In the Oklahoma City news this week was an article about a small group of Satan worshipers who were having a “Blasphemy ritual” in a local civic center designed to parody a Catholic exorcism.

As I watched the reports and listened to the representative of the Satanic cult and two local Baptist ministers making commentary on the whole thing I made a few observations.

The first thing I noticed about the Satanic rep was the darkness. He wore black, stood in front of a black background for the interview and planned to have their ritual in a part of a local civic center known as a black-box theatre with black walls.

What do you think about darkness? For me, and most people I know, darkness is something scary. I’ve never heard of anyone afraid of light. Darkness hides things whereas light exposes them. Darkness makes us afraid to move about, but light enables and encourages us to explore our world, investigating and learning. Hence, ignorance is referred to as being in the dark, not the light.

The next thing I noticed was the upside down crucifix the rep wore.

What do you believe about Jesus? I know that following His teachings has brought joy, love, kindness, respect, honor, compassion and integrity into my life. I also know that His death was God’s ultimate display of love for me (and you too) in that that sacrifice provided a way for me to escape the penalty of my sin. Why openly mock that? If you disagree with Jesus, fine, but why show such militant and intolerant disdain? The fact that the fellow wore this seems to me an indication more of rebellion against God rather than an allegiance to someone he believed to be better.

The Satanic rep indicated that at the age of eight, he turned to Satan-ism to get away from his “Christian minister” father’s “drumming into the Bible” (sic) as he put it.

Without knowing or criticizing what his father taught, I will say that there are many who proclaim Christ yet teach and practice some of the most “unchristian” things on the planet. I would encourage him and everyone else to judge Jesus according to what is written of Him in His New Testament rather than by anything taught or practiced by any who claim to follow Him. Wouldn’t you like to be judged according to what you say and do rather than what someone else says you say and do?

The name “Satan” means accuser, attacker, adversary, opponent.

These things are both what and who he is, and he is these things to everyone. There are no long-term rewards for worshiping him. The name “Jesus” means salvation. Just as Satan lives up to his moniker, so Jesus does to His and more.

I’ll only mention one more observation. The report claimed that in response to the event, local Christians were “outraged”. Well, I just didn’t see that. At least not in the two ministers who were interviewed.

When I hear the word “outrage” I tend to think of an irrational, emotional, vociferous, reactionary response (bet you didn’t think a common man would know the word vociferous, huh?). But that’s not what I saw. I heard a couple of guys basically saying, “Hey, if that’s what they want to do, it is their right. We’ll just keep on doing what we believe Christians should do.” Of course that’s a paraphrase, but I believe it to be an accurate appraisal of their response.

Anyway, I thought it interesting that the Satanist selling tickets to a public “Blasphemy ritual” mocking a different religious group seemed “billed” better in the report than a couple of even-handed appearing guys who likely would do you and me all the good they could, given the opportunity.

Hmmm, maybe ol’ Satan is still hard at work being the adversary. Ya think?