About the Church of Satan

In a recent post, I reported on rumors that Alice Cooper, a rock musician who has been promoted as a "born-again Christian," has now publicly declared himself as a member of the Church of Satan.  This may all be some sort of publicity seeking April Fools prank.

Some information on the Church of Satan: first and foremost, this is not the baby-killing devil worshippers of the public imagination as depicted in such films as Rosemary's Baby, Race With the Devil, The Devil's Rain, or Michel Soavi's The Church. Members of the Church of Satan are emphatic that they do not worship or even believe in the Christian Devil.  Peter Gilmore, the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, has said, "My real feeling is that anybody who believes in supernatural entities on some level is insane. ... Satanism begins with atheism."

The Church of Satan was founded in the late 1960's by Anton Szandor LaVey (d. 1997) who wrote The Satanic Bible in 1969.

Satan is seen as the ultimate representation of the individual self.  This is not benign "rational self interest."  This is placing one's carnal self and will above everything else.  One's self is the only god that exists.

http://www.google.com/search?q=anton+szandor+lavey&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3gduUdv7A5TU9AT8ioGgAw&sqi=2&ved=0CIsBEIke&biw=1202&bih=812

Alice Cooper Has Become a Member of the Church of Satan?

Rock musician Alice Cooper has become a member of the Church of Satan?????  For years, he has claimed to be a “born-again Christian.”  Cooper’s actual religious heritage is Bickertonite.  The Bickertonites are a small Trinitarian Mormon sect named for Wlliam Bickerton, but actually formed by the fascinating Sidney Rigdon. (Rigdon was a ubiquitous American religious figure from the nineteenth century who was quite fractious, becoming involved in one religious argument after another and moving rapidly among religious denominations and then quickly becoming a prominent leader in each of them.  Rigdon was in rapid succession, a leader among the Baptists, the Campbellites (Disciples of Christ), the main Joseph Smith Mormon group, and several Mormon schismatic sects.  Rigdon usually ended up disassociated or excommunicated by his former affiliative groups.)

Bickertonites  http://www.thechurchofjesuschrist.org/index.cfm

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=113546

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Bickertonites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_(Bickertonite)

http://graceforgrace.com/2008/02/18/lds-church-vs-church-of-jesus-christ-bickertonites-vs-rlds-community-of-christ/

For the record, many people believe that this is an elaborate April Fools Joke being perpetrated by Alice Cooper for the publicity it will engender.

Film Comment: Race With the Devil

Race With the Devil is a low budget 1975 film produced during an era when numerous films were being made about Satanists and Satanism.  The idea (think of Rosemary’s Baby) is that you really don’t know if the nice couple next door are really a nice couple or if, in the dark, they kill and eat babies while worshipping the Dark Lord.

The plot of Race With the Devil: two couples (portrayed by veteran B-movie actors Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, and Lara Parker) are travelling from Texas to Colorado in their SUV (sport utility vehicle).  While parked overnight in the desert, the four witness a group of nude people ritually murdering a woman.  To complicate matters, the murderers quickly realize that they are being watched and the chase is on.

As the couples run, it becomes increasingly obvious that everyone in the area, including the police, are members of the cult.   Unable to trust anyone, the couples go into survival mode.  The film becomes intense at that point with car chases, gunfights, animal mutilation, and increasingly sinister events.  The couples come to see their SUV as the only safe place and their only means of escape.  From a Christian viewpoint, I think that the SUV can be seen as the people’s attempt to save themselves under their own power.  Many people cling to the belief that they are strong and can handle life on their own with no need for “some God.”  They put their faith in themselves, politics, money, education, their ethnicity, their weapons, tradition, non-Christian works-based religions, or some other vague “spirituality.”

Race With the Devil has over the years generated much internet discussion including this statement at Better Geek Than Never (profanity alert!): 

“I also like how even though they are running away from murderers, and that is absolutely the right thing to do, but our main characters seem to believe that as long as they are in their RV, then they don’t really have to believe anything else that’s going on. Their vehicle is supposed to protect them from all outside influences, including belief systems that don’t fit into their specific worldviews. This conceit is proven wrong time and time again, yet they still cling to it like a life preserver. Sound familiar to anyone? Perhaps in some ways, we all have our own big ass RV that we use to shield us from things we don’t like to look at or think can’t possibly happen.”

About the Satanists.  While there are people who do worship the traditional Devil of the Bible, most modern Satanists would tell you that to do so means to acknowledge the reality of the Christian God, whom they reject. The modern Church of Satan, founded by Anton Szandor LaVey, is really worship of the self as the ultimate deity.  I believe that the modern Satanists are wrong and that the biblical Satan is a very  real being.  Jesus said that he was real.

The good news for spirit-filled Christians is that we have the Mind of Christ.  If, in the name of Christ, we resist the Devil, he will turn and run (James 4:7).