As Christian authors of speculative fiction writing about spiritual warfare, about facing the Devil in combat, we may chose to include the Devil in the story. Or we may write a character inspired by Satan, but not under that name. Or perhaps we’d chose not to directly write about spiritual war at all, focusing on other themes. But overall we need to realize that when we are discussing spiritual warfare (if we do so), we are talking about fighting the works of the Devil–actions inspired and directed by Satan.

Maybe ironically, our most important tools in this continual spiritual battle derive from us focusing on obeying God (and of course Jesus) through the power of the Holy Spirit, not on us performing special prayers or actions to keep the Devil at bay (though praying against Satan is a real thing and can be useful). Remember, as identified in the last two posts in this series, the Devil’s primary goal is to corrupt by both getting God’s people to violate what they know is true (by committing sin) and to believe things that are not true (by persuasively presenting false doctrine). We combat these main goals by living genuinely righteous lives that honor God and by understanding and defending truth. Not by directly going against Satan–though we need to be aware of the Devil and alert to what he does.

This topic is bigger than one post, so this first part will address what the Bible says about spiritual war and the next post will offer suggestions on how Christian writers can apply an understanding of spiritual warfare to our works of fiction. Or in other words, how our artistic works can have an important role in the spiritual war that rages around us at all times, though largely invisible to our eyes (like cyberwarfare).

The tightrope walker’s irony as related to spiritual war:

Crossing between the two Eureka towers in Melbourne, 300 meters up, eyes looking out. Image credit: youtube

The “tightrope walker’s irony” is a phrase I may be inventing–I don’t recall hearing it elsewhere. But what I mean is the tightrope walker’s most important job is to stay on the rope he or she walks across. There are a number of things tightrope walkers do to perform this act. They often bend the knees a little and they frequently carry a pole held horizontally to help them balance. They maintain awareness of the rope at all times, but what they don’t do is actually look at the rope, at least not near their feet. Ironically, looking down at the rope hurts their ability to stay on it. Their gaze remains fixed in parallel to the rope, or at most, looking at the rope in the distance. They do not focus down on the part of the rope their feet touch.

This irony explains why the Devil is mentioned many times in Scripture yet is not the primary focus of any part of Scripture. Our war with the Devil is real–yet we win mainly by focusing on God rather than Satan. In the spiritual war we fight, we mainly vanquish evil by being good, not by trying to destroy evil. Though in fact, we need to be aware of evil and confront it directly at times–especially in refusing to accommodate sin and standing against destructively false ideas of who God is and of God’s purposes and plans.

The Armor of God

Image credit: Moreno Hills SDA Church

The most important passage of the Bible that addresses spiritual war is one most Christians are very familiar with. The armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-18 tells us specifically how to face “the wiles of the Devil” or “strategies of the Devil” or “schemes,” depending on translation (verse 11). Verses 11 and 12 make it very clear our primary enemies are not human, they are spiritual powers, reinforcing the importance of Satan in this discussion. Yet verse 10 summarizes that our response to spiritual war is to focus on God, to stand in his might, which is why being aware of the enemy is necessary, but being obsessed by him is not.

Note verse 14 starts listing what the armor is–and it isn’t some kind of magical glowing weaponry our spiritual selves adopt to protect us against invisible weapons headed our way–though that imagery is powerful and useful in stories to a degree. The armor are a set of traits needed for spiritual war, a set of qualities that directly challenge what Satan is trying to accomplish in spiritual warfare. The items are not listed in the order one first acquires them on becoming a Christian or else the “helmet of salvation” would be listed sooner. The items are listed in order of their usefulness in spiritual warfare.

Truth is the first item listed in the armor–because as I explained last week, Satan is primarily in the business of a type of war that parallels “Information Operations,” negatively or even dismissively called “propaganda.” Like in case of the serpent speaking with Eve, not all that Satan says is entirely false. But falsehood is an important element in his program to get Christians to deny God in practice by living in sin or to believe untruth. So truth, as in knowing truth, practicing truth, and speaking truth, is a top priority for Christians to succeed in spiritual warfare.

Righteousness comes second on the list. Note that since I think the “armor of God” is an extended metaphor rather than an invisible spiritual reality (as in invisible magical glowing armor), I don’t think that righteousness being equated to a breastplate is nearly as important as the role of righteousness itself. Since one of the main goals of Satan is to tempt Christians to sin, living a life in which a person submits to God and through the power of the Holy Spirit expresses the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) i.e. living a righteous life that avoids sin, prevents the Devil from obtaining one of his primary objectives in spiritual warfare. It also means that if you are living in habitual sin, you are in effect serving the Devil and fulfilling his will. Righteousness matters!

Preparation (of the gospel of peace). This attribute is slightly controversial because it’s a phrase and which element is more important? The preparation (or “readiness”)? The gospel? Or the peace? Different translations and commentaries put emphasis on different elements, but I’d say after reading this in Greek and studying a bit that the most important part is to get ready or prepare–but the preparation isn’t generalized. It’s a specific kind of preparation, one that opens the door for the “gospel of peace.” Again, not everyone agrees on this passage but I believe this means a person has to practice, learn, and study as well as build good relations with others in order to move forward (note this is compared to footwear) to share the gospel (which gives peace but also is enabled by peaceable relations).

