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Demon and Democracy
October 9, 2005
Orcas Island Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
By John Ashenhurst

The Unitarian Universalist Covenant

To affirm and promote:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.


When I was in the first grade at Edgebrook school on the northwest side of Chicago, I remember vividly our H-bomb drills. We'd file into the halls, crouch down against the lockers and cover our heads with our arms. Duck and cover. Duck and cover. That certainly would have been a big help when the bombs started to come.

I also remember my mother watching the McCarthy hearings in the early fifties while she was doing the ironing. A friend of the family, a career soldier with a purple heart earned while serving in Europe during World War II, was forced to resign from the army because he had been a Trotskyite as a young man. In the 1950s when looking to my future, my parents worried about two things: the end of life on earth and the end of democracy in America.

Fifty years later, I worry about my children and their children. Some days it's hard to be optimistic about the future. If anything the possibility of the destruction of life on earth is more serious than it was in the 50's - perhaps not so much from thermonuclear war but from greed and apathy run amuck. And though McCarthy and his fellow travelers threatened freedom of speech and association, President, Eisenhower and Edward R. Murrow eventually put them out of business. Unfortunately I can't imagine anything that enlightened happening today.

Of the two threats - to life on earth on the one hand and to American democracy on the other, the latter, American democracy, seems to me of greater moment since it has an enormous influence on the former, the future of the planet.

How is democracy in America threatened? In many ways - corruption, cronyism, apathy, ignorance, greed, fear. But what I'm especially interested in today and am straining to understand is what the increasing direct political involvement of fundamentalist religious groups means for American democracy today and in the future and what if anything Unitarian Universalists should do about it.

Tough questions question that I don't pretend to fully understand. In any case, today I'm going to look at one element of this complex matrix, the religious use of demonization and its implications for democracy. I'll begin by looking at how factions in the early Christian church evolved the concept of Satan in order to demonize and destroy their sectarian opponents. Then I'll look at how an expanded idea of Hell in the Middle Ages served as a powerful demonizing tool. Next, I'll dip into our tradition to look at the origins of Universalism in the U.S. as a reaction to the Christian tradition of  predestination as demonization. Then I'll come to present times and reflect on the use of religious demonization today and its implications for American democracy. Finally I'll conclude by making some suggestions about what supporters of liberal religion might do to nurture democracy in an environment of religious demonization.

But before going further I'd like to try to contrast demonization with xenophobia - the fear of the other. From my point of view, xenophobia is the unwillingness to acknowledge another group as human. So, for instance, when the Haida in the Queen Charlotte's used slaves as logs to roll their canoes up onto the beach, they didn't much worry about it because the slaves weren't human beings. Demonization, on the other hand, is a way to justify harming others in your group, those you do acknowledge as human beings, by claiming that they're possessed or controlled by a malevolent force or entity. Perhaps, practically speaking, demonization versus xenophobia is a distinction without a difference. On the other hand, historically xenophobia has required no justification but once you recognize others as human, as we have presumably done in the Christian West, you need an excuse to kill and torment them. That's something, at least.

The origin, development, and early use of the idea Satan

In 1995 Elaine Pagels published a book called “The Origin of Satan.” My son James gave it to me for Christmas and it's fascinating. I've read enough of the Bible to know that Satan doesn't show up often but does have some important roles, for instance in Genesis in the garden of Eden story and in the book of Job. In Job, God and Satan make a wager about how Job will react to his life being torn apart. Will he renounce God or not? Satan says yes and God says no.

What Pagels points out is that in these two stories Satan isn't a fallen angel, he's God's assistant. He isn't defying God, he's more of a “devil's advocate” as it were. Satan is God's alter ego - not his enemy.

Book of Job reading

6: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
7: The LORD said to Satan, "Whence have you come?" Satan answered the LORD, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it."
8: And the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?"
9: Then Satan answered the LORD, "Does Job fear God for nought?
10: Hast thou not put a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
11: But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face."
12: And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put forth your hand." So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Pagels says that it isn't until the Roman occupation of Palestine and then the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Jewish revolt that Satan is portrayed as the opponent of God. Jewish sects, like the Essene, claimed that their opponents, the more secular Jews, were tempted by and were in league with Satan, while the Essenes were on God's side. The Essenes believed that God's covenant no longer covered all Jews but only the right Jews. The Essenes did not demonize the Romans, they demonized other Jews.

