From: johnt@meaddata.com (John Townsend)
Subject: Re: mike wankre: what about our knowledge of evil beings?
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 19:30:30 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.152830.13723@news.acns.nwu.edu>, daphne@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Amy Kruse) writes:
|> In article <1992Jul29.144601.20252@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jlaplant@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (John R Laplante) writes:
|> >Another topic, not yet discussed. Someone earlier made a reference to
|> >Mike's work being a key source of knowledge about the occult, satanic
|> >worship, and so forth. If the Cornerstone report is right, and he is
|> >basically a fraud, what does that imply about "our" knowledge of 
|> >satanism?
|> 
|> Now we are getting some where.  I have been thinking a lot about this since
|> the article, and even before that.  Satan is a trickster and I think one of
|> the greatest tricks he has played on us is that he is some kind of
|> cult/ritual/man with horns  that we have seen in the news and in heavy metal
|> bashing.  Now I am not saying that Satan doesn't have a hold on people in a
|> cult or ritualistic way, but I think he has duped us into thinking those are
|> the major ways.  And if we stay away from those things he doesn't really have a
|> hold on our lives.  I maintain that he is more a part of our culture and the
|> things that we accept as normal.  ...

I wholeheartedly agree.  I was talking last weekend with a girl that graduated
from our church youth group a couple years ago and just returned from a short-
term mission trip to the Phillipines.  The thing that struck me the most about
her description of the culture there is the way that the people literally take
for granted spiritism and the existence of spiritual warfare.  Actual demon
posession and occultic phenomena are everyday occurrences, and the question is
not whether a god exists, but whose god is stronger, and thus Satan acts very
overtly.  Here in the good ol' US of A (or at least here in the heartland
thereof), we're so caught up in the equally damnable religions of humanism,
individualism, intellectualism, hedonism, naturalism, ad infinitum, that Satan
can do a far more effective work through more subtle means.  I'm sure he's more
than happy to let us pride ourselves in our disbelief in some guy with horns,
a pitchfork, and red pajamas, all the while convincing us in indirect ways of
the Luciferian belief that we are gods to ourselves.  This is why the anti-
Christian influence of most popular secular music concerns me more than the
more blatant "Satan worshiping" music.  He is simply more effective with most
Americans in his role as the angel of light.

Food for thought:  Should we not hold the secular entertainers that we invite
into our living rooms accountable to the same biblical standards to which we
must hold Warnke?  Or does the fact that a person makes no pretense of being
a Christian arbitrarily allow us to tolerate, or even enjoy, their mockery of
God?

--
John Townsend                     Internet:   johnt@meaddata.com
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