Materialists and Magicians

By: Chris Johnson

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Pop music has a long tradition of flirtation with occult symbolism and performances reminiscent of pagan rituals – whether it was a subtle reference like the occultist Aleister Crowley on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album, or the shock tactics of Black Sabbath, the early years of the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourn, or Marilyn Manson. More recently, singer Lana Del Rey attempted to place a hex on Donald Trump during his first bid for the presidency and rapper Azealia Banks a few years ago posted video of chicken remains on her floor, which she explained by saying, “Real witches do real things.” She claimed at the time to have been practicing witchcraft for the three years prior.

From more subtle references in recent performances by acts like Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, Madonna, or Lady Gaga, to blatant-in-your-face Satanic imagery by Lil Nas X, who imitated a sex act on the devil in a music video, before killing him to rule Hell himself, occult symbolism is nothing new in American entertainment media.

How much of it is actual twisted religious fervor – and some of it has been, as George Case explains at Medium.com – and how much of it is shock-jock attention grabbing and marketing a spirit of rebellion is difficult to tell.

So, when the Grammy’s bait conservative outrage with a performance like Sam Smith and Kim Petra’s – where he’s dressed in red with horns and dancing in red light with flames in the background singing a song called “Unholy” – and the entertainment journalists write up articles deriding conservatives for the ensuing backlash, it should be noted that, when celebrities craft their performance as a celebration of the devil, it’s not beyond the pale to assume that it’s more than an act.

In the case of this year’s Grammy Award’s bid for attention, I think Smith and Petra’s performance was not so much designed to pay homage to the devil as it was to deride the remnants of Christian influence in our culture. Of course, the effect is the same.

Consider how the Church of Satan describes themselves on their own website: “Satanists are atheists. We see the universe as being indifferent to us, and so all morals and values are subjective human constructions.

Our position is to be self-centered, with ourselves being the most important person (the ‘God’) of our subjective universe, so we are sometimes said to worship ourselves…

Satan to us is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. We do not believe in Satan as a being or person.”

The song Smith and Petra performed at the Grammy’s, “Unholy,” itself is not a celebration of the devil – not directly anyway – but of a husband cheating on his wife. This is doubtless something the Church of Satan would celebrate as “liberty and individualism.”

Ironically, it also points back to the very first act of the devil on earth. In the early chapters of Genesis, before the creation of the woman, God makes it clear that Adam is incomplete: “it is not good that man should be alone.” When he is joined to Eve, humanity is praised as “very good.” And it is that “very good” creation that the serpent attacks when he comes to tempt Eve.

Here again, in Sam Smith and Kim Petra’s song, it is the “not good” being celebrated: man without woman, “the ‘god’ of his subjective universe.”

While we’re on the subject, the Satanic Temple (TST), is knee deep in another attack on God’s Image Bearers, as “TST Health, the new medical services arm of the nontheistic religious organization, will provide telehealth screenings and appointments to provide abortion pills to patients. These services will be provided free of charge as part of The Satanic Temple’s ‘abortion ritual…’”

It is only right that Satan should be associated with adultery and abortion, but it is revealing that this association is being used to influence us towards a new moral standard, one which flips Christian morality on its head. One, in fact which turns God into the “bad” guy for placing limitations on our lives and “Satan” into the “good” guy for “liberating” us. For not believing in Satan, they sure are doing him a lot of favors.

Christians are not wrong or foolish for observing and condemning a culture which is quicker to side with a devil they supposedly don’t believe in than with God.

They’ve attempted to use Satan as a mascot of rebellion, independence, and rejection of Biblical standards, but it is they who are being used. Whether our culture believes in him or not, by swallowing the devil’s lies, we end up with the devil too.

As C.S. Lewis reminds us, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

 

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