The synoptic gospels, Luke, Matthew, and Mark, were written by Jews who had lived through or were familiar with the history of the Roman occupation, the divisions among the Jewish population it caused, and the use Jews made of Satan to demonize their opponents. Early Christianity was a Jewish movement and the early gospels are hard on the Romans. But Christianity didn't sell well among the Jews and it wasn't until Paul universalized the message and brought it to the gentiles that the movement gained some traction. So when you read John, written well after Paul's death, Pilot isn't demonized. He gets off easy. It's the Jews who are demonized. The message is that if you get in God's way, you're in cahoots with Satan and deserve everything bad that happens or can be done to you.

The early Christian movement was creative and chaotic - with a proliferation of books, revelation, beliefs, and practices. Rather than see the movement splinter into a thousand pieces and die, the more politically astute Christians realized that they needed to draw and then enforce a line between orthodoxy and heresy. The result was the compilation of the New Testament and the physical destruction of competing scripture (rediscovered in December 1945 near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt), the formulation of the Nicene Creed under Constantine's tutelage, and the active persecution of dissenters, who it's not surprising to note were accused of being in Satan's employ.

So, according to Pagels, Satan, once God's left hand, was transformed into God's opponent and used among the Jews to demonize one another. Satan was then adopted by early Christians who came out of the Jewish tradition and put to work demonizing first the Romans and then shortly other Christians - always with the purpose of discrediting opponents and justifying ignoring or persecuting them.

The use of the idea of Satan in the Middle Ages

The Bible doesn't provide much detail about Satan and Hell - or Heaven for that matter. But by the late Middle Ages and as expressed in Dante's Divine Comedy, written between 1306 and 1321, these concepts had been worked out in great detail. Since the Bible didn't provide the specifics he needed, Dante made use of Neo-platonic and Ptolemaic thinking- that is to say classical pagan ideas - combining them with Christian concepts. And it's not surprising to notice that by the Middle Ages the role of Satan and the introduction of specifics about Hell and Heaven serve a different purpose from the one served by Satan during early Christian times.

In early Christian times the Second Coming was understood to be imminent. The world would be radically changed - Christ would return, take control, and transform the world into the one God prescribed. Justice would be served. The wicked would be punished and the good rewarded. But after several centuries of patient waiting the faithful began to turn their attention seriously to the unseen, next world.  That's the place where everything would be made right.

In the Middle Ages, the Church was fully in charge and most of Europe was at least nominally Christian. Demonizing Jews continued unabated but they weren't a threat to the Church. They were a convenient lending source and helpless scapegoat. The main problem wasn't heretics but consolidation and perpetuate control by the Church. So the concept of Satan and the elaborated descriptions of Heaven and Hell were used especially to regiment behavior not theology. In Dante's Hell the lowest levels and greatest tortures are reserved for those that resist existing authority - whether God's (that is to say the Church's) or man's.

Dante is quite specific about who is consigned where in Hell. He names names. It's no surprise that his deceased political opponents don't fare well. By implication, those opponents still alive will soon be sharing quarters in Hell with those already there. Dante uses Satan and Hell to demonize and marginalize and is very effective. Though Dante's writing's were never officially recognized, they'd played an important informal roll for the last 700 years.

Joyce's in his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man published in 1916 recalls a priest describing Hell to young men in his charge. His vivid description goes on for pages. I'll jump in near the end:

And yet what I have said as to the strength and quality and boundlessness of this fire is as nothing when compared to its intensity, an intensity which it has as being the instrument chosen by divine design for the punishment of soul and body alike. It is a fire which proceeds directly from the ire of God, working not of its own activity but as an instrument of Divine vengeance. As the waters of baptism cleanse the soul with the body, so do the fires of punishment torture the spirit with the flesh. Every sense of the flesh is tortured and every faculty of the soul therewith: the eyes with impenetrable utter darkness, the nose with noisome odours, the ears with yells and howls and execrations, the taste with foul matter, leprous corruption, nameless suffocating filth, the touch with redhot goads and spikes, with cruel tongues of flame. And through the several torments of the senses the immortal soul is tortured eternally in its very essence amid the leagues upon leagues of glowing fires kindled in the abyss by the offended majesty of the Omnipotent God and fanned into everlasting and ever-increasing fury by the breath of the anger of the God-head.

