Michael Pacher (1435–1498), “Saint Augustine and the devil.”

A new level, a new devil. I couldn’t believe my ears when a young mother said this during a Bible study once. I rarely heard anyone talk so openly about the opposition that comes when you walk with Christ — even though our Presbyterian confessions speak of this reality. In the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 127 asks why we pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” The answer: . . . since our mortal enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh cease not to assault us, do Thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare . . .  .

Gustave Doré: depiction of Satan

Satan, in the three major Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the prince of evil spirits and adversary of God. Satan is traditionally understood as an angel (or sometimes a jinnī in Islam) who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven with other “fallen” angels before the creation of humankind. Ezekiel 28:14–18 and Isaiah 14:12–17 are the key Scripture  passages that support this understanding, and, in the New Testament, in Luke 10:18 Jesus states that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. In all three major Abrahamic religions, Satan is identified as the entity (a serpent in the Genesis account) that tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and was thus the catalyst for the fall of humankind. (For further discussion of Satan in Islam, see Iblīs. For further discussion of Satan in Jewish folklore, see Samael.)

Deals with the Devil Aren’t What They Used to Be

Tales of Faust’s bargain teased and consoled an earlier culture with the lure of freedom, the promise of a wider world. But Hell is everywhere now.

Giving the Devil his due

Satan’s removal from Church of England baptisms is surprising given his revival in both conservative Christianity and pop culture, says Philip Almond

The devils you know how Satan became a versatile stand-in for all manner of evil

From the three-headed man-eater of Dante’s Inferno to the Mephistopheles of German folklore, clad and caped in red in a Goethe-penned stage production, depictions of Satan have mutated into a fearsome multitude of pitchfork-wielding, fire-summoning and otherwise malevolent creatures. But how did a somewhat minor character from the Old Testament evolve into a versatile shorthand for all manner of human evil? Featuring a parade of the many meme-ified devils that have come to permeate the public imagination, this crafty animation from TED-Ed provides a brief history of how some of Satan’s most infamous forms came to be.

Giving the Devil his due

Satan’s removal from Church of England baptisms is surprising given his revival in both conservative Christianity and pop culture, says Philip Almond

Giving the Devil his due

Satan’s removal from Church of England baptisms is surprising given his revival in both conservative Christianity and pop culture, says Philip Almond

Thanksgiving Day in the United States

This week the U.S. celebrates the holiday of Thanksgiving, which has been an official national holiday since President Abraham Lincoln, after a campaign by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, declared it as such in 1863. In the modern consciousness, Thanksgiving is strongly associated with the near-mythological story of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (the English colonists) and their Wampanoag Indian neighbors, who shared a meal to celebrate the harvest in 1621. However, days of thanksgiving on a variety of occasions have been celebrated throughout American history. Among them have been days for giving thanks to the Creator for the ending of droughts and wars or in celebration of other events, such as the promulgation of the Constitution.