Jordan Peterson Pushes “Christ is King” as Hate Speech

Last year, Ben Shapiro launched a campaign against the phrase “Christ is King” around Resurrection Sunday, the most significant day in the calendar. This year, the campaign against the phrase comes from Jordan Peterson. Rather than attack the slogan through social media tweets or lectures,  it comes under the guise of academia.

In a joint effort with Rutgers University, Network Contagion Research Institute, and The Congress of Christian Leaders, Peterson spearheads an attack on the term using institutional credentials. The Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL) was launched in 2018 by Samuel Rodriguez and Johnnie Moore, the latter of whom is listed in the paper. The CCL is much smaller than its name suggests and is rather insignificant other than its name. Johnnie Moore is also on the board of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Apart from Moore, the list of writers lacks faith in Christianity, instead consisting of eight Jews out of thirteen names. The Principal Investigator, Lee Jussim, is Jewish. Joel Finkelstein, the Co-Principal Investigator, is a former fellow at the ADL. Jacob Zucker is a “social justice student” at Baruch College. Danit Sarah Finkelstein is a Jewish woman who works at NCRI along with the lead investigators. Sonia Yanovsky is a Jewish researcher at Rutgers. Alex Goldenberg is a Jew who works with NCRI and has also testified before Congress. Amongst other things, Ohad Fedida hosts a Jewish podcast called The Habura. Gideon Firher and Simon Lazarus are also obvious. Most of these names have a history of progressive activism, including coauthoring a 2024 paper on DEI in the workplace.

That a group of mostly Jews would attack the phrase “Christ is King” is hardly newsworthy, but the so-called Christians like Moore, who was a professor at Liberty and worked in the previous Trump Administration, is more egregious. So too is Jordan Peterson, who has long branded himself a bible teacher who monetizes himself as a “seeker of truth” while remaining in unbelief.

The introduction to the report states the following:

Freedom of religion has long been at the foundation of American progress, fostering innovation, cultural vitality, and a moral framework that has guided the nation’s institutions. America’s founders wisely enshrined this value in the first clause of the first sentence of the first Amendment to the United States Constitution. Recent data suggests that there has been an encouraging trend reversal in the long-declining influence of Christianity in the United States, signaling the potential for constructive renewal of Christian thought in public life. This encouraging resurgence is being met with a challenge: the co-optation of Christian language and symbols by small, vocal groups of extremist actors who seek to redefine religious identity for ideological ends.

This report focuses on the phrase “Christ is King,” a profound declaration of faith, which is now being weaponized by some political extremists, distorting its meaning to advance exclusionary and hateful narratives. This hijacking of religious language echoes a broader pattern observed in the past decade, where identitarian ideologies—whether in the form of radical DEI initiatives or the excesses of “woke” moral policing—have restructured institutions by imposing rigid ideological conformity under the guise of moral progress. Just as these movements leveraged moral identity to enforce social control in academia and the corporate world, extremist factions now exploit religious identity to try and reshape public discourse, sow division, and erode the spirit of religious renewal that defines American democracy.

If left unchecked, this ideological corruption risks tainting an apparent revival of Christian thought, replacing a constructive and genuine return to faith by many with a polarized and weaponized moral framework by a few. Protecting the integrity of this resurgence requires distinguishing between sincere religious sentiments and the instrumentalization of faith by extremists to sow division and spread hate.

The first paragraph certainly reinforces the modern notion that “religious freedom” for all religions is the backbone of America, which is historically untrue as America was founded as a pan-Christian project. The report claims to want to “save” the “revival of Christian thought,” which is laughable coming from a group of unbelievers. That would be like Christians trying to save Islam from extremism but not utilizing the gospel. This ultimately reads as a group of infidels attempting to steer Christian thought in a more favorable direction. Another word for this is subversive.

The meat of the report focuses on the impact of Twitter using the phrase in antisemitic tweets. Nick Fuentes is most notably named, along with Jake Sheilds, Candace Owens, and Lukas Gage. They are listed as instigating the uptick. They feature a graph that shows the phrase is most used around Easter and Christmas, but the uptick in othe verall trend is from these social media influencers.

While some will claim that the use of “Christ is King” is a violation of the Third Commandment, that is, taking the Lord’s name in vain, the historic thought regarding this commandment emphasizes the notion of oath-breaking more than sloganeering. The problem with this application is that it assumes motives and assumes hatred on behalf of the user, whether genuine or otherwise. Moreover, it begs the question of whether an unbeliever professing the Lordship of Christ or God is committing sin by uttering such while remaining in a state of sin.

To back-test this theological claim would invoke sin upon unit commanders who herald Christ before they lead their troops into battle against any opposing army, in many cases where Christian soldiers were killing Christian soldiers. Plenty of men throughout history have invoked God for wars. Were they in sin, too? Was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address a violation as he unlawfully desecrated the South? What about Patrick Henry while advocating for the revolution? There is also William the Conqueror before the Battle of Hastings and Richard the Lionheart at the Siege of Acre.

The reason many in Conservative Inc. join this campaign is because of dual loyalties. Johnie Moore is a major Zionist, and so too is Jeremy Boreing. Last year, even Steve Deace echoed Ben Shapiro’s talking points. This report, which is the impetus for the latest war on “Christ is King,” was written by people who hate Christ. These people want the phrase to be labeled hateful so that people stop proclaiming Christ in the social-political sphere. They want those who are not familiar with Nick Fuentes to think twice before posting the phrase. In the end, they care most about what one group thinks and are loathe to offend them.

Thankfully, there are those in Con Inc. speaking out against this, including Jason Whitlock, Auron MacIntyre, and Jack Posobiec. Jordan Peterson teamed up with leftist activists to attack those on the right. It is not surprising, but it is, by definition, subversive.