Satan’s Extreme Makeover
I opened Instagram the other day to see an image of a huge, raging bull being worshipped by hundreds of dancers.
My first thought was “what in the world is this? Some esoteric pagan ritual caught on hidden camera?”
Nope. Turns out it was the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games, a kind of mini Olympics held in Europe every four years. This one took place in Birmingham, England, which used to have a bull ring market where bulls were sold for slaughter, and this has something to do with the enslavement of women or whatever.
So naturally, the performers were worshipping a giant bull.
To most people, this was perhaps an odd but merely artistic choice. To me, it was chilling. There is a scene in my novel Forbidden where Jared’s body is indwelt by the demon-god Moloch, usually depicted as a bull. The ancient Israelites had a bad habit of worshipping Moloch in offense to God and even sacrificed their own children to him. That ceremony’s imagery was a little too on the nose to be a coincidence.
This isn’t the only time that large public events have borne an uncanny resemblance to idol worship. As a model for the opening ceremony of the new CERN tunnel scene in Forgiven, I used the actual opening ceremony for the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland in 2016. Even BuzzFeed thought this one was bizarre—an abstract performance art dance with so many obscene and grotesque satanic symbols that I couldn’t begin to catalog them. If you have the stomach for it, you can check out the video here. This was for the opening of a tunnel. Many EU leaders were on hand to witness this freak show, exposing once again the artistic preferences of the globalist elite. (You might see now why the Interlaken Group, the secret society in charge of the New World Order in my books, is headquartered in Switzerland.)
Opening Ceremony Goddard Tunnel
The global elites have always been fond of pagan, occult and satanic idols. A statue of Shiva, god of destruction and creation, sits proudly at the entrance to CERN. In 2015, an image of Kali, the Hindu goddess of doom (among other things), was projected, for some reason, on the Empire State Building. The UN put a creepy statue of a winged lion, “the guardian of international peace and security” in their courtyard which bore an uncanny resemblance to the first beast mentioned in Daniel 7:
'The first was like a lion with eagle’s wings. I observed it until its wings were pulled off, and it was lifted up from the ground. It was then set on two feet, like a human being, and it received a human mind.”
Or the beast from Revelation 13:
“'The beast I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave it his power, throne, and great authority.”
(The sculpture was removed after public outcry, though a UN spokesman said it was only a “temporary” exhibit on loan from Mexico.)
In 2018, the infamous “Arch of Baal” was displayed in Washington DC—the ancient archway to Baal’s temple in Syria. One has to ask: why? Baal was the most notorious demon in Old Testament, forever luring the Israelites away from the One True God. So why put this archway up in the nation’s capital? It’s not even real. It’s a reproduction.
Fast forward to this year, when we witnessed blatant Satanic worship spectacle on television during the Grammy Awards. What’s worse, some churches seem to be getting in on the act as well. Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma put on an “Easter” play in which devils danced provocatively while a woman hung on a cross.
Mind you, this was a Christian church. Or so it claimed to be.
Satan has been creeping into the culture for decades but recently with a new spin. He used to be a dark, evil force, but nowadays, Satan is the good guy, the symbol of pure freedom and untethered self-expression. There is no longer such a thing as immorality, perversion, or right and wrong. Satan erases sin altogether. Any choice a person makes to please his or her own nature is acceptable and even encouraged. Darkness is the true light.
TV shows like Lucifer depict Satan not as some evil entity out to destroy human beings but as a handsome, charming British guy who only wants to punish “bad guys.” The animated show Little Demon features a 13-year-old female Antichrist who attempts to live a “normal life” with her mom in Delaware.
Hail, Satan?
The Satanic Temple, after wallowing for years on the outskirts of culture, is now “coming out” as the new vanguard of truth and reason. Their film Hail Satan? was praised by critics as “illuminating” and “inspiring.” One reviewer wrote, “Given how entrenched the culture wars have become in America, maybe all Satan needs is a good publicist.” (The A.V. Club)
The mission of the Satanic Temple is stated on their website: The Mission Of
The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits.
So you see, Satan is a great guy! He’s been totally misrepresented. He loves justice, he’s rational, he’s noble, he hates tyranny. He’s way better than God or Jesus who want to enslave you to a moral code that you can never live up to. Don’t you get it? Satan is fun!
Moreover, Satan loves art. All the examples above were justified in the name of artistic expression. It’s not evil if it’s art, you see. Stifling artistic expression is tantamount to slavery and oppression—it’s really the only sin left in the world.
Art has always been at odds with the church, which is why the fundamentalists banned most forms of it from their places of worship. Satan is often depicted as an artist of sorts—heaven’s choir leader before his fall. I don’t subscribe to this theory—the biblical evidence is thin—but I do think that Satan uses art to turn people away from God, as I wrote about in the second novel of the Forlorn series, Forsaken. “Do your own thing,” the mantra of Sixties pop culture, was lifted straight from the occultist Aleister Crowley’s famous proclamation, “Do what thou wilt.”
Satan is all about doing your own thing. In the Book of Judges (which I refer to as “Men Behaving Badly”), the oft-repeated phrase is, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes.”
Do your own thing.
That is Satan’s calling card.
The Satanic Temple just held SatanCon in Boston. Around eight hundred people donned black, suggestive, and blood-streaked costumes, listened to lectures on reproductive justice and trans ideology, ripped up Bibles, and shouted “Hail Satan” at the top of their lungs while Christian groups assembled outside to pray for their souls. This rather small gathering garnered quite a lot of media coverage—apparently, people just can’t get enough of Satan.
It’s all about the children
The Satanic Temple has started “After School Satan Clubs” all over the country in the name of religious freedom and tolerance. Their flyer speaks for itself. What exactly is a “non-theistic” religion anyway? How does that even qualify as a religion? And why use the name Satan at all if this has nothing to do with the biblical Satan? Why not call it the “Socrates Club,” for instance? Socrates was the champion of rational, ethical discourse, after all. But then, one of Satan’s favorite tricks is word games, twisting words to obscure their meaning. Satan, the Satanic Temple leaders would say, doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Also, in the guise of “religious freedom,” the Satanic Temple is attempting to get exemptions to abortion restrictions in certain states so they can continue to perform their “Satanic Abortion Rituals.” In his book Demonic Foes, Richard Gallagher tells the story of a woman possessed by demons who was for years used as a “breeder” in a Satanic cult, in which she was impregnated and then forced to undergo an abortion for the cult’s rituals. Yet, if you do a Google search for Satanic Temple Abortion Ritual, you will find the media largely supports the group’s efforts.
This is the world we’re living in. Evil is good. And those who oppose these initiatives are the evil ones.
Where will all this lead? The Bible tells us: Judgment.
There are those who will call all the promotion of Satan and the increase of demonic symbolism in the public sphere purely innocent, artistic outbursts, a celebration of human freedom, nothing more. Surely God, if there is a God, wouldn’t be angry about that.
Well, perhaps. But I can’t help but remember the chilling words of Jesus:
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:38-39
In the end, God gives the people over to their own desires. And the result is never good.
Gina Detwiler is the author of the bestselling Forlorn Series, The Ultimate Bible Character Guide and the Ultimate Bible Character Devotional. She is also the co-author with Priscilla Shirer of The Prince Warriors, a bestselling middle-grade fantasy series. Find out more at www.ginadetwiler.com
