Awful people who are privately Christian.

I originally wrote this piece in 2017, and titled it “Christians in private, but reprobate in public.” I had to update it a bunch ’cause I have some new thoughts on the matter.

Back when I first wrote on the topic, a few correspondents were surprised by the very idea of people who were publicly jerks, but nonetheless identify as Christian. Since then, they’ve finally recognized plenty of examples of the phenomenon. Celebrities who act like divas and brats and unholy rage monsters, but if anyone dares to say anything they consider blasphemous, they instantly object ’cause they’re Christian all of a sudden. Or if you ask them about religion, they’ll claim they love Jesus. Or when they’re accepting Grammy awards for singing about promiscuous nooky, first they wanna give a shout-out to their “Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” whom you’d never imagine they follow, considering their lifestyles. They don’t publicly follow him any, but they’re huge fans. Huge.

Particular stand-outs are those politicians who love to argue, and slander their counterparts in the opposition party, and say vicious things to anyone who gives them pushback. And sometimes they have vile things to say about immigrants, minorities, people of other states, fans of other football teams, or anyone who just rubs ’em the wrong way. And considering how often you see ’em on the Sunday morning chat shows, it’s unlikely they’re ever at church. But whenever they gotta claim Jesus to score some political points, and maybe get some Christian votes, they’ll loudly and proudly claim they’re Christian. Still, you’d never have guessed so by their fleshly behavior.

I have coworkers who are this way. They’ll talk about all the drinking and smoking and fornicating they plan to do over the weekend. They’re unethical. They’re filled with fear, hatred, and anger. They get envious, jealous, and partisan. Try to pick fights; try to cause division; try to create enemies. Y’know, stuff which indicates they’re not gonna inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.19-21 But if one of our athiest coworkers dares to condemn Christianity, suddenly they wanna fight ’em on behalf of the Jesus they never actually follow.

That, I will regularly point out to people, is the world we live in today. People who clearly don’t know and don’t follow Jesus, yet think they’re one of his.

I could blame it on decades of Evangelicals insisting they’re not religious, ’cause Christianity is a relationship not a religion. They’re entirely right about not being religious, but entirely wrong about Christianity not being a religion. As I’ve often said, if we don’t get religious about our relationships with Jesus, that relationship’s gonna suck.

I could blame it on the fact that, because they’re not religious, they rarely pray, they never go to church, never read their bibles, and have no idea what Jesus teaches. Or that they even need to follow him. They figure they said the sinner’s prayer as children, and once saved always saved, so actually obeying God might imply they don’t trust their faith to save them. Hence their utter lack of good works and good fruit.

If we call them on this, half the time they’ll object to us even judging them; the one bit of bible they do know is “Judge not,” even though they don’t truly know what Jesus means by it. The rest of the time they’ll shrug: Why are we so worried about their sins? They said the sinner’s prayer; they go to confession; they’re forgiven, so they’re good! Piss off.

They think they belong to Jesus. Do they? Maybe; maybe not. God is way more gracious than I am, and he might let ’em into his kingdom regardless. But the apostles do say those who produce fleshly works like they do are not getting into God’s kingdom, and Jesus himself says plenty will claim to be his at the End, but he doesn’t know ’em. Seems we’ve met these people.

Curses: “You take that back!”

CURSE kərs noun. A solemn utterance, meant to invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.

2. verb. Invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.

3. noun. Cause of evil or suffering.

[Curser 'kərs.ər noun.]

Years ago, when I taught at a Christian school, I had a mom ask for a meeting to object to something I wrote on her son’s report card. The boy wanted to grow up to have a highly technical job… but he didn’t do his homework. In any of his classes. I’d told him more than once, “If you don’t do your homework, you’re not gonna get the future you want.” And that’s what I wrote on his report card… and his mom was offended. She claimed I’d “word-cursed” him.

What on earth is a “word curse”? It’s a curse. In some churches they claim every negative thing we say, whether we intend them to be acutal binding curses or not, are actual binding curses. And true, sometimes the things we say will get into someone’s head and affect them for years. I’ve met people who were seriously hindered by the awful things their parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, or coaches told them. They believed that junk, and it still messes with them. It surely worked like a curse! So that’s what these Christians claim they are. It’s an unpleasant word… which is functionally a curse.

Okay, those who teach about “word curses” kinda have a valid point. But by their definition of “word curses,” I actually didn’t curse the boy. My comment is an if-then statement. If you don’t do X, then Y. It’s conditional. And a whole bunch of God’s messages are conditional: If you obey him, then you get blessed. If you don’t, then you don’t. That’s not a curse; that’s a warning. Fulfill the conditions!

Ultimately she agreed with me… but I can’t fault her at all for being sensitive about curses. I certainly didn’t wanna hinder my student by making him believe he wasn’t capable. Quite the contrary!

But you’ll find certain Christians are extremely sensitive about “word curses.” And of course regular curses. And “cursing,” by which we mean profanity, which is a whole other discussion.

Among certain dark Christians, every negative statement—more accurately, anything they can interpret as a negative statement, and they pessimistically interpret a whole lot of things as negative statements!—counts as a curse. Fr’instance I could say, “Hmm, looks like rain,” and to their minds I just cursed the sky. Seriously. “You take that back! Don’t you call rain down on us!” As if my casual observation has the power to call down rain—and y’know, if it could, I’d make a fortune.

See, according to these fearful folks, all our words—including idle ones—spoken into the atmosphere, have the power to create and destroy. They figure we humans are made in God’s image, Ge 1.27 and since he has the power to call things into existence with a word, they claim we have the very same power. Way lesser; I can’t state like God can, “Let the waters separate from the dry ground,” and instantly my swimming pool has been drained. But somehow, to some degree, I have the semi-divine power to make stuff out of nothing. My uneducated weather forecast can actually make weather.

Which is rubbish; it’s based on pagan “mind science,” the 19th-century belief that reality is in fact a mental illusion, and we have the power to affect and change the illusion if we believe hard enough. It’s what the Christian Science church teaches. It’s not consistent with the scriptures; God created a real, external, objective universe. I could believe really hard that my words (without any Holy Spirit to empower ’em, of course) can stop tornadoes… but I’d be a moron to bet on it.

Don’t get me wrong. The spoken word isn’t a powerless thing. Words can build up; words can tear down. I can make someone’s day by giving ’em a compliment. I can ruin their life by criticizing ’em at the wrong time. That’s what Solomon meant when he wrote death and life are in the tongue. Pr 18.21 For this reason, Christians need to watch what we say. We never know the direction we’re influencing people.

But the idea my words have magical power that might trigger a reaction in nature around us, and create all sorts of unintended horrors: Not biblical. Ridiculous.

And illogical too. You’ll notice all the Christians who fear accidentally destroying stuff through their “word curses,” somehow never worry about accidentally blessing stuff. “Gee, it looks like the weather today will be really nice!” never seems to force the clouds to dissipate. Nope. Blessings have always gotta be intentional, but curses can be accidental.

Quit praying to Satan!

There’s an traditional African folk song called “What a Mighty God We Serve.” If you grew up Christian, maybe you heard it in Sunday school. Sometimes adults sing it too. Goes like so.

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ Angels bow before him

♫ Heaven and earth adore him

♫ What a mighty God we serve

Years later I found out it has more lyrics—words my children’s and youth pastors never bothered to teach us. You might be able to guess why.