One of the most unnerving aspects of Dante's Hell is that its inmates have no chance of redemption. It's too late to say they're sorry. God won't accept any apologies at this point. In addition, all people who died before Christ appeared and brought the good news are consigned to Hell no matter how morally they had lived. Dante's God isn't just - in any normal, understandable human sense. For Dante, all humanity - past, present, and future is consigned to one of two camps, God's or Satan's.  And as Virgil, his guide, tells pilgrim Dante over and over, it's a sin to pity those consigned to Satan's realm. You must not second-guess God. Your job is to be loyal, accepting, and grateful.

With the Reformation, of course, Calvin moves the human divide to this world, describing it as the result of predestination - God's plan for each of us - in existence even before the world was created. Conveniently, the elect, the saved, stand out. They're the favored in this world. If you're poor and unsuccessful in worldly terms that's God's hint that you're going to Hell. If you are rich and powerful, that's a sign that God loves you best.

It's clear that Christianity has been a party to much human misery over the ages. But that's not the whole story. The genius of Christianity and the ethic that persists in the West even among atheists and agnostics is that on some basic level all human beings count the same. Jesus befriended prostitutes and tax collectors, the poor and slaves - and treated women the same as he did men. His message was that all human beings are children of God.

No so fast, said the church and other interested parties. It's not quite that simple. Yes, all human beings are the children of God but some human beings are more equal than others. Some are God's chosen people and some are trash, evil, worthless, and generally don't count - because they're in Satan's gang. Given this move by organized religion - basically a repudiation of what Jesus taught - some Christians looked for ways to reform Christianity.

Universalism in America

Not everyone agreed with Dante's portrayal of Hell - with its impossibility of pardon, eternal torture and the apparently arbitrary or at least unfathomable method God used in his sorting of the saved from the damned. One theological reaction was a version of extinctionism - rather than suffering eternally the souls of the damned simply vanish. That seemed a bit less grotesque than eternal torment. Another reaction was universalism in one form or another. And that takes us to our tradition.

As an earnest young man in the late 18th century, Josea Ballou read the Bible closely and was appalled at much of what he read. He knew preachers blithely consigned a large part of humanity to eternal torment and it didn't make sense to him. What self-respecting God would be so cruel? Not one he could worship. At the time, the common understanding among first generation Universalists was that there was a limited period of punishment in the afterlife, after which souls would be ushered into heaven. That was a definite improvement over Dante and Calvinism. But for Ballou, it didn't go far enough. By appealing to the stories of the patriarchs of the Old Testament as proof, Ballou adopted the radical position that human beings are rewarded for good behavior, or punished for their misdeeds, in this life. At death they are transformed by the power of God's love as they enter eternity. God does not divide humanity into two groups, the saved and the eternally damned. There is no elect. There is no predestination. Human being don't fall into two camps - God's and Satan's. From Ballou's point of view, demonization has no place in Christianity.

Demons and Democracy

If Jesus' central message was that every human being counts the same - actual Christian practice over the centuries undercut that radical universalizing. Over and over the concepts of Satan and Hell were used to resurrect the idea of division. But the radical universalism of Jesus couldn't be suppressed forever. Eventually it reappeared in religion as the Universalist movement and in political theory as representative democracy.

If democracy is anything at all, it is the view that every single human being should have a say in determining what kind of society he or she lives in. Democracy is about process rather than specific outcomes. It does not say which ideologies - whether religious or secular - are true. Rather it creates an ongoing system through which people with differing belief systems can co-exist successfully. This is an important point. Democracy is a meta-ideology. It's about how, not what.

The democratic process can only work if people in the system accept the humanity of others in the system. Democracy is tenable only to the extent that enough people put democratic process ahead of particular belief systems, scriptures, authority, tradition. Democracy is possible only when people don't demonize and marginalize one another. When it's God versus Satan, or the good versus the evil, or the enlightened versus the insane, democratic process suffers. If the other guy is possessed by Satan why should I let his voice be heard? Certainly God wouldn't want me to be soft on Satan.

