Demonized

I am in a men’s group that is reading the book “Risk” by Kenny Luck. In a recent discussion, one person lamented that the secular world is ruining society. Strong language, immorality, perversion is rampant and almost worshipped by some people. But as I started thinking about our discussion, we were like the Pharisees who were ready to stone the adulteress. We were quick to find blame, but slow to accept it. What was fascinating was the amount of rationalization that we could do about our own actions. If we like a movie or TV show, we ignore the foul language. We know where all the actions scenes are (and where all of the nude scenes are). We are so accepting of lifestyles and behaviors that we not only love the sinner, we love the sin as well. And I am right in the middle of it with everyone else. What makes this so important is that this is a group of Christian men who are trying to take their faith to the next level. If this is how accepting we are of the sins of the world, what can we expect from everyone else?

John Eldridge, in his book, Wild at Heart, argues that the Christian Church has become feminized over the years. I would argue that the Church has become demonized. We spend a lot of time taking about forgiveness, but not so much about obedience. You can’t help but notice that forgiveness is what the Lord does for us, and obedience is what we do for the Lord. It’s no wonder that we want to focus on the easy part. When we become “demonized” we take a closer walk with the devil. It happens everywhere. We go see that movie with the dirty language, rampant sex, nudity, unnecessary violence and then say that we like the actor, or it has a good plot. It’s rationalization, but it’s worse – it’s demonization. We are there with our popcorn, and the Devil is sitting in the seat behind us. Our politicians have made lying and parsing of words an art form. Yet we vote for them anyway as long as they bring home the bacon for our state or cut our taxes or save the whales or whatever. More rationalization/demonization. Oh, and guess who is in the voting booth next to us? The Evil One. I could go on and on, but the situation is the same. What was the country like fifty years ago? There were fine movies that didn’t have cursing or nudity. Comedians could be hilarious without having to say the “F” word ten times a minute. Immoral behavior was looked down upon, people were held accountable, and they brought shame (what’s that anymore??) on their families. In short, society – Christian society – didn’t accept those things. Now we do. It didn’t happen all at once, but little by little. We invited the Devil in, and he quietly (very quietly!) accepted our invitation.

So here is an idea to fight demonization. Since we have already invited the Devil, let’s invite Jesus, too! It’s like this: “Hey Jesus, we’re going to see a great movie. It has a lot of gratuitous sex and violence. Would you like to join us? No? How about one that just has foul language? No? OK, let’s watch the poker tournament on TV. Poker is where you try to take all of the other person’s money by deceiving him. Not interested? OK, how about some humor. We’ll go to the Robin Williams concert. He’s hilarious – you just have to ignore the “F” word because he says it a lot. You’ll pass? OK, how about the latest sitcom where all of the characters sleep with each other? Not your bag? Let’s surf the internet. There are great lots of videos of people getting embarrassed or getting hurt. It’s a great laugh. Why are you shaking your head? Well, let’s go to the local pub. It’s happy hour – two for the price of one. Or eight for the price of four as I like to say. Not your style? You know, you’re making it tough on me. There are a lot of things that you don’t seem to like very much.”

And you can sum those up as things sinful behavior. You might be thinking, “This is not about me. I don’t download kiddie porn from the internet. I don’t cheat on my husband. I don’t go around cursing.” But Satan doesn’t always come in through the front door. Sometimes he comes in through the basement window that was left open. We have let society get where it is in large part by ignoring, and even committing, the little everyday sins.

So here’s what I’m going to do (and I invite you to do it as well). For the next week, I’m going to invite Jesus to be with me 24/7 and ask his opinion and follow his advice on the things I am doing. If I’m lucky, it might mean that I’ll turn off the TV when an inappropriate (in Jesus’ eyes) show comes on, no partypoker.net, no National Enquirer, no gossiping at work, no fist shaking when somebody cuts me off in traffic. To me, it seems like it will be difficult to stop the rationalization/demonization that’s been a part of my everyday life. But if Christians won’t face the Devil and turn their backs on everyday sins, who will?