On Friday evening, March 26, 2009, ABC’s Nightline program hosted a debate on the topic of “Does Satan Exist?” It is not as exciting as it sounds. The two-hour event was edited down to twenty minutes of air time. While it is the case that not all the comments were directly pertinent to the subject, many might have found them intriguing.
There were four individuals who were invited to take part. Taking the position that Satan does not exist were Deepak Chopra and “Rev.” Carlton Pearson. The former’s name is well-known. According to the Internet Wikipedia, Deepak is “an Indian-American medical doctor and writer.” He is heavily influenced by Eastern religion and is associated with the New Thought Movement in this country. He is credited with writing 36 books since 1987, including the following titles: Quantum Healing (1989), Perfect Health (1991), The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (1994), Everyday Immortality (1999), Grow Younger, Live Longer (2001), Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles (2003), and The Third Jesus (2008). Together with the fact that he named his son Gotham (a Batman fan?), we all should have some insight into his New Age leanings.
Carlton used to cast out demons, but now he no longer believes in Satan or demons, which prompts the question, “Was he deluded back in those days, or is he deluded now?” Answering “both” is probably a safe response. In 2006 he wrote The Gospel of Inclusion, which means he is a Universalist—he believes that everyone will be saved and that they can believe whatever religion they fancy. He was educated at Oral Roberts University, but they removed him from their Board of Directors when he got too flaky even for them (which is not easy to do). He also formerly spoke on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. One course said that the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops has labeled him a heretic.
The other two participants believe in Satan’s existence—one of them is Annie Lobert, a former “escort” in the city of Las Vegas, who spent more than a decade as a “sex” worker before leaving that lifestyle. She was nearly killed by her “boss,” and later nearly killed herself with drugs. She has formed the recovery group, Hookers for Jesus, and tries to help other women out of that bondage.
The fourth disputant was Mark Driscoll, the “preaching pastor” of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, a congregation of 7,500. He too is an author and co-founder of the Acts 29 Network. Possibly he was invited to participate since the event took place in his church building. He consistently made the best comments of anyone that evening.
Deepak
Since this writer did not know about the event in time to tape it, he is depending on the quotes and descriptions of Amy Letinsky, whose name appears first when referencing the debate. The procedure used here will be to present the quote or the summary and then comment on it.
Deepak said: “Healthy people do not have any need for Satan.” Neither do unhealthy people, but they follow his will just the same. This comment is framed in an odd way. Has anyone ever said, “I have a real need for Satan in my life”? Mankind did not invent the devil because we need him. He is the one who needs us—to do his bidding. Eve did not “need” Satan, but he helped her on the pathway to sin. The message of Christianity is not that Satan forced us to sin or that he is always the cause of our disobedience, but he frequently plays a part. David, for example, was a spiritually healthy king and a “man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). He certainly did not need Satan, but he listened to him, which resulted in shame.
Does that incident prove that David had no free will? No, he overcame who knows how many other temptations. When David repented, he did not blame his actions on Satan; he said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13). He did mention the sinful influence that exists in the world as a factor (Ps. 51:5), which is certainly reasonable, but he laid the blame upon himself.
Deepak also said: “Be done with Satan and confront your own issues.” Jesus overcame temptations in the wilderness and was “done with Satan,” but Satan was not done with Him; he only “departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Would Deepak, having been educated in all the ways of the Hindus, have advised the Lord not to worry about Satan but just confront His own issues? Jesus did not have any issues. Deepak’s New Age theology denies reality and the truths that are taught in the Scriptures.
Deepak affirmed: “Evil has only appeared in the world when human beings have shown up.” In one sense he speaks the truth, although he did not intend to do so. God created the world and called it very good. Man had free will, however; therefore Satan showed up to tempt them to sin. As everyone knows, he succeeded. Evil, then, appeared, because Satan showed up to prompt the first pair to choose disobedience to God. Probably what Deepak meant is that only humans are to blame for evil, but that view ignores Satan’s role in encouraging rebellion.
