Smarter Than Satan: 3 Mistakes the Devil Wants You To Make

Last updated on: February 16, 2017 at 3:20 pm by Suzanne Ross

Smarter Than Satan: 3 Mistakes the Devil Wants You To Make 2017-02-16T15:20:10-05:00 Suzanne Ross

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Trump political advisor Steve Bannon recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about why Donald Trump won the election. Apparently in the context of a conversation about liberal politicians and the media’s failure to perceive the new political realities, Bannon told The Hollywood Reporter that “darkness is good”. For his agenda, I presume. Then he went on to say, “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when [liberals and the media] get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”

There’s something outrageous about all this. I don’t think it’s because Bannon is lumping Cheney in with Vader and Satan – that’s something liberals have been doing for years. No, the real outrage comes when he compliments this strange trio by admiring their power, a power that works best under the cover of darkness and that thrives on the blindness of its opponents.

You may disagree with Bannon on the morality of his position, but you can’t argue with his grasp of how Satan’s power works. Subterfuge, misdirection, half-truths and lies are recognized as legitimate strategies against an enemy. Even lay people have heard of the military strategies of surprise attacks and encrypted communications. Nothing strikes me funnier than sideline coaches at a football game shielding their lips as they discuss the next play with their upstairs coaches – as if they are guarding state secrets in the war against Nazi Germany! But they are demonstrating their belief that “darkness is good” when it comes to winning a football game. The strategy in sports, politics, and war is to keep your enemy in the dark about your intentions because as everyone also knows, forewarned is forearmed. And you don’t want to meet a forearmed enemy without the cover of darkness, now, do you?

Satanic Power is For Winners

Satanic power is a win-lose game. There is no such thing as a win-win scenario if you embrace the power-over paradigm that Bannon is alluding to. Such power is frightening when it is being used against you. But if it’s being used on your behalf, well, the temptation to support the power of Satan can be mighty strong. In the game Satan plays, there are only winners and losers and you had best be sure you are on the winning side because there are no referees, second chances or do overs on this playing field.

I suspect this explains President Trump’s recent comments about the moral equivalency between Putin and the United States. In a Fox News interview, when asked how he could respect a killer like Putin, he replied, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” If we listen with ears attuned by Bannon, it’s clear that Trump doesn’t admire Putin for his strategies but for how well he employs them. “For heaven’s sake,” he seems to say, “we employ the same ones because there are no others.” Trump admires Putin because he’s good at the power game – he’s a winner. And we know he’s a winner because he creates losers. For Mr. Bannon and President Trump, the only moral goodness is the triumph of winning.

What Satan Doesn’t Want You To Know

Bannon is right on this – you bet Satan has power and to deny that is to risk your own annihilation. The power to dominate and defeat is real and furiously destructive, and being on the losing side has dire consequences. But one thing that Satan does not want us to understand is that his power is not stable or something that he can generate on his own. Satanic power depends on us to play our part because it is parasitic. It depends on our utter faith in a Satanic lie upon which all Satanic power is rooted: that violence is good and can be used to achieve peace and security. It’s a whopper of a lie but we have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Why? Because it works in the short term, for the winners. The losers, the ones whose lives are expendable and whose voices are silenced, would certainly not call this peace.

Here are three mistakes Satan wants us to make in order to keep us in the dark.

Mistake 1: Thinking Satan is a person. It’s an easy mistake to make, because it’s hard to talk about Satan without using personal pronouns. I did that very thing in this article. But the personal pronouns are metaphors and so whoever you think the big man or his representatives on earth are, you are mistaken. Satan is not an evil spiritual being or an evil human one. It’s more accurate to say, for example, that a piece of music is “satanic” but inaccurate to refer to the composer as Satan.

Mistake 2: Thinking a person is Satan. This mistake flows directly from Mistake 1 – since Satan is not a mortal person, you are wrong if you think you know Satan when you see him. You don’t. Whoever you think is pure evil is, you are wrong. Pure evil does not exist in a person, not in Bannon or your enemies or you or me.

Mistake 3: You cannot defeat the Satanic by directly opposing it. When you directly oppose evil, you are playing into Satan’s hand. That oppositional energy is just the power source Satan needs to keep control of the game. Because opposition, accusations, outrage and claims of having found ultimate evil are Satanic strategies. If we are using the same tactics as Satan, how can we know the difference between what is evil and what is good? We can’t, because all differences are being erased in the angry din of our hatred and outrage.

An Effective Anti-Satan Strategy

To defeat Satanic power, we must be able to expose the lie that it depends on. To do that we have to create a space for truth to emerge. The first step is to drop the accusations and name calling that have boxed people into false, one-dimensional identities. No more accusations of being a racist, a tyrant, a misogynist, part of the liberal elite, a globalist, or unpatriotic. Just stop. All that does is put everyone on the defensive, a real non-starter if you are after the truth.

Second, tell the truth about violence, that it has nothing to do with goodness and the “peace” it achieves is a mockery of true peace. True peace is inclusive and does not generate losers and victims as a direct consequence. When good people use violence their souls must ache for the harm they are doing. Combat veterans know the truth about violence but they often keep silent because few of us want to listen or accept responsibility for the harm our faith in violence has done to their souls.

A strange outcome of adopting these tactics will be that you begin to see Satanic power as less threatening. It might even begin to look ridiculous because it is based on such blatant falsehoods. How can anyone believe that violence is good, that peace can be achieved through murder? It will begin to sound as ridiculous as a good elephant joke: “How do you kill a pink elephant? Hold its nose till it turns blue and kill it with a blue elephant gun.” Satanic power is, in the last analysis, just as silly. It depends on such an obvious lie that once you see the truth, laughter starts to bubble up. Not just at the unbelievable lie itself but at your own gullibility. And satanic power, which depends on our fearful pleas for protection, will begin to look like the pathetic, failed strategy that it is. Nothing sheds light into Satanic darkness more effectively than a good chuckle. So begin to cultivate a sense of humor because if there’s one thing satanic power cannot survive, it’s our laughter.

Stay in the loop! Like Teaching Nonviolent Atonement on Facebook!

Image: Pixaby, CC0 Public Domain

Previous Post

February 15, 2017

Wednesday Sermon: Jesus, Hell, and Managing Anger

Next Post

February 20, 2017 "Love Your Enemies": Expanding Our Hearts Through Compassion

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atonement and Current Events Curriculum Faith and Families Interviews Jesus the Forgiving Victim Lent Montessori politics Reviews The Bible Explained Uncategorized Valentine's Day Wednesday Sermon Who is God?

Select a Month July 2020 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 December 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz