Making Satan Real

This review first appeared on the Englewood Review of Books.

Christians view and interpret Christ rather diversely. However, there seem to be even wider discrepancies between understandings of Satan. Is he real or a metaphoric personification? Is he a fallen angel or playing a designated role in God's court? Does he have real power or not? Do Christians need to worry about Satan, or should we have no fear because we live in Christ? Many modern Christians in developed countries seem to avoid the issue, perhaps reading CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, but not having much more conscious experience with the Devil beyond that.

In Reviving Old Scratch, Richard Beck's intended audience is the group of Christians who, as he says, are "doubters and the disenchanted." He taps into sociological frameworks with the latter term, referring to the opposite of enchanted worlds, where we see overt supernatural influence all around us. Disenchanted means stripping the magical quality of things, largely via scientific explanation. A good example of this comes from a missionary living in Africa, where a woman had an emergency delivery. When she returned to her village with her newborn, her health quickly declined. The local Christian seminary students were convinced the neighboring village had put a spell on her and started threatening them to release her. Just then, the village received a physician, who quickly identified an infection and medically treated her. The villagers were skeptical, but trusted the physician. A few days later, she was just fine. Those villagers live in an enchanted world. Few Americans would even have a similar thought cross through their minds in the same situation--we have a scientific explanation and solution. Beck cleverly and aptly summarizes our disenchantment process as "Scooby-Dooification," referring to the classic Scooby-Doo plot line of a supernatural threat that eventually gets unveiled as a common person creating fear in the guise of false supernatural forces. The disenchantment process of the supernatural is part of the solution of solving a crime.

This disenchanted world makes belief in anything supernatural, including God, difficult. The idea of Satan is even more challenging to many Christians in the developed world. Yet references to Satan and demons are pervasive through Scripture, and many people talk about the demonic as part of the influence of the world and their lives. People like Elaine Pagels have provided detailed explanations on how Satan is more metaphor and personification (a lecture transcript provides a nice summary of her analysis). However, Beck's foundational thesis is that this isn't a good enough response to Satan. Rather, there is actually something quite useful, powerful, and important about talking about Satan and demons as real. This is summarized nicely when he stated, "I turned the corner in my faith when I adopted a theology of revolt, a vision of spiritual warfare, a posture of action over theological rumination. I got disgusted with how much time and energy I was wasting on my doubts. It was time to get off my theological ass and into the game" (p. 82-83).

The biggest struggle I have with this text is how to categorize it. While categorizing isn't always necessary, it can be helpful to clearly know what the book's purpose is and how to set expectations. While the back of the tome labels Reviving Old Scratch as "Religion/Theology," Beck doesn't actually make any traditional theological arguments. He doesn't try to convince anyone about their theology of Satan. There's a basic assumption that Satan as a conscious force does not exist, which goes back to the disenchanted audience to whom he is writing. Rather, he seems more to provide many examples of how disenchanted Christians can still find value, meaning, and depth in Scriptural and everyday references to Satan and demons. He basically creates a hermeneutic for modern American Christians. That is fundamentally theological. However, it often feels like the book lives more on the Christian Living than Theology shelf. At times, it feels like a devotional, especially in part because while generally logically organized, the book seems more like a series of semi-related stories than building a logical, linear argument. In the midst of all of this, Beck deserves kudos for being able to reason in an academic environment, but write a book that is accessible and bridges both theology and Christian living.

There were two primary areas where the text made helpful theological insights for me:

1. Early on, Beck introduces and seems to support the atonement theory of Christus Victor, which refers to Christ's death as a ransom. Satan holds humanity hostage, and God ransoms us through Christ's sacrifice. One of the biggest theological problems with this atonement theory is that it almost gives Satan more power than God--God is required to pay Satan. That gives many people pause. I found it odd that Beck talked about this theory, particularly from a disenchanted view. If Satan isn't a being, how does Christus Victor apply? Beck ultimately argues that demonic power is real, but he never really closes the theological loop on this point. However, his book triggered other connections in my mind. I've become a fan of Girardian scapegoat atonement theory, which asserts that it is humans who need a sacrifice--a scapegoat--to feel reconciled. It is the absurdity of Christ's sacrifice that breaks this cycle. What if Christus Victor and scapegoat theory could actually be describing the same thing, but Christus Victor from a more a enchanted worldview, while scapegoat is more disenchanted and psychological? If Beck is correct about the reality of demonic power over us, but due to the reality of the human condition, not because of a supernatural conscious force, what if God is actually trying to ransom us from ourselves?
2. From a disenchanted worldview, many Christians struggle with ideas of worship. I've heard people say, "Is God really that insecure that he needs us to worship him every week?" I've also recently struggled with the purpose of singing and music--what is it really supposed to do? Beck provides some excellent examples about how the purpose of worship isn't to stroke God's ego, but it helps us reorient ourselves to refocus our actions. He states, "When life is hard, we must constantly exorcise the demons of despair. And worship, praise, and testimony are how we combat the despair and reach toward hope" (p. 131-132). That fundamentally impacted my experience of worship in the weeks that followed.

