Demons Hate "Thoughts and Prayers"
In the latest episode of sexually fixated leftists murdering Christian children with a rifle, a side argument has arisen in which the Left ecosphere is trying to vilify peaceful people on the Right extending their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims.
Let’s not dance around things, but identify the Left’s implied argument here:
When the Right says “thoughts and prayers” they are expressing their opinion about how to stop school shootings from happening.
The actual way to stop school shootings is to take away average citizens’ rights to defend themselves from shootings.
Therefore, when Christians on the Right pray they are actually being assholes who just want, or at least accept, more kids being harmed with guns.
What hatred of prayer brings about this kind of thinking? Prayer is a natural thing, a good thing even, for people to do, especially when they are not in a position to help directly. They want God’s comfort and peace to help those who are in pain. To hear someone extend their prayers and assume that this constitutes their political position on the issue of gun violence reveals a materialistic cynicism in the listener. It reveals an inability in much of the Left to comprehend the possibility that anyone could exist in a spiritual reality such that even a part of their life transcends politics. It reveals that these people’s spirituality is their politics.
It’s not that our prayer lives are hermetically separate from our political opinions, but prayer serves a real purpose which is not politics. I think much of the Left cannot comprehend this. I pray that they someday do—but don’t tell them that; they’re likely to see my prayers for them as some kind of political violence.
We also have to come to terms with another spiritual reality that may explain this irrational hatred of prayer.
In the first chapter of Mark, we see that one of Jesus’s first recorded acts of ministry was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. There, He encountered a person possessed by an “unclean spirt.” Interestingly, the demon recognized and feared Jesus: “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24.)
I’ve always been reticent to blame things on demons. I haven’t been particularly sensitive to that aspect of spiritual reality. I’ve placed my faith in the Spirit to keep them away from me, and I guess I’ve assumed that I am safe without having to specifically discern whether demons are lurking in any given conversation. I guess my theology on demons is that they are powerless against me with God’s help so long as I place myself at God’s feet rather than attempt to elevate myself by any power other than Him.
Yet, I tend to see one thing about demons that seems to mark them all, they recognize Jesus and intensely hate and fear him. Who else would hear about the private supplications of believes to their God for the comfort of hurting people and react with rage?
I don’t see the Left reacting the same way to the prayers of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or anyone else. You might explain this by reference to strategic group politics, but you might also explain it by the modern religiosity of demons. If your goal was to draw people away from Jesus, your strategy would probably change with the times. In antiquity, you might convince people that praying to as many gods as possible ensured the most protection and blessings. In the ascendancy of Christianity, you might convince them that new prophets had arisen with new teachings. With the introduction of science, you might convince them that the new ideas explained away the Universe without God. And during times of society fracturing, you might convince people that their salvation lied in political victories.
For anyone led by demonic whisperings into making politics their entire spirituality, the use of prayer by Christians to heal social ills outside of politics would be devastating. The political program of the Left is to convince you of the exact opposite. “America cannot be healed by prayer,” they say, “it can only be healed by more bureaucracy, more regulations, and more of us telling you how you are allowed or not allowed to protect yourself.”
Jesus’s power to heal derails the message of fear that says only forcefully disarming you can protect you. “Only politics can save you.” If Christians invite Jesus into their problems, He’ll ruin everything the Left desires by healing them without state intervention. It is a twofold rebuke of demons who shriek and flee from His presence while thwarting their plans to replace politics as man’s religion instead of Jesus.
Now, I don’t claim to be certain about demons at work in the current debate. As I’ve said, I’m not particularly sensitive to that aspect of spirituality. But as I become more and more discerning as a Christian, I become more and more orthodox in my theology of demons. The ancient wisdom about demons had become embodied in my former rationalist mind as superstition. As I become wiser, I find that this had become a calcified carryover belief from my former rational life, and it is probably what demons would want me to believe. If God has fortified my soul against them, then the next best thing for them would be for me to keep quiet about their existence.
Whether it is demons or simple human hatred of faith, and Christian faith in particular, the lesson is the same. Your prayers are your spiritual discipline. Do not allow anyone who would push more evil into the world convince you that your prayers are your politics. Pray unceasingly for God to restore all things. And whether you believe kids would be made safer by disarming law abiding people or by allowing them to be armed, you can pray for the ones we haven’t been able to protect all the same.