During an online meeting today, I was struck by one priest's repeated reference to the “anti-Gospel.” This isn't a phrase Catholics use too much, but it's an important one. Just over forty-three years ago on November 9, 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who would soon be elected as Pope John Paul II, warned:

We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.

These are challenging words from the Holy Father, and this Sunday's feast is the perfect opportunity to consider what they mean. The Feast of Christ the King - officially known as the “Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe” - invites us to focus on the truth that Jesus Christ is meant to reign in our lives, both individually and socially. This, in fact, is the basic meaning of the word “Gospel”: The ancients used the word “Gospel” (evangelium in Latin, euangelion in Greek) to describe the coming of a new king, and Jesus used this word to announce that he himself was bringing about God's kingdom. Jesus' very first words in the Gospel of Mark were, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) The Gospel is the invitation to repent from the reign of sin in our lives and instead to surrender to the will of the God who loves us.

Pope St. John Paul II, however, warned about an “anti-Gospel” proclaimed by an “anti-Church.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church helps to clarify what the Holy Father was talking about:

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

Before Christ comes again, the Church will undergo a final test, a temptation to “apostasy,” or rejection of the Gospel. The message of the “Antichrist” will be that we can glorify ourselves instead of glorifying God and his Son, Jesus Christ. It will be a temptation to set aside God's will to do whatever we want and to set aside God's Word in order to believe whatever we want.

Isn't this precisely the temptation that the West has been giving in to more and more in recent decades? The prevailing cultural secularism has methodically excluded any meaningful reference to God or religion from the public square and refuses to tolerate even private religious convictions that challenge its own orthodoxies. Like John Lennon's infamous song of the 1970's, there is an insidious temptation to “imagine” that humanity will find true peace only by rejecting religion and its notions of “sin” and “holiness,” “heaven” and “hell.” This is the “anti-Gospel” in action.

If we as Catholics accept this lie that true peace can be found without Jesus Christ and the repentance to which he calls us, then we risk becoming something of an “anti-Church.” If we set aside the hard scriptural truths about things like sin and judgment for the sake of convenience or of winning the favor of others, we become the servants not of Jesus Christ, but of the anti-Christ. To remain faithful to our mission, the Church must live and proclaim all that Jesus Christ calls us to, even when it is no longer popular.

The dilemma that the Church has wrestled with for many decades now is how to effectively speak the hard truths of Jesus in a world that is not only post-Christian, but increasingly anti-Christian. Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has emphasized the need to dialogue with the people around us, to understand their own joys, hopes, sufferings, and fears - with the firm conviction Jesus Christ the Lord as the answer to each of our deepest longings. The call to dialogue makes sense, because we cannot be true witnesses to our neighbors if we do not sincerely know and love them as Christ himself does. This dialogue with the world, however, must be rooted in our own allegiance to Christ the King and must aim toward bringing others to this same allegiance. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King this Sunday, then, let us remain faithful to Jesus Christ and commit ourselves to the mission of spreading his kingdom.

Christ, becoming obedient even unto death and because of this exalted by the Father, entered into the glory of His kingdom. To Him all things are made subject until He subjects Himself and all created things to the Father that God may be all in all. Now Christ has communicated this royal power to His disciples that they might be constituted in royal freedom and that by true penance and a holy life they might conquer the reign of sin in themselves. Further, He has shared this power so that serving Christ in their fellow men they might by humility and patience lead their brethren to that King for whom to serve is to reign. But the Lord wishes to spread His kingdom also by means of the laity, namely, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. In this kingdom creation itself will be delivered from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. Clearly then a great promise and a great trust is committed to the disciples: “All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's”. (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 36)