pope Pius XI that established this feast, the venerable pope noted that “the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics.” In the aftermath of what was called the Great War, society found itself on the brink of disaster. Most predominantly Catholic countries had fallen under anti-Catholic secularist regimes. Christian Europe could no longer claim to be Christian as a consequence of the widespread destruction engineered and inspired by the French Revolution and later by the Enlightenment. Orthodox Christian Russia had fallen under the Bolsheviks and their communist ideology. What united all these states and their governments was their common belief and conviction that the political and economic solutions they offered actually catered to the needs and wants of the people. God or Christ have nothing to do with it.

This, of course, is contrary to what the Church teaches. Pope Pius XI writes that “as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Saviour, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.” There can be no real peace or salvation, if God is not part of the equation.

Unfortunately, there are so many who reject the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ because it seems outdated and alien. We live in a democratic age, and democracy, for all of its strengths, can also make people deaf to the language of faith. Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French political historian, described the difference between democratic man, and all of human history before the democratic age, as the difference between “two distinct humanities.” Democratic man instinctively distrusts any form of inequality, privilege or hierarchy. All legitimacy in a democracy flows from the sovereign individual and the state he helps create. But the Church makes a very different claim. The Church humbly recognises that her authority, indeed her very existence, flows not from human machinations and projects but mystically from the very side of our Crucified and Risen Lord, who reigns supreme from the throne of His cross. 

For centuries, men have deluded themselves by thinking that they could determine their destinies apart from God. Power over the natural world, seemingly granted by science and new technology, fed human vanity and man’s illusions of security. We think that we can call the shots. This is the extent of our delusion: we want to be gods but we’re not.  We want to create ourselves and our world, but we can’t. We see God and religion as threats to our power and sovereignty and Man will not tolerate any rivals. What we forget is that one little virus, one drunk driver, one “freak” accident, is all it takes to end our plans.

Unfortunately, the idea of man dethroning God is not just exclusive to a secular unbelieving world. Many within the Church today, in their quest to make the Church more relevant and trendy, have chosen to dethrone Him by placing man at the centre of religion. Just like the point made by the techno-savvy guru in the miniseries, God is no longer honoured, God is no longer placated, God is no longer pleased. It is easy to give in to a style of religion which is popular, a religion which claims to cater to the needs and wants of its constituents, a religion that follows and imitates the latest fad, a religion where man is at the centre. But such a religion is a false religion. A false religion is a scheme of making God available to man for man’s glory, and plans where God is dethroned and robbed of His glory. Such religion cannot save.

Such is the description given of the Antichrist in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.” (CCC 695) The thing that makes the Antichrist the Antichrist is not that he openly hates Jesus Christ — that’s a given — but that he offers a brilliant fake version of the Christian gospel. It would appear that the Church is indeed presently wrapped and blinded by this “mystery of iniquity” as she struggles with a myriad of troubles: sexual abuse, financial corruption, doctrinal relativism, homosexuality, threats of schisms and heresies and the doubts of the faithful who see the Church’s enemies even in their midst.

Man-made and man-centred religions always seek to reach salvation through human effort. In his hubris, man believes that he can save the world without any assistance from God. But true Christianity preaches, “May it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Here at the cross, we see both a wondrous and scandalously mind-boggling coronation. The cross strips us of our pride and puts all our hope in the merits of the Saviour. In Him alone, the One who reigns from the throne of the cross, will we find our hope and salvation. And so, despite the violence of the attacks that the Church must continue to weather, she will not die. That is the promise of the Lord, and His words are infallible. If we wish to weather the storm, we must “bend the knee” to the King of Kings. We must renew our devotion. We must never cease to pray and cry out to God in supplication for the Church, her shepherds and the world. We must attest once again through our prayers, our deeds, our very being, that our sole purpose is to honour God and please Him, not man. Long Live Christ the King!