Beck's text is a nice addition to the conversation about Satan and the demonic. It won't be terribly helpful for those looking for more traditional exegesis. However, his stories bring Scriptural and theological principles to life in a powerful way. He makes abstract, removed ideas, especially for the disenchanted, real, immediate, and relevant. His framings provide good reminders and ways to consider and approach life. I dog-eared a couple dozen pages because of the many good ways he discusses important, timely topics. While some could think a book about Satan could be depressing, this is a quite uplifting, inspiring text. In fact, I ended the book with tears in my eyes from a touching concluding story.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Review: Desiring Atonement

Atonement can sound like a boring, droll topic (and it is to many people). However, it's also central to Christian theology and the topic of many vicious debates (some people's ordinations and even salvation statuses have been questioned due to even minor differences in atonement beliefs). For those not familiar, atonement in Christianity refers to becoming reconciled with God. I have previously written on atonement, including problems with "traditional" atonement theories, the application of René Girard's mimetic theory to Christian atonement, and the fundamental question of whether God needs to be appeased.

A few authors have written on similar topics, but André Rabe's recent book, Desire Found Me, provides a very thorough exploration of how mimesis impacts not only atonement, but a variety of fundamental Christian theological points. His is an incredibly ambitious project, not just describing a mimetic atonement, but laying a foundation of how mimesis provides a better explanation of Scripture all the way back to Genesis 1.

Some might think this foundation is too much. To be fair, it can be a lot to digest, although he makes fine theological points accessible (with appropriate background) to those unfamiliar with the topics, while also not being overly simplistic for those with more knowledge of some topics (his writing structure makes it is easy to skim where appropriate). However, discussing things such as human nature, justice, and even Satan are critical to understanding and constructing a theory of atonement. Even while being familiar with and having written on many of these topics, Rabe provides helpful strong evidence and detailed explanation supporting more accurate Christ-centered interpretation of Scripture than other more human-centric hermeneutics. He provides a nice balance of his own writing with strong citations showing a solid scholarly approach to Scripture, hermeneutics, and Christian history.

For those interested in mimetic atonement, restorative justice, and love-centered reading of Scripture that is more cohesive than the limited narratives told by so many others, I highly recommend Rabe's text.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Does God Need To Be Appeased?

As atonement continues to come up in our Sunday school class, I continue to reflect on how much a substitutionary view has been central to our theological language. Propitiation is a perfect example of this. Propitiation is a common term used in atonement discussions and other areas of theology. It's a fancy word for appeasing someone, often the Divine.

There's just an assumption that someone has to be appeased. But is that necessarily so?

Humans need to be appeased; there's little doubt about that. But the Divine? When made in humanity's image, the Divine surely have to be appeased. However, from a Christian perspective, we are made in God's image, yet we are different. I'm increasingly convinced that the transactional, conditional acceptance notions we have in our theology are not from God, but from our broken human nature.

Others have talked about some of the problems with the various atonement theories, namely substitutionary and ransomed theories. The idea of propitiation is really central to these criticisms, as who does God have to appease and what kind of character does a God have who needs to be appeased?

The mimetic theory of atonement seems to address some of this. It doesn't minimize any of the biblical record, but in my view, recognizes the human theological evolution and understanding that develops over centuries/millennia.

Does someone need to be appeased for our salvation? Yes, but nothing divine. I'm inclined to believe it's us who need to be appeased for our own wrongdoings. We are the ones who can't get over ourselves. So God provides a way for us to move past it and to him.

How does this change our view of salvation? Of God and his character? Of the Bible?

Against the Death Penalty

Earlier this month, Al Mohler wrote an editorial on CNN's Belief Blog about why Christians should support the death penalty. There were so many things wrong with this article that I was going to write some of my reactions. Thankfully, Roger Olson (who has FAR more followers than I do) wrote an excellent piece noting the many inaccuracies in Mohler's regularly flawed "logic."

One of my big areas of interest is in transformation and motivation (both of particular interest to both theology and psychology). I'll reiterate what Olson said in response to Mohler: the death penalty does NOT act as a deterrent. While many Christians may say it is a deterrent for them, they also probably wouldn't ever engage in the kind of crimes that would get the death penalty anyway. So who is it really a deterrent for?