♫ I command you Satan in the name of the Lord

♫ To take up your weapons and flee

♫ For the Lord has given me authority

♫ To walk all over thee

There are variations. I often hear “put down your weapons” in the second line, which makes way more sense than “take up your weapons.” There’s also “stomp all over thee” in the fourth—which comes with stomping movements, which are always fun.

Anyway. Lots of Sunday schools skip these lines, so lots of Christians aren’t aware of ’em. I hadn’t heard them in years; then they came up again in summer youth camp. The pastor got all the kids to sing along with the first part, but when she broke into the second part, the kids sat there confused: “Why’s she singing to the devil?” Anyway, because they didn’t sing along, she concluded, “I guess you don’t know that part,” and went right back to the “What a mighty God we serve” bit they did know.

As to why churches don’t teach it: Well you are singing to the devil! And shouldn’t. Don’t do that.

Likewise there are a number of Christians who pray to the devil. You may have seen it happen. Someone gets up to pray. Then, in the middle of all their other praises and petitions to God, they put the Lord on pause, and dial Satan in on our conference call.

“And Satan, we rebuke you. We bind you. We cast you out. You have no authority here. You have no business in this place. You get out of here, Satan. You’re under our feet.”

And so on. You get the idea.

Again: Don’t do that!

I know; I know. You’ve seen pastors and prayer leaders do it. You’ve seen Christians whom you greatly respect doing it. Loads of people do it. But they shouldn’t do it either.

Blaspheming other people and things than God.

BLASPHEME blæs'fim verb. Say something about God (or holy things) which isn’t true. Slander.

2. Speak irreverently about God or holy things. Sacrilege.

[Blasphemer blæs'fim.ər noun, blasphemous 'blæs.fə.məs adjective, blasphemy 'blæs.fə.mi noun.]

As you can see, in the definition I just used (which I also used in my article on the subject), blasphemy is slander or irreverence towards God or holy things. And for some Christians, they insist only God can be blasphemed, and not holy things:

• Don’t speak ill of the LORD.
• Don’t speak ill of the LORD’s name; if someone uses his name for other stuff, like the names of altars and churches, you wanna carefully distinguish between the thing named for the LORD and the LORD himself.
• Don’t say evil things about the trinity.
• Nothing against Jesus.
• Especially nothing against the Holy Spirit, ’cause there’s no coming back from that one.
• For Roman Catholics, who believe the elements of holy communion literally become Jesus during the ritual, blaspheming them counts as blaspheming Jesus, so don’t. (One particular famous Catholic comedian will make Jesus jokes… but weirdly, will never make fun of the Eucharist, ’cause somehow that crosses the line.)

So don’t touch God; but these folks think it’s totally okay to blaspheme holy things, because they’re just things. They’re not God; they’re not divine; saying we can blaspheme them suggests they might be divine, but we worship nothing and no one but God. So you can’t blaspheme the holy bible, because we don’t worship the bible. (Or shouldn’t!)

Thing is… people kinda do have the ability to blaspheme the bible. If “blaspheme” means to slander, or speak irreverently about, of course there are people who slander and speak irreverently about bible. Antichrists do it all the time. When they say the bible’s a bunch of bunk, and claim it was written by delusional prophets, how isn’t that slander and irreverence? In other words, blasphemy?

Thing is, the people who insist only God can be blasphemed, wanna limit the use of the word “blasphemy” to God. When you’re slandering the bible, “slander” is fine. When you’re slandering God, “blasphemy” is the appropriate word. Because slandering God is a much bigger deal than slandering his prophets and apostles. One indicates the damaged relationship we have with God; the other just indicates we lack reverence for holy things and people. And a damaged relationship with God is obviously the bigger deal.

My own personal habit is, like those people, to only use “blasphemy” when we’re talking about slandering God, and not when we’re talking about slandering a church, a book, a preacher, a Ten Commandments monument, and other such things. But I gotta agree that yeah, technically, slander and blasphemy are the same thing.

And that’s a fact we see in the bible, ’cause the authors of scripture use βλασφημέω/vlasfiméo, “blaspheme,” to talk about other things than just God.

Blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Our English word blasphemy comes from the Greek word βλασφημία/vlasfimía, and largely means the same thing: It’s irreverence towards, and slander against, people and things we oughta reverence. We Christians tend to only use it to describe irreverence towards God (and bibliolaters to describe irreverence towards the bible), but the ancients applied it to all sorts of things. Like irreverence towards the temple, Moses, the prophets, and the scriptures. Even kings and emperors; yes you could blaspheme a king. Especially when they were one of those kings who claimed godhood. Some politicians still kinda get that way.

Some blasphemy is totally unintentional, like when we claim stuff about God that’s not so. Like when we claim, “God’s gonna send you to hell for that!” and no he won’t. Or when we claim God’s secret will is for evil to happen, and no it’s not.

Other times it’s totally intentional, ’cause we’re pissed at God over something he did or didn’t do, so we yell at him a bit, or otherwise throw a tantrum and say some evil things. God is fully aware we’re just acting up. And once we snap out of it, he forgives us. He’s gracious like that.

But then Jesus said this:

Mark 3.28-30 NASB

28“Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons and daughters of men, and whatever blasphemies they commit; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Said much the same thing in two other gospels. In context, it’s part of the story where Jerusalem scribes visiting the Galilee gave their expert opinion, and declared Jesus did his exorcisms by the power of Beelzebub (in Aramaic Baal Zevúl, a local pagan god; their euphemism for Satan). Not the Holy Spirit. Jesus pointed out their reasoning was stupid: Satan’s not gonna fight itself, and if it is, it’s falling apart. And this is where he said blaspheming the Holy Spirit means you committed an αἰωνίου ἁμαρτήματος/eoníu amartímatos, “sin of the age,” or “eternal sin.” Mt 12.31-32, Lk 12.10

Historically, Christians have taught this means a sin which disqualifies you from Kingdom Come. Your friends and family are gonna join Jesus at his second coming—and you are gonna sit on the bench. Or stay dead till Judgment Day. Then go into the lake of sulfur and fire.

Yikes.

Hence some Christians are terrified of committing it. Afraid they might accidentally, unintentionally commit it. So afraid, they’re afraid of critiquing any miracle or prophet—even though we’re supposed to double-check these things, and make sure they’re really God. But they refuse to, lest they say “It’s devilish” when it’s really the Spirit, and stumble into blaspheming the Spirit. And that’s why so many Christians let so many phonies get away with so much evil.

On the other extreme, some Christians claim blasphemy of the Spirit never, ever happens. Not anymore. ’Cause cessationism! As soon as “that which is perfect has come,” 1Co 13.10 which cessationists insist refers to the bible, God switched off the miracles: He doesn’t need ’em to confirm his message anymore, ’cause now the bible does that. The conditions under which blasphemy of the Spirit could happen, no longer does. So whenever you see a “miracle,” or hear a “prophecy,” feel free to say it’s from Satan. The blind and deaf and paralyzed aren’t cured anymore; that’s Satan. Jesus doesn’t appear to people anymore; that’s Satan. And when those people respond by repenting, transforming their lives, producing good fruit, likewise praying for people and curing ’em: Yep, more Satan—hoo boy is that devil tricky, acting exactly like the Holy Spirit does in the bible, just to confuse people.

And on yet another axis you have those Christians who are quick to point to other scriptures which state God forgives every sin. 1Jn 1.7, 9 Every single possible potential sin; no exceptions. If you’re worried about the scriptures’ warnings against blaspheming the Spirit, relax! God forgives all.

