I recently had coffee with a new friend from church who listens to the podcasts of a well-known, influential mega-church pastor.
My friend began to tell me about this pastor’s latest sermon on temptation and the role of wicked thoughts in the Christian life. The preacher’s main point was calling people to recognize that evil thoughts or fantasies are never my own. Rather, such temptations are planted in my mind by the devil.
He urged his listeners to tell themselves, “These aren’t my thoughts; they
are the devil’s thoughts. So, devil, get away from me!” That was his recipe for dealing with temptation.
I hear this kind of thing a lot in Christian circles. You have probably heard it, too. I sometimes get the impression that a certain brand of church-goer imagines a demon lurking behind every bush, waiting for another opportunity to harass the hapless Christian and sabotage her life.
Don’t misunderstand me.
I believe in a personal Satan. Defeating demonic powers was an important aspect of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Such work was central to Jesus’ message about the coming kingdom of God.
The question is, what does that mean for Christians today?
When I told my friend that I thought the radio pastor was wrong and that he was giving his listeners very bad advice, his reaction was predictable. He immediately quoted 1 Peter 5:8b, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Don’t Peter’s words prove the pastor’s point?
The answer depends on what we take Peter’s words actually to describe. What specifically does he mean? I don’t believe he means that every individual’s struggle with sin and temptation is the direct result of personal demonic interference.
My first problem with this popular misunderstanding is that it lets the Christian off the hook. In other words, we shift the responsibility for sin and temptation in our lives away from ourselves and onto an invisible, (apparently) ever-present force we call the devil. As the comedian Flip Wilson used to say, “The devil made me do it!”
Or, at the very least, the devil made me think about it!
Not only is this mantra that way too easy, but it also underestimates the significance of my own personal sinfulness.
Blaming the devil for my personal temptation and sin creates a serious spiritual hazard because it fails to take my “sinful nature” as seriously as it deserves. I am a sinner. So are you. I am born into this world as a fallen creature with a predisposition to disobey God and rebel. I don’t need to face demonic temptation in order to consider evil and to do wrong.
I am very good at tempting myself and embracing wickedness all by myself, thank you very much. I don’t need the devil’s help to be a sinner. It comes naturally to me, as it does to you. The world has been this way ever since our first parents rebelled against the Creator in the Garden.
Yes, Genesis 3 gives us a story about a personal Satan personally tempting Adam and Eve. But the result of their first rebellion was the thoroughgoing corruption of all creation, including every human being. At that point, Satan’s goals had been accomplished. He didn’t need to tempt each and every individual personally for the rest of history. The sinful inclination had taken up residence within us just as Adam and Eve’s failure had thrown a monkey wrench into God’s original design for the world.
Satan was free to sit back, sip a martini, and watch human history fall apart all on its own.
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Furthermore, I can’t help but notice the absence of any clear, New Testament evidence instructing Christians to view their lives as an ongoing contest against the devil.
Two New Testament passages explicitly discuss the inner turmoil caused by temptation. They are Romans 7:7-25 and James 1:12-15. Both passages have at least two points in common.
First, neither text says anything about the devil even though both of them offer a perfect opportunity to do so had the apostles imagined that the devil played a significant role in personal temptation.
Second, both texts place the blame for temptation and sin squarely onto the sinful inclinations that dwell within us all. Again, the devil is most noticeable by his absence.
Paul exclaims, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He does not say, “Who will rescue me from this demonic harassment?”
James explains, “Everyone is tempted when, by his/her own [fleshly] desires, he/she is dragged away and enticed.” Again, I can’t imagine a better context for making the devil’s role in temptation clear, if indeed he has any role at all. Yet, that’s not what James says, either.
Both apostles tell us to focus upon ourselves. We are the problem, not the devil.
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What about Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness? Isn’t this story the final proof that Satan does attack Christians individually?
I am not arguing that personal demonic temptation may never happen. But can we really compare ourselves to Jesus? Are any of us as important to God’s work of redemption as he is? I think that Christian humility demands that we recognize that I am not the most important component in God’s cosmic plan. Many others are more important than I am. Personal attacks may happen at times to some. But it is certainly not the normative experience that so many make it out to be.
