Satan and Demons
Most Americans don't believe in demons--not really anyway.
We might say we do, because we've heard the words in church or skimmed past them in the Bible. But functionally, we live as if the only real forces at work in the world are psychological, sociological, biological, or political. Evil, in this view, is either personal failure, chemical imbalance, or bad systems built by bad people.
There's truth in all of that. But it's not the whole truth.
The Bible assumes--without embarrassment or apology--that reality includes unseen spiritual forces, both good and evil. No cartoon villains with pitchforks and spandex. Not spooky horror-movie ghost tropes. But real, created beings whose influence can be subtle, structural, cultural, and sometimes terrifyingly personal.
For many modern Western Christians, this is uncomfortable territory. We either overreact and make it weird, or we under-react and quietly ignore large portions of Scripture. Both options leave us ill-equipped to understand the world we actually live in.
So let's try something different: Let's talk about Satan and demons carefully, biblically, and without theatrics.