Lastly we have the Christians who try their darnedest to redefine blaspheming the Spirit so it’s not what Jesus warned the scribes against doing. It’s some other thing. It’s apostasy. Or it’s numbing your conscience so much, you can’t tell the difference between good and evil anymore; confounding the Spirit with Satan is just a symptom of the real problem.

I think instead of convenient little answers which make us calm down and stop worrying about committing this sin, we oughta figure out for real what it is, whether we do it, and whether we can still get into God’s kingdom even if we did it.

Blasphemy: Slandering God’s character.

BLASPHEME blæs'fim verb. Say something about God (or holy things) which isn’t true. Slander.

2. Speak irreverently about God or holy things. Sacrilege.

[Blasphemer blæs'fim.ər noun, blasphemous 'blæs.fə.məs adjective, blasphemy 'blæs.fə.mi noun.]

Popular culture tends to define blasphemy with the second definition: It’s a synonym for sacrilege, when one treats the sacred profanely. When we make fun, or make light, of holy things. When we tell jokes about God, or treat our bibles like any other book, and set ’em on the floor or take crayons to them to make colorful doodles in the margins. When people take God’s name in vain. When I treat him like my dad instead of OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. (Heck, people think I’m blaspheming when I don’t capitalize all the Almighty’s pronouns.)

Really, people consider it blasphemy when they personally feel insulted—“on the Almighty’s behalf,” but really because they disapprove. If I don’t take off my hat in church, or wear jeans to a service, or take off my shoes, I’m blaspheming.

Yep, take off my shoes. I’ve done that multiple times. I could understand people’s objections if my feet were stinky, but they object because they’re offended by my naked feet. That is, till I quote ’em some bible:

Exodus 3.4-5 KJV

4And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

Yep. You’re the one insulted by bare feet; God’s insulted by you wearing your fancy leather loafers in his holy presence. Now take ’em off. And the socks.

Anyway, thanks to the sentiments of conservative popular culture, I apparently blaspheme a lot. More than one Christian gets their knickers in a knot over my behavior. Including titling this blog Christ Almighty! They’re insulted, and therefore they presume God’s insulted. But this is just projection. As I demonstrated, they seldom know what offends God and what doesn’t… and back when I was a little kid, I realized that’s kinda important. You don’t wanna offend your savior! Might be a good idea to read that bible. But I digress.

For these folks, by blasphemy they really mean lèse-majesté, a handy French term which means “less majestic”—it was when the people of France treated their king in a way he didn’t consider consistent with the dignity he merited. (Well, imagined he merited. I’m American and the only king I recognize is Jesus. The rest, whether they know it or not, usurp his title.) Lèse-majesté is the invention of petty, insecure despots, who want everyone to suck up to them under pain of death. Esther experienced it when she had to petition the Persian shah for her people… but if she showed up unannounced, the shah might interpret it as an insult and have her killed. Es 4.11 Good thing he thought she was hot.

The reason Christians so often use lèse-majesté as our definition of blasphemy, is because there’s a bit of despotism in us. God’s neither insulted nor offended when his kids boldly approach his throne of grace. He 4.16 He wants us to do so. Invites us to do so. God has a thick skin—and a sense of humor. In contrast, these Christians don’t, and take offense because deep down they wanna be treated with rarified respect—and if that’s how we gotta behave with God, it makes it all the easier for them to suggest maybe we oughta treat them, “the Lord’s anointed,” with similar worship.

Hence they attempt to enforce divisions and ranks and barriers in God’s kingdom—all the stuff Jesus abolished by making every single one of us into God’s children, priests, and kings.

Well, enough about what blasphemy’s not. Let’s get to what it actually is.

The devil used to lead heavenly worship?

Every time I’ve heard this myth, it’s come from either a music pastor, a worship leader, or a musician. You can probably guess why. If not, I’ll spell it out for you later.

It’s part of the myth that Satan used to be someone important in heaven; in fact it was previously named Lucifer, the greatest of all angels, if not the head angel. Lucifer was the prettiest and most sparkly of all angels. Better and smarter and mightier than every angel there was, and God bestowed upon it power and authority and responsibilities and blessings… but it got full of itself, rebelled, and fell.

I should point out only the rebelled-and-fell part of the story comes from bible, Rv 12.7-9 and the reason the devil did so is rather simple: Jesus came to earth to save and rule it, and the devil doesn’t like this plan at all. Rv 12.1-6 But it was defeated by the actual mightiest angel, Michael.

If the story sounds like Satan’s fudging its résumé, of course it is. Satan’s a dirty liar, remember? Jn 8.44 Problem is, Christians have fallen for it, and still share it with one another. Still teach it to newbies. We think it’s true. We forget we’re not to trust the devil; even when it tells the truth, there’s deception involved, ’cause it’s trying to lead us to destruction. That’s what it does.

Anyway. Part of this greatest-of-all-angels idea leads Christian musicians to this particular myth: What’s the very most important job in heaven? Why, worshiping God of course. So Satan did that for a living. It led worship. It led the heavenly choir.

“I don’t need forgiving.”

So yesterday I wrote about those Christians who can’t stop praying the “forgive me” prayer—and if that’s because they’re anxious about their sins, they need to chill out; God’s forgiven them. Long long ago. He’s got you covered.

Then there are those people, often not Christian… but some of ’em are absolutely sure they’re totally Christian. And these folks think it’s ridiculous to worry whatsoever about their own forgiveness. Because they can’t imagine anything they’ve done which needs forgiving. Not from God; not from anyone. In some cases they’re kinda offended we’d even suggest they need forgiving.

I was talking with a Christian pastor about this phenomenon some years ago, and he just shrugged and said, “Typical human depravity.”

But no it’s not typical. It’s an extreme human behavior. What we have here is a narcissist. Here I refer you to what Psychology Today has to say about ’em:

How do I spot a narcissist?

Narcissism is characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment. If you encounter someone who consistently exhibits these behaviors, you may be dealing with a highly narcissistic individual.

What’s the difference between narcissism and pathological narcissism?

Pathological narcissism, or narcissistic personality disorder, is rare: It affects an estimated 1 percent of the population, a prevalence that hasn’t changed since clinicians started measuring it. The disorder is suspected when narcissistic traits impair a person’s daily functioning. That dysfunction typically causes friction in relationships due to the pathological narcissist’s lack of empathy. It may also manifest as antagonism, fueled by grandiosity and attention-seeking. In seeing themselves as superior, the pathological narcissist naturally views everyone else as inferior and may be intolerant of disagreement or questioning. “Narcissism.”

It’s an extreme behavior.

I know plenty of pagans. Nearly all of them are ashamed of themselves when they’ve done wrong. They may not define right and wrong the same way as Christians, but they do understand some things are right, some are wrong, and they’ve not always lived up to their own standard. It’s why we can tell them God forgives them, and why they accept it as good news, and hopefully turn to Jesus. That’s the more common human response, “depraved” or not.

When we get someone who defines right and wrong as “Everything I do is right,” we got a narcissist. Pagan or Christian, it’s narcissism. And yes, there are Christian narcissists: They grew up Christian, or even became Christian later in life, and have incorporated Christianity into their narcissism: “Everything I do is right, because Jesus.” It’s just as warped though.

