In a recent Sprint commercial the narrator declares, “I have need—no, I have a right to be unlimited.” Now, I know that the commercial is about having an I-phone with unlimited minutes, but if you listen to the whole commercial, consider the music, and look at the images, the religious overtones are hard to miss. It begins with “The miraculous is everywhere.” It concludes with the words, “I am unlimited.” Although this commercial is selling technology, it is not inviting us to worship technology or simple materialism. It is appealing to our worship of ourselves—our desire to transcend all limitations. It is a kind of Satanism: not the kind with people in black hoods chanting prayers backward in a graveyard; the kind that smiles and says we are all gods. I is very much in the spirit of Satan in Paradise Lost who declares, “I am self-created.”
I doubt that old fashioned idolatry will ever disappear, but in the post-Christian West idolatry is being replaced with Satanism lite. What little hints the Bible gives us about Satan’s fall tell us nothing about Satan calling upon the angels to worship some false god. Satan, especially as interpreted by John Milton, is simply wrapped up in worshiping himself. It is this spiritually, the worship of self, which is so popular today.
Many new age movements and books speak openly of realizing one’s own divinity. Some new age books even use Christian terms as they invite people to actuate their own “Christ consciousness” and realize that like Christ, they too are God. Pantheism can easily become a kind of self-worship if one follows the logic: god is in all things and I am a thing, therefore I am god.
Even our approach to traditional religion can be Satanic if it is centered on us. Many today choose a religion, not because they think it is true but because it suits their personal taste or style. Religion has become an expression of one’s lifestyle, not one’s convictions about reality. Increasingly the marketing of Christianity has emphasized a cool and hip Christian lifestyle and “what God can do for you”. Evidence of this self-worshiping approach to Christianity is seen in how few Christians actually forsake sin, deny themselves, and pay the cost of discipleship.
Pop psychology has offered us lessons on self-actualization, self-realization, but not much on self-denial. We have even had a magazine called Self. So much of American spirituality is infused with pragmatism that we ask not whether spirituality is true, but whether it is “working” for the person. When cutting themselves and crying out on top of Mount Carmel, the priests of Baal seemed, at least, to believe Baal actually existed. But today our beliefs are so often about what we would like to be true—not about what is.
In both Paradise Lost and Marlowe’s Faustus, Satan’s only expression of being unlimited is when he declares that wherever he goes, he is still in hell. He has downloaded all of hell into his heart. While uploading ourselves into “the cloud,” we should be careful not to download the seductive worship of ourselves. We should beware of “Satanism lite”.