This gets into a larger discussion of motivation. Many people (especially fundamentalist Christians) advocate for aversive punishment. While that may work for people who normally follow rules anyway, it's not terribly effective for those who are not necessarily automatically compliant. I would put the death penalty as an aversive punishment. And people who commit crimes to earn the death penalty are likely not terribly compliant. So we need to figure out a different approach.

Hint: Reinforcing desired behavior is the most effective approach for all people. But that means we have to approach people with grace, and why would Christians want to do that?!

This, then, also gets into the idea of transformation and redemption, absolutely central concepts to the Gospel and for me, a much more compelling reason to oppose capital punishment. If central to our faith is the idea that anybody can be redeemed (and ultimately at any time), then we need to give that opportunity. By killing someone, we are essentially stating that there is no hope for this individual. Is that our right? Should we really remove the ability of God to touch this person's life? Or some good to come through this individual? There's plenty of biblical stories about such redemption, transformation, and God using evil for good...

But Mohler and others argue that some people deserve death. We can get into long and drawn-out arguments over who can decide who deserves death. But let's suspend that. Let's assume some individuals do deserve death (frankly, hearing just a synopsis of the crimes the Oklahoma individuals have been convicted of gives me a gut reaction of them deserving death) AND that there is no doubt of guilt. Particularly for those who believe in the penal substitutionary theory of atonement (which Mohler avows), then we all deserve death. Yet because of Christ's sacrifice, we are spared.

If God will grant a pardon from death, why shouldn't we do so, even if death is deserved?

Mimetic Atonement

Yesterday, I provided very brief summaries of some of the dominant theories of atonement with some problems from each. A few weeks ago, I was introduced to the philosophical works of René Girard during a psychology conference at my doctoral alma mater.

Again, in very brief summary, Girard presents the idea of mimetic desire, essentially that humans have the drive to mimic or imitate others. This has plenty of psychological implications that actually seem verified at some level in neurobiological studies.


He argues that as we develop, we want what other have, causing mimetic violence, as we try to take what the others have. Eventually, a scapegoat is sought in order to restore the social order.


Applying this to the Bible (which Girard did, although I'm not sure if he developed an atonement theory--these are my thoughts and application), we can see the violence that continually escalates throughout the Old Testament, culminating in the scapegoat of Christ.


If we assume that the ideas of mimetic desire, mimetic violence, and the scapegoat mechanism are accurate within humanity, then God's introduction of literal scapegoats as sacrifices may not have been as much to satisfy God's need for justice and retribution as much as human's need for such obvious justice. By providing a divinely ordained solution to guilt, God protected his creation from additional violence at the hands of one another.


Such continual scapegoating could only last so long, so eventually Jesus was sent. Through living a perfect life, there was no reason he should be killed or blamed for any wrongdoing. Yet he was condemned, becoming the epitome of an unjust scapegoat.


Through the ridiculousness of the condemnation, further emphasized through the resurrection, the scapegoat of Christ emphasizes the absurdity of scapegoating and violence. With the recognition of its absurdity, those of us who recognize his sacrifice can take on his moral influence and stop violence. Further, since our human drive is for a scapegoat, Christ's death was necessary to prevent additional violence within the world to both other humans and the rest of creation.


The scapegoating of Christ serves as a ransom from the perspective of humans, as it ransoms us from the evil grasp of mimetic violence and greed, which would be at the core of a literal or metaphorical Satan. His death still fulfills the humanly constructed need for justice appeased and satisfied in clear, concrete, and unyielding ways. Yet it also shows us the limitations of our human constructions and the ideal of God's divine thought.


While this is a simple outlined version of an atonement theory based on Girard's mimetic theory, I think it can provide a way to integrate elements of all the major atonement theories into a cohesive whole while also addressing the problems with each. Therefore, it doesn't wholly absorb them, but rather challenges certain elements, like Christ's sacrifice being directed more at humans than at God or Satan. Like Brink argued in his book, most perspectives of atonement place the problems on God, Satan, or the law. This theory places it in us. It is not Satan who requires payment. It is not God who requires payment. It is man. And from what I've read in the Bible and experienced in life, humanity is definitely the primary one who always demands clear, concrete, and sacrificial restitution.

Atonement Problems @jonathanbrink @greg_boyd @edcyzewski @markgalli

I've been thinking a lot about atonement theories lately (yes, even before the Rob Bell controversy). For those who don't know, atonement is the fancy word to explain Christ's sacrifice and our reconciliation with God. I've found few people know that there are multiple ways of explaining why Christ died on the cross, all of which are rooted in biblical understandings.

