In recent months, a strange pattern has appeared online. Under posts about Jews, Israel, or antisemitic conspiracy theories, the same phrase repeatedly shows up in the comment section or on social media profiles: “Christ is King.”
Sometimes it appears dozens of times in a row, posted like a digital chant. Sometimes it is dropped into arguments as a provocation. What should be a sacred Christian confession of faith has become, in some corners of the internet, a taunt.
In the past year the phrase has begun trending regularly on platforms like X and Instagram, especially during controversies involving Jews or Israel. Sometimes it appears as a flood of identical comments — dozens or even hundreds of posts repeating the same words. Other times it is deployed more subtly, dropped into arguments as a kind of ideological signal. What should be a confession of faith becomes something closer to a cultural password: a way of marking allegiance, provoking outrage, or signaling hostility. In that environment, theology disappears and only the slogan remains.
For many Christians watching this unfold, the reaction is confusion. The phrase itself is ancient and central to the Christian faith. Yet in these contexts it is being used less as a theological statement than as a cultural weapon.
That transformation should concern believers and not only because of the antisemitism that often accompanies it.
It should concern us because it fundamentally distorts what the phrase actually means.
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Simone Rizkallah helped launch the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism (CCAA) in October 2023, which now advances its mission at the Institute of Religion and Democracy. The Coalition is committed to rejecting antisemitism, strengthening Catholic–Jewish solidarity, and building bridges of solidarity with persecuted communities everywhere.A first-generation American of Egyptian-Armenian descent, she is a Catholic educator, speaker, writer, and host of the Beyond Rome podcast. She holds a graduate degree in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Systematic Theology from Christendom College.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on March 19, 2026 at 1:46 pm
Thank you for this article. I agree with its main points.
I think the doctrine that Christ is King has political implications, but nowadays it is most commonly used “a way of marking allegiance, provoking outrage, or signaling hostility”. Which is deplorable.
Even worse is the fact that because of the misuse and abuse of the phrase “Christ is King”, some Christians may either misunderstand it or think that there’s something wrong with the doctrine it expresses.
At this time, the church in America needs more correct understanding, consciousness, and application of that doctrine, not less.
I wonder why the author didn’t mention the Cristero War, which occurred in Mexico from 1926 to June 1929: which is to say, just after the papal encyclical *Quas Primas* was published. One of its slogans was “*Viva Cristo Rey*”, which means “Long Live Christ the King”.