Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Be Good for Satan's Sake

a man with a cartoon devil on one shoulder and angel on the other
Does the devil want me to be bad?

There is an interesting quirk in Christian theology that is easily missed. The average man on the street, even the average believer in the pew, has a view of Satan and temptation that doesn't quite take in the whole picture. Let's poke at it a bit and see if we can get a more nuanced understanding.

The flannel board theology we were all taught is simple: The devil is bad. The devil wants people to go to hell. Sin makes people go to hell. Therefore the devil wants people to sin. I'm going to argue that this view is ... incomplete.

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Our Proper Penance

flowers being handed through a fence
What do you do when you've wronged someone?

Stereotypically, men who get themselves into trouble buy their wives flowers or, if they really messed up, a car. A wife may make her husband's favorite meal or buy him that fishing pole he's been eyeing. But what do we do when we really, really mess up?