A lot of debates and theological disagreements have some relationship to the atonement theory each individual ascribes to, so I thought it might be helpful to provide a short summary here about some of them to introduce people to these ideas. Tomorrow, I'm going to outline some of my thoughts that integrates some of these models into a coherent whole while challenging problematic elements through Girard's mimetic theory.

Wikipedia's articles on the atonement theories are very useful in providing more detailed information, as this is really a general overview. While I mention some of the problems with each of the theories, all of this is far from exhaustive, as volumes and volumes have been written about each theory.

Substitutionary atonement is the idea that Christ died in place of us. This is one of the most common one in evangelical America. However, there are subtypes of substitutionary atonement.

Penal substitutionary atonement is the one popular among the neo-Calvinists, like Mark Driscoll, John Piper, and the rest of The Gospel Coalition. This takes a legal metaphor, where there is a clear cause and effect according to the law, which cannot be waived. The punishment for sin is God's unending wrath. Christ stands in between us, allowing God to pour out his wrath on Jesus, allowing the punishment to still occur, but without us having to suffer it. The problem with this, as Jonathan Brink and other have stated, is we are being saved from God, making him not a very compelling God to love. The governmental theory is similar, emphasizing that Christ's sacrifice allowed God to be both just and merciful at the same time.

The satisfaction theory of atonement is also similar. It takes on a legal tone, whereby Christ's death is paying restitution for the wrongs of man. It "satisfies" the debt we have incurred.

On the other side, there is a ransom theory of atonement. Ultimately, the idea is that the world is under the power of Satan. Christ's death is a ransom to take us out o the power of Satan and back into the hands of God. CS Lewis' depiction of Aslan dying to ransom Edmund essentially depicts this view. The problem here is that this give Satan quite a lot of power, in some ways appearing to have more power over God.

The Christus Victor perspective is often presented along with ransom theory, although there are differences. The idea of this theory is that Christ is victorious against all evil in the world through his death and resurrection, thereby squashing the power of Satan. Gregory Boyd presents a compelling, holistic view of the Christus Victor perspective, though, giving Satan much less power than in the traditional ransom theory. Ed Cyzewski wrote about how Christus Victor can be a response to the limited perspective of substitutionary atonement, while Mark Galli at Christianity today recently posted a piece exploring the limitations of some Christus Victor perspectives.

There's also the moral influence theory, where Christ dies to demonstrate for us the power and importance of love. He is influencing us to live moral, holy lives. This is definitely compelling, as Christ is the model for our spiritual formation. Another variation of it is that it emphasizes God's holiness, goodness, and love rather than simply being a model of good behavior. However, as one of my friends says, this doesn't really explain why Christ's death was necessary. My friend's analogy is that because he loves me, he'll step out in front of a bus and die. Not really useful or necessary.

There are other theories, too, but these are the most prominent ones. The issue is that so often people hold closely to one, disregarding the others. In fact, though, the Bible actually explains the atonement in each of these ways through metaphor. And these theories have each developed in distinct cultural contexts (for instance, penal substitutionary atonement has its roots, from my understanding, in the feudal times when strict legal/forensic understandings of the world were important). Each has their strengths, but each also misses, in my opinion, a big part of the Gospel.

As I mentioned earlier, Brink wrote a book exploring an alternative view of the atonement, which I summarized in my review of the book. He argues that Christ's death was necessary because we humans needed it. Without it, we would not be able to accept God's love for us and subsequent reconciliation. I think there are significant strengths in his theory.

People committed to emphasizing that God must pour out wrath on the world because that is who God is will have problems with that theory. I don't believe God is a God of wrath. God has wrath, but God can also control and not pour it out if he so chooses. The Incarnation itself is a perfect example of God voluntarily limiting his power and choosing to hide his full glory for the sake of reconciliation and love. I don't have a problem with God giving up justice for love. He does that frequently throughout the Bible.

Further, the perspective of wrath that is the root of penal models is rooted in anthropomorphic viewpoints, emphasizing human wrath, which is all about anger and punishment. There are arguments that explain a biblical view of God's wrath is not about anger or punishment and that fearing God does not necessarily equal being afraid of God.

I see a need for constant justice with some payment always occurring being more of a human need, not God's need. We need someone to be punished because then we can control the outcomes and can clearly identify who is where because it's all measurable and behavioral. Life, especially in relationship with God, is not that simple.

Ultimately, the legal twists on atonement seem to present God in a very negative light. He is a God primarily of justice and wrath. In contrast, the moral influence, ransom, and Christus Victor perspectives can emphasize a weak God who is more beholden to Satan and humanity. None of these seems terribly satisfying or encompassing the whole picture of the atonement. Could it be that we may not be meant to fully understand the atonement? Could all of these views be correct?