Pointing at the Devil, As a Means of Pointing to Christ

Embracing evil, as a concept, has been woefully overlooked in evangelicalism. There's a reason I insist Karen Swallow Prior might be an actual witch.

There are a lot of disagreements in evangelical Christianity. You know, things like the preferred color of the church carpet, if 80 year-olds should be subjected to standing during all 780 repetitions of the latest contemporary Christian music anthem, or whether Aunt Vesta added enough sugar to the Kool-Aid at Potluck. Stuff like that.

And yes, there are doctrinal disagreements, too.

Are you post-millennial, pre-millennial, or amillennial? Do you believe in speaking in tongues or are you normal? Did the Nephilum build the pyramids? How long after you got saved did you stop listening to Joel Osteen? Etc.

But one common agreement, which seems to surpass denominational affiliation, generational status, age bracket, or level of seminary degree your pastor holds, seems to be this; we live in the End Times.

The crazy thing about this assumption, which is nearly universal for evangelicals, is that it doesn’t matter what you believe about the eschaton or millennial reign, and whether you consider it metaphoric, literal, or co-occurring with our current timeline. There is something in the heart of the believer that testifies to us, we are rapidly approaching the end.

Sure, post-millennialists seem a little more optimistic about it. And even amillennialists get in on the doomsday fun, albeit less dogmatically. And, of course, premillennialists have our detailed charts and graphs to tell us what is happening, when.

But we all know (unless you are a full preterist, at which point, get saved already) that some things that are prophesied to happen, have not yet happened, but they’re going to happen. And it seems, for almost everybody, that there is something in the air that says those things are about to happen.

I’m quite aware that Christians have always thought they were on the precipice of the end, even going back (it appears) to a few in the New Testament. And this is quite a godly belief, which surely comes from the hope that Jesus will soon return. Like Apostle John, the Christian prays “Maranatha” (come quickly, Lord). And it only makes sense that we believe in what we hope for.

That said, if these are the last days (again, as I believe they are), then certain promises about the end, apply to us. But for this article, I’ll focus on one.

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1st Timothy 4:1-3).

Of course, people have always - to some degree - believed things taught to them by demons. But in the latter days, this will come to characterize our age. Demonic activity will be increased, or at the least, humanity will grow increasingly subject to demonic activity.

Many Scriptures speak to the frenzied activities of demons in the last days, not only in 1st Timothy (as referenced above), but throughout the New Testament (and prophecies of the Old Testament). And as I’ve pointed out repeatedly at Insight to Incite, this world is becoming increasingly aware of Satan.

Far too often, evangelicals have held back on the devil, and we have been excruciatingly slow to label things, ideas, or people as “evil.” In a Neo-Socinian (a hyper intellectual variety of “Christianity” that denies or downplays the supernatural) mindset, we don’t want to talk about evil as a concept, especially as a literal demonic force, but only as a result or outcome of actions.

In other words, the evangelical ethos towards evil seems to be, “evil is as evil does.” We can look back and call the Holocaust evil easily enough, but we’re slow to call evolutionary theory “evil” despite it being the root cause of the Final Solution. Or, for example, we are happy to call murdered babies “evil,” but slow to call those doing the murdering “evil.”

There’s really no good theological reason for this timidity, other than spiritual timidity. We want to make room for good people that do evil things, or neutral ideas that have evil outcomes. That’s to our shame, because the Scripture has no such qualms about calling evil, evil.

In fact, the refusal to call evil evil, is another indication of our proximity to the End Times (2 Timothy 3:1-5). One wouldn’t intuitively presume that Christians would be guilty of the good-evil confusion in the last days, but we are.

However, evil has become so obvious to lost people today, it’s not uncommon to hear them say that they believed in Satan before they believed in God. We should not be surprised at this!

The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork (Psalm 19:1) but in our age of concrete jungles and skylines of buildings rather than sunsets and sunrises, the handiwork of God has been obscured from us. And what, of God’s creation, hasn’t been obscured by cement, has been obscured in the classroom and endless dronings of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, explaining away the wonders of creation with endless words of nonsense.

Satan, on the other hand, is dancing in the streets. Drag Queens, cosplaying as both men and demons, hold events in which single moms (they’re always single) bring their babies to caress their thighs and laps. Celebrities writhe on stages cloaked in Satanic imagery. The walking dead, standing upright but still, are tranqed on the street corner. Teens are cutting themselves (a tell-tale sign of demonic possession) in such high numbers that ad campaigns have been launched to stop them. And frankly, it’s hard to go anywhere there aren’t young people who appear more demon than human, sauntering around with mutilated bodies and faces.

I submit that pointing to the devil is an evangelism strategy that we have forsaken. Instead of ignoring the obvious signs of demonic oppression, we put it into the category “mental illness” and call it a psychological crisis.

What I’m suggesting to you is that we evangelicals stop being afraid of labeling things as evil, demonic, or Satanic. And for crying out loud, we should stop acting as though the supernatural does not exist.

I’ll give one example.

I’ve insisted that Karen Swallow Prior, once paraded before us in conservative evangelicalism but now anathema to almost anyone who credibly confesses Christ, is a witch, for going-on a decade. Yes, an actual witch. And I stand by it!

But no matter how many times I said she was a witch, and that I was using the term literally, and making the accusation emphatically, I was misunderstood for the longest time.

“Yeah, bro. She’s definitely a witch. She’s awful.”

I’d respond, “No. I mean she’s an actual witch.”

“Yeah, I know, she’s terrible.”

But again I’d say, “You do not understand. I’m saying she practices witchcraft.”

It took a good five or six years for people to figure out that I wasn’t joking. I wasn’t using a pejorative. I wasn’t insulting her.

Rather, my argument is that - in my observation - for a woman to have had that many people under her spell, despite her having no personality, no personal charisma, nothing valuable to say, speaking in an inarticulate fashion that makes Kamala Harris sound profound, and on top of that, being physically repulsive in appearance, lends itself to a supernatural explanation.

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