We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Politics of Demonization
Jonathan Martin posted a blog this week that we wanted to share called the politics of demonization (demonic talk on immigration, & other things). Have you noticed the hateful ways that we characterize the “other” in public discourse? Jonathan suspects (and we agree) that there’s a powerful force driving this tendency in all of us. As he puts it “In the same way that love is not just something that God does, love is what God is; accusation is not what Satan does–it is what Satan is.”
Have you been falling for this trick of the enemy? Have you found yourself demonizing others?
We want to encourage you to read the entire piece by clicking on the link above, but here’s a portion of it we wanted to share here. And remember, if it has flesh and blood, it’s not the real enemy.
No wonder our rhetoric gets more and more forceful, the guiltier we feel about our own inability to affect positive change in the world. No wonder the language is so quickly inflated, when we find someone to crucify for our sins. We carry a profound amount of guilt, and the corporate exorcism that happens in the demonization of the other in our politics has real religious zeal, intoxicating moral energy behind it. The fact that it is fundamentally immoral energy doesn’t diminish its raw power. It’s a powerful thing to cleanse yourself on a Muslim, or a fundamentalist, a liberal, a conservative, a homosexual, an immigrant. It feels like it sanctifies us, even while it damns us. It is a powerful force in an individual, but much more so in a group or political party. Us vs. them, good guys vs. bad guys, white hats vs. black hats–it’s the collective madness that, when unleashed in a room turns a crowd into a mob. It’s the force of darkness that makes the people who a week prior cried “Hosanna” while Jesus walked one street, cry out “crucify him” a week later, as he walked down another.
Image by h.koppdelaney via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Hatred, Jonathan Martin, Politics, Satan
Related Reading

Podcast: Did the Devil Make Me Do It?
Greg peeks into the complexity of our spiritual world and offers wisdom for discerning spiritual activity. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0299.mp3

Why do you have such a pessimistic view of government?
Question: I’m a Christian and serve as a servant in government and I find your book The Myth of a Christian Nation, as well as some of your sermons on Christians and politics, highly offensive. I find that while governments sometimes harm people, they also do a lot of good. The American government in particular…

Jesus was Not a [Socialist]
Article by Dan Kent Our political climate right now exhausts me. The fracturing. The bullying. The ideological mobs. I feel like I’m surrounded by a hundred Towers of Babel babbling at me all day long, pummeling me with endless propaganda and page-after-page of facts. “Look at the facts!” they implore. They want me in their…

Our Beautiful, Nightmarish World
The Bible consistently proclaims that the creation reflects the glory of God. To me, the truth of this proclamation is undeniable. When I was younger I several times went on three-week solo backpacking trips into the mountainous forests of Montana. If gazing at the star studded sky on a moonless night at the peak of…

Vacationing in a War Zone
Suppose a family decided to go on vacation to a nice cabin on a beautiful shore in a distant country. This vacationing family naturally wanted to tune out the problems of the world, indulge themselves, relax and enjoy life and each other as much as possible. This is simply what families do on vacation. Now…