Many of the statements made did not relate to Satan but to Jesus and the Bible. Most of these were edited out of the television segment. But Deepak confidently asserted that, while he did not trust his mind, “I do trust my spirit implicitly.” Really? Which did he use in writing his 36 books? This statement sounds the same as the one who says, “I may not be right, but at least I am sincere,” which is unacceptable to God: True worshipers must worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). Understanding truth (John 8:31-32) involves the mind’s ability to think and reason correctly. It is not too reassuring to hear someone say that he cannot trust his mind.
Another tangential remark that Deepak made was: “Our goal is to seek the enlightenment Jesus spoke of.” The word enlightenment does not appear in the entire Bible, although enlighten, enlightened, and enlightening are found, but they are never used by Jesus. En-lighten is found only in Psalm 18:28, and enlightening is used only in Psalm 19:8, where we read: “The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Enlightenment is not taught in the Scriptures as some mystical process; it occurs when we read and understand the Scriptures. The word enlightened is used twice is the New Testament but not by Jesus. Paul uses it once (Eph. 1:17-18), and so does the writer of Hebrews (6:4). In neither instance do the writers of the Word of God use the word in the same way that Deepak would.
To round off our sixpack of Deepak quotes, he remarked, “As soon as you define God, you limit God.” Even if you define Him as limitless? The problem that this self-help guru has is that he apparently does not see that God has defined Himself. He has declared Himself to be eternal (Ex. 3:14), light (1 John 1:5), jealous (Ex. 20:5), holy (Lev. 11:44), love (1 John 4:8), just (Isa. 45:21), the God of all grace (1 Peter 5:10), merciful (Deut. 4:31), et al. God has not limited Himself in providing all these definitions; He has explained and clarified Himself. What kind of being would He be if He did not define Himself?
Carlton
Whereas Deepak Chopra tries to manipulate Jesus and the Bible into agreeing with his theology, Carlton Pearson plainly does not believe it and does not hesitate to contradict it. Concerning Satan, he seems to agree with Deepak that we invent him to explain things. “We were prepared to meet the devil, and he showed up. He always shows up when you have faith in him.” If he is referring to casting out demons here, he is probably right. People often get what they expect will happen. Those who have seen The Exorcist have a certain idea of what the devil does to people and the difficulty there will be in getting purged.
Or perhaps they have read or heard various tales of what this is like. However, the true unclean spirits are no longer in the land (Zech. 13:2). In all of the New Testament there is no formula for getting rid of demons. When Jesus and the apostles did it, they spoke with authority, and the demon departed, perhaps convulsing a poor victim on his way out (Mark 9:26), but this simple solution would not make much of a Hollywood movie. None of the New Testament writers give any instructions whatsoever to the young preachers or to the churches for casting out demons. This may be the one Carlton is correct on—that these exorcisms are only events that match psychological expectations.
Carlton wondered how, since all that God created was good, could He create bad? How does this question help? That bad exists is undeniable. It had to come from somewhere. The fact is that God did create everything good, but in allowing free will for the angels first and then man afterward, He opened the door to the possibility for evil to exist. He gave everyone sufficient reasons to trust in Him (thus obeying Him), but Satan desired to depend upon himself rather than God. Not content to entice other angels to follow him, he could not wait to invade the realm of human beings. God did not create bad; His created beings, displaying great ingratitude, chose to depart from the good, thus bringing evil into existence.
Most of the time Carlton made bizarre attacks upon Jesus and the Bible. He called Jesus’ virgin birth part of “mythological Christianity,” along with the concept of the devil. What he reveals in statements like these is that he does not really believe anything that the Bible teaches.
Other comments confirm this attitude. “I believe in the mystical Jesus rather than the mythical Jesus.” He evidently thinks the Jesus defined and described in the Scriptures is the mythical one—even though no one thought so for centuries. He prefers the “mystical one,” and one wonders where we might go to find such an individual. Do we sit with our legs crossed on the floor, chanting, “Ommmm”? Obviously, Carlton is referring to the subjective Jesus—the one a person makes up so that He can be just what he wants.
