Christ Is King / Candace Owens Feud With Ben Shapiro

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Part of a series on Candace Owens. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Christ is King, also known as Candace Owens Feud With Ben Shapiro, refers to a meme campaign carried out by posters on X / Twitter in support of right-wing media personality Candace Owens and against Ben Shapiro. Owens was fired from The Daily Wire, Shapiro's media company, in late March 2024 over her statements in opposition to Israel and her endorsement of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. The resulting feud between Shapiro and Owens attracted attention from other corners of the online right, with a group of posters associated with avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes using the catchphrase "Christ is King" against Shapiro, who is Jewish.

Background

Candace Owens, a prominent conservative commentator, joined The Daily Wire in 2021. Following the October 7th, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, Owens made comments and liked anti-semitic posts, drawing controversy. Ben Shapiro, who runs The Daily Wire, and Owens traded insults through the fall and winter until The Daily Wire severed ties with Owens on March 22nd, 2024, and she posted on X that she was "finally free."^[1]

In the days after Owens' firing, her battle with Shapiro intensified online.^[2] Noted antisemite and internet troll Nick Fuentes endorsed Owens on Rumble, agreeing with her "full-fledged war on the Jews."^[3] Around March 24th, 2024, users defending Owens and attacking Shapiro and The Daily Wire began posting memes and text declaring "Christ is King," a noted groyper catchphrase.^[4]

On March 26th, X^[12] user @stevanzetti posted a John Silver Explaining to Anna Jay meme referencing the ongoing conflict online between the groups, receiving over 20,100 views and 470 likes in three days (seen below).

Developments

"Christ is King" Antisemitism Allegations

On March 25th, 2024, editor of the Daily Wire Jeremy Boering posted an essay to X explaining why he believed "Christ is King" was an antisemitic slur (seen below). The post received 8,800 likes and 6,800 replies in the course of four days, with responses from prominent creators and pundits in the right-wing media scene.^[5]

The editor of the Babylon Bee, Joel Berry, posted a meme on March 24th opposing the "Christ is King" posters and tying them to "Nick Fuentes' army of dorks," earning 5,000 likes in five days (shown below).^[6]

Other figures in the right-wing social media space commented on the topic, including influencer and avowed Muslim Andrew Tate (seen below), whose post on March 25th, 2024, earned over 62,000 likes in four days.^[7] Tate appeared to support the people posting "Christ is King."

March 27th Twitter Space

On March 27th, 2024, a Twitter Space was hosted by political and social commentator Lauren Chen featuring a variety of figures in the online right who debated the catchphrase and the controversy in general (shown below). Nick Fuentes and Jeremy Boering sparred during the Space.

According to X, over 286,000 X accounts and users tuned into the Space at some point during its nearly four-hour runtime.^[8] During the Space, Boering sought to mend the rift by telling Fuentes he's "one of the most talented people out there" and a "gifted communicator."^[11]

Online Reactions

Many online found the discourse surrounding the feud and debate confusing, including X user @conservmillen (seen below), who posted a Matthew McConaughey Smoking meme on March 25th, 2024, about trying to explain the events to a "normal person"^[9] that received over 8,500 likes in four days.^[9]

On Reddit, the controversy was brought up on the /r/outoftheloop subreddit on March 27th, where a question concerning it received over 800 upvotes in two days.^[10] The top-voted answer from Redditor boastful_inaba stated:

Click To Expand Text

Answer: You've stumbled upon a developing ethnoreligious schism within the conservative movement – a fight between Jews and Christians that's spiraled out of the commentariat talking about Israel vs Palestine.

For background:
This mostly starts with a feud within the Daily Wire, a conservative leaning news and media outfit. It was founded by a Jewish man Ben Shapiro (amongst others). (Shapiro is not currently in management there, but is still on their commentator roster and is still influential.) One of their popular commentators, Candace Owens (a black woman), has been critical of Israel and its actions. This has eventually lead to her firing from the Daily Wire. The firing came despite earlier claims by current management that she was free to speak her mind.

Conservative commentator and author Auron MacIntyre (from The Blaze network) has attempted to summarise the Daily Wire fighting in more detail here.

As for "Christ is King", it appears to have mostly started from that "AF Post" tweet you linked, which excerpts from a longer video with Andrew Klavan. (Klavlan is a Jewish convert to Christianity, though he has … nonstandard takes on Christianity in his commentary still.)

"Christ is King" is a basic profession of faith for many Christians, so opposition to the phrase is going to be taken to be opposition to the faith itself (or big parts of it).

Things spiraled a bit out from there. There are a lot of posts, possibly too many to list, but some of the more standout ones include

Joel Berry, managing editor of the Babylon Bee, a right-leaning Christian satire site, posted a tweet saying "But we said ‘Christ is King’ on the internet!" accompanied by an image of people burning in hell. (The Bee later reposted a many-years old article which people took as a subtweet aimed at whites and Christians generally. After a very hostile reception to this, Seth Dillion, another head at the Bee, posted "When you're personally offended by a joke about white supremacy you might want to rethink some things, including whether Christ really is your King.")

James Lindsay, mathematician, self-professed "militant atheist", and participant in the Grievance Studies hoaxing posted a thread claiming that "Christ is King" is a "trap" "likely led by a fed"

So to Christians on X/Twitter, you have a mix of Jews, Jewish converts (some who don't seem to have wholly left behind their jewishness at conversion), and militant atheists telling them to stay quiet about a profession of faith of their religion. The choice for Christians then becomes sharpened to

Stay quiet and go along with the demands of people who are in opposition to them and their religion. Many would be uncomfortable at best with this, especially as there is the bible story about Peter denying Jesus before the c--k crows.

Demonstrate their opposition to the demands by repeating "Christ is King"

Many online Christians have (loudly) chosen option #2.

From the tweets that you've linked, a bit more context for the first two

This is Nick Fuentes, leader from the "America First" group and general pain-in-the-neck to many even on the conservative side. His open disdain of Jews in general makes him quite unpopular amongst a lot of people, though he does have a small hardcore following.

Brandon Herrera is a very popular firearms Youtuber and current challenger to an incumbent Republican in one of the Texas primaries.