Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran theologian, pastor and author, knows how to make waves on the Internet. One of her latest comments was about this past Sunday’s feast of Christ the King (the full name of which is “the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe”):
Pope Pius XI established Christ the King Sunday in 1925 to counter what he regarded as the destructive forces of facism and the totalitarian claims of Nazi ideologies. I know I am 4 days early, but Happy Antifa Sunday, everyone.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) November 17, 2021
So is Bolz-Weber just trolling, or is there a legitimate basis for understanding Christ the King Sunday as “Antifa Sunday”? The idea is (slightly) less crazy than it sounds.
ANTIFA are themselves fascists The epitomise everything their name suggests they are against
“ANTIFA are themselves fascists”
Not at all. This sentiment, which I often hear expressed from fellow conservatives, seems to stem from a conflation of the term “fascist” with “totalitarian”, or simply a lack of understanding of what fascism is. One can be a totalitarian leftist or rightist. Antifa is decidedly leftist.
Their brand of militant intolerance is of quite another flavor from fascism. Antifa started in Germany before WW2 as Antifaschistische Aktion, the street fighting wing of the German Communist Party (KDP). That party was pro-Stalin .The modern “Antifacist Action” group derives their name and flag directly from the group, only changing the name from German to English and changing one of the two flags from red (for communism) to black for anarchism, as their group today is made up those who support either/both Marxism and anarchism. Keep in mind that communist regimes amassed a death toll and inflicted human suffering that far eclipsed even the NAZIs, and yet it is in vogue today among the left in academia to declare oneself a “marxist” as BLM’s leadership brazenly declared themselves to be.
Trolling.
Yeah,
Leftists always refuse to call things by their correct names. That’s a dogma and obligatory practice of the Leftist Religion.
(And it IS, functionally, a religion: In Leftists, it performs all the functions that Catholicism performs in a good Catholic or that Judaism performs in an orthodox practitioner of Judaism.)
When a Leftist like Nancy Pelosi calls herself “Catholic,” she’s just acting in accord with the dogma of her religion (Leftism) and calling herself something other than what she is (a Leftist).
When Leftists like the folks in Antifa call themselves “Anti-Fascist,” they’re just acting in accord with the dogma of their religion (Leftism) and calling themselves something other than what they are (namely, Fascists with a culturally-left agenda).
But, unless we are also Leftists, we should not behave in accord with Leftist dogma.
If we are Christians, we should behave in accord with orthodox Christian belief and practice, which happens to be in hard opposition to Leftist dogma. Christianity obligates us to Call Things By Their Right Names.
Christ The King Sunday is, and should be, a celebration of the Universal Kingship of Christ. One necessary aspect of that is the Social Kingship of Christ. And the Social Kingship of Christ is necessarily incompatible with various satanic ideologies, including all forms of Fascism. Therefore, Christ The King Sunday is, necessarily, anti-Fascist.
BUT…,
because “Antifa” is the popular label for a Fascist organization, we should NOT refer to Christ The King Sunday as “Antifa Sunday.” That would be an instance of labeling things in misleading ways. Doing THAT is acting like a Leftist, not like a Christian.
So, don’t go there.
Dostoevsky wrote a book about such people. He called them “The Devils” and in Soviet Russia they proved the banality of their evil to the tune of 50 million plus lives and unquantifiable spiritual oppression and misery that persists to the present day. The same spiritual forces are still at work, and enjoyed ever greater success, even though they have but a little time.