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Commentary: Madrid and the devil's comeback
UPI ^ | 12 March 2004 | Uwe Siemon-Netto

Posted on 03/14/2004 7:55:37 PM PST by ahadams2

Commentary: Madrid and the devil's comeback

By Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI Religious Affairs Editor

BORDEAUX, France, March 12 (UPI) -- The devil as a person has staged a comeback in Madrid, European and American theologians ruminated Friday, the day after terrorist attacks on trains killed at least 198 and injured more than 1,400 in the Spanish capital.

For decades, the Evil One as "an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and perverts others" -- to use the words of the late Pope Paul IV -- was rarely the topic of sermons.

"To talk about him was not considered chic," said the Rev. Christian Ruess, pastor of Hamburg's landmark St. Michael's Church in Germany. "In all my years as dean of the chapel in a seminary, I can't remember hearing him mentioned even once," agreed Gabriel Jay C. Rochelle, a former Lutheran theology professor who has since joined an Eastern Orthodox denomination in Pennsylvania.

"But the devil showed yesterday in Spain," Rochelle told United Press International in an interview Friday. How else can you explain such random evil?

St. Augustine once described the devil as "malus privatio boni," as the evil taking the place not occupied by the good. Liberal theology has depersonalized him. And existentialist philosophy reduced him, as did Jean Paul Sartre, to simply the other guy.

A personal devil does not fit in with the postmodern religion worshiping a cuddly God. This God, one assumes, would be too weak to defeat the personal Satan, who has mutated from The Evil One (he) in the original teachings of the Church to The Evil (it) in contemporary homiletics.

"What has happened here is that the Church has adapted itself to a society, which refuses to face up the Satan's existence," according to the Rev. Col. Peter Carsten Thiede, a German theology professor and Anglican priest, who is also a senior British army chaplain.

But this phenomenon, which Thiede attributes to the attempts by 19th- and 20th-century theologians to rid the New Testament of its mythology, may be on its way out as a result of the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York and Washington and March 11, 2004, in Madrid.

Thiede is somewhat pessimistic that the awareness of the reality of evil will actually translate into a belief in the devil, at least in Europe. "This would require a revolution from above," he said, adding, "of course, I am only speaking humanly. We don't know what the Holy Spirit will do."

The Rev. Albrecht Immanuel Herzog, who heads a venerable mission society in Bavaria, discerns a shift in attitudes all around him, however. "People are no longer satisfied with secular explanations of evil," he said. "They are demanding elucidation in religious terms."

Satan, as the powerful Prince of the World disguising himself as Lucifer, the bearer of light, has become a more probable creature now that unspeakably evil deeds are being committed for some cause or other, a term British Prime Minister Tony Blair used in his condemnation of the Madrid massacre.

The devil's allure is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of the human experience. What made millions cheer Hitler? What spiritual power did tyrants from Cambodia to Rwanda have when they persuaded simple folk to butcher millions of their own kind?

What is it that makes many Russians still pine for Joseph Stalin, who killed even more people than Hitler? What, asked Herzog, makes young people, especially in eastern Germany, submit freely to Satan's tutelage and then act from this position.

Herzog might as well have mentioned the United States, Norway, France and, indeed, Spain, all countries where Satanism is thriving in varying degrees.

"For we are not contenting against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places," wrote the apostle Paul (Ephesians 6:12).

In other words, man is up against evil in the persons of Satan and his court.

It may turn out to be a significant coincidence -- or perhaps, in theological terms, a sign of divine intervention, that in the troubling situation worldwide, Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," is such a roaring success.

What is its appeal? To be sure, there is first and foremost the shocking recognition of the extent of Christ's suffering for his humanity.

But there is something else, too. There's Satan in the form of an androgynous, luminous creature appearing intermittently from the beginning to the end of the film -- from Gethsemane to Golgotha. He taunts Jesus, "No man can bear the sins of humanity by himself." He tries to torpedo the Passion whose cosmic significance he has understood.

In the end, he fails and with a fearsome howl descends into his hellish realm.

Indeed, we are not contending against flesh and blood. This is the message of Gibson's work -- and evidently of the ever-increasing horrors brought into everybody's living or bedroom via cable television and the Internet. The devil as a person is once again becoming a high probability for the once doubting public.


TOPICS: Activism; Apologetics; Catholic; Charismatic Christian; Current Events; Evangelical Christian; History; Mainline Protestant; Moral Issues; Orthodox Christian; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: confrontation; evil; good; spiritual; struggle

1 posted on 03/14/2004 7:55:38 PM PST by ahadams2
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To: ahadams2; Eala; Grampa Dave; AnAmericanMother; N. Theknow; Ray'sBeth; hellinahandcart; Darlin'; ...
Ping.
2 posted on 03/14/2004 7:56:46 PM PST by ahadams2 (Anglican Freeper Resource Page: http://eala.freeservers.com/anglican/)
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To: xzins; Gamecock; sandyeggo; NYer; Unam Sanctam
FYI Ping.
3 posted on 03/14/2004 8:00:08 PM PST by ahadams2 (Anglican Freeper Resource Page: http://eala.freeservers.com/anglican/)
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To: ahadams2
If the Devil in The Passion doesn't scare the pea-turkey out of you, you're braver than I am.
4 posted on 03/14/2004 8:04:59 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of Venery (recess appointment ) TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary. . .)
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To: AnAmericanMother; ahadams2
Remember the quote from The Usual Suspects?
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
5 posted on 03/14/2004 8:50:20 PM PST by secret garden (Go Predators! Go Spurs!)
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To: ahadams2
As a child we always prayed the St. Michael prayer at the end of Mass. In the mid sixties it was removed along with many other wonderful devotions. I believe that that prayer said by all Catholics the world over was a powerful deterrent to the "Evil One".