The “peace” part I think ties into the end of 2 Timothy 2 (verses 24-26) in which the Bible says the follower of God should not quarrel but be gentle to all, not allowing falsehood to pass by with no comment, but to confront it “in humility correcting those in opposition,” with the hope that “they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil” since they have been “taken captive by him to do his will” via their false ideas. (By the way, I would not claim to have mastered gentleness as this passage describes it–but I do recognize it as important and it’s something I’m working to achieve.) I think the “peace” part of “the preparation of the gospel of peace” likewise relates to having peaceful relationships (as much as is possible), which I think relates to presenting the gospel not in pride, but “in humility.”

So the third attribute stands on its own but also shapes how we are to use truth and righteousness. With preparation–and with a goal of sharing the gospel that both brings peace and which is assisted by peaceable relations.

Faith, which is likened to a shield is specifically said to “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16b NKJV). This indicates that doubt is one of Satan’s primary methods of attack, because “doubt” is probably the correct antonym of “faith” in this passage. But I think the power of doubt has wound up being overemphasized by some people who look at this passage. Yes, doubt is a tool Satan uses. Recall how the serpent raised the question “Did God say?” in Genesis 3:1–but doubt wasn’t the real point and this passage on the armor of God isn’t just about doubt. Doubt was the door opener to suggesting disobeying God brings benefits (knowing good and evil) and God’s motives are corrupt (he is trying to withhold unfairly). Getting believers to doubt God is one of the Devil’s weapons but by no means the only one. And we deal with doubts not just with faith I would say, but also with truth and preparation and perhaps also even with righteousness. But faith is the primary way to face doubt, whereas doubt is a tool to getting believers to believe false things and adopt sinful lives.

Salvation is almost mentioned as an afterthought in Ephesians 6, which seems odd because believers would think salvation is primary. Maybe faith comes before salvation (or the two simultaneously) but clearly a person is not righteous, does not know very much truth, and isn’t very prepared to share the gospel of peace before first finding salvation. Likewise in an analogy of armor, warriors in the real world who have no other protection at all will either first acquire a shield or a helmet and then worry about a breastplate later. But this passage is not a treatise on how to live a successful Christian life or how to prepare for physical combat. It’s not about how to please God or how to grow as a Christian. While the armor of God is metaphorical, the spiritual warfare the armor is needed for isn’t metaphorical. Yes, first, you need to know the Lord before you can do anything else, but for those to whom this passage was first written, Christians in Ephesus, the things they most needed to fight the Devil were truth and righteousness, because that’s where the Devil mostly attacks. Yes, also preparation, faith, and most basically salvation have to be in there, too. But salvation is a requirement to be in spiritual warfare at all, rather than a specific attribute to cultivate, unlike truth, righteousness, preparation, and faith.

Word of God. I’ve heard many commentators mention that while the rest of the armor is defensive, the “sword of the spirit,” a.k.a. “the word of God” is the only offensive weapon. The problem I have with this interpretation is the next thing listed is prayer, which is also a weapon of spiritual war, one I would say has value in both offense and defense. But the metaphor dropped away by the time prayer is brought up. I guess if the metaphor had continued, prayer could have been compared to arrows, or Roman javelins–pila, flying to support our friends under attack. But I would say the flow of thought of the passage instead had moved to things that are basic and fundamental and which support what is needed for spiritual war. While the word of God can be a weapon against Satan in a way, it’s main purpose is to feed into the truth and righteousness and even the faith that we need to stand against the schemes of Satan. And when we prepare the Gospel, it’s our source of preparation, what we prepare from. So the word of God is basic, foundational to the other attributes used in spiritual war, in the same way salvation is, so with salvation winds up being listed near the last. Because this passage, again, is not about the Christian life in general, it’s about spiritual war and gives what we need to fight the enemy.

Prayer is the last thing listed, though as I already mentioned, the metaphor of armor came to an end before prayer is found in the text of Ephesians 6. But the passage makes it plain that prayer helps all believers (including ourselves) face the temptations to sin and the untruths that Satan tries to bring into the lives of our fellow Christian believers.

Notice a number of major Christian attributes are not mentioned at all in Ephesians 6. Again, this passage isn’t all about the Christian life, but instead about how to fight spiritual warfare. But love is indirectly in the passage in that the reason why the gospel is one of peace is because it’s a gospel of love. And the preparation of the gospel in terms of building good relations is fueled by love. But loving others does not include giving up on telling the truth and living righteously–though love ought to permeate how truth and righteousness function for us.

