Satanism is the worship of an anti-creational, evil force. And it is much more commonly practiced than we would like to believe, and though it might sound strange to our ears and hard to swallow, we have all participated in it to varying degrees.
When we allow our pain to disqualify God in our mind as being competent for running a universe, we participate in the works of satan whose job it is to accuse. According to the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, it seems that God has given satan the role of being the prosecuting attorney in God’s heavenly council. (See Job 1:6). That may sound odd to our Western ears, but that seems to be the way the ancient Hebrews conceived of the world. Furthermore, the main problem with the satan, as they seemed to see it, is that it overreaches and abuses its role as the prosecuting attorney on God’s behalf to the point that it accuses God Himself of malpractice. The satan steps beyond its authority and challenges the wisdom of God. When we agree with satan through our accusations against God, (“where was God when…?!) we are practicing satanism. When we accuse God because He does not act the way we think He should, we are practicing Satanism. We may be thankful that God is slow to take offense. Very thankful.
Atheists say that they are not religious and that they don’t believe that any God, gods, or satan exists. But all that they mean is that they will not acknowledge or worship anything outside themselves. Does that mean they will not worship? Worship is devotion. And what is an atheist more devoted to than himself or herself? This devotion to self-preservation and happiness above all else is also a form of satanism. Selfishness and satanism remove the center of rotation in the world from God to orbit around themselves, where everything bows down to the self’s compulsive, gravitational pull.
Satanism is not celebrating a horned creature in a red suit. Satanism is embracing and justifying anger against God. I have yet to meet an atheist who is not angry at the God whose existence they deny.
Satanism is not uncommon, nor it is practiced only by eccentric existentialists. Satanism is the opposite of faith, and by our faithlessness, we are all guilty of it. Faithlessness is an accusation against God’s character that assumes God cannot be trusted. That is why the call to follow Jesus will always include the call to “repent,” to turn around, to cease going in the direction you are going and begin to trust God. After all, if you cannot trust God, who can you trust? Atheists believe no one but themselves, and they call it enlightenment. When Atheists manifest their world-view in the form of power, the rest of the world calls it tyranny (I.e., Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, & Kim Jung Un, to name a few). Again, just like you will end up worshipping someone, you will end up trusting or believing in someone - if it is not the one true God, it will most likely be yourself or someone you idolize in the real sense of the word.
Atheists are often lauding the supposed human inclination to kindness, reasonableness, and integrity. Simultaneously, atheists generally possess a conspiratorial suspicion of all things Christian. In the end, the non-Christian world is “reasonable” and “humane,” according to the atheist, but the Christian world-view is “evil.” Again, let us recognize satanism for what it is - a charge against God for malpractice, the work of the devil.
But let us put on true wisdom. We may not like our experiences of pain to the point of accusing God of incompetence. But in the end, we are burning our own house down with the accusations we direct at God. Again, the work of the devil. We can not replace goodness. When an atheist decides that the creator God is evil and condemnable, he or she brings the whole creation under condemnation, in spite of all the many gloriously good things about it. We can throw it all away, and we can accuse God of failing to create a world good enough for our standards, but once we have locked up God in condemnation, who will take His place? Who can do a better job at being and reproducing goodness? Please do not tell me that you, the atheist, are applying for this position. If you are, you are deludedly practicing the most undiluted form of Satanism.
Why should we allow our pain to cast away our only source of hope? Who would have us do this? The answer is the one who only longs to steal, kill, and destroy. Let us not give him a voice any longer. Let us not give him help in destroying. Let us not add to the wretched chorus of shrill accusation in which the whole world sings like a drunken choir. Instead, let us be like Abraham, who believed God and had it reckoned to him as righteousness. Let us remember all of the good things He has done and His endless mercies and kindnesses to us. Let us look at Christ the sacrificial Lamb, who was God’s most personal, real, tangible expression and demonstration of His love for us. Is it too much to ask, or is it too cruel of God to ask for this one thing from us: to trust that He is good and that He loves us? How could we have thought that He is so cruel when He is so good? This unfair accusation is only the work of the devil.
Let us give up satanism then. Repent and believe that God is good and is for you, not against you. God’s resurrection of Jesus affirmed the goodness of Creation and God’s commitment to redeem it from all corruption. Instead of shaking our fist at this God because of our pain, let us first recognize that we are guilty of causing that same pain in other humans’ lives. It is God in Jesus who has done something positive about it. Through our accusations, we can tear down, but we cannot build up. We can accuse and complain, but we can’t repair. Yet Jesus Himself allowed evil to do its worst to Him and was torn down by it, but then God built Him up again. Only Jesus knows the way into a brighter future. Isn’t it time we stopped fighting Him? Isn’t it time that we ask Jesus to give us Himself so that we, too, might escape this corruption? Isn’t it time we trade in our shrill choruses of accusation for hymns of praise?#satanism#atheism#God#accusation
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