"If I Were the Devil," Church Edition

Borrowing from Paul Harvey

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60 years ago this week, radio icon Paul Harvey broadcast a monologue entitled “If I Were The Devil” (audio and transcript available here). In it, he shared a shockingly prescient list of items he believed Satan would aim to achieve in order to ensnare the United States, such as:

• Doubt in God, the Bible, and objective truth

• Lurid entertainment and the acceptance of pornography

• Widespread use of drugs, alcohol, and “tranquilizing” pills

• Churches that swapped Scripture for psychology, and that deified science

• Dangerous schools that gave education without virtue

Obviously Satan would be generally pleased with where things stand today, but it didn’t get that way overnight. It took strategy and deception, changing the way people thought and what they valued.

In this piece, I’d like to borrow Harvey’s concept and apply it to the church

Of course, if Satan could get his way, there wouldn’t be a church, but that’s not going to happen (Matthew 16:18). So, he has to settle for subverting and convincing us to do things that sound good but actually weaken the church.

So, if I were the devil and I wanted to undermine the modern church…

I would tell them it’s negative and pessimistic to focus on the church’s waning youth retention. I would tell them that the American church’s future matters little, since the church seems to be thriving in the third world. In short, I would tell them to stop caring about generational faithfulness.

I’d convince them that confrontational engagement with the world and calls for repentance are un-Christlike. I’d have them believe that true evangelism is done by keeping their teaching to themselves and hoping the world notices how nice they are. They would stop going and start trying to attract, instead.

I would have them buy into the stereotype that Christians are mean, judgmental, and unwelcoming so they would constantly accuse their own brethren and apologize to the world. Then they’d tell the world how awful churchgoers are before trying to convince the world to become churchgoers themselves, not seeing the glaring flaw in this strategy.

I’d twist the Scriptures so they’d believe that following Jesus means being a beautiful loser, convinced they are not supposed to influence the world.

I would encourage them to forsake local efforts for big budget regional and national gatherings that do little to bolster the local church or reach the lost.

I would lead them to believe that all God wants is for them to show up on Sunday, even if their mind is somewhere else and they’re looking at the clock the entire time.

I would let them ground their view of male-female roles in the culture’s teaching. I would show them that masculinity actually means capitulation and accommodation, and femininity means running the home and the church from the back. I would make submission and authority bad words.

I would make kids an optional lifestyle accessory.

For those who have kids, I would push them to believe that the children’s academic, athletic, and social success all come before their spiritual success. Sports on Sunday would matter more than church. Popularity and good grades would be a greater sign of a child’s achievements than their love for God.

I would aim to convince them that Biblical faithfulness requires them to constantly divide over each other’s beliefs on minor issues and call each other false teachers for any disagreement.

At the same time, I would convince the other half of them that all doctrinal stands are little more than petty infighting. I would convince them that God’s love should keep them from defending the inerrancy of Scripture, Biblical sexuality, and other disputed Biblical teachings.

I would have them fill their schedules up with busyness (both real busyness and social media and TV streaming busyness) that they have no time for personal or family devotions or church involvement.

Relatedly, I would urge them to be ruthlessly protective of the privacy of their homes, ceasing to hospitably invite people in. This combination would make them unceasingly present and available digitally, but never personally. They would know avatars of each other without ever really knowing each other.

“In other words, if I were the Devil... I'd just keep right on doing what he's doing.”

Good day!

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Notes

Fun episode of Think Deeper Podcast this week: “Were We Wrong? Think Deeper, Re-Examined.” Check it out at Focus Press

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