Readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King:
2 Samuel 5:1-3 | Colossians 1:12-20 | Luke 23:35-43

Since the war with Iran began, some top leaders in the Pentagon, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, have been using extreme religious rhetoric. They have described the war as a holy war or a crusade. With this language, they have attempted to justify the use of devastating violence against the people of Iran. They are feeding religious propaganda to American troops.

On March 3, The Guardian reported, “US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical ‘end times’ to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force.”

Certain Evangelical Christians believe they can incite the apocalypse by supporting Israel’s wars of aggression and colonial expansion. They believe they can set things up just right so that Christ returns and destroys the enemies of Christianity, notably including the Jewish people. They believe they can trigger the apocalypse and that this apocalypse will be a violent reckoning that proves them right in their beliefs as their enemies suffer the fires of hell.

This is NOT our faith. This is NOT the faith Jesus presents in the Gospel. Biblical faith, mystical faith, never condones violence or punishment. But there are powerful forces in the world that corrupt our faith with this kind of punitive and violent God-talk. It is manipulative and leads to a demonic justification for war and genocide as well as religious abuse. While in Cameroon, Pope Leo proclaimed, “woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” Faith warps into fanaticism as soon as it is used to hurt others, maintain unjust social arrangements, or demand an obedience to a set of cultural values as to an idol.

But Jesus offers the liberating message: “Do not be afraid; just have faith” (Mark 5:36). The faith Jesus preaches has to do with letting the God of mercy embrace us in tender love. Jesus would have us entrust ourselves to the God who dwells within each one of us unto the full realization of new life: peace, joy, gentleness, compassion, justice, and love. The current mode of fanaticism presents a challenge to the followers of Jesus. We must counter it with the Gospel, with real faith.

Thus, for the next few weeks we will reflect on the faith of the Gospels in contrast to the powerful forces of Christian fanaticism in America. We will reflect on what faith means to deepen our faith and to resist the fanaticism masquerading as faith. We must call out this fanaticism for it is used to perpetuate misery, economic inequality, and murder of the innocent on a dizzyingly evil scale.

But what is fanaticism? Google gives a good description of religious fanaticism: “Religious fanaticism is an extreme, uncritical, and often aggressive zeal for a religious belief system that goes beyond conventional faith, often manifesting as coercive, intolerant, or violent behavior. It is characterized by rigid dogmatism, binary ‘us vs. them’ thinking, and a tendency to twist scripture to justify harmful, irrational actions, often resulting in social disruption or destruction.”

In America, we tend to think religious fanatics are from other religions or they are fringe figures like David Koresh. But fanaticism has been with American since the Puritans, who strayed far from the Gospel as they rationalized both greed and the genocide of native tribes in the land that we now call the United States. Since landing at Plymouth Rock, religious fanatics in America have fueled the genocide of natives and condoned the enslavement of African peoples. Fanatics have been with us right through the creation of the Moral Majority and the Christian Right with figures like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson.

This can feel like a Protestant phenomenon, but fanaticism appears in the Catholic Church, too. Historically, we have had major bouts of “extreme, uncritical, and often aggressive zeal” that comes out “as coercive, intolerant, or violent behavior.” We need only think of the Crusades and the Inquisition. But, more recently, we can refer to groups like Church Militant, Opus Dei, the Lepanto institute, and the international group called “Tradition, Family, Property.”

Often, Catholic fanaticism seems like fidelity to Tradition. Underneath, though, we find people venerating tradition almost like God. With religious fanaticism, there is always an idolization of some idea, value, practice, or social order. For instance, these zealots, whatever their denomination, want women to be subservient to men in a patriarchal culture; indeed, there is an uncritical and the wholesale identification of patriarchy with a religion. This is false. Jesus never promoted patriarchy but an egalitarianism. Anyone defending patriarchy is attacking the Gospel itself.

Rejecting equality for perceived lower orders of society, especially the poor and races despised by those at the top, characterizes all religious fanaticism. Fanatics are less concerned with the message of Jesus and more interested in suppressing movements for equality and economic justice. They have a compulsive need to defend the current world order and social hierarchy; they treat that order as divine. This is idolatry pure and simple.

Fanatics do not just believe in their vision. They hold it with certainty. Faith as certitude and firm (compulsive) adherence to beliefs in specific words characterizes this frenzy. Lack of doubt fuels fanaticism. Jesus never says doubt is the oppositive of faith. Rather, he says fear and worry are the main obstacles to faith. Religious fanatics manipulate peoples’ fears to make them obedient followers.

Fanaticism always takes ideology – often fascist ideas – to be more important than people, real life, and even God. And these ideas tend to be hurtful to specific groups. Anywhere there is a rigidity that devalues freedom and human flourishing, a compulsion for rules and order, a craving for a punitive god that authorizes violence against nonbelievers, there is religious fanaticism.

Gospel faith always accepts reality as it is and responds to it. Jesus heals people in pain right in front of him. Then, he affirms their basic trust in God and himself. This is faith. It promotes human flourishing, not the destruction of life.

Thomas Keating writes, “Faith dissolves the enormous illusion of the human condition, which is that God is absent. This great lie, the source of all human misery, prevents the free flow of the divine life and love into us and into the world.” Faith has political implications insofar as faith in the mercy of God frees us from ourselves, from our fears and narcissism, to love others as Jesus would. Gospel faith opens out into justice for all peoples everywhere. Let us heed the call to abandon fear and fanaticism, to entrust ourselves to the God who cherishes us, who dwells within us, and who is one with us.