The Satan debate

I finally sat down and watched the Nightline Satan special. I watched the online special because it was clear that the televised version was just cherry-picking the exciting or controversial quotes without context.

Surprisingly, they didn't all agree at the end. I know, I'm disappointed as well.

In the end I have to say I wasn't too surprised by what I heard or saw. Annie Lobert had a moving story about escaping from a life in the sex industry, but her story about being raped by demons is hard to engage with on a theological/rational level. I think that Bishop Pearson handled the subject well by saying that he did not discount her belief or his experience, but that he believed her experience is dependant on her belief, if that makes any sense (in the context of his arguement it does.)

Mark Driscoll was condecending and arrogant, but made a couple decent points. Deepak Chopra was a little disappointing. He began by saying that we need to do away with the personification of evil, but ultimately I felt he never moved beyond that. Instead he replaced the satan personification with a slightly broader cosmic entropy, which he balanced against a cosmic creativity. In the end his worldview is still a dualistic battle between good and evil, or creative and destructive forces. As Bishop Pearson pointed out, it was becoming a matter of semantics.

Carlton Pearson waas by far the most interesting frm my point of view. As he said early on, he comes from 4 generations of "demon caster-outers" so he understands the belief in demons and the 'power' of demons. He has come to the conclusion that if you want to see demons, if you believe in demons, then you will see them. In many ways he believes that demon belief is self fullilling. One of the things he repeated a couple times was the statement "If you change the way you see the things around you, the things around you change" or something to that effect. His point is that some Christians become so involved with believing in the devil, that everything they see around them is demonic. In a sense, some Christians come to believe more in satan than in Christ.

They had some time for questions and answers, unsurprisingly they were not very thought provoking. Fortunately the debate ended well, with the participants hugging and chatting on stage. At one poitn you could see Bishop Pearson and Mark Driscoll talking to each other, and I was struck by how interesting it would be if they actually sat down to talk seriously. If they could sit down without a moderator, without an audience and cameras, and really just talk through some ideas as two pastors...that would be a real conversation. I doubt that it would come to any conclusion, but I like to think that it could actually be provocative in the best sense.

If you have an hour to spare, follow the link and let me know what you think.