“Son,” stated a flabbergasted lamb-chopped Brother Ray, “I’m afraid you might already be under his influence.”
For some reason, I thought of Gina.
1. See Ludwig Feuerbach, trans. Alexander Loos, The Essence of Christianity (Amherst: Prometheus, 2004).
2. It’s inevitable. No matter how many times I cover this material, my so-called free-thinking and hyper-individualistic students unfailingly rehash the same old stale arguments.
1. The Protestant Deification
of the Devil
I have always felt friendly toward Satan. Of course, that is ancestral;
it must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it.
—Mark Twain
Hell is empty, and all the devils are down here.
—Ariel (William Shakespeare, The Tempest)
Throughout the course of my research, the one thing I have discovered is that Protestants love talking about Satan. They simply cannot get enough of him.
To be sure, there are those highbrow liturgical Protestants who think themselves far too respectable to be caught dead attributing certain travesties to the Prince of Darkness; but, as you can imagine, those folks are of little use to me. Nevertheless, I’ll return to a few of them later.
For now, however, I am interested in the majority of Protestants that fueled my upbringing and continue to geographically surround me. The Protestant South has an undoubted love affair with the diabolical one. That pointy-eared chief of demons seems to be responsible for every single tragedy, calamity, and mishap in the world. If you doubt the authenticity of such a claim, I have included an abbreviated list of things that Satan has supposedly been responsible for—and I am restricting this to only a small number of comments I have had the good fortune of hearing. The Devil has:
• unplugged a screen projector
• encouraged people to vote for Bill Clinton
• created albinos (the red eyes, I guess)
• introduced thoughts of impurity to everyone but my Sunday School teacher
• made watermelons taste like tomatoes (they really did)
• led Michael English to have an adulterous affair
• possessed the Pope, Jane Fonda, and Gorbachev
• inspired the creation of South Park, Will & Grace, and Three’s Company (RIP John Ritter, I hope you’re not in hell)
• can change the color of things
• is “behind” homosexuality (see chapter 2)
• gave the Yankees victory over the South (for possession of their Northern souls of course)
• married some of my relatives (I actually believe that one)
• occasionally wears a blue dress
• caused microphone feedback
• crossed the street disguised as a black cat
• carried a dead man away at a wake (while my intoxicated grandfather and his blitzed cousins just sat there and watched)
• gave one of my friends a lisp
• created the Smurfs
• took Jesse Helms from this earth “way too early” (or wait, was that God?)
• caused spelling errors in church bulletins
• created Islam
• created the internet (sorry Al Gore, unless . . . )
• is aiding the Chinese “take over” of America
• created puppets (okay, that one is mine—I hate puppets)
• invented Halloween
• tempts Catholics to worship Mary and other saints
• tempts women to work outside the home
• promotes dancing which leads to sex (“What kind of dancing?” I asked. “Salsa? Swing? The Jitterbug?” The Nazarene minister replied, “All dancing leads to sex.” Which, of course, immediately convinced me to engage in all forms of dancing. Let it be known, that minister lied to me.)
• and for the grand finale (sans the purported aphrodisiac of dancing, no less), forced me to have sex prior to marriage . . . sorry mom, Satan made me do it.
This short list alone is a testament to what appears to be Satan’s almost infinite power. If his abilities to pull off the above, often times simultaneously, does not make him a god, then I’m not sure what would.
“He’s still answerable to the God that created him, young man!” This is a fairly predictable theological truism. Every time I tried to make the point that Satan’s power seems to be encroaching on God’s power, I would hear something to the effect of, “The only power he has is the power God allows him to have.”
That’s an interesting claim.
So, whom do I really blame for the unplugged projector and funky tasting watermelons? Satan or God?
“That’s borderline blasphemy,” protested an Assembly of God minister.
“No,” I said, “that’s a problem of providence.”
The Devil is My DJ:
The Real Fresh Prince of Baal Air
In Jesus’ name, we pray for no microphone problems!
—Becky Fischer (Jesus Camp)
The following act attributed to Satan occurred in a Nazarene church. A bit of biography is in order: I was raised by the Nazarenes. I joined the Mennonite Church about a decade ago, and they have been paying the price ever since. Mennonites, at least the ones I’ve been around (think urban weirdoes as opposed to rural weirdoes), speak very little about Satan. We have found that humans are more than capable of perpetrating acts of evil without the help of a lesser deity. The Nazarenes, however, are ultimately responsible for my obsession with all things theological. They are the ones responsible for putting the fear of God (and Satan) in me.
They also put in me the fear of sex, wine, tobacco, cards, gambling, dancing, movie theaters, mixed bathing (that’s co-ed swimming for the uninitiated), and any music not written by the Gaithers.
The last of these being the easiest to overcome.
As a child I was terrified of the incessant stories of the Devil and demonic possession. The pastor of my youthful years—a wonderful man, very humble and ripe with conviction—instructed us that the Devil was a roaring lion waiting to infiltrate our lives at any given moment. Despite being tempted by the Devil to not pay attention to his sermons, many of them, for good and/or bad, still haunt me. Problems, however, started to arise whenever I had to go to bed. I recall that on many nights during my childhood, I literally begged God to keep Satan from abducting or possessing me while I tried to sleep.
Ironic, right? Now I’m searching for him.
So there I was, having come full-circle; no longer a Nazarene, yet sitting in a Nazarene church wondering if he was going to show up. Was this church truly big enough for Jesus and the Devil? However, as I gazed across the layout of the church, I began to wonder to myself, would either one even want to show up?
Aesthetically,