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Each Kingdom Requires a Lord — Whose Will Reign?

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A few pages of Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, by Pope Benedict XVI, has highlighted for me some troubling trends in the Church. He sifts carefully through Catholic thought as it differed historically from extra-ecclesial trajectories, but what must concern today’s reader is that many influential leaders in the Church have accepted non-Catholic premises in their views of the world.

In his explanation of the Kingdom that Jesus preached, Benedict reminds us that Origen had two basic thoughts on the topic. First was that Jesus himself is the “autobasileia, that is the Kingdom in person … the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms” (p. 49). In this way, those who come to know Christ Jesus come to know God who dwells among them, and who wishes his divine will to prevail.

Origen didn’t stop there, though. He insisted that not only does God dwell with his creatures, but He dwells in them. In a mystical way, it is understood that “man’s interiority [is]  the essential location of the Kingdom of God”. And Benedict quotes from Origen’s On Prayer:

“Those who pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God pray without any doubt for the Kingdom of God that they contain in themselves, and they pray that this Kingdom might bear fruit and attain its fullness. For every holy man it is God who reigns … So if we want God to reign in us, then sin must not be allowed in any way to reign in our mortal body … Then let God stroll at leisure in us as in a spiritual paradise and rule in us alone with his Christ” (p. 50).

The two images are not contradictory, but layered, so that Jesus is the kingdom, and Jesus is in the man of virtue, so as that man grasps the grace offered through the passion of Christ, he is both more Christlike and the garden where Christ can reign.

Subsequently, Benedict shows that traditionally there is a third image of the Kingdom, which is the Church:

To be sure, neither the interpretation in terms of man’s interiority nor the connection with Christ ever completely disappeared from sight. But nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theology did tend to speak of the Church as the Kingdom of God on earth; the Church was regarded as the actual presence of the Kingdom within history (p. 50).

Then Benedict explains that the Enlightenment sparked specific trends that proved antithetical to this traditional understanding. There was the radical individualism championed by Adolf von Harnack, and the corollary belief that morality was more important than ritual. Others preferred to see the kingdom in more communitarian terms, pitting ethics against sheer grace, and all of these efforts were upended by Albert Schweitzer’s book, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. His thesis was still tied firmly to the notion of God and the saving work of Christ, but it was far more eschatological in the sense that it was “a proclamation of the imminent end of the world, of the inbreaking of a new world where, as the term kingdom suggests, God would reign” (p. 52).

Surely the trauma of the First World War led many believers to wonder what place such massive blood-letting among Christians meant in the unfolding of world history, but the accompanying trains of thought went wildly off-course from that point.

Since that time, a secularist reinterpretation of the idea of the Kingdom has gained considerable ground, particularly, though not exclusively, in Catholic theology. This reinterpretation propounds a new view of Christianity, religions, and history in general, and it claims that such radical refashioning will enable people to reappropriate Jesus’ supposed message (p. 53).

Previous shifts of emphasis were not nearly as dangerous theologically as that final lie, which carries the sympathetic soul from a generic theocentrism to regnocentrism without God. And yet that is where we are today in much of the world, ‘where peace, justice, and respect for creation are the dominant values” (p. 54). How many times have we bit our tongues not to “proselytise” (the name of Jesus being so “divisive,” or the boundaries of the Church appearing so threatening)? Benedict acknowledges the temptation:

This sounds good; it seems like a way of finally enabling the whole world to appropriate Jesus’ message, but without requiring missionary evangelisation of other religions. It looks as if now, at long last, Jesus’ works have gained some practical content, because the establishment of the “Kingdom” has become a common task and is drawing nigh (p. 54).

But Benedict ultimately decries this utopian approach which removes God from the mission. The politicisation of the kingdom has marginalised religion, which already must genuflect to the state in so many settings. “This post-Christian vision of faith and religion is disturbingly close to Jesus’ third temptation [in the desert]” (p. 55).

We must keep this in mind as we consider how we approach all government promises in the near future. We see clearly the dangers of hoping that “princes” will advance our pet causes, for those power-brokers can turn on a dime and leave the Christian empty-handed. We must also recognise the dangers of ecumenical endeavors that rejoice in works that are mute about the faith that motivates them. We’ve attempted to baptise so much in the name of tolerance and compassion that we run the risk of losing the meaning of the very names in which we baptise.

Benedict summarises:

When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, he is quite simply proclaiming God, and proclaiming him to be the living God, who is able to act concretely in the world and in history and is even now so acting. He is telling us: “God exists” and “God is really God,” which means that he holds in his hands the threads of the world … “Kingdom of God” is therefore an inadequate translation. It would be better to speak of God’s being Lord, of his lordship (pp. 56-57).

In an upside world where androgyny is to be preferred to man and woman, and “toxic masculinity” is thought to be at the heart of all our woes, we would do well to remember that Lordship has its place–both in the Son of God and those particularly called to live in persona Christi. Kingship carries within it many layered meanings, but primarily the understanding that hierarchy is preferred to mob rule, that sin corrodes the community, and a material kingdom is not what we seek. We cannot allow either the language to be diluted or the mission to be derailed, for Christ must be Lord, now and forever. Amen!

 

Genevieve Kineke is the founder of Canticle Magazine and the author of The Authentic Catholic Woman. She writes at feminine-genius.com.

12 thoughts on “Each Kingdom Requires a Lord — Whose Will Reign?”

  1. Whither the Social Reign of Christ the King? I kept expecting this article to lead to how it has been completely forgotten by today’s clerics, including Benedict XVI. Alas, even the author herself seems to be ignorant of the doctrine, or, at least, thinking it not worth mentioning. Pius XI would be perplexed.

