“When King Herod heard this, he was frightened.” (Matthew 2:3)
I can almost hear King Herod offering the brag: “Nobody’s done more for religion than I have.” And I can practically see him boasting about how his reign was “bringing religion back” and maybe even “saving God.”
Herod could provide evidence to support those claims. He renovated the Temple in Jerusalem, making it great again as he expanded its footprint and added lots of gold. A Jewish proverb at the time declared, “He who has not seen the Temple of Herod has never seen a beautiful building.” It’s the Temple Jesus knew, visited, and worshiped in. That is, only because Herod failed to kill Jesus when he ordered the slaughter of babies and toddlers in Bethlehem.
The Temple project won Herod support from many religious leaders, which helped him hold onto political power during a tumultuous time in the region. Herod also sought other ways to bestow religious legitimacy on his reign and bring religion and the state together to protect his own power. For instance, for his third wife he married a daughter of the high priest.
Herod also broke tradition and chose the high priest, thereby creating a new model of state control over the Temple’s leadership. He deposed and appointed several high priests, including a brother-in-law he put in place and later had executed. He also deposed his father-in-law when that wife was implicated in a plot against Herod by one of Herod’s sons (and he had his son executed). The Roman oversight of the Temple that Herod started continued after his death, so the political predecessor to Pontius Pilate appointed Caiaphas as the high priest who would eventually preside over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus.
Christmas decorations during the 2018 season in the White House’s East Colonnade (a section of the White House that was demolished this year) in Washington, D.C. (Andrea Hanks/Public Domain).
Unsurprisingly, a paranoid, murderous dictator didn’t react well to the good news from the Magi about a newborn king. For someone who killed sons, a wife, and others he believed threatened his power, what’s a couple dozen children in a dusty little town?
Even as he was executing people, rigging religious power structures, and claiming more wives, Herod tried to appear pious. Herod’s moves to unite the institutions of faith and the state served to profane all that was holy. The Temple wasn’t a sacred place for him as much as another tool for preserving his own power. He pushed religion not to lift up God but to lift up himself.
Not all that glitters is gold. And Herod reminds us that just because a religious nationalist appears devout, it does not mean they actually are. Which is why when religious nationalists crave power, we should follow the example of the Magi and go home by another way.
Brian Kaylor is president & editor-in-chief of Word&Way and author of The Bible According to Christian Nationalists.
NOTE: This is part of our Unsettling Advent devotionals running Nov. 30-Dec. 24. You can subscribe for free and receive them each morning in your inbox.
