No. 011: Evil Doesn't Look Like Halloween.
On reason and love.
“So many spiders! So many skeletons! So many ghosts and pumpkin-heads and cats!”
“I saw a witch too!”
“Oh yeah, and witches!”
My sons chattered in the back seat with glee as we drove through the curvy residential streets on our way to the river for an afternoon walk. They’re sensitive kids: The oldest one, soon going on eight, just recently gathered the courage to watch Finding Nemo. We usually stick to Pooh Bear, Lightning McQueen, Bluey, and Curious George. That’s why it surprises me that they’ve been so giddy as the decorations have gone up around the neighborhood these past few days.
I was a sensitive kid too, and I didn’t do well with Halloween. The first time I went trick-or-treating I didn’t make it out of the cul-de-sac before encountering an older kid in a Ghostface mask, at which point I decided I was done and ready to go home to don my fuzzy, pink pajamas. In future years I would eventually come to appreciate the guaranteed wealth of Milky Ways and Three Musketeers enough to brave the creepy crawly festivity, but if the decorations at a house were too scary, I didn’t hesitate to skip it.
I’ve eventually gotten a little braver, mostly thanks to Chris getting me hooked on the X-Files when we were dating and, of course, a couple years later, to Stranger Things. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to handle a true slasher film, but I’ve come to appreciate that when done well, horror can actually be a valuable medium for communicating truth—for breaking me out of my comfort zone to place where I’m pressed to think through hard questions and through the darkness lurking in the recesses of my own heart that are hungry for the light of Christ. (But that’s a topic for another Substack.)
For a long time, though, I was genuinely suspicious of all of the dark and spooky stuff. I was a clean-cut kid, and I equated “clean-cut” with righteousness. Dark and spooky, to the contrary, I understood as the face of evil—the channel through which the powers of Satan were most likely to try to ensnare vulnerable human hearts. And perhaps it can be one such channel at times.
But I would submit that the “Halloween” breed of evil is mostly just a decoy to keep us distracted from noticing the primary line of the Enemy’s attack. The real encroach of darkness is much more subtle and much more dangerous. Consider, for example, a few of the guiding principles of the Satanic Temple (yes, I’m completely serious):
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought.
These words do not comprise an incantation or a spell. The scary thing about them is not that there is some dark magic or voodoo embedded within. (Light shines in the darkness, and we have nothing to fear by bringing them into the light.)
The scary thing about them, you might have noticed, is that they sound a little too familiar:1
“Let us be reasonable. Let us be measured. Let us take the logical steps to protect what we value. Let us use common sense to protect our freedoms.”
When we take this attitude, we say that we’re using pure reason. But the thing about pure reason is that it isn’t really pure. It’s inherently impressionable.
Pure reason listens to reasonable questions: “Did God really say to love those who encroach upon your freedoms? Did God really say to love those who themselves are unreasonable?” (cf. Gen. 3:1).
Pure reason is not really pure, because it is fed by fear, and it is fed by greed.
It surveys “all of the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” and listens to a reasonable promise: “All of this I will give you” if you take the reasonable steps (Matt. 4:8–9). It comforts us that whatever power we gain we will certainly use for good—for the sake of what’s noble, and for the sake of justice and righteousness. (I can think of several hobbits who would warn us otherwise, but that’s beside the point.)
Pure reason promises bright horizons for those who abide by it. We don’t even notice when it turns us into “slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness” (Rom. 6:19). We keep our eyes set on the goal and on the gain and on some set of extra-biblical (or, even worse, quasi-biblical) principles of nobility, and we close our eyes and our ears to the cries of those who are being trampled upon by those to whom we have pledged our allegiance to lead us forward into the promised land.
Pure reason is clean-cut and sophisticated. It says that words, especially reasonable words, can’t really hurt anybody.
Pure reason obfuscates what God’s Word has made clear. It turns commands into quandaries. But Bonhoeffer (a man whose eyes were open to the danger of the encroaching darkness) warns us, “Where moral difficulties are taken so seriously, where they torment and enslave a man, because they do not leave open to the freeing activity of obedience, it is there that his total godlessness revealed.”2
Bowing down to worship Satan doesn’t look like what we would expect it to look like. It certainly doesn’t look like Halloween. As many of you likely already know, neither the Satanic Temple nor the Church of Satan venerates Satan as a real, supernatural being. They worship, instead, the wills of autonomous humans. To convince humans to worship a fallen angel would be too obvious and too easily avoidable; but to convince them to forsake the grace of God in favor of their own self-sufficiency is far more subtle, and far more successful a ploy. Alan Noble describes what bowing down to Satan realistically looks like:
To live “for the Devil” may sound like a paranoid superstition or the title of a bad heavy metal album, but it has a very real and very terrible reality. If living before God means that we accept that His acts of creation and preservation are good and we give our assent to His sovereignty and goodness by living with gratitude in His world, then to live for the Devil is to deny God’s sovereignty and goodness, or the goodness of His creation and preservation of us. … All of these actions defy God and His goodness by treating what is precious as worthless and treating what is a gift as a curse. … But you can also defy God by insisting on your own self sufficiency. If you can achieve enough success and be a self-made person, the author of your own story and the definer of your own identity, then what use have you for God? In this way, a great many people devote their lives to mastering themselves and everyone around them.3
We defy God when we treat him as a tool for our self-preservation and self promotion. We rarely do so in great fits of passion. Evil doesn’t advance in waves of rage. It does so calmly, systemically, and incrementally, and the closer the pot gets to boiling, the harder it is to jump out.
Reason is not pure. Again, it is impressionable. And it will listen to whichever voice is loudest—either the voice of the sinful flesh or the voice of the Spirit. The Spirit gives us exactly one reason to love our neighbor: human beings are made in the image of God. Every single one of them—yes, every single one of them—is worthy of dignity, honor, compassion, and empathy. It will always be within reason to love others as Jesus has loved us.
If you are a Christian, I am not asking you to listen to me. I am asking you to listen to the Spirit, who speaks authoritatively through the Word.
This is what your God has really and literally said:
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36).
There is no fear in love (1 John 4:18).
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. … Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:9–21).
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, “Raca,” is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell (Matt. 5:21–22).
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:26–27).
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering (Heb. 13:1–3).
Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matt. 25:41–45).
You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:38–47).
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).
Brothers and sisters—let our thoughts, our words, and our deeds at all times operate from a posture of compassion and love, for one reason and one reason alone: that God has first loved us.
Just to be clear, I see these “guiding principles” at play in all of the public sphere and across all spectrums. In case you haven’t noticed, I am an equal opportunity critic of any allegiance that distracts from the subversive kingdom of Christ. If you think I’m overreacting, let me know, and I’d be happy to send you links to some stories and images that your news sources may be leaving out.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 74.
Alan Noble, On Getting Out of Bed, 98–99.