Narcissism is a spectrum, ranging from not at all (i.e. people who are properly humble, love their neighbor as themselves, don’t demand praise, don’t consider themselves better than anyone else, exhibits empathy and compassion—you know, people who act like Jesus) to so self-centered they’ll destroy everyone around them.

At its core, all sin is based on self-centeredness and selfishness. Not all selfishness is sin, but the more selfish you are, the more likely you’re gonna sin—and narcissists are all about self-centeredness, so they sin. But more than that: They don’t think their behavior even is sin. They define right and wrong as, “I’m right; you’re wrong.” And since they’re right—since they’re always right—how dare we say they sinned? They’re not the sinners; we are.

If you’re starting to realize there are an awful lot of narcissists in your life… well yeah, there are. They’re not necessarily pathological—although some of their lives are certainly a wreck because of their selfishness, so I’m pretty sure a trained psychologist might actually call ’em pathological. But most of us get a little bit prideful from time to time, and start to dip into the idea that maybe we really are better than everyone else; maybe the usual rules don’t apply to us. Hopefully we snap out of this mindset before it goes anywhere. Some people clearly haven’t.

So when people’s response to “God has forgiven you” is “I don’t need forgiving,” that’s what we’re dealing with: A narcissist.

Everybody needs forgiving.

Other than Jesus, He 4.15 everybody has sinned. Ro 3.23 So everybody needs God to forgive ’em. I’m not saying everybody’s committed dire sins, like rape and murder and trying to storm the Capitol; but everyone’s lied, everyone’s cheated, and everyone’s coveted what they shouldn’t.

And everyone, including Jesus, has trespassed. No, trespasses aren’t sins; they’re when we go too far, and you know Jesus regularly goes farther than people want. Trespasses also need to be forgiven, and God’s trespasses especially: We know he’s only doing it for our good. He doesn’t want to hurt us, but sometimes he’s gotta deal with us in ways which are gonna hurt, and we must never hold those hurts against him. It’s gotta be done, and who better to do it?

But while God is sorry he has to take extreme measures, 1Ch 21.15 NASB a narcissist feels they needn’t be sorry for anything. “I had to be rough on you, but you needed it. Really you deserved it.” They’ll justify themselves immediately. A lot of people become narcissistic as a defense mechanism; they don’t want to feel bad about themselves, ever, which is why they’ve redefined right and wrong till they’re always right. There’s nothing to forgive when you’re never wrong, and even when you trespass it’s for a good reason, needs no apology, and they don’t need to feel bad about it. Don’t need to feel bad about anything.

Learning to not suppress your conscience is how a lot of psychologists choose to treat pathological narcissism. That takes time and effort, and narcissists don’t care to make any of that effort when they don’t acknowledge their behavior is destructive. (You can already see—getting ’em to realize they’re the problem is gonna be extremely hard with a narcissist!) So yeah, they’re tough nuts to crack.

That’s why it’s not really for us to crack ’em. It’s gonna take a trained psychologist, or the Holy Spirit. It’s not gonna take some overeager Christian apologist who sputters, “But you do need to be forgiven; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!” Bible quotes don’t work on narcissists. They think they know better than the authors of the bible!

Yep, someone’s gotta burrow into their consciences and shock ’em back into a sinus rhythm. And really, raising the long-dead takes divine intervention. All we can do is pray for them. So do lots of that.

The Satan Versus Satan Story.

Mark 3.23-26, Matthew 12.24-30, Luke 11.17-18.

Jesus was in the habit of ignoring Pharisee customs. In part because they aren’t biblical and therefore aren’t necessary (and aren’t sin when you break ’em). In part because too many Pharisees pointed to their customs as proof they were devout… and hoped the customs distracted people from the fact they were breaking the Law just as much as any gentile. It was all hypocrisy—the one thing which really pisses Jesus off.

Pharisees who legitimately tried to follow God, easily recognized Jesus is from God. Pharisees who were only interested in looking devout had the darnedest time trying to prove Jesus isn’t from God: It’s kinda impossible to make such a case when Jesus so obviously has God’s power to cure the sick and throw evil spirits out of people. When Pharisees tried to cure people and do exorcisms, they had such a low success rate, lots of Jews turned to witch doctors instead. In comparison, Jesus looks like he put hardly any effort into it. Sometimes he had to pray real hard, or lay hands on someone more than once, or had to give up because people were so faithless. But most of the time he’d say, “You’re cured,” and they were; or “Get out,” and the critters would scream and flee. He had the Holy Spirit without limit, Jn 3.34 and this almightiness showed.

So Pharisees had nothing. But it looks like the Galilean Pharisees decided to pick the brains of Judean Pharisees, who came up with the explanation, “He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.” Mk 3.22 I explained the backstory of “Beelzebub,” properly Baal Zevúl, in another article. It’s pretty much a euphemism for Satan. Like many a cessationist nowadays, these Judeans claimed Jesus did his thing through the power of the devil. ’Cause God would never work through such people.

In response, Jesus told this parable.

Mark 3.23-26 KWL

23 Jesus, summoning them,

is telling them in parables,

“How can Satan throw out Satan?

24 When a kingdom is divided against itself,

that kingdom can’t stand.

25 When a house is divided against itself,

that house can’t stand.

26 And if Satan rises up against itself and is divided,

it can’t stand. Instead it’s the End.”

God can’t abide sin?

“God can’t abide sin. It offends him so much, he simply can’t have it in his presence. He’s just that holy.”

It’s an idea I’ve heard repeated by many a Christian. Evangelists in particular.

It’s particularly popular among people who can’t abide sin. Certain sins offend us so much, we simply can’t have ’em in our presence. We’re just that pure. Well… okay, self-righteous.

You can see why Christians have found this concept so easy to adopt, and have been so quick to spread it around. It’s yet another instance of remaking God in our own image, then preaching our remake instead of the real God.

Don’t get me wrong. ’Cause Christians do, regularly: I talk about grace, and they think I’m talking about compromise. Or justification. Or nullification. Or compromise. Or liberalism. Whatever reason they can think of to ignore grace, skip forgiveness, disguise revenge as justice, and claim they only have these prejudices and offenses because God has ’em. You claim you practice grace? Then grant me some so I can explain.

Obviously God is anti-sin. He told us what he wants and expects of his people. Both through his Law, and through the teachings and example of Christ Jesus. (I was about to write “and he didn’t mince words,” but Jesus kinda did in some of his parables, for various reasons. Regardless, any honest, commonsense Christian—and plenty of pagans—can figure Jesus out.)

Yes, God’s offended by our willful disobedience. And he’s just as offended by the sins of people who don’t know any better: They do have consciences, after all. Ro 2.15 At one point they were taught the difference between right and wrong, and even so, they chose what’s wrong.

But the issue isn’t whether sin bugs God. It’s whether sin bugs God so much, he can no longer practice grace. Whether he can’t abide sin—and therefore he can’t abide sinners.

Evil spirits.

It’s odd: Lots of people believe in spirits. Christians do too, ’cause God’s a spirit, Jn 4.24 and angels are spirits. He 1.14 We also figure the spirits of dead loved ones exist in the afterlife—or heaven, as many people imagine.

Yet many of these very same people refuse to believe in evil spirits.