At one point the moderator asked Carlton if he just picked and chose what he wanted to believe from the Bible, and he answered, “Actually, yes!” The audience could not help laughing at this statement; so he tried to justify his position by claiming that Bible translations were inaccurate, and the Bible is not trustworthy. The audience instinctively knew who was not trustworthy. Certainly, no Bible translation is absolutely perfect, but we have several translations to compare in addition to the original Greek and numerous lexicons and commentaries. His insinuation is absurd.
He continues by saying: “Christianity has borrowed a lot of myth. We cannot prove any of the letters to be authentic.” The first assertion here cannot be proven; those claiming to be Christians incorporated myths into their manmade traditions after the Bible was written (such as December 25th being the birthday of Jesus), but those things are not in the Bible. Concerning the second slur against the letters, since most of them have been accepted as authentic from the time they were composed (or shortly thereafter), a better question would be, “Can you prove that any of the letters are forgeries or clearly not authentic?”
Carlton talks about what some believe in African “spiritism” and “voodoo,” attempting to reconcile those things with being a “Christian.” What? On the other hand, he says: “Jesus is not to be worshiped.” That will be news to the four living creatures, the 24 elders, and many angels who said with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12). After having the arrogance to say that Jesus is not to be worshiped, Carlton coos: “I think I have some measure of the anointing.” Is there any need to comment on his self-assessment?
His explanation for evil people, such as Adolph Hitler, and evil events, such as the chimp attacking the unfortunate woman in Connecticut, is the “animalistic spirit.” Oh. That might clear everything up—except for the tiny little question, “Where did the ‘animalistic spirit’ come from?” Did God create that, or did it just evolve?
A final Carlton comment concerned “most fundamentalists of any religion—their thinking is obscured.” If Carlton Pearson is the standard of clear thinking, all of us who actually believe the Bible should take that intended insult as a compliment. We think we are reasonable and logical; we have debated atheists before and have found that we have nothing to fear.
Annie Lobert
As the reader can tell, this was not a debate in the usual sense of the word. Usually, someone is given ten minutes to a half hour to state a case, and the other side responds. This event was more like being offered appetizers than a full course meal.
Amy Lobert did express belief in Satan and demons. She said: “I saw demons, was raped by them…. When I came to, I saw red eyes and black faces. How do you explain the face, the feeling that you’re being pulled into hell?” Apparently, she means these things literally, which poses a problem for her credibility, since we do not have a single report in the New Testament of demons committing sexual assaults upon women or trying to pull them down to hell. She has made it no secret that she was a drug user, also, and that might explain some of the things she describes.
She did, however, profess that the Bible is “the Word of God,” that “God loves sex in the context of marriage,” that “God is love,” and that God and the devil are both real. She is correct in these matters (Heb. 13:4). She erred, however, in saying: “You can’t have one without the other.” God existed from eternity without the devil. After the judgment both will continue to exist—but not together. Heaven and hell will be two mutually exclusive kingdoms forever.
Mark Driscoll
He probably gave the best, most Scriptural answers of anyone that evening. On free will, he made the following appropriate assessment: “If you don’t have choice, you don’t have love.” God could have created all of us to love Him, but what would it be worth? Choosing Him over all alternatives redounds to His glory. Mark also correctly affirmed: “I put my faith in the man that this book (pointing to the Bible) tells the story of.” “He is the true God and eternal life.”
To Deepak, he pointed out a flaw in his ideology: “There are more wars and death than ever at the same time there is more enlightenment.” He added: “If you believe that everything is one, you can’t believe in good and evil,” which is a valid point. The fact is that New Agers do not believe in the concept of evil. To Carlton he asked, “You believe in the resurrection and not the devil?” Say, why was it again that Jesus was crucified in the first place—something to do with sin? He also wondered if Carlton would say that it was bad if he punched him. These philosophical lightweights leave themselves open to this type of ridicule.
These seem to be the core comments of the evening, and the “debate” did stir up quite a bit of interest. The format was geared more toward that of discussion than a legitimate delving into the topic. Probably, however, we should be grateful to ABC for even giving the subject this type of exposure. If it causes just a few people to think seriously about sin and salvation, it will have been worth sifting through all the errors there to find it.