If I Were Satan

If I were Satan I would not tempt Christians with sex, gluttony, or drunkenness. People are tempted in those ways enough on their own. I would tempt blessed people to see themselves as deficient. Ungrateful Christians are far more dangerous to the Christian message than licentious Christians  are.

I would tempt empowered American Christians to believe they are vulnerable and disempowered. When powerful people act like victims they appear silly to everyone else. And if I were Satan I would want nothing more than to make Christians look silly.


I would tempt Christians into believing that it is more important to defend Jesus than it is to follow him. I would tempt Christians to believe that dialogue means agreement. If Christians refuse to talk to people who disagree with them, they will not grow very fast. If I were Satan I would not want Christians to grow very fast.



I would tempt Christians to read only the parts of scripture that make them feel good until they encounter someone they don't like and then I'd point them to the passages that they can use against the people they don't like. On second thought, I'd tempt Christians to distrust scripture and elevate their own experience and personal rationalizations to the level of ultimate authority. 

If I were Satan I'd convince everyone that they are experts in matters of faith.  I'd eliminate the need for biblical scholars and theologians, relegate the role of pastors to sympathizers, and absolute convince people to ignore prophets.  Prophets wouldn't be prophets if I were Satan.  They'd be joe.  I'd convince people that humor is an legitimate rebuttal to ideas they find uncomfortable. 

If I were Satan I would tempt Christians into seeing other Christians as enemies. I would tempt liberals to attack fundamentalists. I would tempt fundamentalists to attack charismatics. I would tempt charismatics to attack  traditionalists. I would tempt Protestants to attack Catholics and Catholics to attack Orthodox.  I would tempt Christians to remain divided by ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, politics, economic status and lifestyle. Divided Christians are impotent. United Christians would scare me if I were Satan.


I would tempt them into believing that face to face conversation is unreliable but tweets,  Facebook posts, circulating emails and blogs are absolutely transparent.  And if I were Satan, I'd hack into a pastor's blog dashboard and post the things he believes but is too chicken to say from the pulpit just to see what kind of trouble I could kick up for him.