Bringing Every Thought Captive

II Corinthians 10:3-6 is a passage often misunderstood. It’s about spiritual war, but it’s in the middle of Paul correcting some misbehavior on the part of infamously naughty Corinthian church. Let me quote it (NKJV):

³ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. ⁴ For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Without diving too deep into the context and passage here, the “when your obedience is fulfilled” part reveals what I already said is true. Paul was dealing with some Corinthian disobedience/misbehavior and was specifically handling the issue of them questioning his authority, and in the midst of that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he says in effect the corrections he’s giving them are actually an element of spiritual warfare. He isn’t just correcting them for carnal purposes, but spiritual ones. The “casting down arguments” doesn’t only refer to something you do within your own mind as many commentators take this passage, but mainly refers to confronting untruth. Just as Paul was in the midst of doing with this letter to Corinth, because as long as they believed and practiced untruth they were in effect exalting themselves “against the knowledge of God,” something Paul knew he needed to correct. (Even though they were Christians! Even though Paul loved them!)

This passage shows that part of fighting spiritual warfare is pointing out untruth. Advancing truth, speaking truth, confronting falsehood are what is meant by “casting down arguments” and “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” This passage isn’t just about internal-in-your-own-mind stuff, though I’d say you need to have your own mind straight before addressing others. This passage doesn’t say to be mean, angry, or unloving (other parts of the Bible make it clear that confrontation should be “in humility”–as I already quoted–and with love), but it does say that confronting falsehood is part of spiritual war. Which matches up with what I said last week about spiritual war being like Information Operations. We need to confront false messages and ensure the true message of God gets out.

Submit to God in Vigilance

James 4:7b famously says, “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” To pick up the context of that fragment, let’s look at the rest of verse 7 and verse 8 (NKJV):

⁷ Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Our spiritual life consists primarily in connecting to God through knowing truth and living righteously through our relationship with God, empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s why James 4 first talks about submitting to God before talking about the Devil and continues talking about the relationship to God after mentioning Satan, saying in very clear terms that living righteously is not optional–in context that’s because it’s part of the spiritual war. But we don’t live that way to defeat Satan per se–we ought to live that way because we love God and desire to draw near to him. But, living for God generally speaking, including obeying his will and understanding his truth, is the primary way to win the spiritual war. 

Yet if all that’s true, why does I Peter 5:8 tell us to be vigilant about the Devil, or to rephrase that, to be alert, to take the threat seriously, to recognize the spiritual war is real? Why does that matter if all we need to do to be on the winning side of the spiritual war is to obey God? Why do we need to think about Satan at all?

Well, we don’t have to focus on Satan, actually. We don’t. But we should be aware that Satan is working in the world. Being aware of the Devil should affect how we pray for others and ourselves–we should pray God protects us and others from temptation and evil (as Jesus taught, see Matthew 6:13 and Luke 11:4). Because we know that’s part of the war. We also should realize the Devil has influence in this world–so we should be alert to false messages, false teaching, and sin, even among people we know are Christians, because we know Satan is active in the spiritual war and we know his goals include getting Christians to unwittingly do his wishes. That doesn’t mean we live in fear or panic–not at all, because we know God is much greater than Satan and as long as we remain close to God, were are safe from what Satan can do to us.

But we should be alert, vigilant, and aware of the fact that our faith lies in God, not our fellow human beings. We need to pray for our friends and Christian leaders and in gentleness point out if they go astray. Not out of fear of Satan, but because we understand how spiritual warfare works and what our role is in fighting that war.

How Christian artists and authors can make specific contributions to the spiritual war I’ll look at this upcoming week. But for now, what are your reactions to this article? Does it make sense to you that spiritual warfare is both vitally important and also something we don’t need to focus on (instead we focus on God)? Have you heard other thoughts or interpretations about the armor of God or other passages I’ve mentioned? Any other input? If so, please mention them in the comments below.

As I get older and hopefully wiser, I find myself realizing how much drama and excitement there is in the real world, as opposed to my younger mentality where I thought that reality was boring and that the worlds of imaginations were far more interesting. Yet as I learn more about the world that God has made as an expression of His glory, I also learn how much of it truly sounds like fantasy.

I’ve been an armchair theoretical physics fan for a couple of decades now. My favorite book on the subject is Dr. Michio Kaku’s romp through hyperspace, appropriately titled Hyperspace (and I will never get tired of telling anyone who will listen that Dr. Kaku once called my house when I was sixteen to interview me for his radio show after I had emailed my praises for his futuristic tome Visions). String theory, ten dimensions, wormholes, particles and waves – all that stuff really excited me as a teenager. Still does, though not with the same giddiness. These days, it’s more of, “Man, isn’t God amazing?”

One quiet evening, I was perusing the titles on Amazon Prime and came across an episode of Nova called Einstein’s Quantum Riddle and I gave it a go. The program details the discovery of quantum physics and Einstein’s refusal to acknowledge “quantum entanglement,” which essentially means that two particles can somehow be linked across the expanse of space and act and react at the same time despite their vast separation. It sounds ridiculous at first but the math is solid, and later experiments showed it to indeed be a legitimate phenomenon. Scientists are still baffled as to how this could actually take place but it does, and this is leading to breakthroughs in quantum computing that exceed our wildest imaginations.

As I was watching the program, I found myself shaking my head along with Einstein. How can particles be linked across space like that? Relativity shows that nothing can travel faster than light, so how could a signal from one particle to another traverse astronomical distances instantaneously? One scientist put it simply, “Perhaps there is no such thing as space.” For weeks I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that, and I’m still reeling.

