(LifeSiteNews) — In a now-viral interview, conservative commentator and Catholic Candace Owens stood firm in her affirmation that Christ is King while being pressed by Piers Morgan.
In the oft-heated interview, Owens made the bold affirmation that God will judge every human person:
I want to make sure everybody knows this, right: at the end of the day, you are going to have to account to God for the things that you allowed, the things that you were complicit in, and for the things that you did not have enough courage to state.
She also stated:
We need to return to a time where people are guided by faith and by God, and not by governments and the media institutions. […]
[T]he only way that we’re going to be able to change that is if we start looking through things through an appropriate lens, right? The truth is that [the West] lost the minute we turned away from faith, and the minute that we turned away from God. That is my belief, and I don’t put Faith in institutions – I just don’t.
So I’m done with the military-industrial complex, I don’t want to support Ukraine, I don’t want to support Israel, I don’t want to support any of it. I want to support my family, and that is where everything begins – at home.
Throughout the interview, she expressed a number of unpopular truths, including about the Israel-Gaza war, the COVID vaccines – and the Kingship of Christ.
‘Christ is King’ and the departure from The Daily Wire
Early in the interview, Piers Morgan played a video clip of Andrew Klavan, a former Daily Wire colleague of Owens, claiming that Owens had been saying things which “we felt were strongly anti-semitic” in the lead up to her firing.
In the clip, Klavan stated:
The Daily Wire parted ways with Candace Owens, and part of it was things that she was saying that we felt were strongly antisemitic. And she was doing it in such a way that it was kind of hard to pin down, so I was trying to show where these things happen.
Morgan asked Owens about why she had left The Daily Wire, and Owens replied that she was not able to discuss it. When asked by Morgan if the reason she couldn’t speak on the matter was because she had signed a non-disclosure agreement, Owens once again reiterated that she was not able to speak on the subject.
In response, Morgan said that he was “bemused”:
I don’t understand why somebody from The Daily Wire can be so explicit about the reasons you left, and yet you are not able to be as explicit, to defend yourself or to counter what they’re saying.
Owens replied:
Amen Piers. Amen. I think that is probably a question that was on a lot of people’s minds.
As the interview proceeded, it became clear that Morgan was referring to Klavan’s claim that Owens’ repetition of the phrase “Christ is King” was an anti-semitic dogwhistle. This is what Owens had to say:
[E]ven if you believe that it is valid for that to happen, I think it is immoral to allow someone to attack someone and to not allow them to defend their name.
And so for me, Andrew actually rose to the level of defamation when he started claiming that I had actually said things that I had never said.
Morgan then tried to lead Owens to accept that she had indeed said things that could at least be construed as antisemitic, asking, “Did you ever say or do anything which to a Jewish ear could be construed as anti-semitic?”
Owens refused to accept the assumptions behind this line of questioning:
Well, let’s be clear about all of these topics, whether we’re talking about racism, sexism, anti-semitism – everything can be construed to an ear when you’re talking about a subjective ear.
Owens’ contested social media posts
Eventually Morgan stated directly that “many people” thought that Owens’ affirming “Christ is King” was “a deliberate provocation to people like Ben Shapiro who obviously are extremely high-profile Jewish people.” He asked:
Right, a lot of attention’s been focused on you constantly referencing ‘Christ is King.’
Many people, believing that although those words in themselves (if you’re a Christian as you are) would not be offensive, that to Jewish people, when they’re being whipped up on social media (as they were at the time by people who are genuine white supremacists and pretty brazen anti-semites) that, being smart as you are, you would have known that to deliberately use that phrase repeatedly in that time in that climate was a deliberate act of provocation to people like Ben Shapiro, who obviously are extremely high-profile Jewish people.
Do you accept that?
This section and Owens’ answer were so important to Morgan and his producers, that it was made the main preview at the start of the show.
Owens proceeded to dispute Morgan’s characterization of what happened, along with the timing of the events involving her professional interactions with Ben Shapiro and her subsequent social media posts. She returned to Andrew Klavan’s role:
The reason why this even became a scandal is because of Andrew Klavan. Andrew Klavan did an episode called Because Christ is Really King, and then he accused me wrongly of ‘spitting that phrase at a Jew.’
That simply never happened, as I showed in my first episode back, it was just made up out of thin air.
Owens then went on the offensive, strongly arguing for the legitimacy of the phrase and slamming those who have characterized it as a reaction or provocation to others:
I posted a standalone bible verse, and I wrote at the end of it “Christ is King.” And then a Jew responded to me telling me to quit my job. So what happens sometimes is then time passes and people try to rewrite history.
But we’re not going to do revisionist history here. I tweeted ‘Christ is King,’ appropriately following a Bible verse when I was 38 weeks pregnant.
And I stand by that proverb and I stand by my declaring Christ to be King, as I have done many times, and it’s basic Christian doctrine.
