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For thousands of years, Christianity’s greatest enemy has been Satan. Even Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, said it best in The Satanic Bible: “Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!” Despite what common sense, religious teaching and the concept of “good versus evil” may try to teach us, the reason that Satan – and any other force that is seen as an opponent to God – is an enemy of the church isn’t what you think it is. In fact, it’s for one very specific reason, one very human reason and one that certainly does not fall under the definition of “good:” it is for power.

Recently, throughout my journeys in both the worlds of Atheism and, more specifically, Satanism, I have encountered two pieces of media which have led me to this conclusion. First, for my role as host of Satanic Study Hall, I voluntarily chose to suffer through the Christian propaganda… er, films… God’s Not Dead and God’s Not Dead 2 for our episode on the Christian streaming service PureFlix. In both films, the lead characters, along with the supporting characters, have their livelihoods and futures threatened for standing up for their Christian beliefs, whether it be from atheistic or other institutional forces.

Without going into the full summary and review of these two movies (that’s what you can listen to the Satanic Study Hall episode for), the one common thing I noticed was, despite their belief in an all-powerful God, the Christians in these movies are portrayed as the minority, the underdog and in fact the victims in these movies. The protagonists are victimized for their beliefs even though they live in a country, specifically the United States, in which Christians are the majority and certainly far from a persecuted religious minority.

There are two problems in the roles that the protagonists of these movies portray. First, Christianity is the dominant religion in this country as well as many others. Were these films set in Islamic-dominant countries or countries where Christians are persecuted, this might be a plausible setting for Christians being the minority and the persecuted subjects of a film. A white middle class college student (in God’s Not Dead) as well as a white middle-class history teacher in very Christian parts of the United States (Arkansas, for instance, in God’s Not Dead 2) aren’t going to be eliciting the sympathies as the victimized religious minority protagonists by many people outside of the Christian faith.

Second, Christians being portrayed as victims goes against the argument the Christianity is a result of its creation by a perfect God. Any suffering or persecution in the name of such a divine being is seen as not only necessary but expected to defend the faith and for an eternal reward in the afterlife. Certainly the actions of atheists or other non-theorist wouldn’t pose a threat to the entirety of Christianity if that is God’s will… would it?

By Christian doctrine, Christian faith and the Christian Church should never fail as their God will intercede on our behalf to preserve it because we are part of the correct religion. Don’t get me started as to why a perfect God would need its congregations to hold bake sales to fund themselves as opposed to simply providing all the goods and services needed to support themselves, that’s a discussion for another blog post.

Surely, in a world created by a perfect God, Christianity would be the only religion. There wouldn’t be billions of Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and members of thousands of other faiths and belief systems who are doomed to burn in Hell for not accepting Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, a preposterous expectation of those of other faiths born into societies that aren’t Christian. Let’s take that out of the equation and ask ourselves why it is necessary to create Christian propaganda in any country where Christianity is dominant, has been for many hundreds of years and still is to this day.

Let’s imagine, for one moment, a world in which Christianity were the only religion and there were no other belief systems, even that of Satanism or Atheism. In one sense, there may be a relatively peaceful world as the outcome, as people would all surely believe that they would go to Hell for hurting, killing or otherwise harming their fellow humans which are their Gods creations. On the other hand, this world would be another version of Hell, as it was strip us of our ability to think rationally, to question arbitrary authority and to basically no longer be the humans we are now. Now, in our hypothetical scenario, let’s say suddenly one day an Atheist was born. Don’t ask me how that would happen and how or why God will allow it, but just play along for arguments sake. All of the sudden, for the first time in this Christian utopia, you have a voice of dissent against what everyone knows and believes. Now most likely this person would be shunned or silenced or otherwise forced to conform to the status quo, but let’s say that they manage to get a few more people to join them in their Atheistic thinking, perhaps by asking questions that their faith can’t answer. Now all of the sudden this small band of Atheists not only realize that they aren’t crazy for thinking as they do, as there are others that share these newfound atheistic beliefs, but they join together under this belief system and begin to shun the Christian majority for continuing to think and believe as they do. They start to broadcast their newfound Atheistic beliefs to others and their community grows. Before you know it, the Atheists have indirectly started a movement against the Christian status quo. The humans in charge of this Christian planet are suddenly not in as much power as they used to be. The small band of Atheists, now numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands, forms an organization that is taking believers – and their money and effort – away from the Christian Church. For the leaders of a Christian planet ruled by a Christian God, this poses a horrifying question: if EVERYONE joined this new Atheist belief system, then what would happen to them and their power?