We humans, as rational beings, want everything to make sense. Einstein had his world-changing theory of relativity show very beautifully how time and space interact, and then quantum physics came along and caused major disruptions, much to his consternation. There have been numerous attempts to reconcile quantum physics and relativity, with string theory being the closest candidate, but the “Theory of Everything” remains elusive. I wish general and special relativity explained everything because it would feel so nice and satisfying, or if quantum physics was the blueprint for the entire universe, but we also know that relativity is still in play. It’s frustrating that such “nonsense” winds up being true.

Yet through all the upheavals and discoveries and brick walls, God’s glory is magnified, not diminished. There is a tendency for academics and scientists to think, “The more I know, the smaller God becomes,” when in fact it should be the opposite. Even Albert Einstein, a pantheist with a very shaky concept of God, said about quantum mechanics: “The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One’s secrets.” The more we learn, the more in awe we should be of God’s power and creativity. And while it may cause much frustration and anguish for the brilliant minds here on Earth, it it more than worth the chase.

If it’s in the Bible, it means something, probably something important. That viewpoint is somewhat axiomatic, but never fails to surprise me. If I’m being honest, there are a lot of things in the Bible that tend to go right past me until someone smarter than I am calls my attention to them. A good example is the dimensions Noah was given to build his ark. Okay, I might say to myself, it’s big.

And then someone who knows a thing or two about the size of a cubit and how a ship’s hauling capacity (called displacement) is measured runs the numbers and discovers the ark has roughly the same displacement as the Titanic (the Titanic!) and the dimensions were designed to make it incredibly stable in rough seas. That’s the kind of information that’s always catching me by surprise and makes me smile. It’s just cool.

That brings us to the gifts of the magi, or wise men: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is obvious. It’s been the store of value for thousands of years and its use is all over the Old Testament books of the Bible, especially in the description given for building the temple and the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon’s vast wealth is described in the amount of gold he accumulated. If you want a real eye-opener, here’s a little research on just how much wealth Solomon collected each year in gold: $1.2 billion dollars! This is calculated from 666 talents of gold (1 Kings 10:14) with a mean weight of 75 pounds per talent, 16 ounces per pound and the current dollar value of gold at roughly $1,500 dollars per ounce). And remember, this is real, tangible wealth.

It’s no wonder that gold was the Old Testament symbol of kings. When the magi brought gold to honor Jesus, they were proclaiming him king. More, they were proclaiming him to be the ultimate king, in their eastern tradition, the “king of kings.”

Given the plot and structure of books I’ve written in the past, it may be surprising to some that I was raised in a very Protestant household. I’ve read with amusement those reviews that have postulated that I must have been raised in a Roman Catholic household, if not some other orthodox background. I have to admit that I really had no idea that some churches still burned incense as part of their services until I attended an Anglican Church. After a bit of reading (and to be bluntly honest, paying attention when I was reading) I noticed that the high priest of Israel burned incense in the temple on the Day of Atonement. One particular interpretation of this act appeals to me. The smoke of the incense was to fill the Holy of Holies and hide God who dwelt on the mercy seat in order that the high priest might be there in the presence of God without dying. To see God was to die.

When the magi brought frankincense to Jesus, they proclaimed him to be their high priest. The importance of this second gift is difficult to overstate. In the Old Testament tradition, the kings came from the tribe of Judah, while the priests came from the tribe of Levi. Thus, the two powers were to be kept separate. Yet, in the birth of Jesus, the two powers were combined and the presence of the two gifts together foreshadows Jesus’s role as both king and priest for the people. This is explained more fully in the New Testament book of Hebrews when the author claims that Jesus is of the order of Melchizedek, who was both priest and king to his people.

The last gift of the magi, myrrh, is the most solemn, but no less prophetic. An embalming oil, Myrrh symbolized the Christ’s mortality as a man. Imagine bringing a gift to the Messiah proclaiming his suffering and death. What could be more antithetical to the previous two gifts than myrrh? How could they stand it? With this last gift, the magi proclaimed that all three powers God had ordained in the Old Testament had come together in the birth and person of Jesus Christ and would be fulfilled. Gold proclaimed Him to be our king, the one who would rule over his people, and indeed the whole of creation, forever and ever. Frankincense announced that He would be our high priest, intervening with God, Himself, on our behalf, offering prayers and intercessions for us. And finally, myrrh revealed that our King and Priest, God forever, was somehow a mortal man would also serve as our prophet, a man who would die in the place of his people.

The study of the gifts of the magi is a study without end. Each reference leads to another revelation, an additional unveiling of who Jesus is, but it’s a study that begs to be undertaken. It was a study that I undertook before I wrote The End of the Magi. I hope this Christmas everyone will study and appreciate the enormity of what was being said with those gifts. Come and behold Him!

Patrick Carr and his novel The End of the Magi will feature in this month’s Lorehaven magazine.

We interview Patrick and review The End of the Magi as well as review thirteen more great Christian-made fantastical novels.

Subscribe for free here and get notified as soon as this issue is available for download!

