What the Bible says about [King] Jezebel
The following writing is personal writing, and not affiliated with my church. We decided at Juniper Formation UCC, that this particular writing would violate the IRS’ rules about nonprofits, including churches, and elections—that nonprofits are not allowed to campaign for or against a particular candidate. I also wrote two other posts as continuations about Elijah and Jesus that will be published shortly on the Juniper Formation UCC website and socials. I’ll link to those posts here once they are published, they are titled: “What are you doing here, prophet?” and “Jesus didn’t ‘agree to disagree’.”
A painting of Jezebel by Henry John Stock (1882)
The namesake for the church I serve, Juniper Formation UCC, comes from a story in 1 Kings chapter 19, which begins with the prophet Elijah killing all of Queen Jezebel’s prophets in a fight over worship. A little more intense than most local church arguments over worship today.
Queen Jezebel replaced worship of the Hebrew YHWH (God) with the worship of Baal and Asherah, a pantheon of nature and fertility gods. Besides ousting the dominant religion of the Hebrews, the other issue was that the worship of Baal included human child sacrifice, ritual prostitution, and unethical wealth.
Elijah saw an empire of injustice, violence, and sexual exploitation. Now which 2024 presidential candidate represents Jezebel?
Christian nationalists from the New Apostolic Reformation movement are spreading spiritual warfare propaganda that Vice President Kamala Harris is under the influence of a “Jezebel spirit,” or a demonic spirit, and others have made similar statements about Harris since 2021.
Used in slander, “Jezebel” has a particular misogynistic, sexually violent, and racist history dating back to the enslavement of Africans in the United States. The sexual myth of the Biblical Jezebel was used to hyper-sexualize Black girls—children!—and women, depicting them as sexually lewd, promiscuous, and predatory. Portraying Black girls and women as Jezebels was a white rationalization to condone rape amidst their enslavement. Read more here: https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/jezebel/index.htm.
“Jezebel” is an appalling projection. Calling a woman “Jezebel” blames women for men’s objectification of women and men’s use of sexual violence as a form of control over and dehumanization of women.
If there is one thing that has been proven, time and again, it is that extremists project their own sins onto their opponents to rally their angry base.
We’ve seen this repeatedly in the wider Church where those who rail against child sexual abuse often turn out to be child rapists. Those who rail against homosexuality often are struggling with their own sexual identity. Those who rail against trans people may secretly be cross-dressing. Those who rail against fraudsters are often grifters.
In politics, those who rail against the power of the federal government, though democratically established, are willing to consider a fascist dictator who promises them the world. In politics, the same projections apply.
We have a wanna-be King “Jezebel” on our ballot consumed with wealth-building at the expense of the poor and middle class (source), a convicted rapist (source), and sacrificer of children by excluding 5 million children from SNAP benefits, increasing food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic; forcibly separating 5,400 children from their parents; and much more. (source 1, source 2).
What’s the answer? Vote early, and make it count.
In Partnership,
Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Ph.D (she/her)