I used to say this mindset comes from Platonism. Plato of Athens taught if we could only escape this world of matter and decay, and just become pure spirit, all our self-centered impulses, greed, materialism, lusts, and so forth would simply cease to exist. We wouldn’t have ’em anymore; they were embedded in our flesh, but without that flesh we’d be nothing but good. Plato’s not the first to believe this junk; plenty of other cultures teach the same thing. Present-day folks who believe it, don’t necessarily believe it ’cause of Plato’s reasoning—heck, they don’t have any reasoning behind it. They simply believe all spirits are good… because it never occurred to them spirits might be bad.

Yep. Even though mythology, fairy tales, and horror movies are loaded with evil spirits. Monsters, boogeymen, fairies, ghosts, demons, elder gods which wanna destroy everything once they’re awakened. But for whatever reason, people imagine real-life spirits aren’t evil, and are nothing but benevolent. They’re on a higher plane than we are, and in getting there all the evil got purged from them.

To some degree this is because too many people have overdone their emphasis on evil spirits. Christians in particular. Wasn’t so long ago that everyone assumed every psychological disorder in the DSM-5 was the product of evil spirits. Years ago I had a roommate suffering from depression, but he was convinced he was demonized. Fortunately one of my pastors was a psychologist, and could diagnose him properly. But you’re gonna find very few pastors (even though they do a whole lot of counseling!) have had proper psychological training of any sort. In fact some of ’em claim psychology is devilish. And therefore people with psychological disorders are demoniac, and instead of meds they need an exorcism.

You’re gonna find a lot of dark Christians with this mindset. They insist evil spirits are absolutely everywhere. Everywhere. Pick a problem and there’s a demon behind it—a sinister intelligence using that problem to trick us into losing our salvation and going to hell. I’ve visited “deliverance ministries” which insist every temptation, no matter how minor, has a devil behind it. The leaders demonstrate how to cast out these devils, claiming everyone’s infested with at least one or two of ’em, like bedbugs in an old mattress. Christians included!—they claim we can’t be possessed by evil spirits (since we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit), but the critters can certainly latch onto us like leeches, and tempt us whenever we’re weak.

Okay: If devils could infest absolutely everyone in this way, don’t you think they would? Our entire planet would be hopelessly demonized. But it’s not. It is full of selfish people, who’ll act more evil than Satan itself. But that’s way different than people puppeteered, or at least heavily steered, by evil spirits. Humans are plenty capable of inventing our own evil. Few of us need any devil’s help in being evil.

Let’s not go overboard when it comes to evil spirits. Nor underboard. Two things we need to bear in mind about evil spirits, as indicated in the scriptures:

• God made us humans able to resist and defeat them. The devil itself flees when resisted. Jm 4.7 So do its allies.
• They’re greatly outnumbered by God-following humans and spirits, and of course God can defeat them all by himself. So they’re only a threat when we’re ignorant of them, and dismiss what they’re up to.

This being the case, let’s not be ignorant of them!

Sin.

SIN sɪn noun. Immoral behavior—as defined by religious morality.

2. Violation of God’s law or known will.

3. A reprehensible action, or serious shortcoming.

4. A state of human nature in which one is alienated from God.

5. verb. To commit a sin, offense, or fault.

[Sinful 'sɪn.fəl adjective.]

I used to think it was a copout when Christians claimed they weren’t entirely sure what “sin” meant, or is. Sometimes yeah, they’re trying to weasel out of something: They’re sinning their brains in, and don’t care to define their behavior as sin, so they’re hoping to either plead ignorance, or get us to admit there’s some kind of gray area, and grant them some leeway.

But too often, I’ve found nobody ever spelled it out for them when they were new Christians. Nobody ever sat the newbies down and told ’em, “Here’s what sin is.” I grew up Christian, and they absolutely told us kids what sin is—and to not do it!—but churches tend to forget adults didn’t always have that upbringing, and there might be a big ol’ gap in their knowledge.

So the adult Christian converts presumed. And most of the time you can kinda figure it out, ’cause certain preachers love to rail against sin. You can easily deduce you sinned if you broke one of the Ten Commandments. Or if you commit one of the seven deadly sins.

But you might get the wrong idea nothing else is a sin. Pagans make that mistake all the time; it’s why, whenever some bishop lists a few sins, pagan reporters freak out as if this is a great big headline: “The church is adding new sins to the seven deadly sins!” No; these are old sins, and you clearly don’t know what sins are.

Anyway it’s because of this guesswork people keep right on committing the same fruitless behaviors we’ve always done, unaware of how this activity undermines our relationship with God, and any greater religious growth.

The apostles defined sin as when we know what God expects of us—we know the right or proper thing to do—yet we ignore it and selfishly do our own thing.

James 4.17 KJV

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

 

1 John 3.4 KJV

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

At its core sin is based on selfishness. If we aren’t so insistent on doing our own thing, and care more about doing what God wants, we’ll be far less likely to sin.

Here’s the problem: Sin is based on selfishness, but selfishness isn’t necessarily sin.

No seriously. It’s not always wrong to think of ourselves first! In fact we kinda have to: When we follow Jesus’s teaching to love others as we love ourselves, Mk 12.31 it’s expected we already do love ourselves. And it’s sometimes necessary to think of ourselves first. When you’re serving others, but you work yourself to death in the process, you’re not gonna serve others for very long. If you’ve ever been on a plane and remember the safety lecture, y’might recall when the oxygen masks drop we’re supposed to put on our mask before we help others with their masks, ’cause we’re no help to anyone once we pass out from oxygen deprivation. Often we need to think of ourselves first.

The problem is when we think of ourselves only: We don’t or won’t love others too. (Or we don’t love ourselves, and use that as an excuse to be awful to others.)

Sin is the product of corrupted selfishness. Like nearly every animal, selfishness is hard-wired into the human body and instinct. After all, when we don’t look out for ourselves, when we ignore that self-preservation instinct, we get physically hurt! But humans have taken this instinct to a level God didn’t intend when he built it into us. We don’t just preserve our lives and well-being. We preserve our comforts too. Whenever God’s will runs contrary to the things which entertain us, please us, or suit us, we’re all too willing to ignore him. We figure he’ll forgive us. Or we just don’t care what he thinks.

Hence sin. And it hasn’t merely corrupted humanity: It’s warped the whole planet. Nothing works as originally intended. Instead of living forever as we oughta, humans die. Instead of a harmonious, balanced ecosystem, we have famines, plagues, and natural disasters. Instead of working together in love, and naturally sharing a close personal relationship with God, humans fight one another, and try to manipulate and control and dominate one another. Even Christians fight over our ideas about Jesus: We may know about the sin problem, but we’re hardly immune to it. We’re just as infected as the rest of the world.

But God intends to remove sin from humanity. In four steps.

1. God’s Law, in which he spelled out his will for the Hebrews and humanity.
2. Jesus’s atonement, in which our sin was defeated and dealt with.
3. Sanctification, in which we learn how to stop sinning and resist temptation.
4. Resurrection, in which we receive new, sin-untainted bodies.

Lying so we can win the debate.

Christians lie.

No we’re not supposed to. There’s a whole teaching about this. It’s actually not the “don’t bear false witness” command, Ex 20.16 which has to do with perjury. It’s the one about how Christians need to be rid of lying, and tell the truth to one another. Ep 4.25 But we lie just the same. Usually to get out of trouble. Sometimes to defraud.

And sometimes when we debate with antichrists, and wanna score points, we borrow a rather common tactic we see in politics: We ignore whether our “facts” are all that factual.

Oh, we wish they were factual, ’cause they really help our case. We’ll psyche ourselves into believing they’re factual. We’re willing to dismiss any evidence which says it’s false knowledge. We’re totally willing to perpetuate fraud.