To contact Patrick about this book or any of his fantasies you will find him at his website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Two weeks ago I wrote an article for Speculative Faith that used the Bible, focused on the Epistles, to in detail discuss what the Bible says about what Satan (a.k.a. the Devil) is trying to accomplish in the world. Or in military terms, what are his objectives, because his most basic desire can be more simply summarized as hating God and God’s works. But that most basic desire is accomplished by a number of objectives we know about from the Bible, and once we know Satan’s objectives, we can understand by comparison with human warfare what kind of war the Devil fights. Because there are many kinds of human warfare–and which kind is most like the kind of war the Devil engages in?

While discussing what kind of war the Devil fights, we’ll also look at how knowing this could inspire story ideas that cover spiritual warfare.

So to summarize the objectives I laid out two weeks ago, what are Satan’s goals according to the Epistles?

1. Primarily to tempt Christians not only to sin, but to live lives under the control of sin (of numerous kinds, but to include sexual sin). (Two of many passages: I Timothy 5:14-15 and I John 3:8)
2. To delude Christians and non-Christians alike into believing things that are not true concerning spiritual realities (a.k.a. false doctrine or false attitudes). (Example passage: II Timothy 2:24-26)
3. To insert false believers and teachers into Christian congregations–people who appear to be believers, but are working Satan’s will. (Examples: Matthew 13:39; II Corinthians 11:13-14)
4. To motivate human beings to kill followers of God as a fall-back position to corrupting them through sin and false doctrine. Or perhaps, seek to kill believers directly. (Hebrews 2:14)
5. To remove information about the Gospel from as many unbelieving minds as possible. (Luke 8:12).
6. To at times possess the bodies of human beings, but based on the Epistles, this would have to be a minor objective. (Likewise, the Epistles don’t absolutely rule out demonic possession or occupation of physical places, but never mentions that happening directly, so at most this would be a minor objective.)
7. To otherwise oppose any work of ministry. (I Thessalonians 2:18 and II Corinthians 12:7)
8. To do all of the above with an eye to maintaining control of the systems of the world. (Example passages: Ephesians 2:2 and Ephesians 6:12)

A common theme of most of the above is influence. The Devil works through influence and control of information. So it would seem at first glance that the best analogy with the kind of war Satan is fighting is that he’s engaged in information warfare–or as the US military calls it, “Information Operations” or IO.

But wait a minute, I think I need to step back and explain some basics about warfare here before talking about IO. You see, I think a lot of people tend to think that the goal of war is to kill as many of the enemy of possible while avoiding having the enemy kill your people. So warfare in the mind of many is mainly about killing. But that’s not actually true–at least hardly ever.

The goal of warfare in general is to get the enemy to accept (or bend to) the attacker’s will. So a war launched to take territory or to capture valuable goods (a.k.a. “spoils of war”) which has been the motivation for the vast majority of wars fought in human history, is about getting the enemy to give up his claims to a patch of land or a set of possessions. To use force to impose the attacker’s will on the enemy, so that the enemy gives up the possessions the attacker wants. Or to get the enemy to accept the new ruling monarch or the new government system or the new religion–or some other specific goal.

Of course if the mere threat of force can obtain the compliance, all the better. It’s incredibly rare in the history of the world for an attacking army not to accept a surrender without a fight. Again, the point of a war is in general to gain objectives, to bend the enemy to your will–not to kill as many as possible.

If the defender doesn’t roll over and surrender without a fight, it may be necessary to damage an enemy army to such a degree that it cannot defend what it wants to defend–it can no longer resist–even though it would like to. In which case it is forced to retreat or sign a treaty or otherwise yield up what it possesses. Still, unless the defender chooses to fight to the last man–which almost never happens in warfare–what is actually happening is the loser of the war eventually surrenders to the winner.

The only time this isn’t wholly true is if the goal of warfare is genocide–in the case of genocide, the actual goal is to kill all the enemy. But in fact, true deliberate genocide is uncommon in the history of warfare. Almost all war that human beings fight is actually about breaking the enemy’s will to resist and getting them to comply with a set of goals. I.e. warfare, even physical warfare, is mainly about getting people to comply with a specific claim, desire, or idea. Even a military operation with the goal of genocide would actually prefer the enemy accept what’s happening and stop resisting against it so they no longer represent a danger.

So with the understanding that all warfare seeks to change the opinion of the enemy, at least to the point of agreeing to surrender, we can see there are many means by which warfare is fought. Sometimes types of warfare is identified by the arena in which it’s fought–like naval warfare or air war. Sometimes warfare is identified by the kinds of weapons used–like artillery (or indirect fire) war. Sometimes war is identified by the means by which the war takes place, such as with “Psychological Operations” or “propaganda” or “Information Warfare.” (Note all three of the terms I just used have a similar though not identical meaning.)

Cyberwarfare is an interesting case in which the term applies to both the arena in which the war is fought–the “cyber” or virtual or computer world–and also how it’s fought, i.e. with computer (“cyber”) code. Which also includes the weapons used to fight the war, computers. Cyber war in fact has some interesting parallels with spiritual warfare.

