Jesus described him, saying he has been a murderer from the beginning and calling him the Father of lies, lying because “there is no truth in him.”
Satan has been terrifyingly successful. He has swayed millions of American Christians to follow him. Yet they remain oblivious of the real nature of what they have come to believe and the actions he has led them to take. They believe they are still following Christ. The Devil keeps their eyes closed with a mixture of carefully selected scripture and all the techniques of propaganda.
Christ warned against those who would come in sheep’s clothing but who are inwardly ferocious wolves. We can recognize them by their fruit, for good trees can only bear good fruit and bad trees only bear bad fruit. Pervasive lying is a hallmark of the Devil’s work. So are feelings of confusion, fear, deep anger, hatred (although we generally deny what it is to ourselves), and use of the methods and language of war instead of peace.
Perhaps the following version of the Christian classic, The Screwtape Letters, can best illustrate Satan’s machinations in our current political situation. C.S. Lewis wrote letters from the perspective of the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood advising him on how to tempt Christians away from their faith so they might lose their salvation and end in Satan’s clutches. This new letter posted by a blogger know as “revscat” purports to be from Wormwood celebrating recent successes under the title, “Status Report: Wormwood to Screwtape.”
My Dear Uncle Screwtape,It is with the greatest pleasure that I write to you today. Our successes of late have been many and profound, and your advice has helped further our cause immensely. As Our Father Below requested, I have compiled a list of our recent successes and victories. It is difficult to express in words how excited I am at our prospects.
1. We have convinced the Christians in the most militarily powerful nation on the planet to support our causes. The greatest success of this venture has been in convincing the leadership that they are in fact doing the Enemy's [Satan’s name for God] work, not ours. Without their energetic support we never would have achieved so much.
2. Support for war among the Christians is at an all time high. It tickles me to no end to write that sentence. Christians, supporting war! It was not too long ago that such an utterance would have been unthinkable. We have quietly convinced them that they are, in truth, warring against the Muslims of the world, and that their very existence is dependant upon such support. Our agents amongst the Muslims have already achieved great successes, and now the lessons we learned with those people are paying off with similar success in our efforts against Christians.
3. Support for torture among Christians is now a reality! My dear Uncle, despite our occasional differences I must say that your advice on how best to achieve this was absolutely indispensable. We have successfully played upon their xenophobia, although we would not have been so subtle in our justifications had it not been for your excellent guidance.
4. The most egregious lies are now supported and even encouraged amongst and by the Christians. We have managed to show them how the lessons learned from marketing and selective editing can twist the truth to their own cause, and they have most willingly taken it up as their own. Since for them the end justifies the means, there is no lie they will not willingly tell themselves or others. They even think themselves clever whenever they successfully lie in such a manner, and take pride in it. They take pride in their lies! Ecstasy, dear uncle!
5. Our extensive communication networks have convinced the Christians that the only morality of any value is hatred (rarely called that, of course; they find the word distasteful) towards both homosexuals and liberals. The abandonment of disinterested love has allowed gains in other areas, specifically the support of war, murder, torture, and other acts which bring us such joy. All other morality has taken a backseat. They still speak with great vigor about worshipping the Enemy, but this of course concerns us little. Their actions are what are important to us.
6. Finally, and perhaps our greatest success: we have brought into being an apocalyptic mythology which has completely distracted them from the realities immediately before them. Our precious fool LaHaye has seen untold success in the market, and has brought many under our fold. His followers have been so blinded by fear, hate, and shallow scholarship of the hated Book that mere contemplation of the notion that our Greatest Agent now occupies the White House is deeply taboo. (You can be sure that we are quick to mock, vilify, and suppress any who even suggest the truth!) In short, dear uncle, Our Father Below is right to be pleased with our progress. We have turned the Enemy's own people against him, and done so while simultaneously fooling them into believing they are doing His work. A more masterful stroke has never before been accomplished, and they are further than ever from the clutches of our Enemy. Fear is a wonderful tool.
Your affectionate nephew, Wormwood
So who is Satan using today? Many men and women in positions of leadership are unwitting pawns in his hands. Many in this administration. Some on both sides of the aisle in Congress. Jerry Falwell. Many others. Once their faith may have been real. In fact, the Devil is good at keeping them from seeing that it is no longer Christ they follow. Their lack of self-examination allows them to confidently project a Christian faith they are far from actually living. The human condition is such that ambition and a lust for power can lead individuals of any political persuasion astray. The adage, “Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ reflects where Satan probes most effectively for vulnerability.
