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The one-ton bronze sculpture includes two young children looking up adoringly at the devil.
The group -- the Satanic Temple -- is opposed to Bible-themed displays on government land and originally planned to have the statue placed on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds near a Ten Commandments monument, but was denied a permit to do so. A spokesperson for the temple said that the group now plans to transport the sculpture to Arkansas, where earlier this year a bill was passed authorizing a Ten Commandments monument on that state's capitol grounds.
Responses by Christians to the Detroit unveiling included the following:
• Nine Detroit preachers together asked the city not to allow the statue to be brought to the community.
• The same day as the unveiling, about 50 Detroit Christians gathered outside a building where the satanic group had previously tried to display the statue to denounce it and pray for the city.
• That morning, about 250 Catholics gathered for a mass aimed at countering the spirit of satanism and to pray for Detroit.
• The Church Militant, a Roman Catholic evangelistic organization, loaded a six-foot bronze statue of St. Michael on the bed of a pickup truck. While the unveiling was happening, the Catholic group drove the St. Michael sculpture around the unveiling venue three times, saying the St. Michael's Prayer as a counter-witness to the satanic statue. According to Revelation 12, St. Michael is the angel who did battle against Lucifer and cast him out of heaven into the abyss.
While "satanism" is an umbrella term that covers groups with varying beliefs, Wikipedia says, "The Satanic Temple uses the literary Satan as a mythological foundation for a non-supernatural religion, in order to ... usefully contextualize life experiences and promote pragmatic skepticism, rational reciprocity, personal autonomy, and curiosity."
Both of the temple's co-founders declare themselves "atheistic Satanists," meaning they do not believe that Satan actually exists. Some other satanic groups are "theists," believing that the devil is an actual deity or force that can be worshiped.
Wikipedia further says the Satanic Temple "actively participates in public affairs. This has [been] manifested in several public political actions and efforts at lobbying, with a focus on the separation of church and state and using satire against religious organizations that it believes interfere with freedom and the pursuit of happiness."
The focus on church-state separation appears to be pertinent to the group's plans for this statue.
Editor's note: As The Wired Word team considered which news stories to use this week, one team member recommended that we not use the satanic statue story. "It is a play for publicity," our team member said. "The one thing it cannot abide is being ignored." Another team member agreed that the folks who created this statue are counting on righteous outrage from Christians. (There's a saying that when you want something or someone noticed, "there's no such thing as bad publicity.") In the end, we decided to use the story, but we think our team members are right that getting overly worked up about this news only plays into some political and societal goals of the Satanic Temple group.
More on this story can be found at these links:
Satanic Temple Holds Public Sculpture Unveiling in Detroit. Yahoo News
Now Archangel Battles Devil in Detroit. WND
The Devil in Detroit. Church Militant
The Big Questions
1. While recognizing that there are varieties of satanists, some of whom reportedly do not believe Satan actually exists, why do you think some people purposely declare themselves to be aligned with a being that is widely seen as evil personified? Have you ever taken an unpopular position just to be contrary? Did you gain much satisfaction from taking such a stance?
2. If you could stage a counter-demonstration, what form would it take? What good might it do? How might it make you feel to do so?
3. Does the idea of Satan suggest that temptation and wrongdoing are things that come at us from outside of ourselves? Could it be a way of personifying the sinfulness that comes from within us? Can it be both? What does your personal experience suggest for answering these questions?
4. In Henry Longfellow's carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," he speaks of the Christmas bells tolling out the message, "Peace on earth, good will to men." But then he says, "And in despair I bowed my head; / 'There is no peace on earth,' I said, / 'For hate is strong and mocks the song / Of peace on earth, good will to men.'" What is the Christian faith's answer to that?
5. What is the practical life-application of this statement: "Evil belongs to time; goodness belongs to eternity"?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Isaiah 44:6
Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. (For context, read 44:1-8.)
Anytime we talk of Satan, it's important to remind ourselves of verses such as this one, in which God asserts, "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god." While, aside from satanists, few would be inclined to call the devil "god," we sometimes talk as if Satan were God's equal opposite. But the Bible's witness is that only the Lord is God. He alone is the first and last.
In the preface to his excellent little book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis said that he was frequently asked if he believed in the devil. Lewis responded, "Now, if by 'the devil' you mean a power opposite God and, like God, self-existent from all eternity, the answer is certainly no. There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite. No being could attain a 'perfect badness' opposite to the perfect goodness of God; for when you have taken away every kind of good thing (intelligence, will, memory, energy and existence itself) there would be none of [that being] left."