The image is a joke, but cyber warfare isn’t. Image source: Freedom fellowship

Cyber war is going on continuously, even if we don’t see it with your own eyes. Spiritual war is like that, since we normally cannot physically see the Devil and his angels (or God and his angels). Related to that, while you might be tempted to ignore a cyber threat you cannot physically see, if you ignore the threat, you will eventually get some results you really aren’t going to like.

Cyber war involves the enemy planting viruses or otherwise compromising systems whose primary job is to process information. The Devil, in working to tempt people to commit sin, is doing something analogous to planting viruses. Though into human minds. And as a computer virus can spread from one information system to another, so can one person accepting sin affect other people (I Corinthians 5:6).

The kind of warfare going on in computer systems also includes planting false information or stealing information from systems. These actions have direct parallels to what goes on in spiritual warfare at times–Satan trying to create false doctrines and take the very act of hearing the gospel out of the minds of unbelievers.

But the cyberwarfare analogy, which at first glance looks like really good analogy for spiritual war, breaks down in certain ways. First, the computer systems are continually changing in cyber war and the types of attacks are constantly changing, too. So likewise, the types of defense need to change. In spiritual war, while issues do change over time to a degree, mostly Satan leads people into the same kinds of sins today as in the past. Mostly, the types of attacks are the same or at least similar. And the basic defenses are exactly the same. So in the aspect of change, cyber war isn’t like spiritual warfare at all.

There are other aspects of cyber war that are unlike other kinds of war, such as cyber war being more like vandalism at times with no real objective other than to destroy, which is actually rare in real-world war because destruction in war usually has the purpose of breaking the enemy’s will to fight (though perhaps spiritual war includes the equivalent of Satanic vandalism at times). But continual change is a big difference, which is why I emphasized it.

However, even though cyber war only partially matches spiritual war, it might be cool to write a story that makes an analogy between cyberwarfare and spiritual warfare…right?

Note in contrast to cyber war, the famous cases of Christian literature that portray spiritual warfare tend to focus on physical warfare–often on hand-to-hand combat. So the angels swing swords and the demons respond with similar weapons and maybe prayers cast up shields or have other effects on the battlefield. But the battle is shown as a physical fight. There are virtues in doing this–it emphasizes the reality of spiritual war and the real opposition between demonic forces and the army of God. And it’s visceral and catches people’s attention.

But please realize that not even in the human world is warfare necessarily about hand-to-hand combat. War, again, is mainly about getting the enemy to bend to the will of the attacker, not mainly about killing. Cyber war is sometimes only war in a manner of speaking (when talking about virtual vandalism), not real war–but when discussing the operations that say, China takes against the United States government via computer systems (or vice versa) we are talking about a real war–just one that’s invisible to the eye and without physical weapons.

War doesn’t require what we might think of as actual combat to be war. Again, there are many different kinds of war and gaining the ultimate goal doesn’t necessarily require killing anyone, but rather is about bending the will of the enemy to concede the objectives of the war.

The example of the kind of war that is most like spiritual warfare I already said is Information Operations. What I didn’t say is that IO itself is a bit of a euphemistic term. We might be more familiar with IO by the phrase, “propaganda war.” Or psychological operations. (Though these technically have slightly different meanings, for my purposes, close enough.)

For human warriors the modern realization that certain kinds of messaging or information might cause the enemy to become more prone to surrender led to the use of propaganda broadcasts by Tokyo Rose versus allied troops in the Pacific, or Lord Haw-Haw broadcasting at England from Nazi Germany (and Allied replies back the other way, of course). And propaganda had such an important role in bolstering German troops and society that anyone who has studied the history of World War II recognizes the importance of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister. Propaganda was also huge in the Soviet Union of course, but happened among Western allies as well.

Propaganda has become more sophisticated with time, more subtle. The methods of propaganda or “Information Operations” are very similar to advertising. The basic idea is to create a positive association for what kind of behavior you want for the enemy to adopt and a negative association for behavior you want the enemy to avoid. So ads that get us to buy from a fast food chain don’t actually have to persuade us with information that the restaurant is good (though ads on occasion offer reasons why their brand is the best), they merely need to present who they are in a context that gives pleasure. Usually commercial ads stick to the positive, but on occasion portray the competition in negative light–though political ads frequently go negative.

Note that what I did as a Civil Affairs officer in Afghanistan and elsewhere had the purpose of “winning hearts and minds” (as George W. Bush put it) or as I’ve said it here, the purpose of changing the will of the enemy. What I did when I helped fund projects that built schools and roads and bridges and clinics and many other things in Western Afghanistan, was for the purpose of lessening the will of the Afghan people to fight international forces helping the Afghan government, via increasing the positive association ordinary people made between troops from other countries (like me) and good things happening in Afghanistan.  Our goal was to give the Afghans a “warm fuzzy feeling” about US troops–something I was able to perform with complete sincerity, because I really did (and do) care about Afghan people and really did want to see things improve in the country and my genuine goals were to help them make their nation a better place. Something they couldn’t help but notice about me.

Not to get too far off subject but the example I gave demonstrates how in the spiritual war we are engaged in, which is much like “Information Operations,” the mere act of loving others is part of the IO we perform. Even if we give IO no thought at all, we are engaging in Information Operations for the benefit of Christianity when we as Christians love other people and show kindness to them, because we create a positive association between our behavior and Christianity.

How exactly we should engage in spiritual warfare in detail, beyond simply “love others,” I hope to address next week. But for now, my goal is simply to demonstrate to the reader of this article what the best human analogy for spiritual warfare actually is. And I believe the kind of warfare most like spiritual war is “Information Operations.”

Lest someone object that IO is a new thing and spiritual warfare certainly isn’t new–therefore the two things cannot be all that much alike, let me say that ancient armies conducted IO in other ways, with less scientific study to be sure, but they conducted it nonetheless. Isaiah 36:13-20 records an ancient Assyrian message intended to change the will to fight of the people of the Kingdom of Judah–a message that promises benefits for surrender, suffering for resistance, and which uses historical examples of why “resistance is futile.” Note Sun Tzu in The Art of War spoke about subjects we’d recognize today as IO. (Note that Satan does seek to portray himself as more mysterious and powerful than he really is–which is not to say he isn’t actually powerful. But in terms of access to real power, Christians have a complete advantage.)

Sun Tzu showing understanding in ancient times of techniques the Devil uses.

And of course the methods employed in Information Operations, while new to the Twentieth Century in the form we have them now, are not at all new to Satan. From the beginning, in Genesis 3, the things the serpent (a.k.a. Satan) said to Eve contain elements of IO. The positive association of the fruit to hidden knowledge was built into the phrase, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” and the negative association with God was packed into “For God knows the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened.” (Genesis 3:5) Satan’s goal was to change Eve’s will, to compel her surrender, to get her to comply with his goals (of destroying the works of God). Fighting with ideas, with words. Which is how IO works.

To demonstrate the breadth of Information Operations and how it applies to spiritual warfare, let’s set our discussion of IO in a context that includes other aspects of spiritual war: the Cold War. During the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc, led by the USSR, and the Western allies, led by the USA, engaged in a wide variety of various types of activities with the purpose of demonstrating the superiority of one side over the other. (Note the West really was superior economically, though not in every other way–but the Communist bloc nonetheless claimed to be superior in every regard.)

The USA, for example, funded jazz musicians taking tours around the world, or exhibits of American art doing the same thing. The goal was create a positive association between the United States and the popular music. Of course, it would have been self-defeating to fund tours of musicians nobody enjoyed listening to–which demonstrates why Christian artists need to care about the entertainment value of our work, because for writers who produce a quality story as an overt Christian, that in itself has value for helping out the Christian “brand” in the world. Though of course, just as the USA would not have funded musicians from America going on tour with overtly anti-American music, likewise the positive association of a well-written story created by a Christian can be undone by the message the story contains. But to a certain degree, the message isn’t as important as making a positive impression.

Certainly a terribly-written story with a good theme can do damage to the reputation of Christianity–though note that not everyone will agree on what is terribly written.

Note the Cold War IO (or with a negative association, “propaganda”) was directed only secondarily at the true believers on the other side. Primarily the goal of all that effort was to sway nations somewhere in the middle of the two camps to join one side or the other. And at times, such efforts led to shooting wars in which people got killed. And at times, the spiritual war leads to people getting killed, too, such as recently (from the time this article was written) in Burkina Faso, where armed Muslim militants from across the border with Niger herded all the males out of an Evangelical church and shot them, killing boys as young as ten. (Why didn’t they kill the women, too? Because on occasion, even Muslim militants perceive the value of avoiding bad press.)

I read this very detailed academic tome as part of a class on the Cold War for my MA in History. While a bit dry, this book explains in great detail the wide variety of IO the USA performed during the Cold War.

Note the analogy with the Cold War certainly has flaws, even though it’s useful. Satan is much less powerful, relatively speaking, than God. The West versus East struggle of the Cold War was actually more even. But in terms of discussing propaganda, I think making this analogy is helpful.

I want to mention just one more useful bit of analogy when comparing spiritual war to Information Operations during the Cold War before wrapping this up. Note that the United States had a series of radio stations operated by the United States Information Agency. These stations constituted the “Voice of America” (which continues to exist under different management). One thing the VOA wanted to do was attract listeners by being an objective source of news. The VOA did not avoid talking about bad news or things that were wrong with America. But it talked about them in a way that emphasized positive changes and attempted to explain historic situations, such as US racism and segregation. The deliberate honesty of the VOA actually served the purpose of disseminating the information the VOA wanted to disseminate–because people knew the broadcast was reliable.

On the other hand, the CIA operated radio stations that broadcast the “Radio Free Europe” programs. Radio Free Europe didn’t want to be seen as blatantly partisan in favor of the USA, but they in fact did not attempt to maintain neutrality at all in their broadcasts. Every broadcast was meant to be pro-USA and Western Allies in a way that would cause listeners in Eastern Europe to doubt their resolve in remaining loyal Communists.

Note that Radio Free Europe and Voice of America worked in parallel with one another. I believe likewise there is actually a place for Christian fiction that portrays Christian values in idealistic terms, including heroes who are paragons of virtue, along with other Christian works that are honest about what is wrong with Christians and Christianity, while still trying to make context clear. Both types of story, if well-written, can serve a good purpose.