St. Michael the archangel,defend us in battle,

be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

We humbly beseech thee,oh prince of the heavenly hosts,

by the divine power of God,cast into hell satan

and the other evil spirits,who prowl through the world,

seeking the destruction of souls. Amen.

6 posted on 03/14/2004 9:16:51 PM PST by saradippity
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To: saradippity
Okay, it's time for the "It's only a coincidence" choir to get revved up.

"I believe that that prayer said by all Catholics the world over was a powerful deterrent to the "Evil One"."

Yesterday I had both my computers started, and I was posting to FR and working at the same time.

I needed to go to the Catholic Encyclopedia to research a reply.

I got a blank page, on both computers.

Click, reclick, wait, nothing but white.

How odd, I thought, that this page won't display when FR, Drudge, WND, and JWR will.

So, being medieval and superstitious, I said that prayer to St. Michael (gasp, in Latin), clicked again, and up the index screen popped. Clicked on "c" and got white screens again until I said that prayer again. Scrolled down to "confession" and clicked on that, and got white screens until I said that prayer again.

Okay, "Coincidence Chorus," all warmed up? And a one, and a two...
7 posted on 03/14/2004 10:40:29 PM PST by dsc
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To: dsc
I know this is a very serious thread, but your experience reminded me of a very funny skit my children did for my wife's 70th birthday party. Through the years we've had some clunker cars, but they always came through when we needed them.
My son dressed up as a mechanic and my daughter dressed as my wife talking to him. The conversation went along the lines, "What seems to be the problem ma'am?"
"I think it's pretty bad - this morning, it took two Hail Mary's, a Memorare, and a Salve Regina to get it going!"
8 posted on 03/15/2004 5:29:53 AM PST by old and tired (Go Toomey! Send Specter back to the Highlands!)
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To: old and tired
I hope I never get so "serious" that I can't laugh at what's funny--and that's funny.
9 posted on 03/15/2004 5:50:04 AM PST by dsc
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To: ahadams2
Like Russia in the beginning of the 20th century, the West has forgotten the face of God.

My boss is from Spain, and he knew someone on the trains. My boss said that at that moment he HATED America because we "made" the terrorists attack Spain, and if the USA had just rolled over after 9-11, nothing would have happened.

We have reached a point where good is seen as evil, and evil as good. We all need to pray!
10 posted on 03/15/2004 5:59:47 AM PST by redgolum
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To: ahadams2
"To talk about him was not considered chic," said the Rev. Christian Ruess, pastor of Hamburg's landmark St. Michael's Church in Germany. "In all my years as dean of the chapel in a seminary, I can't remember hearing him mentioned even once," agreed Gabriel Jay C. Rochelle, a former Lutheran theology professor who has since joined an Eastern Orthodox denomination in Pennsylvania.

Are we Christians, or are we what? Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus spent a good portion of His ministry casting demons out of people. If there aren't demons, then Jesus was a loon or the Gospels are false. And considering human history, I'd say there are latter day Gaderene demoniacs still running loose.

11 posted on 03/15/2004 10:42:45 AM PST by xJones
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To: old and tired
Thank you for your #8. You children must rise up and call you blessed! And you are blessed indeed with them.
12 posted on 03/15/2004 10:46:12 AM PST by xJones
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To: dsc
so maybe sometime you should post it in Latin?
13 posted on 03/15/2004 11:08:42 AM PST by ahadams2 (Anglican Freeper Resource Page: http://eala.freeservers.com/anglican/)
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To: old and tired
Really good!

See there is life in us old timers yet
14 posted on 03/15/2004 12:21:26 PM PST by franky (Pray for the souls of the faithful departed. Pray for our own souls to receive the grace of a happy)
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To: ahadams2
"so maybe sometime you should post it in Latin?"

No problema.

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidiam diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperit illi Deus, suplices deprecamur;
tuque, Princeps militiae caelesis,
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen.

Of course, that's just the short version, but it's the one I always use.

For anybody who doesn't know the story of that prayer, it's quite interesting.

http://www.domestic-church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19980901/SCRMNTL/STMICHEAL.HTM
15 posted on 03/15/2004 3:31:59 PM PST by dsc
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To: redgolum
Spain is doing just as the terrorists have wished. Spain is blaming everyone but the terrorists. I feel sorry for the Spanish people.
16 posted on 03/16/2004 9:38:38 AM PST by tessalu
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To: dsc; saradippity
A lay group of which I was a member in the 1970s used to say compline every night, and the closing reading was:

The Devil like a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour.

I think it's from one of the Epistles of Peter, but I don't have time to look it up now. But I think of it often.
17 posted on 03/16/2004 9:51:04 AM PST by livius
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