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  2. I’m intimidated by the act of criticizing an intellectual genius and deeply spiritual man, as Benedict surely is. But it’s still true that his nature was wounded by the Sin of Adam, leaving him with weaknesses, blindness, poor judgement motivated by timidity, et al.

    I saw a photo of Joseph Ratszinger(?)from when he was 8 or 9, after he was elected pope in 2005. And I thought, this man is the right man for this most terrifying of all “jobs”. His photo spoke to me. And I saw the spiritual depth and beauty in his face of sweet innocence. I thought, a man of deep humility is absolutely necessary in this time of the church’s greatest need.

    Now I’m inclined to say, it’s not that simple. Pope Emeritus Benedict is an academic, And his profundity, his capacity to get to the guts of issues, really comes through in his voluminous writings. However, he is not a man who wants to accept that the church is in a FIGHT TO THE DEATH in this mighty struggle between good and evil. Evil has won every battle, so far, and the church is still reeling and giving away her moral authority to face down a corrupt civilization. Repent or die eternally.

    And now we have Pope Francis telling us the church must “apologize” to homosexuals.

    It’s taken me years to be able to say this. I used to buy into the notion, which must surely be a symptom of Modernism’s infiltration into the heart of the church, that the old way of preaching the gospel, preaching the “hard truths” of the Catholic faith, no longer works because the world has changed to much and people just can’t listen. But that is nonsense.

    It seems that neither Benedict or JPll escaped completely the seductive power of that heresy of Modernism, the “synthesis of all heresies”, as Pius X put it so brilliantly.

    And now we are stuck with Pope Francis, who is supposed to be sooooo humble. Washes the feet of the poor, kisses their feet. But who shows another, ugly side, that is far far from true Christian humility, when he is opposed by Catholics who want to KNOW what the hell he thinks he is doing. And Benedict apparently gives Francis his unqualified support.

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    • It’s strange, that Francis should react with such, – well, arrogance, to the righteous fears of devout Catholics. Who want to KNOW what he thinks he is doing, playing fast and loose with Catholic doctrine. I used to think that his stilted words in English lost something in the translation from Italian. But now I believe it’s deeper. That it has to do with a harshness in his Argentinian make up, that will tolerate no opposition to his plans for the church.

      I love Benedict, but there is the valid question, whether his dithering over so called ecumenism, as one example, reveals a weakness in his character, or if he does not have what it takes to take on this monumental responsibility to rebuild Christ’s Church. Sort of like expecting an academic to do a warrior’s job that only brilliant generals of the caliber of MacArthur and Patton are capable of.

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      • I believe the correct term is ‘effeminate.’ I also love Benedict. But sometimes one needs a warrior as well as a scholar to do the job.

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  3. I concur with Newman Noggs; Mrs. Kineke has managed to write an entire essay on social kingship while studiously avoiding any reference to one of the most basic tenets of Catholic social doctrine — the social kingship of Christ.

    A good place to start would have been the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church: “The Church proclaims that Christ, the conqueror of death, reigns over the universe that he himself has redeemed. His kingdom includes even the present times….” (§383).

    Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei §3 states this even more clearly: “For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all.”

    Pius XI’s Quas Primas tells us unambiguously that “all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ.”

    These are not empty proclamations of “religious” dominion. They have logically inevitable, if inconvenient for modernists, consequences in the “secular” world. For example if Christ reigns, then the “people” cannot simultaneously reign. Christ’s reign necessarily precludes “popular sovereignty,” which the Church has been at pains to explain in encyclical after encyclical (each one in turn diligently ignored by the U.S. bishops).

    Finally, I struggle to understand this sentence: “The politicisation of the kingdom has marginalised religion.” The Catholic Church is not a “religion” in the modern sense of the word. “Religion,” as used by John Locke, protestant theologians, modernist Catholics, and secularists over the last three centuries, is a private set of interior individual beliefs about our creator and the next life. Our Church (as if there is another) is not a “religion”; it is the Mystical Body of Christ; and Christ is Truth. Modern “religion” is by definition “marginalised;” it is “marginalized” to our private thoughts precisely to ensure that it has no impact whatsoever on the “public,” “secular” or “government” space which (in accordance with the fashionable doctrine of separation of Church and state) must be swept clean of “religion.” The danger we have continually faced (or more precisely failed to face) in America over the last two hundred and forty years is the “religionization” of Catholicism and not the “politicisaton of the kingdom.”

    Reply
    • Comparing Benedict’s original text against the Mrs. Kineke’s quotation reveals a small but significant error. Kineke writes: “Origen had two basic thoughts on the topic. First was that Jesus himself is the “autobasileia, that is the Kingdom in person … the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms” (p. 49)

      Origen, however, didn’t say that “the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms.” Moreover, Benedict doesn’t say that Origen said that. The quoted language is not Benedict paraphrasing Origen; it is Benedict helping his 21st century readers to avoid misreading Origen’s 3rd century text.

      What Benedict seems to know, but very few modern readers will grasp, is that there was no such thing as territorial rule (or “geographical dominion”) in the ancient world. Territorial rule is a concept that first makes its appearance on the world stage in perhaps the 15th century. Origen didn’t (and didn’t have to) explain this to his 3rd century audience.

      For modern readers, “basilieia” is probably better translated as “kingship,” rather than “kingdom,” as it has more to do with authority than geography. By way of contrast, the land of a king (which was not all the land of his subjects) was designated by the term “basilike chora.” Basilike chora was not the land over which the king exercised rule, but rather the land over which he exercised ownership, just as any other property owner.

      Origen calls Christ “autobasileia” (kingship itself), for the same reason he calls Him autosophia (wisdom itself) and autoasphaleia (truth itself). Christ doesn’t have truth; He doesn’t speak truth; He is Truth. Following the same logic, Christ is kingship, which brings us full circle again to — the social kingship of Christ.

      Reply

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