Yeah, it’s fraud. There’s a command against that too. Mk 10.19

But Christians dismiss this particular sin, ’cause we figure it’s so important to win these arguments, score victories for Jesus… and really stick it to those skeptics. Ends justify means. Doesn’t matter that we’re we’re not 100 percent sure about the “facts” we point to, or straight-up that we’re wrong and lying and fraudulent and evil. The goal was to win.

Yeah, this rationale doesn’t fly with God. He’s light, and doesn’t do darkness. 1Jn 1.5 If we adopt darkness, and claim we’re doing it on God’s behalf, we’re really not; it’s done for our victories, not his. We stopped following him. 1Jn 1.6

Whenever we sway non-Christians with non-facts, we’ve not really led them to Jesus. We’ve led them to Christianism. It’s built on lies, remember?—and God’s kingdom is built on truth. We’ve led them into some dark variant of Christianity we’ve invented instead, which we like better—and hopefully God will be merciful to these poor souls and pull them out of our darkness. But there’s no guarantee that’ll happen; ask any cult member.

Satan’s fall.

Revelation 12.

One of the popular myths about the devil is how Satan used to be an angel. Not that it pretends to be one, 2Co 11.14 but straight-up was one—the mightiest angel in the heavens, named Lucifer. Got deposed, but it used to be a big, big deal.

I’ve challenged many a Christian to actually read their bibles and prove any of this theory from scripture. And I gotta give ’em credit; they do try. But they don’t succeed. It says nowhere in the scriptures Satan used to be an angel. Doesn’t even say Satan was a heavenly being; we just presume so because Satan appeared before God in Job, and we’re kinda assuming they were all in heaven, or thereabouts, at the time. (Job never says where they were.)

Satan’s species is never once identified. Given Satan’s reputation as a liar, Jn 8.44 I’m mighty suspicious about any stories about its origin, like the Lucifer story, which try to make Satan look like it was a big deal at one time.

Or still is. During Jesus’s temptations, Satan claimed to be master of the world’s kingdoms, which it then offered to Jesus. Lk 4.6 Various Christians actually take this statement at face value. Doesn’t it look like the devil rules the world?—though really that’s because humanity lets the devil successfully tempt us into wrecking it. But Jesus’s response was “Get thee hence,” Mt 4.10 KJV i.e. “Get out of here with that nonsense.” Jesus didn’t recognize Satan’s authority at all. The kingdoms of this world belong to him, Jn 12.31, 14.30 not the devil.

Y’see, Satan fell. Jesus watched it fall. Lk 10.18

And about 40 years after his temptation, Jesus presented John of Patmos with a vision of when Satan got tossed from heaven. Whatever the devil used to be, whatever power it was granted, is now irrelevant: It fell. It’s not a heavenly being anymore. It was banished. It’s an earthly being, same as us.

Well, worse than us. Every human has the potential to tap into God’s grace and become one of his kids. Jn 1.12 But in another of Jesus’s revelations to John, he also clued us in to the fact Satan’s never gonna repent. Never gonna avail itself of God’s grace. It’s going into the fire. Rv 20.10 Willingly.

So if you imagine the devil’s a big deal, don’t. It’s a defeated foe. Even we have the power to get it to flee from us. Jm 4.7 Stop fearing it, and start resisting it.

Lucifer: The myth the devil used to be a big deal.

Isaiah 14.12-15.

Where’d the devil come from? Bible doesn’t say.

No it doesn’t. I know; popular Christian culture insists the devil’s origins are totally spelled out in the bible. When I ask ’em to point me to chapter and verse, they gotta track it down—really, they gotta Google the word “Lucifer”—but that’s where they invariably point me. Here, they insist, is where the devil went wrong.

Isaiah 14.12-15 KJV

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell,

to the sides of the pit.

You gotta quote it in King James Version, because most other translations don’t bother to keep it “Lucifer.” They insist on translating it as other things: “Morning star” (NIV, The Voice), “bright morning star” (GNT), “Day Star” (ISV, ESV, NRSV, NJB, The Message), “star of the morning,” (NASB), “shining star” (NLT), “shining morning star” (HCSB), “shining one” (NET), and so forth.

Y’ever wonder why these bibles insist on translating it other ways? Not, like KJV-worshipers claim, because they’re trying to conceal the devil. ’Cause if that was the plan, it failed. People quote this passage at me in plenty of other translations, and still claim it’s about Satan.

The reason other bibles render it differently is ’cause it’s not a proper name. It looks like a proper name: הֵילֵ֣ל בֶּן שָׁ֑חַר/Heylél ben Šakhár, or “Heylel son of Sakhar.” But neither Heylel nor Sakhar are names. It means “shining one, son of dawn.” It’s poetry—and it refers to the morning star, the planet Venus when it’s visible around sunrise. Heylél was what the ancient Hebrews called it.

In the Septuagint it’s translated eosfóros/“morning-bringer,” another word for fosfóros/“light-bringer,” the morning star. And in the Vulgate it’s translated lucifer/“light-bringer,” which is what Latin-speakers called it.

But like I said, it’s poetry. It’s not directly addressed to the morning star. It’s addressed to the guy Isaiah was calling the morning star in this prophecy, which he prefaced with the following statement:

Isaiah 14.3-4 KWL

3 On the day the LORD gives you rest from your pain, dread, the hard service you worked,

4A take up this saying to the king of Babylon.

This king didn’t exist yet. Isaiah’s instructions were for future generations of Hebrews, who were gonna grow up in Babylon after Nabú-kudúrri-usúr (NIV “Nebuchadnezzar”) dragged their ancestors there. But once the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians in 539BC, it’d be whichever king was still in charge. Possibly Nabú-naïd (Latin Nabonidus), but really this prophecy applies to the arrogance of just about all Babylon’s kings. Nebuchadnezzar as well.

So yeah, “lucifer” is meant to describe the king of Babylon. As some translations make it obvious:

Isaiah 14.12 GNT

King of Babylon, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven! In the past you conquered nations, but now you have been thrown to the ground.

But good luck telling that to some Christians. They grew up believing this verse is about Satan. They’re not giving up this idea without a fight.

Our ancient foe, the devil.

Yes, Satan exists.

But in both popular and Christian culture, Satan has been profoundly misrepresented. It’s intentional. Like Sunzi said in The Art of War, all warfare is based on deception. True of spiritual warfare as well. The devil gets a leg up on us humans by making us believe all sorts of disinformation.

Like the popular rubbish that it used to be the highest angel in heaven, second to God himself. There’s no evidence at all for this in the scriptures; it’s entirely taken from Paradise Lost. Yet people still claim it’s in the bible somewhere, and come up with the darnedest proof texts as “evidence.” Talk about lying on your résumé; in fact if you were hiring Satan at your business and found absolutely nothing in a background check, you’d be far more likely to believe your applicant’s a dirty liar, than people do Satan—who’s a known dirty liar.

But a mighty successful one. Which is why Christians still think it’s an angel of light, instead of how Paul and Timothy actually described it: Only appearing to be one. 2Co 11.14 Like how it rules this world Lk 4.5-6 as the prince of the power of the air, Ep 2.2 and never imagine these are titles it usurps, ’cause Jesus has conquered the world. Like how it appears to be everywhere, almost like God… or that it’s not almighty, but it’s still pretty darned mighty.

