Taking Satan Seriously?

In his Christian Doctrine for Everyman: An Introduction to Baptist Beliefs, Jimmy Millikin says, “We know they [demons] are real personalities. They are capable of intelligent, voluntary actions.…We know also that they are spiritual beings…with great power. Demons are ‘unclean spirits,’ which means they are depraved and wicked in their nature.…The work of demons is essentially the same as that of Satan. Their main occupation is…opposing the will and purposes of God” (134).

Davis Britton in his Historical Dictionary of Mormonism says Satan is a “real spirit personage who leads the forces of evil and tries to defeat God’s purpose. In the pre-mortal existence this spirit, also a child of God, rebelled and took with him a portion of the host of Heaven.…Since then Satan has tried to frustrate the Plan of Salvation” (214).

The web site catholic.com says that the “Catholic Church has always held that the devil is real, not a mythical personification of evil.” The site then quotes a 1975 Vatican document, Christian Faith and Demonology: “It is a departure from the picture painted by the Bible and Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the devil’s existence.”

The fundamentalist web site christcenteredmall.com teaches that “Satan and his cohorts have lied, sinned, murdered, persecuted, and made war against God’s creation since the Garden of Eden,” and “one of the reasons the devil exists is so the children of God can grow up into the full stature of Jesus Christ.”

Clearly the people behind these statements believe in the devil and take him very seriously. Yet in heavily Catholic northern New Jersey, the local professional hockey team is named the Devils. In conservative-Protestant North Carolina, college sports fans can root for the Duke University Blue Devils and the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons.

In very conservative-Protestant Mississippi, fans can root for the Mississippi Valley State University women’s athletic teams, which are called the Devilettes! This lack of concern about taking Satan lightly extends beyond the range of sports. Consider the San Antonio, Texas, firm, Lucifer Lighting Company. If you need heat as well as light, you can call Lucifer Furnaces, Inc., of Warrington, Pennsylvania. You can even eat demonically because the Food Network can teach you how to make Satanic Fudge Brownies.

What is going on here? How can people believe that the devil is a thoroughly evil being, roaming about the world seeking the destruction of souls, and simultaneously believe there is nothing wrong with naming athletic teams and business companies after him? Would people name teams or companies after people or groups that they truly loathe and fear? Can anyone seriously picture a team named the Tacoma Terrorists or a food company named Nazi Nachos?