Welcome back to James Popperi. I'm Joe Heschmire, and I want to talk about the phrase,

Christ is king. I love the phrase. I'm also aware that people online sometimes use it today

in ways that are regarded as and often meant as anti-Jewish. Now I know when I say that,

there's already a segment of you who instantly want to write me off as being an overly sensitive

person who thinks

any criticism of Israel's anti-Semitic. But hear me out. That's not me. And if you still think

I'm wrong at the end of the video, you can tell me why I'm wrong below. Let me give you a little

context. I spoke on this subject recently at Benedictine College's Nostratate conference in April.

I explained the Jewish roots of

the expression, Christ is King, and in response, some student was so outraged that he posted anonymous

flyers on professors' doors, declaring that we have no Jewish roots with our phrase Christ is

king. After a lengthy anti-Jewish tirade, he ended with the phrase Christ is king and giant letters.

Now, that is not a normal reaction I get from my talks, whether I'm before a relatively friendly

crowd of Catholics, whether I'm before a more hostile crowd of Protestants, whatever the subject is,

this is an unusual kind of reaction, and it inadvertently beautifully illustrated my point.

Namely, the people using the phrase Christ as king to mock Jews, they don't really understand

how Jewish the expression is. After all, Christ is a Greek word for the Hebrew Messiah,

which means anointed one. And one of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah

is that he would share in God's own kingship.

God says to his anointed in Psalm 2, ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

So it's actually pretty fascinating and can be really helpful to explore the roots of this.

So those of us Catholics who love the phrase Christ is king

...