The Republican National Committee's Christmas message sparked a war of words on social media on Sunday, as the organization's Biblical reference to "new king" polarized political watchers.

The RNC issued a public statement celebrating Christmas, a normally anodyne holiday tradition that goes unremarked. Because 2016 has been far from a normal year, a number of journalists and social media users took umbrage with the RNC's use of religious language in a political context.

Some interpreted RNC Chair and incoming White House chief of Staff Reince Priebus' reference to "a new king" as a veiled comparison of President-elect Donald Trump to the birth of the Messiah: