Evil-Satan

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Demons are in the details: Reporters may want to write serious Halloween stuff this year

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Let’s make this a holiday feature story day here at GetReligion.

In addition to the Thanksgiving coverage memo from our patriarch, Richard Ostling, I would like to offer a “think piece” link to all of those reporters who are out there — right now — writing stories about (a) conservative Christians who don’t celebrate Halloween at all, for some reason or another, (b) megachurches that hold “You could go to hell” haunted houses full of fake blood and images of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll or (c) churches that attempt safe versions of the holiday, keeping kids off the street and (d) congregations of all kinds who plan to have safe, socially distanced activities in 2020.

OK, that last one is completely valid, but rather tame.

Truth is, lots of religious believers wrestle with Halloween for a variety of reasons — including people who would simply prefer to emphasize the feasts of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Lots of churches will hold events with children in costumes — dressed up as their patron saints.

Then there’s the whole question of Hollywood providing all the occult-scary imagery for this event, along with the rather recent trend toward young adults in skimpy, sexy “fill in the blank” costumes.

So with all of that in mind, let me ask reporters to consider doing a feature this year on how clergy, parents and believers in ancient churches wrestle with these issues. I am referring to an op-ed at The Washington Times by a friend of mine, Father Andrew Stephen Damick — who is an online apologetics scribe working with the Antiochian Orthodox Church here in America. Here’s the double-decker headline:

Should Christians participate in Halloween?

Halloween is about demons. No, that's not a problem

The essay starts exactly where journalists tend to start when thinking about stories of this kind:

Every October, Christians trash each other on social media over Halloween. Is it harmless costumes and candy? Participation in the occult, cavorting with demons? Co-opting a pagan holiday?

Christians believe demons are real. The Bible talks about them. Most Christians agree that you should stay away from them.


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Washington Post ponders the future of Sen. Tim Scott (all but avoiding the word 'Christian')

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Let’s see, am I at liberty — after a week of big-time PTL scandal flashbacks — to discuss a completely different kind of religion story?

I have not been watching the major-party political conventions (for mental-health reasons, let’s say), but I have been spending a few moments watching reactions on Twitter. I tend to prefer baseball over the live visuals of advocacy media slugfests.

I saved a few links to materials about the interfaith strategies of the Democrats. I also looked for signs of the role that issues of religion and culture could play in the post-Donald Trump GOP. And in that context, I looked at some of the quotes from the short speech by U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

It’s obvious why this man once considered going to seminary. He’s a fine orator and has a knack for making references to Christianity in ways that are more graceful than, well, posing with a Bible for news cameras. It’s impossible to dig into Scott’s career without paying serious attention to his faith.

However, a recent lengthy Washington Post Magazine profile of Scott came close to doing just that. Here’s the epic double-decker headline:

The Burden of Tim Scott

As the only Black GOP senator, he has walked a delicate line between schooling his colleagues — and the president — on matters of race and remaining silent. Has that helped his political future?

I understand that this was a political piece and that Scott is tiptoeing through the Trump-Twitter era. The long opening anecdote in about Scott asking the president to take down the infamous “white power” tweet is totally justified.

However, to be blunt, I think that the word “Christian” should have been just as important in this long, long story as the word “token.” Read it all and see what you think. I think this story would have been completely different, if a religion-beat pro had been asked to take part in the reporting or editing.

So here is the political angle that is at the heart of this story:


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Catholic news outlets reporting on church vandalism when mainstream media won't

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This endless summer ravaged by political divisions, civil unrest and statue-toppling (did we mention there’s also a deadly virus out there!) has made for a very busy time in journalism. For news sites, this deluge of events to report on has meant long hours for remote-working staffs who have also had to endure furloughs and layoffs in a worsening economy.

We live in a culture hijacked by politics.

It has become exhausting to follow the news (especially via social media) because of this political prism through which everything is now viewed. It has become our country’s new religion for millions.

As mainstream news outlets increasingly abandon objectivity and transition into advocacy, some very important stories and trends never get to readers. The internet has fueled “filter bubbles” and newspapers transitioning to digital rely increasingly on subscribers (as a business model) and less on general readers. It also helps spread misinformation. For example, a new Pew study revealed that people who get their news through social media actually knew less.

That means editors now give readers want they want to read (often reporting on the unchecked assertions of lawmakers within their bubble), rather than presenting an unbiased view of what happened. At the same time, the tech companies got an earful from Republicans who argued that giants like Facebook and Amazon for “empowering” people who “traffic in hate” against religion.

While the mainstream press failed to focus on this angle of the hearing (see tmatt’s post from and podcast), Timothy Nerozzi, writing at Religion Unplugged (where I also regularly contribute news articles, commentary and reviews), didn’t. This is how he started his news story:

During an hours-long antitrust hearing in Congress July 29 with CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google and other tech companies, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) accused Amazon and Facebook of “empowering” people who “traffic in hate” against mainstream American religions.

Gaetz called out Jeff Bezos specifically during the hearing, accusing him of unknowingly partnering with institutions that hold intolerance towards religious charities and foundations.

“I am not accusing you as someone who would ever traffic in hate,” Gaetz said. “But, it seems that you have empowered people who do. And I’m particularly talking about the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a legal non-profit founded in 1971 that describes itself as “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.” The SPLC has faced backlash in recent years for perceived overeagerness in designating individuals and organizations as “extremist.”

Gaetz continued, “The Southern Poverty Law Center, who you allow to dictate who can receive donations on your Amazon Smile platform, has said the Catholic Family News, Catholic Family Ministries, Federation for American Immigration Reform, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Jewish Defense League, and even Dr. Ben Carson are extremists, and should be treated differently.”

Why go into all this?


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Religion is the hidden theme in this coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine controversy

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A group of doctors in white coats was the big news last week and for those of you living under a rock, I am referring to some press conferences in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. They featured a racially mixed group of about 10 people dressed in white lab coats.

All of them — who were doctors of one sort or another — gave their names and that of their workplaces, making it easy for anyone to check them out. Their plaint? The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is a proven tool in treatment of COVID-19 and there’s something rotten in Denmark when you can’t even post a video on social media about it.

But did you see much reporting examining their arguments?

No, you heard about “demon sperm” and “alien DNA.”

It didn’t take long before Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were treating the event as akin to anti-vaxxer screed. Censors at all three platforms were working overtime to get this presser erased. Certain media managed to get a look-see at these medics, and what did they concentrate on in their reports?

Their religious views, of course.

Especially the religion of the one black woman in the crowd. We’ll get back to that shortly. First, some background from the New York Times, which was in quite a swivet about the whole thing.

In a video posted Monday online, a group of people calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and wearing white medical coats spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, sharing misleading claims about the virus, including that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment and that masks did not slow the spread of the virus.

The video did not appear to be anything special. But within six hours, President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted versions of it, and the right-wing news site Breitbart had shared it. It went viral, shared largely through Facebook groups dedicated to anti-vaccination movements and conspiracy theories such as QAnon, racking up tens of millions of views. Multiple versions of the video were uploaded to YouTube, and links were shared through Twitter.

Well, surely the public can’t be allowed to see that, right?


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Weekend thinking about this complex reality: More and more Americans hate each other

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It’s impossible, at the moment, to follow political and religious threads on social media without running into lots and lots of hate. This is not something that started in the past two weeks or even during the 2016 race for the White House.

With that sobering thought in mind, I offer a Damon Linker essay at The Week as our weekend think piece. The headline: “Don't willfully ignore the complexity of what's happening in America right now.”

However, before we go there, let me share some sobering observations from an “On Religion” column I wrote in 2004 about the work of political scientists Gerald De Maio, a Catholic, and Louis Bolce, an Episcopalian, who teach at Baruch College in the City University of New York. The headline: “Stalking the anti-fundamentalist voter.”

This was one of the first times when I realized that “hate” was becoming a strong factor in public life — especially when driven by a loaded religious term like “fundamentalist.”

First we need some background. Bolce and De Maio:

… have focused much of their work on the "thermometer scale" used in the 2000 American National Election Study and those that preceded it. Low temperatures indicate distrust or hatred while high numbers show trust and respect. Thus, "anti-fundamentalist voters" are those who gave fundamentalists a rating of 25 degrees or colder. By contrast, the rating that "strong liberals" gave to "strong conservatives" was a moderate 47 degrees.

Yet 89 percent of white delegates to the 1992 Democratic National Convention qualified as "anti-fundamentalist voters," along with 57 percent of Jewish voters, 51 percent of "moral liberals," 48 percent of school-prayer opponents, 44 percent of secularists and 31 percent of "pro-choice" voters. In 1992, 53 percent of those white Democratic delegates gave Christian fundamentalists a thermometer rating of zero.

"Anti-fundamentalist voter" patterns are not seen among black voters, noted De Maio. Researchers are now paying closer attention to trends among Hispanics.

What about the prejudices of the fundamentalists? Their average thermometer rating toward Catholics was a friendly 62 degrees, toward blacks 66 degrees and Jews 68 degrees.

This brings us to a complex set of remarks by Linker. Here is the overture:


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Thinking about QAnon: Joe Carter sends strong warning to evangelicals about new heresy

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This weekend’s think piece is, the final piece of a kind of evangelical-QAnon trilogy, in the wake of the must-read — even if you disagree with parts of it — “Shadowlands” package at The Atlantic Monthly.

By the way, I wonder if anyone in management at the Atlantic realized the religious implications that the term “Shadowland” would have for millions of C.S. Lewis readers. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the title. Just saying.

Early this week, I wrote a post about the “The Prophecies of Q” piece of the package and followed up with this week’s “Crossroads” podcast and post. In both, I argued that the Atlantic piece was essential reading — especially in terms of politics and technology. The religion angle — with QAnon as an essentially “evangelical” subculture — wasn’t as solid, in part because of next to zero input from evangelical leaders, including mainstream evangelical leaders, academics and writers who view QAnon as a dangerous heresy that catching on with some grassroots evangelicals. Thus, I argued:

It needed material drawn from major evangelical leaders who are concerned about QAnon and who can critique this trend, drawing on deep wells of evangelical history and doctrine. Baylor University historian Thomas Kidd leaps to mind, author of the recent book “Who Is an Evangelical? A History of a Movement in Crisis.” Or how about former GetReligionista Joe Carter of The Gospel Coalition? Karen Swallow Prior, now of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a well-known voice online.

Then again, Ed Stetzer — leader of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College — has been writing about conspiracy thinking for several years now. Here is a chunk of a new piece, written with colleague Andrew MacDonald, at The Dallas Morning News. The headline: “Too many evangelical Christians fall for conspiracy theories online, and gullibility is not a virtue.”

The podcast post took a look at that Stetzer-MacDonald essay. Now, I would like to point readers toward a think piece at The Gospel Coalition by journalist Joe Carter (a former member of the GetReligion team). The headline: “The FAQs: What Christians Should Know About QAnon.”

Carter opens with one the key claims in the Atlantic piece: “To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.” Carter then adds:


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Devil in the details: Italian exorcist describes lifelong battle against demons and the occult

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At a time when the planet is gripped by a pandemic, science and faith have again come into conflict in the public square, including news reports.

That nagging age-old question about good versus evil (“theodicy”) and the role of God in our lives is on the minds of many (click for tmatt “On Religion” column) while our houses of worship remain shut down for safety reasons.

To be blunt: Debates about the nature of evil now loom over many front-page headlines.

It is in this quarantine life of ours that the book “The Devil is Afraid of Me: The Life and Works of the World’s Most Famous Exorcist” has hit our bookshelves. Open-minded journalists may want to check this one out.

While most people think of the Hollywood version of good versus evil as portrayed in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist “(which would end up spawning a series of less-than-spectacular squeals), this book assures us that the fight against Satan should not be trivialized as part of an afternoon watching a Halloween movie marathon.

The book (originally in Italian and now available in English through Sophia Institute Press) goes into great detail into the life and times of Father Gabrielle Amorth, a Catholic priest who performed scores of exorcisms over his lifetime. The book, edited by a fellow Italian priest named Marcello Stanzione, delves into great detail regarding Amorth’s biggest cases of demonic possession over the years.

While the English translation from the original is, at times, a little stilted, this is a book that forces the reader to explore the supernatural and try to grasp how the fight against evil can take on many forms.

Amorth claims to have conducted some 100,000 exorcisms over a 30-year span before his death in 2016 at the age of 91. Beloved in Italy, Amorth may be the world’s most famous exorcist, but he isn’t alone. Some 200 priests around the world are tasked with taking on demons following the consent of a local bishop.

Amorth was just one of the most famous since he worked in Rome and gained a high-profile thanks to his books and many TV and radio appearances.


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That ancient question that will not go away: Where is God in the coronavirus crisis?

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That ancient question that will not go away: Where is God in the coronavirus crisis?

Queen Elizabeth II has seen more than her share of good and evil during her 68 years on the British throne.

Candles shining in the darkness just before Easter are familiar symbols of the presence of good, even in the hardest of times, said the 92-year-old queen, in a recent address about a single subject affecting her people -- the coronavirus crisis.

"Easter isn't cancelled. Indeed, we need Easter as much as ever," she said. "The discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter Day gave his followers new hope and fresh purpose, and we can all take heart from this. We know that coronavirus will not overcome us. As dark as death can be -- particularly for those suffering with grief -- light and life are greater."

An ancient question loomed over the queen's remarks: Where is God during this global pandemic that threatens the lives and futures of millions of people?

Theologians have a name -- "theodicy" -- for this puzzle. One website defines this term as "a branch of theology ... that attempts to reconcile the existence of evil in the world with the assumption of a benevolent God."

In his book "God in the Dock," the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis of Oxford University argued that "modern man" now assumes, when evil occurs, that God is on trial. This process "may even end in God's acquittal," he noted. "But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the Dock."

This tension can be seen during news coverage of tragedies, wars, disasters and pandemics. Ordinary people involved in these stories often address "theodicy" questions, whether journalists realize it or not. This is a pattern I have observed many times -- since this past week marked my 32nd anniversary writing this national "On Religion" column.

The late Peter Jennings of ABC World News Tonight noted that, whenever news teams cover disasters, reporters often ask questions that sound like this: "How did you get through this terrible experience?" Survivors frequently reply: "I don't know. I just prayed. Without God's help, I don't think I could have made it."

What happens next, Jennings once told me, illustrates the gap that separates many journalists and most Americans. There will be an awkward silence, he said, and then the reporter will say something like: "That's nice. But what REALLY got you through this?"


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Spiritual warfare explainer: RNS pros offered crucial context for 'Satanic pregnancies' sound bite

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No doubt about it: There are people who show up in religion-beat news who are hard to quote accurately and fairly.

It’s hard, for example, to find a punchy, bite-sized quotation in your typical papal encyclical, even when you’re dealing with the work of Pope Francis. It’s possible, of course, to rip something out of context that sounds like commentary on this or that political issue that’s already in the headline. Most of the time, that context-free approach sheds more heat than light.

Then there are the charismatic and Pentecostal preachers whose words are drenched in metaphors and images mixing biblical language with their own vivid (they would say “Holy Spirit inspired”) imaginations.

This brings me that Twitter storm the other day (sorry to be late on this) about a colorful (to say the least) sermon by the Rev. Paula White, the charismatic leader best known as a spiritual advisor to President Donald Trump. She has been known to unleash storm clouds of rhetoric that sound more like rock-music lyrics more than the traditional exegesis of scripture.

For example, what — precisely — is a “satanic pregnancy”? Come to think of it, what is a “satanic womb”?

If you yanked her words out of context, as legions of her critics did, it sounded like this sermon contained some inconsistent language about abortion.

Thus, I was glad when veterans Bob Smietana and Adelle Banks of Religion News Service quickly produced a short explainer that found some context to White’s wild words. In this case, that was a really big challenge. Here’s some key material at the top of that report (“Paula White’s sermon comment about ‘satanic pregnancies’ goes viral”).


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