Seeing as that God is not dead but has never existed, the reason Christian propaganda exists isn’t because Christianity is under attack nor that the threat is an actual legitimate one, at least not in the short term. In actuality, the problem here is one of long-term loss of power due to people either leaving Christianity or not joining it, due in part to the threat posed by the dissemination of information about alternative viewpoints and beliefs through social media channels as well as our society generally leaning towards more liberal trends and lifestyles, especially in major cities and population centers.

Regardless of whether you believe in God or not, the little Atheistic uprising scenario in our previous story is in fact happening right now in our very real world, but on a much more complex scale than simply one Atheist being born and rounding up some followers to disrupt the status quo. As there’s no God to intercede in our real world, Christianity is under threat because, if their faithful is allowed to consider other rational thinking then they are at risk of leaving. If your faith allows people to think freely and if you don’t have all the answers and if you can’t show your faithful that there is a reason to continue believing in your doctrine (despite threat of eternal damnation which is unproveable), then what is to stop them from leaving and possibly joining a religion that more aligns with their beliefs and values? In our modern-era, Christians are exposed to various other religions and other beliefs through social media – something not readily available to most people except within the past few decades. When growing up in a society with no other religions available to you, the societal pressure would keep the dissenters low or silence them all together.

Unless Christianity has an enemy, be it Satanists, Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or any other group, Christian institutions will have no reason for their people to pull together under their beliefs. The faithful will become arrogant and complacent, feeling that they have nothing to fight for or against. In the novel Tribe by Sebastian Junger, people are often shown to come together rather than separate during times of societal adversity. As show in the book, bombings of cities during major wars have been done to invoke terror and fear in their populace with the intent of weakening their morale and destabilizing any efforts to fight back. On the contrary, such bombings were showing to unify the populace to band together to fight for their common interest of survival. By the same token, Christian propaganda exists to unify their community under the fear of threats from external forces, thereby ensuring that their believers continue to throw their time, money and support behind those in charge. If not, then the minority’s voice will become louder as people find answers in reason and logic as well as their own human physical desires which go against Christian teachings.

As has been shown numerous times throughout history, even recently during major elections, people are willing and able to do almost anything if they believe they have a moral or divine obligation to do so, even if those actions go against the belief system that they are defending. How many pro-life individuals are willing to threaten the lives of anti-abortion protestors and bomb abortion clinics in the name of God, even though the Sixth Commandment says “thou shall not kill?” How many Satanists have received death threats as well? This same internal justification can be seen with the Catholic Church protecting its own from the sex abuse scandal, putting their own personal feelings aside regarding the horrible actions of the total numbers to protect the greater good of the organization. In the same way, Christian propagandists have no problem creating a warped, exaggerated portrayal of Christian persecution where none exists in order to stoke fear in their masses and pull them deeper into the fold.

While this may be seen as a noble effort for Christian society, it cannot be seen as such for those of other faiths and beliefs who are seen as persecutors and threats instead of peaceful dissenters. As Satanists, we must stand by our beliefs against those within the Christian community who attack us not only out of a sense of good versus evil, but due to the irrational fear of the destruction of their own community by those who look to simply live their lives by a different set of beliefs. We must not be swayed by attacks by those not who believe we are wrong, but by those who use their propaganda to vilify us and attempt to destroy us simply because they don’t want to lose their grip on power and control of their “flock.”