Christ’s disciples are called to pattern themselves after him. He challenged the self-satisfied and self-righteous, ministered time and again to the outcast, the helpless, and the hopeless. He spoke truth to power and the powerless. He enjoyed the company of those who weren’t socially acceptable and spent little time with those of wealth and power. He offered love, acceptance, and forgiveness to those not deserving it, calling them to go and sin no more. Note the lack of condemning words even then. He rejected worldly power, even when his followers tried to crown him. He never lied, never manipulated or coerced, never set himself above others. Instead he emptied himself of all power, prestige, and status, and acted as a servant, washing the feet of his disciples.
Contrast Jesus to Mr. Falwell in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer last fall when he said , “You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord. “ Those remarks sound like unresurrected nature speaking, not the grace and peace of our risen Lord. Frankly, they are unbiblical and defamatory, conveying a false image of Jesus.
Did you want to believe this administration would do its best by the people? Me too. I resisted believing they were systematically hoodwinking the public for quite a while. But uneasiness niggled in the background and I started investigating for myself in a wide variety of source materials.
The words of Russ Rymer, editor of Mother Jones in "The Machinery of Mendacity," may seem shocking to you if you haven’t been paying attention, and if you’ve placed your trust in our Christian and political leaders.
...“That activity [arguing the economics of the problem], engaging in a thoughtful discussion of politics and priorities, the wisdom of one or another course of action, could be considered honorable regardless of which side one argued from. Rather, the [Administration] mouthpieces are ignobly contesting the very science itself, using any tactic, any slipshod fiction, that might throw doubt into the public mind and so deflect the dictates of hard fact. In other words, given a public policy debate, conservatives have decided to forgo real debate entirely—to adopt instead a radical course: denying reality itself.
...“Climate of Denial” could serve as a title for the political times we live in. On issue after issue, this administration and this Congress continue to pursue policies that cannot stand the test of honest debate, and require a rewriting of basic facts. The dangers to the country are evident in myriad policy debacles: the illegal, expensive, and unnecessary war we were led into under false pretenses; the “reform” of Social Security based on the unfounded assertion that the program is in “crisis” (and pursued by ideologues pretending their goal is not to end it entirely); the economy plundered by fiscal improvidence; the budget busted by grand theft billed as tax relief.
The danger is graver because the negation of truth is so systematic. Dishonest accounting, willful scientific illiteracy, bowdlerized federal fact sheets, payola paid to putative journalists, “news” networks run by right-wing apparatchiks, think tanks devoted to propaganda rather than thought, the purging of intelligence gatherers and experts throughout the bureaucracy whose findings might refute the party line—this is the machinery of mendacity. Its products are not the cherry-tree lies of embarrassed schoolboys covering up their misdemeanors, but the agitprop of a political ascendancy that considers the manipulation of truth an essential tool. There’s no embarrassment in it. The same partisans who clucked loudly during their impeachment of President Clinton about the need for a government so transparent that the most private details of a president’s personal life should be open to inspection have wrapped such a dense cloak of secrecy around the current president that even the roster of his administration’s meetings is withheld from the citizenry, under the expressed claim that the White House can’t do what needs doing if the American people are allowed to know what that is. The point here is not the hypocrisy involved, though that is egregious. The point is the downgrading of truth and honesty from principles with universal meaning to partisan weapons to be sheathed or drawn as necessary. No wonder the Bush administration feels no compunction to honor the truth or seek it; it conceives truth as a tactic, valuable only insofar as it is useful against one’s enemies....The [Conservative] movement born of principle has prevailed by renouncing it, and the former apostles of reality have prospered by purveying a potent mixture of wishful fantasy and outright lie.
I write this to all of my Christian friends, especially those who believe in this administration and many of the conservative, evangelical Christians who have wielded such power and influence in American politics for the past quarter century, in the hope that no matter how skeptical you might be about my argument, you will take the time to examine, reflect, and think for yourself. Pray too to be open to God showing you the truth even if it is painful.
I write out of an urgent sense of the peril our country faces. A house built on lies cannot stand. Only one built on truth can. We face a moral crisis that threatens our constitution and democracy. Our souls may hang in the balance as well. Wake up, wake up!
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