Questions: What does it mean in terms of your life that God has no opposite? What makes some people think that Satan is God's equal opposite? What statement are they making about Satan -- and God -- when they assume this?
Job 1:6
One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. (For context, read 1:6-12.)
The Hebrew word sat?an here rendered in English as "Satan" means "adversary." It doesn't appear often in the Old Testament, and when it does, it sometimes refers to a human opponent (see 1 Samuel 29:4; 2 Samuel 19:22; 1 Kings 11:14, 23). But in the book of Job, from which the verse above is taken, and in 1 Chronicles 21:1 and in Zechariah 3:1-2, the word refers to a ruler of evil beings who is constantly opposed to God's purposes -- an adversary.
TWW team member Frank Ramirez comments, "In Job there is no Satan. There is 'the satan,' an adversary who is a part of the heavenly court and whose job is to play, well, devil's advocate! Every ruler worth his or her salt has to have someone who's willing to challenge authority, and the satan plays an important role. The satan oversteps his bounds when he takes the argument about Job personally and, in the second chapter, challenges God 'skin for skin' (Job 2:4). Is he saying it's his skin or Job's skin? Is he saying (whisper this), 'It's either me or you, God, in this bet. One of us ceases to exist after this bet.' God takes the bet. The satan disappears from the story and is not part of the discussion or part of the restoration at the end of the book. I think the author of Job is speaking directly to the myths about a dualistic system in which there are two deities who will duke it out at the end of time. The Job author will have none of that dualism. There is only one God."
In the New Testament, the idea of Satan is more fully developed, but he never ceases to be an adversary of God's will.
Questions: In what ways do you experience an adversarial force in your walk with Christ? How do you deal with that force? Can there be a benefit to an element of testing from this adversarial force? Are there times when you feel stronger and better able to endure or confront an adversarial force?
James 1:14-15
But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. (For context, read 1:12-16.)
1 Peter 5:8-9
Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith ... (For context, read 5:6-11.)
James here speaks of temptation as something that comes from within -- from "one's own desire." Peter, in contrast, speaks of it as a force from outside, seeking to devour us.
From our perspective, it probably doesn't matter whether a temptation to do wrong originates from within or from without; it's equally destructive either way, and when it results in wrongdoing, it damages our relationship with Christ and often with others.
The New Testament uses several different metaphors to describe the havoc Satan causes -- serpent (Revelation 12:9), dragon (Revelation 12:7), lion (1 Peter 5:8), strong man (Matthew 12:29), the evil one (Ephesians 6:16), the accuser (Revelation 12:10), the tempter (Matthew 4:3), the destroyer (1 Corinthians 10:10), the adversary (1 Peter 5:8), the enemy (Matthew 13:25), an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), the ruler of demons (Matthew 9:34), the ruler of this world (John 12:31), and the ruler of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2).
TWW team member Shelly Turner suggests a few other names by which this force may be known: "friend, drugs, addiction and temptation that becomes the devil."
Questions: Under what guises has the adversary come to you? Did you recognize you were facing something adversarial at the time? Did things make more sense afterward? How did you respond to an adversary?
Revelation 12:7-9
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (For context, read 12:7-12.)
These verses tell of the archangel Michael battling and defeating Satan. God has no equal. That's why it's Michael who battles Satan, not God. "That's why," says TWW team member Frank Ramirez, "those who put their money on the beast and the unholy trinity in Revelation lose. There is no battle in Revelation. War is declared and it is over in an instant. That's the thing about the battle of Armageddon. There is no battle. There is one word -- ginomai (translated into English as three words: "It is done!" [see Revelation 16:17]). And it's done. Evil is defeated with a single word, and no one has swung a sword."
(Regarding that one word, see also the third stanza of the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God": "The Prince of Darkness grim, / we tremble not for him; / his rage we can endure, / for lo, his doom is sure; / one little word shall fell him." Martin Luther, the hymn writer, said that the word he had in mind is “You lie,” but, when uttered by God, “It is done" is even more final.)
The archangel Michael's defeat of Satan is powerfully illustrated in Coventry, England, where next to the modern cathedral is the burned-out husk of the old one. That ancient cathedral was still in service on the night of Thursday, November 14, 1940, when Coventry suffered through the longest German air raid of any one night on any British city in World War II. The old cathedral, along with much of the rest of the city, burned. The next day, only the four walls were left. When, some years later, the new cathedral was built, the old walls were left standing as a memorial to that church's vital ministry of reconciliation, which was born out of the ashes of their building. The Coventry congregation has become known for their ministry of outreach and compassionate caring in several parts of the world. Goodness, they've demonstrated, cannot be bombed out.
This point is emphasized dramatically by a large bronze sculpture on the wall outside the entrance to the new cathedral. The sculpture, by Sir Jacob Epstein, is based on Revelation 12, and it portrays the angel Michael defeating Satan. View in here.
The original listeners to Revelation would have understood the phrase "Tough times don't last. Tough people do." The meaning of apocalyptic literature such as Revelation is not to provide a roadmap to the future, but to encourage the present saints to hold on and trust that God, not Satan, is the ultimate victor. This is good news for those who stand with God and Christ.
Question: The Bible as a whole, including Revelation, presents us with a view of life as seen from the end. We might call it an "eternal perspective." It says to us that "This is how you will understand it when it is all over." That is not very satisfying when we are immersed in difficulties in the here and now. But how would our lives be poorer without that eternal perspective?
Revelation 12:12
Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short! (For context, read 12:7-12.)
This verse is a way of saying that evil is not eternal. Wrong cannot last forever; its time is, relatively speaking, short.
This particular section of Revelation describes a vision John of Patmos sees: a war taking place in heaven in which Satan, who is pictured as a dragon, and his angels fight against the angels of God, led by the archangel Michael. Satan, supposedly a fallen angel, wages this battle in an all-out attempt to regain his position in heaven. Although the battle is fierce, Satan and his forces cannot prevail, and in the end, he is defeated and thrown out of heaven once and for all. But his rage at losing is such that he then turns his wrath upon the church of John's day, causing great trouble and tribulation.
This dramatic vision was John's way of understanding why the Christians of his day were being severely persecuted. He knew the reality of evil because he and his fellow believers were facing it every day. But in the midst of all that persecution is this word of hope: "... the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"
John maintained that Satan's time was short because Satan was already a beaten enemy. All Satan had left was only that time between his defeat in the heavenly battle and the final judgment. After that, this evil adversary of humankind would be destroyed forever.
Questions: "His time is short," of course, is a relative expression. If Satan's time is not shorter than our lives, then it seems really long. In what sense does the Bible mean that Satan's time is "short"? Is that helpful? Why or why not?
For Further Discussion
1. Discuss this: Even devils, C.S. Lewis suggests in The Screwtape Letters, are afraid of goodness. For while a virtue can be twisted (humility, for example, can be twisted to become pride in how humble we are), it cannot be destroyed. Goodness has about it a sense of immortality because it comes from God. Goodness will outlast wrong.
2. Respond to this, from TWW team member Mary Sells: "I think it must be difficult to get to middle age without having thoughts, at times, of the futility of following Jesus and trying to be good. We see so many instances that direct our attention in other ways; we sense hopelessness. We witness professed Christians with no evident moral compass; we try to be good, yet life is still very hard; we see people who break laws seeming to live an easier life; etc. It might seem the path of least resistance is better, to give up and just join the ranks of the evil and worship at their table.
"Yet God has a plan that defeats the hopelessness of the world, that gives us hope for the eternal peace and community he always desired for us. Jesus lives and his promises are trustworthy. In troubled moments, the Spirit always guides us back to this truth."
3. TWW team member Doug Hargis writes, "Satan, which in Hebrew can also mean 'accuser,' has the task of accusing people of wrongdoing (sin) before God. In the course of Satan's routine hunt for people to accuse before God, God asks, 'Have you considered my servant, Job?' 'Absolutely,' says Satan, 'and my conclusion is that Job doesn't fear you for nothing, but his faith is directly linked to the blessings you've showered upon him. Take those away and he'll curse you to your face. Let's test the genuineness of his faith in you.' God agrees and lays out the parameters for the testing (the temptation). God tells Satan to take the blessings away and see if Job's faith is a genuine love for who God is versus a love based on the blessings themselves. First, with the restriction that Satan may not take Job's life, Satan removes the blessing of material wealth, then the blessing of children and finally the blessing of health. After the losses, it is noted that 'In all of this, Job did not sin by accusing God of wrongdoing' (1:22; 2:10). Job passes the test; he not only believes in God, but loves God just for who God is, not for the blessings of wealth, family and health. Job truly 'fears God for nothing'; Job's faith is real." How do you think your faith stacks up against Job's? Why?
Responding to the News
It's good for our spiritual health to recognize that whether the urge to sin comes from within us or from some outside force, in the end, we are responsible, with God's help, for dealing with it, for fleeing temptation, for repenting of our sins, for trying to repair damage we have done.
You might also sing together the third stanza of the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." For explanation, see the commentary under Revelation 12:7-9 above.
Closing Prayer
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