Morgan asked a further question about what motivated Owens to post the contested tweets on November 14, 2023:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against…
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 14, 2023
She explained that around the time she was due to give birth, it had emerged that Ben Shapiro had been caught on a “hot mic” talking very negatively about Owens, and many media outlets were reaching out for comment.
As a result, her husband, George Farmer, suggested that she read the Bible and put the situation in perspective. Her tweets represented the outcome of that process, and (she said) “a call for peace.”
My husband told me to read the Bible and to realize that these things are fickle, and that all of these journalists that were asking me to respond to them are doing it because all they want is clicks and money.
And they want you, you know, they want to use you for a moment. That’s not going to matter in the scheme of things in your life.
And so I wanted to respond to all of these media members by saying that ‘I’m calling for, I’m calling for peace, you know; Christ is King of my heart, I don’t need this right now.’ So that was it.
Morgan tries to link ‘Christ is King’ with Israel, Gaza and anti-semitism
The interview then turned to the conflict between Israel and Gaza, in which Owens slammed media outlets for their caution around Israel, and a lack of balance in coverage of Christian persecution throughout the world.
Morgan later returned to the phrase “Christ is King,” asking Owens how she felt about this phrase being a “core slogan” of online commentator Nick Fuentes and others, describing him as a “white supremacist, white nationalist.”
He later asked Owens whether she felt “uncomfortable” about receiving support from Fuentes – a question Owens rejected as “absolute nonsense” and “pointedly ridiculous.”
I think it is an absolute nonsense for people – I have on Twitter alone 5.5 million followers – I think it’s pointedly ridiculous when people do this, and they find a comment and they go, ‘Do you feel uncomfortable about the fact that this person said this?’
I’m not going to do is respond to this tactic of pretending that I’m somehow responsible for the 20 million followers and that I should be knowing what they are saying on their private platforms or their personal platforms or their public platforms every minute of every day.
It’s a nonsense, you know it’s a nonsense. Right now, Piers, if I went into your comments and dug it up and said ‘Do you support this –
It’s just, let’s just not do that. Hold me accountable for the things that I say.
He presented Owens with the words of The Daily Wire’s co-founder Boreing:
How is saying Christ is King anti-semitic? The same way anything becomes anti-semitic – when it’s used for the purpose of expressing anti-Semitism.
It’s like asking, how does a shovel become a murder weapon. When it’s used to murder someone. This isn’t hard, a shovel is not innately a murder weapon; saying ‘Christ is King’ is not innately anti-semitic. It’s all about how a thing is used.
Saying ‘Christ is King’ for an evil purpose like using as a weapon to express your hatred or disdain for the Jews is a grave sin, God will not be mocked invoking him in vain self-promotion or to troll Jews or to attack your political rivals is to carry forth his name in vain.
Asking for her response, Owens said:
My response would be that I am an unapologetic free market capitalist. I think Jeremy Boreing as the co-founder of The Daily Wire went to the market with his idea on Christ as King, and the market has a right to respond.
If they believe in what he’s saying, and they think that what he is saying is true and is right, then they will support The Daily Wire and they will support their mission.
If they believe that it is wrong, then they will stop supporting The Daily Wire.
I can’t speak on behalf of Jeremy Boreing, you’d have to book him and he can talk more about him his belief that ‘Christ is King can be used like a shovel to murder people.’
You know, what I would say for me is: I don’t agree with that, and so if you find me saying ‘Christ is King’ to be abhorrent, same thing: you don’t have to support me, you don’t have to follow me.
But let me tell you: I’m going to continue to declare that Jesus Christ is the King of Kings.
Returning to Fuentes in this context, she said:
If you are going to pointedly ask me if I am uncomfortable with the fact that Nick Fuentes also believes that Christ is King: I want every single person in the world to declare Christ is King, whether you believe them to be a Nazi, a white supremacist, a Jew, a Muslim – it is the phrase itself that I want declared, okay? That’s it. That’s it. Okay.
Morgan had nothing to say to this, and changed the subject to Owens’ support for Ye (Kanye West).
The Social Kingship of Christ
“Christ is King” is typically used as an affirmation of the Catholic Church’s teaching of the “Social Kingship of Christ” as expressed by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas, as well as the traditional doctrine of the relationship between Church and state.
The pope taught that “[i]t would be a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs.”
It is a truth of natural reason that civil power comes from God, and that the state has a duty to recognize and worship Him.
This must be in accordance with the true religion – which is that of Jesus Christ, and the Catholic Church which He established.
The state, therefore, has a duty to recognize and worship Christ; to establish his Church as the state religion; and to ensure that all laws conformable to the natural and revealed moral law and are conducive to the natural and supernatural ends of man.
Pius XI also taught that there is “no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations” while “individuals and states refuse to submit to the rule of our Savior.”