How to Immanentize the Social Kingship of Christ
Taking space away from the demonic
Everything is either consecrated to God or consecrated to Satan. There is no neutral zone. No DMZs in the spirit world. Sorry. Nothing is morally neutral.
One duty of Christians is to take and hold consecrated space for God. We have not been doing this for some time. Because we have not been doing this, the devil has advanced.
When you look at those red and blue maps of US elections, the deep blue is Satan’s territory. It has been consecrated to him by our thoughts and words, what we have done and what we have failed to do. I am guiltier than most on all four counts, but mostly on the last: what I have failed to do.
Today, by the grace of God, my wife and I attended a remarkably reverent and proper Novus Ordo Mass in rural Missouri on the invitation of great friends—the kind of friends you get only by God’s grace and intervention. After Mass, we went to lunch and took up some space for the Social Kingship of Christ.
It was a small sports bar in an old building near the Missouri River in Hermann, Missouri. Not a lot of people out on a Sunday morning, but all four high-tops in our row of tables were full by the time our food arrived.
“Shall we say grace?” said our hostess.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Four middle-aged people said the blessing in a sports bar like Catholic grade school children before lunch. I thought of Mark 10:15:
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the table to my left. Four adults around our age were looking at us. Not with contempt. Not with derision. Just looking.
That simple of act consecrated a small space in a bar in Hermann, Missouri, to the Creator of the universe. By doing so, we denied that space, for that moment, to the enemy.
That’s a win. That’s how we take up space.
Rallies and protests and marches are great. I love them. But they are few and far between. And when we leave the parade field, the devil rushes in.
Tiny acts of consecration, like a blessing before meals in public, displaces the demons and invites the Holy Spirit Who always fills the void we create for Him.
We have 90 days until Easter. Forty-five days before the start of Lent. Why wait to take up space?
Consecrate the space you’re in to the Social Kingship of Christ starting right now. Wherever you’re standing or sitting reading this, simply announce in a very low voice, “I consecrate this space to Christ Our Lord.”
Say a blessing before every meal, consecrating both the space and the food to Christ.
Say a prayer before getting into bed, making your bedroom a holy place.
Mentally consecrate to God every space you enter for the next 90 days. Just that. Your office, an elevator, a supermarket, Walmart, whatever. “This space is God’s.”
I know this is stating the obvious. God created all from nothing, so everything is His. But when we, His creatures, announce it, even in our minds, we are acknowledging His primacy and giving notice to the demonic squatters polluting His space. It’s an act of reverence and humility.
And it’s that easy. A simple act that surrenders our wills to God’s will.
If we don’t take up space for the Social Kingship of Christ, we have no hope of winning political battles, because our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Our struggle is NOT against flesh and blood. Our struggle IS not against flesh and blood.
It’s what Dr. Taylor Marshall has been saying for a long time:
Tomorrow, I begin 90 days of detachment from this world. I will continue write, but my writing will be less about the events of the day and more about eternal things. I will focus on humility. Paid subscribers will have full access to 12 chapters on the subject of humility—something I know nothing about but hope to learn in these 90 days. If you would like to see whether I succeed, please consider subscribing for just 5 bucks a month.
Put another way, isn’t with worth 15 dollars to watch me fail?
Oh, and if you know someone who hates me, consider sending them a gift subscription.
UPDATE: This is a closing pray from the traditional Breviary:
Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let thy holy angels dwell herein to preserve us in peace, and let thy blessing be always upon us.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
R. Amen.
A good way to make your home a space for the Holy Ghost.
Another Update: I should have explained what I meant by “immanentizing the Social Kingship of Christ.” It’s a play on the term “immanentizinig the eschaton,” which is a fancy way of saying “making heaven on earth” which always produces hell on earth. This world isn’t heaven. “Immanentizing the Social Kingship of Christ,” however, is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing on earth. It means conforming society to Christ instead of conforming Christ to our putrid society. It’s making our world acceptable to its Creator instead of attempting to make the Creator acceptable to us.