There is absolutely no doubt that today some people with considerable political influence in America firmly believe that they are on God's side battling Satan, a stealth candidate with a substantial following. For them, social justice, the reduction of human suffering, healing the planet and even democracy itself, are beside the point. What comes first is the imposition of God's law on earth. Democracy doesn't have a bright future when the demonizing version of Christianity holds sway. To Unitarians, democracy comes first. To conservative Christians, it seems God comes first.

You're familiar with this line of thinking and it has a certain perverse appeal. It's fun to be judgmental and righteous.

But of course it's not that simple

If I accuse religious fundamentalists of demonizing liberals and failing, ultimately, to be committed to democracy, I'm doing some demonizing myself. I'm claiming, implicitly, that they are not quite human, that they're stupid or perhaps crazy or maybe sociopaths or power-crazed or cynical or greedy. And I'm demonstrating that I'm not happy at the prospect or reality of them taking control of the government - even if they win fair and square. After all, we can't have crazy people running the government can we?

But if we marginalize others because of their beliefs and refuse to honor their right to their views, we turn out to be sunshine democrats, supporting the democratic process only when the outcome suits us.

On the other hand, maybe it's more realistic to say that those are nice sentiments but this is different. The religious conservatives aren't playing fair. They're in league with big business and they've effectively subverted democracy. They've killed it. It's gone. They lie; they cheat; they're evil. They don't deserve the vote. They're possessed!

Hmmm. It's worth remembering that Joe McCarthy said something similar about communists and socialists. Are religious liberals guilty of demonizing religious conservatives? Are we weakening democracy in America as much as they are? In fact, are they better supporters of democracy than we are?

It's worth noting that rather than trying to subvert democracy religious conservatives have become masters at the democratic process. Once marginalized, they now control the federal government, many state governments, counties, and school boards.  For the most part they got to that point through a great deal of grass roots hard work. Though some liberals would like to think otherwise, it's really not so easy to make a legitimate case that democracy has been subverted by religious conservatives. They haven't subverted democracy; they've just been more effective.

So here's the point

Liberal religionists are currently less effective in the democratic process than conservatives. Rather than girding our loins, stiffening our spines, and keeping a stiff upper lip, we whine. We demonize the conservatives so we don't have to take them or what they have to say seriously. Of course they demonize us whenever they please, but that doesn't mean we should follow suit.

Rather than demonize conservatives, fundamentalists, Bible-thumpers, creationists, and others with whom we disagree, it seems to me that it's time to begin listening to them and taking seriously what they say. If we listen and reflect and look for what we share in common as human beings, parents, grandparents, and citizens, we may find common ground we can work from. On the other hand, as long as we demonize religious conservatives by labeling them stupid, ignorant, crazy, fascistic, theocratic, or cynical we close the door to communication, abandon the marketplace of ideas, and subvert democracy.

Christianity has a tradition of demonization and it's antithetical to democracy but Christianity also has a tradition of universality and it's the very foundation of democracy. Surely we can find a way to begin a conversation. As Jesus said more or less, “If you don't want to be called bad names, then don't call other people bad names.” Good advice even for us the enlightened ones.

I'd like to leave with you with some quotes I've taken from a very interesting recent New Yorker article by Malcolm Galdwell on Rick Warren's evangelical Saddleback mega church. Warren is the author of “The Purpose Driven Life” a Christian self-help book that has sold 25 million copies. Gladwell says:

Not long ago, the sociologist Christian Smith decided to find out what American evangelicals mean when they say that they believe in a "Christian America." The phrase seems to suggest that evangelicals intend to erode the separation of church and state. But when Smith asked a representative sample of evangelicals to explain the meaning of the phrase, the most frequent explanation was that America was founded by people who sought religious liberty and worked to establish religious freedom. The second most frequent explanation offered was that a majority of Americans of earlier generations were sincere Christians, which, as Smith points out, is empirically true. Others said what they meant by a Christian nation was that the basic laws of American government reflected Christian principles-which sounds potentially theocratic, except that when Smith asked his respondents to specify what they meant by basic laws they came up with representative government and the balance of powers. America's Christian heritage as a simple fact of history that they are not particularly interested in or optimistic about reclaiming.

So maybe we should demonize less and listen more. Maybe liberals need to work harder. Maybe American isn't really going to hell in a hand basket after all.