It’s also important to understand that when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he confronted Satan as the new Adam – an important New Testament theme.
Jesus had to succeed where the first Adam had failed.
If Satan could derail Jesus’ mission and personal identity before it even got started – as he managed to do with Adam and Eve – then perhaps he could once again sit back and sip another martini for the rest of time. God’s plans for recreation would be as hamstrung as were God’s intentions for the initial creation.
Particularly important, I think, is the explanation Satan offers to Jesus for 
why he is able to tempt Jesus as he does. In the gospel of Luke, Satan shows Jesus “in an instant all the kingdoms of the world” and then explains, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me.”
In some mysterious transaction that is not explained, Satan’s victory over Adam and Eve allowed him to go on to dominate every human society throughout history. The devil’s power to pervert has permeated “all the kingdoms of the world” such that “their authority and splendor” are all his.
Evangelicals have traditionally limited their public concern for this demonic dominance to three areas: sex (read pornography), money (read tithing to the church), and alcohol (read tea-totaling). But these individual concerns only scratch the surface of our larger social problems, in ways that are not always helpful.
Satan’s boastful words open the door on how God’s people confront demonic temptation on a daily basis, in the all-pervasive authority structures of our dazzling but corrupted societies and cultures.
When wickedness is made normative, it becomes normal to accept wickedness as, well, normal. So normal, in fact, that it is not recognized for what it truly is.
For American Christians – at least for those who fail to take seriously their proper place as citizens in the kingdom of God – such wicked abominations as manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, nationalism (especially religious nationalism), militarism, white privilege, systemic racism, neo-liberal economics, commercialism, consumerism, competitiveness, multi-generational poverty, a growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots, and a host of other structural, authoritative networks of evil influence, all conspire to deform God’s purposes in our world.
When we cooperate, we surrender to sin and incur guilt.
We “give in” to these degenerate forces because it’s all so normal. It’s what
everyone else does and believes. The devil doesn’t need to do a thing to any of us personally, or individually, because he has already done the greatest part of his evil work corporately, collectively.
He has succeeded in making evil look normal. And if it’s normal, it can’t be evil. Right? After all, it’s the way the world works. It’s the air we breathe. It generates the system that sustains us as Americans in our Americanisms.
One of our problems in this country is that we are far too individualistic and melodramatic. I suspect that these, too, are wicked features of the way Satan has structured American culture.
The Christian love of melodrama habituates us to the excitement of fighting as “warriors,” typically as “prayer warriors,” in the cosmic battle of righteousness against wickedness.
Personally defeating, whether by calling out, or standing against, or binding, or exorcising, or naming, the demonic powers attacking me makes me a “victorious” Christian.
Aside from the fact that I am convinced this is rarely an accurate description of a Christian’s struggles in life, such a focus on personal, spiritual melodrama effectively blinds the Christian to the real, overwhelming, systemic dangers that have entangled us all in their web of corruption and deceit.
So, we bow to the authority of our preferred political party and behave accordingly, treating others as the enemy because that’s what politics does to us nowadays.
We approve of another US military intervention, and cheer on American forces as they slaughter foreigners who also are made as the image of God.
We look forward to buying the bigger, better, shinier, more expensive, upgraded model of whatever it is we want because that’s the normative behavior for an American consumer. Never mind the corrosive, personal, spiritual effects of our habitual, often addictive, acquisitiveness.
We stand with everyone else in opposing low-income people of color moving into our neighborhoods because it will lower property values. It’s only the wise, economic thing to do.
The examples and illustrations are endless. And through all of it we are blissfully obtuse to the multitude of ways that we remain spiritually stunted, immature, and overwhelmingly guilty of normalized sins that contradict everything we ought to understand about life in the kingdom of God.
Yet, we never consider these types of behaviors as demonic. They aren’t wicked temptations, we tell ourselves; they are opportunities that smart people take advantage of. Or they are responsibilities that every good citizen must fulfil.
Yep, the devil has us exactly where he wants us, behind the spiritual eight-ball, when we behave “normally” like the average, civil, well-behaved, successful, patriotic American.
I can see Satan now, sitting back, legs up, taking long sips on another big American martini.
