mzalendo
11th April 2006, 06:55
There is sometimes the temptation to think that the many people who will flock the world’s various churches today will do so out of a deep-seated hatred for the devil and an innate impulse to pursue goodness.
For today, as indeed every Sunday, the devil is always in the detail. And he is always in so much trouble that every word that comes from the mouths of the faithful is a condemnation, an insult, an accusation, an imprecation.
Never mind that the only indication that the devil exists is perhaps the fact that his opposite, God, exists.
If you asked Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, he would tell you that if the devil indeed exists, we have created him in our image. In many ways, perhaps, we will go to church today to lay blame on a bogeyman, the one object which we use as an excuse for our failings, for our failure to do what is considered good. If the devil did not exist, the world would probably be a very boring place and there would be many churchmen out of jobs.
For he has created a huge industry. Sin, or the devil (whatever he may be) has created a monumental industry that employs millions. And if the devil does, indeed, exist he must be a very proud being, seeing as he does that he keeps so many people gainfully employed and that he is always in the headlines of people’s minds wherever they gather to worship.
Which raises a critical question touched on at the beginning of this essay. Will all those who will go to church today and every other Sunday go to sincerely condemn the devil and extol the virtues of the Lord? Sometimes I have this feeling that we should cut out the devil in our worship. Why do we have to bring him in and give him an added exaltation in the affairs of man?
It is simply because without him, there would be no worship, there would probably be no religion and God would only be relevant in so far as he created us and because of the possibility that we, at one time, would be in some reunion with Him as the Good Book says.
Those who dispute this postulate might want to ask themselves this question: Do all those preachers who will be condemning the devil tomorrow and urging the people to get saved sincerely believe the world would be a better place if the devil was not there? Would they really want more and more souls to get saved? What would happen if all, including the devil got saved?
They would find themselves out of a job and they do not want this. The business of saving souls is therefore just a business, not anything driven by the contingent desire to have everyone in God’s camp. So far, religion is lucky that the devil, if he indeed exists, has not heeded calls to decamp.
In many ways, I think the devil is the starring character in the soap opera that religion sometimes degenerates into. For instance, if tomorrow a popular preacher announced that his main guest would be the devil himself, how many people would be crushed to death in the stampede that would follow as hundreds of thousands rush to catch a glimpse of the character they have conducted a huge hate campaign against for the better part of their lives? You can bet on it. Other churches would empty and the only one that everyone would want to go to, is the one where the devil would be making an appearance. Why?
Because the idea of Satan has that je ne sais qoui that forms an integral part of our worship, our being. It is our reason for hope because for hope to exist, the fear of hopelessness has to be there to. We simply cannot do without him even though we profess outwardly that we hate him and would never want to have an encounter with him.
We all know that for one to completely vanquish an enemy or a hated one, all you need is to eject him out of our lives, our discourses, and our thoughts. But we do not do this with the devil.
We keep him alive, we give him significance; we make him the competing character of the business of worship.
Yet, we also know that we do not have to keep both God and the devil side by side in order to extol the virtues of God and magnify the evil of the devil. If the goodness of God is an immanence in the affairs and history of the universe, it need not be proven by the creation or the comparison of its opposite. Evil too is an all-pervading thing and it need not be compared to good for it to attain significance.
Which brings me to the other question: If the devil is there and is responsible for the evil that we see, and seeing that in all the years human beings have engaged in the business of hating him they have not succeeded, why don’t the churchmen adopt another technique to beat him? Why don’t they just give him a blackout and see if he will fight back (if at all he exists)?
Why, if we are sincere in vanquishing him, do we not try to deal him what may amount to a coup de grace, let him vanish from our thoughts and then concentrate in worshipping God purely on the basis of the fact that we owe fealty to Him as our creator and not a creator who, if we do not keep pummeling His adversary, would be eclipsed by him?
If we did this, we probably would get the answer to this troublesome question: Can religion exist without the devil?
For today, as indeed every Sunday, the devil is always in the detail. And he is always in so much trouble that every word that comes from the mouths of the faithful is a condemnation, an insult, an accusation, an imprecation.
Never mind that the only indication that the devil exists is perhaps the fact that his opposite, God, exists.
If you asked Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, he would tell you that if the devil indeed exists, we have created him in our image. In many ways, perhaps, we will go to church today to lay blame on a bogeyman, the one object which we use as an excuse for our failings, for our failure to do what is considered good. If the devil did not exist, the world would probably be a very boring place and there would be many churchmen out of jobs.
For he has created a huge industry. Sin, or the devil (whatever he may be) has created a monumental industry that employs millions. And if the devil does, indeed, exist he must be a very proud being, seeing as he does that he keeps so many people gainfully employed and that he is always in the headlines of people’s minds wherever they gather to worship.
Which raises a critical question touched on at the beginning of this essay. Will all those who will go to church today and every other Sunday go to sincerely condemn the devil and extol the virtues of the Lord? Sometimes I have this feeling that we should cut out the devil in our worship. Why do we have to bring him in and give him an added exaltation in the affairs of man?
It is simply because without him, there would be no worship, there would probably be no religion and God would only be relevant in so far as he created us and because of the possibility that we, at one time, would be in some reunion with Him as the Good Book says.
Those who dispute this postulate might want to ask themselves this question: Do all those preachers who will be condemning the devil tomorrow and urging the people to get saved sincerely believe the world would be a better place if the devil was not there? Would they really want more and more souls to get saved? What would happen if all, including the devil got saved?
They would find themselves out of a job and they do not want this. The business of saving souls is therefore just a business, not anything driven by the contingent desire to have everyone in God’s camp. So far, religion is lucky that the devil, if he indeed exists, has not heeded calls to decamp.
In many ways, I think the devil is the starring character in the soap opera that religion sometimes degenerates into. For instance, if tomorrow a popular preacher announced that his main guest would be the devil himself, how many people would be crushed to death in the stampede that would follow as hundreds of thousands rush to catch a glimpse of the character they have conducted a huge hate campaign against for the better part of their lives? You can bet on it. Other churches would empty and the only one that everyone would want to go to, is the one where the devil would be making an appearance. Why?
Because the idea of Satan has that je ne sais qoui that forms an integral part of our worship, our being. It is our reason for hope because for hope to exist, the fear of hopelessness has to be there to. We simply cannot do without him even though we profess outwardly that we hate him and would never want to have an encounter with him.
We all know that for one to completely vanquish an enemy or a hated one, all you need is to eject him out of our lives, our discourses, and our thoughts. But we do not do this with the devil.
We keep him alive, we give him significance; we make him the competing character of the business of worship.
Yet, we also know that we do not have to keep both God and the devil side by side in order to extol the virtues of God and magnify the evil of the devil. If the goodness of God is an immanence in the affairs and history of the universe, it need not be proven by the creation or the comparison of its opposite. Evil too is an all-pervading thing and it need not be compared to good for it to attain significance.
Which brings me to the other question: If the devil is there and is responsible for the evil that we see, and seeing that in all the years human beings have engaged in the business of hating him they have not succeeded, why don’t the churchmen adopt another technique to beat him? Why don’t they just give him a blackout and see if he will fight back (if at all he exists)?
Why, if we are sincere in vanquishing him, do we not try to deal him what may amount to a coup de grace, let him vanish from our thoughts and then concentrate in worshipping God purely on the basis of the fact that we owe fealty to Him as our creator and not a creator who, if we do not keep pummeling His adversary, would be eclipsed by him?
If we did this, we probably would get the answer to this troublesome question: Can religion exist without the devil?