And other such things which intimidate Christians against resisting or fighting it. Or make us so wary of it, we never refer to it by name. Various Christians never refer to it as the devil or Satan; they’ll only call it “the enemy.” Lest saying its name or title might get its attention or conjure it up, like Voldemort from the Harry Potter novels.

Or on the opposite extreme, people might consider Satan laughable. Pagans especially. They imagine it a red creature with horns, goat legs, a tail, and a trident. It sits on your shoulder, opposite an angel on your other shoulder, and goads you into doing what’s fun while the shoulder angel convinces you to do what’s right. It tortures people in the underworld, and sometimes ventures to the surface to tempt musicians with awesome heavy metal songs. It’s an imaginary being, like fairies and gnomes and Smurfs and mermaids. It’s a representation of evil, but it’s not a literal being. It’s silly.

We Christians believe there’s an actual devil. Jesus taught us it exists, Lk 8.12 and told his students it actually came to test him once. (How else do you think Matthew and Luke contain that story?—Jesus told it.)

But contrary to the paranoid fantasies of dark Christians, it’s not a mighty being. It’s a defeated foe. Jesus beat it, 1Jn 3.8 and someday will destroy it. Rv 20.10 Meanwhile he gave his followers—us—power over it. Lk 10.19 If we submit to God and resist it, it’ll flee. Jm 4.7

Yeah, that’s correct: Flee. It can’t withstand us. The only reason we think it can, is because we won’t submit to God. We’re more likely submit to Satan. We fold like a desk lamp. We capitulate.

Our situation is like a trained elephant on a leash. Why don’t elephants snap the leash, or take off and drag their handlers wherever they please? Because they were trained all their lives to obey humans. Frighten an elephant badly enough and then you’ll see ’em snap leashes, drag people behind them, even maul their handlers. The devil has humans on a very similar leash, hoping we never, ever notice how thin it is. How easy it is to fight back. Especially with the weapons the Holy Spirit offers us.

Various new Christians wanna know why God doesn’t just put a stop to the devil. He doesn’t have to! He empowered us to. We can.

Whenever Christians get off our apathetic backsides, or quit being scared for no good reason, we easily overthrow Satan. It’s so quickly defeated, people get surprised: “You mean the fight’s over?” No knock-down, drag-out, end-of-the-TV-season battle with the Big Bad where anything can happen (and come on; on most TV shows you know the good guy’s gonna win). Satan flees like a cockroach when the lights turn on.

Humans (and our fears) are way harder to fight off.

The goodness of creation: Matter bad, spirit good?

There’s a really popular, common idea in our culture: Spiritual things are good, and material things are bad.

It comes from Greek philosophy, though the Greeks were hardly the first to believe it. It’s found pretty much everywhere. Plenty of pagans insist every spirit being must be an angel, and good. Therefore we must always, always take their advice, and never wonder whether any of them are evil. ’Cause why would there be any such thing as an evil spirit? They’re spirits. Duh.

Regardless of its origins, Christians have totally bought into this idea. In part because we think we see it in the bible.

Romans 8.5-8 NRSV

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

Galatians 5.16-17 NRSV

16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.

Flesh is material, right? Made of atoms. And in these passages flesh isn’t just shorthand for fallen human nature; it’s a reminder that matter is bad, but spirit—especially the Holy Spirit—is good. Hence Christians have overlaid this Greek idea upon Christianity since the very beginning. It’s all over gnostic literature. It’s why there was a giant fight in the early church about whether Jesus really became human, because why on earth would God demean his pure spiritual nature by becoming human? But he did. Pp 2.6-7

And he really did die, and when he was resurrected he was put back into a real human body.

1 John 4.2-3 NRSV

2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.

Yep, anyone who says Jesus isn’t really human, or that his resurrection put him in some weird kind of “spiritual body” 1Co 15.44 which is only the illusion of matter but actually pure spirit: They’re not just heretic, but antichrist. Jesus has a body, and I don’t just mean the metaphor of the “body of Christ.” He has a physical body. He didn’t temporarily become human; that change is permanent. He’s one of us now.

’Cause neither matter nor spirit are inherently good. Nor bad. They can be either. It all depends on whether they are as God originally made ’em. ’Cause when he originally made the cosmos, when he first created matter, he declared it, and everything he made of it, good.

Genesis 1.31 NRSV

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

(If you wanna argue Genesis 1.31 only refers to sixth-day stuff, fine. On all the other days, God declared those creations good… so it’s all good.)

When humanity was created, God declared us good. We humans are part matter and part spirit; we’re not purely one or the other. (In fact if you split us into one and the other, you wind up with a corpse and a ghost: A dead human. It’s not an upgrade!) But when humanity went wrong, it wasn’t part of us which went wrong; ’twasn’t the material parts which got all corrupt and depraved while the spiritual parts remained intact and pure. The immaterial, spiritual parts of Adam and Eve were corrupted before they ate the wrong fruit and got materially corrupted. Their spirits did evil. ’Cause spirit can definitely be evil.

When the unclean spirit leaves a person…

Matthew 12.38-45 • Luke 11.24-26.

Previously I wrote about how some Sadducees and Pharisees in Dalmanuthá approached Jesus demanding a sign, and Jesus’s response was to say they’d get the Jonah sign, and nothing more.

But Matthew has a second version of this story, where Pharisee scribes approached him for a sign, and Jesus likewise said they’d get no more than the Jonah sign—then tacked on an odd little story about an evil spirit leaving a person, and coming back later. Luke tacks this lesson to when people accused Jesus of throwing out evil spirits with Satan’s power, and it seems to fit rather well there. It’s a little more odd when this lesson is placed together with the people who requested a sign.

People who are fascinated with evil spirits and demons—and paranoid about the possibility of being possessed by these creatures—have spent the past 20 centuries trying to glean information from this bit about how devils work.

I’ve decided to include Jesus’s Matthew statement so you can see its context. But yeah, I’ll explain what Christians have historically taught about this bit, and what Jesus actually means by it.

Matthew 12.38-42 KWL

38 Some of the scribes and Pharisees replied to Jesus, saying,

“Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

39 In reply Jesus told them, “An evil, adulterous generation pursues signs—

and a sign won’t be given them other than the prophet Jonah’s sign.

40 For just as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights,

likewise the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

41 The men of Nineveh will rise on Judgment Day with this generation and condemn it:

They repented at Jonah’s message, and look, more than Jonah is here.

42 The queen of the south will rise on Judgment Day with this generation and condemn it:

She came from the end of the earth to hear Solomon’s wisdom, and look, more than Solomon is here.

Matthew 12.43-45 KWL 43 “When the unclean spirit leaves a person, it goes past waterless lands seeking rest, finding none. 44 Then it says, ‘I’ll go back to my house which I left.’ It comes to find the person vacant—swept out and set right— 45 then goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself. Entering, they live there, and the last situation of this person is worse than the first. Likewise is this evil generation.”

Luke 11.24-26 KWL 24 “When the unclean spirit comes out of the person, it goes past waterless lands seeking rest. Finding none, it says, ‘I’ll go back to my house which I left.’ 25 On coming, it finds the person swept out and set right— 26 then goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself. Entering, they live there, and it happens the last situation of this person is worse than the first.”

