[For the sake of my posting schedule and your time, I am posting segments of Chapter 3 as I write them. If you have any suggestions or comments, reach out through my contact form. To read everything released so far, visit the Satan and Spiritual Warfare page.]
The Influence of the Reformation (1517)
We often look back to the Reformers like Martin Luther or Ulrich Zwingli and assume they were the pinnacle of Christian thought. We may even don rose-colored glasses and believe the Protestant Reformation is the closest Christianity has ever gotten to the pure faith taught and practiced by the apostles. Yet what we so often neglect is that most of the leaders who split from the Roman Catholic Church brought a lot of theological baggage with them.
Not only were the men and women of the Protestant Reformation saddled with loads of Roman Catholic doctrine, but many of them had to perform theological triage. Just as a battlefield surgeon must prioritize the most critical patients first, the Reformers likewise had to look at various beliefs and ask themselves, “Which are critical to understand now? Which can wait for a later day?” We can understand why they didn’t spend as much time refining their understanding of Satan when they were busy risking their lives to learn and teach what God’s word says about salvation, the church, and the authority of Scripture.
That’s not to say they didn’t engage with Satan. “Sola Scriptura” was a core tenet of the Protestant Reformation, rightly stating the necessity of honoring the Bible as their highest authority. And praise God for that! But in looking at what God’s word said about Satan, many Reformers used medieval theology, which was still the assumed belief system, when interpreting what the Bible means when it mentions him.[1] Much can also be said about how their view of Satan helped explain the evils they saw in the Roman Catholic Church.
Yet, while we can sympathize with both cultural influences and the more pressing matters the Reformers faced, this also informs why modern Protestantism carries on this belief system. Just as video games feature “save points” that allow players to rewind their game and try again if something goes wrong, the Reformation acts similarly for Protestants when we fear someone’s theology is going astray. Whether it’s the removal of the supernatural during the Enlightenment, the works-based righteousness of modernism, or the constant threats to the sufficiency of God’s word we face today, we want to look back to those of the 1500s to recenter ourselves on what is true.
And while there is immense value in what these Spirit-filled Christians can (and still do) teach us, there can be a danger in how much we emphasize the tradition of the Reformers as much as we value their biblical theology. When we see Luther shouting at the devil or claiming the pope was in cahoots with Satan, it’s tempting to think, “Who am I to disagree with one of the guys who brought the 5 Solas of the Reformation to the world? Martin Luther is the legend who nailed his 95 theses on the door of Wittenburg Church. Surely he has everything figured out.” And so Protestants incorporate the Reformers’ diabology[2] into our own beliefs just as much as men like Luther carried on the traditions of his own day.
As a final note, the very tone of Christianity shifted with the Protestant Reformation, and with it, the early rumblings of a personal devil fully bloomed. By rejecting the many false teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, Reformers emphasized personal holiness as much as corporate living. By not belonging to a single church entity, many Christians rediscovered the biblical teaching about personal responsibility, individual depravity, and how short each of us falls below God’s standards. That gave teeth to the idea that Satan isn’t just God’s enemy, with Christians taking part in a united war. Instead, Satan became the personal enemy of individuals, placing each of us in an independent war against this “almost god of evil.”
Puritanism (1500-1700)
In England, an influential group emerged from the Reformation. The Puritans got their name from their goal to “purify” the church of England from Roman Catholic influence. These men and women are well known for their commitment to holy living, rejection of worldliness, and wholehearted desire to submit to God and His word.
Yet, in their zeal, the Puritans also became known for their intense fear of witchcraft, the occult, and the power of Satan. Modeling the European belief that enemies of the state were in league with Satan, they saw the fight against Roman Catholicism as a battle against both false teachers and the Prince of Darkness. This fear of evil only intensified as they sailed to America and engaged with the supernatural worldviews of both Native Americans and the Puritans’ African slaves.
As a small community isolated in a new world surrounded by people they didn’t understand, and especially after some devastating conflicts with the land’s inhabitants, Satan’s supernatural threat to the Puritans only increased. Many are familiar with the Salem Witch Trials, but that is only one of many instances where colonists were imprisoned or executed under the accusation of witchcraft and alignment with the Evil One. Just as Europe saw enemies of the state as Satan’s allies, these settlers were constantly on guard against threats, whether in or outside their community.
The fears and superstitions of the Puritan settlers came from various sources. Generations of Puratinism had certainly inflated the idea of Satan to the point that it’s unsurprising their children would overreact to any perceived threat that he had infiltrated their community. However, these men and women carried one particular assumption that made these events possible. Simply put, they assumed they represented good in a world of bad.
By believing they were a small dot of light in an otherwise dark and hostile landscape, an attack from outside or within would be devastating. Previous bloody conflict with the Native Americans increased their fear of evil lurking on the outskirts of their civilization. Their inherited beliefs about witchcraft would have intensified the reality that similar evil could hide within their walls. Evil within and without worked in tandem toward one disastrous end – they desired to destroy a society that the Puritans assumed was pure and innocent. And as a group who loved the Bible, who else would lead these evil attacks but Satan himself?[3]
This worldview would come to dominate American thinking. As America grew in population and power, Satan still stalked the edges and interior of what most assumed was a divinely founded[4] land. And as we move closer to modern thinking, we’ll see Satan move from threatening a location to attacking individuals who likewise think they are pure and innocent.
[1] Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Mephistopheles: The devil in the modern world. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986. 30.
[2] Beliefs about the devil
[3] Poole, W. Scott. Satan in America: The Devil We Know. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. 1-67.
[4] See John Winthrop’s sermon titled “A Modell of Christian Charity.”
