Christ the King Sunday
A Fascist Masquerade Test
The church calendar sometimes displays a wicked sense of irony. Today is Christ the King Sunday. I’ve never made much of this theme, but this morning Rev. Kat reminded us how appropriate it is in a time when so many in this country are thinking about fascism and “No Kings”.
Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of Pentecost, was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI as an intentional response to the rising tide of totalitarianism in Europe. His point was to remind the church that no earthly power should claim ultimate allegiance.
Having just spent the year reading Howard Thurman I was realizing how this feast could become a “fascist masquerade" test. Does Christ the King Sunday call us to serve a crucified king who says “remember me” to criminals and “forgive them” to executioners? Or does it baptize our appetite for a strong leader who will crush our enemies and make us great again?
The lectionary texts for today offer two visions of kingship. In Luke’s crucifixion narrative (Luke 23:33-43), we see the inscription “King of the Jews” posted above Jesus as mockery. The Roman Empire had their own view of kingship: military might, territorial control, the power to crucify dissenters - a Pete Hegseth vision you might say. Those who stood by taunting Jesus to “save himself” were expressing fascism’s fundamental logic: power is about domination and self-preservation.
But the criminal crucified beside Jesus recognized something the mockers couldn’t see: true authority that doesn’t need to prove itself through violence. Christ the King operates through vulnerability and mercy. The promise of paradise is not extended to those who seize power but those who see past its pretensions.
This is what Howard Thurman called the religion OF Jesus: the faith of the crucified God who stands in solidarity with the condemned. But Christianity ABOUT Jesus, wants the triumphalist Christ blessing armies and empires, sanctifying inequality with divine approval. Not exorcizing our demons, but blessing them with holy water.
Thurman warned us about a Christianity cloaked in exaggerated Americanism, dignifying and legitimizing our white-body prejudices.
And that Jeremiah text (23:1-6) cuts even deeper: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” Those religious leaders who compare this President to Moses and equate discipleship with patriotism, actually scatter God’s flock. Thurman accused such as them of claiming “squatter’s rights in the minds of believers.”
Christ the King Sunday forces the question: which Christ? Which king?
The Jesus of the Gospels is the king who has nowhere to lay his head, who tells Pilate his kingdom is not of this world, who dies between two thieves. His only “weapon” is forgiveness. His kingdom scatters when he dies and then reemerges not through coercion but through testimony, not through violence but through vulnerable love.
Empire Christianity always wants a different type of king. One who validates our appetite for dominance, our fear of the other, our conviction that we are the chosen and “they” are the threat. This Christianity calls us to wield the cross as a weapon. It doesn’t ask us to feed the hungry but take away their SNAP benefits, not to heal the sick but to raise their insurances premiums, not to welcome the stranger but deport them, not to remember criminals but to build more prisons.
On Christ the King Sunday, we must remember not to let our feast day become a fascist masquerade.
Are we celebrating the king who was mocked as he died or the king who mocks those who are dying?
Are we following the shepherd who gathers the scattered or the shepherds who scatter the gathered?
The test is simple but stark: Does our king look like the one on the cross, or like the one who put him there?
Lord have mercy.
For more on Howard Thurman’s view of fascism see The Fascist Masquerade, January 21, 2025.