Now y’notice Matthew doesn’t separate the “When the unclean spirit leaves a person” bit from the rest of Jesus’s statement about the Jonah sign. It’s not a separate story. It’s fully part of it. Either Jesus taught ’em together, or the author of Matthew was entirely certain they belong together. So we can talk about the Jonah-sign stuff separate from the unclean-spirit stuff, ’cause Mark does. Mk 8.10-13 But we ought not talk about the unclean-spirit stuff separate from the Jonah-sign stuff.

Evil comes from within.

Mark 7.14-16 • Matthew 15.10-11.

So Jesus is lunching with some Pharisee, who has a snit about how he and his students don’t ritually wash when they enter a home, and Jesus turns round and complains how some Pharisee rituals violate the Law.

Now you do recognize it’s a common weaselly debate tactic to change the subject by attacking your opponent, but you should realize Jesus is no weasel: This wasn’t changing the subject, but getting to the very heart of why the Pharisee complained about hand-washing. He wasn’t insisting on it ’cause it offended his sensibilities, his religion, his devotion. He was doing it because it didn’t look good, which is hypocrisy of course. Too much of Pharisee custom was about appearing to follow the Law, but really following custom; the Law not so much.

And as for ritual cleanliness, Jesus wanted to make it obvious the ritual didn’t make anybody or anything clean. The ritual—like all rituals, including Christian rituals—only represents what it purports to do. Ritual cleanliness represents spiritual cleanliness. It’s not the same thing. As proven by any hypocrite—who might be so physically clean you could lick chocolate pudding off his hands, but so nasty inside you never would.

So Jesus took a little break from dinner and went to bring this up with the public:

Mark 7.14-16 KWL 14 Calling the crowd again, Jesus told them, “Everyone listen to me, and put this together. 15 There’s nothing outside a person going in, which can make them ‘common.’ But what comes out of a person is what defiles the person. [16 If anyone has hearing ears, hear me.”]

Matthew 15.10-11 KWL 10 Calling the crowd, Jesus told them, “Listen and put this together. 11 It’s not what goes into the mouth which makes a person ‘common.’ But what comes out of the mouth—this makes a person ‘common.’ ”

Mark 7.16 isn’t in the oldest copies of Mark; it first showed up in bibles in the 300s, and Jesus did say those words a number of other times. Mk 4.9, 4.23, Lk 8.8, 14.35

I remind you this idea that we’re corrupted from the outside-in: Wasn’t just a popular Pharisee belief. Humans have always taught it. Christians frequently still teach it. Every time we warn our kids about corrupting outside influences—“Be careful, little eyes, what you see”—it’s based on the idea evil comes from without. Not within.

It’s based on Pelagianism, the idea humans are basically good. Pelagians figure God created us and called us good, Ge 1.31 and it’s only pessimistic Christians like St. Augustine, corrupted by Plato’s ideas about how matter is bad, who overlaid his ideas into Christendom and invented total depravity—humans are too selfish and messed up to turn to God without his help. Humans may do evil, but that’s way different from claiming we inherently are evil, been that way since birth; they can’t accept that idea at all.

Well of course they can’t. ’Cause the human self-preservation instinct won’t allow us to believe anything negative about ourselves. No matter what evidence we’ve been shown to the contrary. No matter what Jesus, his apostles, and the scriptures teach us. We choose to believe what makes us feel good about ourselves—and reject history, commonsense, and all the sins we ourselves commit. That’s just how total our depravity is: It inherently makes us not wanna believe in it. It’s no wonder people don’t cry out to Jesus for help: Humanity is in serious denial about how badly we need a savior.

And even when Christians claim we believe in human depravity, some of us think the instant Jesus saved us, and the Holy Spirit entered us, we were cured of our depravity. We used to be self-centered and corrupt, but once we became Christian we’re good. We don’t need to unlearn bad behaviors and grow the Spirit’s fruit; we already have his fruit and are doing just fine. We don’t have to put on God’s new nature Cl 3.10, Ep 4.24 —it’s already on! And so we’re in the very same boat as Pelagians… but hey, at least we’re orthodox.

Yep, that’s also a product of our total depravity. There’s good reason theologians describe it as total: It’s everywhere.

Praying or singing yourself into an “altered state.”

Last month I had a correspondent, whom I called Fenella, object to the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) on the grounds it’s vain repetition.

Fenella’s concern is one I’ve heard dozens of times: When Christians pray something over and over and over, they figure we’re doing it to psyche ourselves into a state of euphoria. Other Christians have the very same complaint about the way certain churches do their music, or pick particularly repetitive songs: All that repetition isn’t done to praise God; it’s to whip ourselves into an altered state of consciousness. The “trance state,” as some of ’em describe it.

Once we’re in this trance, they worry we’re susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Naughty pastors might try to insert heretic ideas in our minds. Although more of these concerned Christians are more worried about demonic activity. Nevermind the fact these Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit: The critics are entirely sure devils can nonetheless climb into us while we’re praying and worshiping the Almighty. Because we’re praying so wrong.

I recently skimmed an article by a particularly fearful Christian; we’ll call him Otmar. Yeah, I skimmed the piece: I was trying to suss out Otmar’s main points, but these practices enrage him so much, he couldn’t stick to his descriptions and kept interrupting to vent his spleen. Dude’s got issues. (But now I’m digressing.)

Y’notice Evangelical churches tend to start our services with three fast songs, then three slow songs. Or more, or fewer, but it’s typically fast, then slow. “Three fast, three slow” was a joke we regularly made in my Christian college. But Otmar got hold of some charismatic church’s guidelines to their worship pastors about why they go fast, then slow, and the sort of mood they’re trying to set for the worshipers. Or “atmosphere,” as the church called it; same thing.

Most of the churches I visit totally do the same thing. And for the very same reasons. I’ll own up to it.

• When you walk into the service, the church usually has some music playing to set the mood. Typically songs the people already know. Something what gets people thinking, “We’re gonna do worship songs soon.”
• Then a “gathering song”—one which invites people to start singing and worshiping and praising God. One of my previous worship pastors really liked to use “Come, Now Is the Time to Worship.” Something fast and exciting. Frequently a song about praise, and why we oughta praise God—and that it’s fun!
• Then another fast song or two. Or three.
• Then we slow it down. Partly ’cause we can’t have everybody all amped up during the sitting-down portions of the service. Partly so people shout and jump less, and get more introspective and meditative, and hopefully pay more attention to anything the Holy Spirit might tell them.
• Then another slow song or two. Or stretch out the one song for a while, depending on how much the worship pastor really loves that song the Spirit’s leading.

My own church tends to do four songs total. And since I get to pick the preservice music, I tend to go with gospel. They listen to enough white music on K-LOVE already.

Back to Otmar. He insisted on reading something insidious into everything this church wrote. They used the word “invocation” for the gathering song. That’s an old-timey Christianese word, found in all sorts of churches, frequently to describe the opening prayer. Otmar couldn’t help but wonder what other things it might invoke. Like devils. Told you dude’s got issues.

And as I’ve stated many times elsewhere, the issue actually has nothing to do with whether these prayer and worship practices open Christians to evil forces. ’Cause they don’t. The issue’s entirely about style. It’s about individual Christians’ individual preferences about how they prefer we pray and sing. It’s equivalent to not liking the carpet in the auditorium. Except the guy who hates the carpet is claiming mauve is the devil’s color, and having it in the auditorium is dooming us to hell.

I admit there are songs I dislike so much, I can easily accuse them of being farted into existence by Satan itself. But I’m kidding. Fools like Fenella and Otmar aren’t kidding at all.