So how does all this affect how we live as Christians, particularly as Christian writers and artists? More on that topic next week, God enabling.

But concerning the topic of how we portray spiritual warfare in speculative fiction stories, can you see that we do a disservice to the topic of spiritual warfare by only portraying spiritual war as a battle between angels and demons swinging weapons at each other? Certainly there’s a place for such tales, but why shouldn’t we have stories about spiritual cyber warfare, with spiritual viruses infecting people? (I know of one story world that attempted to write about spiritual cyber warfare, but it suffered from being difficult to read and only partially went the direction I’m suggesting. I also found an article in which a Christian group mentioned that its servers are regularly attacked–which isn’t at all what I mean by “spiritual cyber warfare.”)

Or perhaps we should we have stories that portray Satan as a propagandist? Or even perhaps stories that may show invisible physical combat, but which would include the power of information and getting the message across to vulnerable people who might be swayed? Or, on the other hand, stories that portray distracting people from the word of God by various means? A story about demonic “seed snatchers” perhaps?

What are your thoughts on this topic in general? And what stories have you read, if any, that portray spiritual warfare in a way different from a hand-to-hand physical fight?

Given Frozen’s smashing success, and Disney’s philosophy regarding capitalization of past successes, Frozen II was almost a mathematical inevitability. Now the deed’s done and the movie’s out. The good news is, they tried.

Frozen II strikes out into new territory. It expands its world with history and with mythology, though with the inadvertent effect of making Arendelle look … small. (It is a question for political scientists: Can it be a kingdom if it can all fit on a cliff?) Frozen II wisely preserves Anna’s and Elsa’s gains. Their relationship, though not entirely seamless, is fully restored. Even their parents – who, with such loving intentions, almost destroyed their daughter in the first movie – are softened in this second telling with the emphasis that they really did love. In this way, Frozen II provides a welcome kind of catharsis for its predecessor.

At the same time, it moves the characters onward from their ending-places of the last film. The movie’s first song invokes a theme of change and the whole story plays out in deep autumn, the imagery of change. The autumn setting also allows a refreshed, brighter palette beyond the white and blue that dominated the first film. Indeed, the film’s strongest element is its visual artistry. So much of the movie – from the fall grandeur to the exploding magic of Ahtohallan – is a pleasure to behold. Other sequences stand out for their excellence – Elsa’s unburial of Ahtohallan‘s secrets, Olaf’s hilarious retelling of Frozen, Anna’s moment of resolution in crisis.

There is real merit in these scattered elements of Frozen II. But the story never unites them into a comprehensible whole. (Fair warning: From here on in, this review is replete with spoilers – but you don’t care, do you?) Magic heaves through the story, but there is no making sense of its operations. The magic slingshots, at the convenience of plot, from being wild and heedless, like a force of nature, to being focused and merciful, like a benevolent deity. This incoherence muddles the whole story. If Ahtohallan calls Elsa, why does it attempt to kill her for answering the call? If the Enchanted Forest hates the dam to the point of destroying Arendelle, why does it never have a go at destroying the dam itself? How does a person become a spirit?

The movie makes a great point of uncovering a painful family secret. The pain is largely mitigated, however, by two factors: (1) The secret principally involves dead people nobody cares about; (2) It is inexplicable. The skeleton in the royal closet is that Elsa’s grandfather treacherously gave unto the Enchanted Forest people … a dam. As treacherous gifts go, this lacks imagination; not a lot of subtlety is possible with a dam. And this wasn’t some cheap, logs-on-rocks dam. It was a stone behemoth. It was the Hoover Dam of vaguely magical, vaguely Scandinavian kingdoms. Its nature as a dam was exceedingly obvious. It should not have taken any strenuous mental exertion to forecast the result of the dam being a dam. Yet only by magic and near-death is the shocking secret exposed: The dam was a Trojan horse in that it blocked the water. I thought about this too long, and now it’s funny.

But Frozen II was made for children, and no doubt they like it better than I do. Frozen II has flares of creativity and even a kind of emotional wisdom. Its confused plot and incoherent mythology leave it uneven. Taken altogether (as all things must be), the movie is all right. Probably it is even good, if you spare it close examination and just enjoy it.

As of yesterday, Lorehaven has added fantastic gift options in our all-new, downloadable Lorehaven Gift Guide for Christmas 2019.

You can get the web version now. Or download the shiny PDF that’s full of clickable goodness.

Our amazing designer, JT Wynn, has crafted exclusive designs for Christian fantasy fans, such as:

Retro-vintage distressed graphic tee ($24)

Show your fantasy colors with this premium shirt, available in men’s, women’s, and youth cuts. Machine-washable. We suggest air-dry to preserve the print. Perfect for everyday wear.

“He Made the Stars Also” ($24). Every twinkling light above our heads has a name, and our Creator knows them all. As humanity ventures out into space, we worship a God who is already present at every corner of the galaxy.

“LEVIATHAN” retro-vintage distressed graphic tee ($24). “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? Or press down his tongue with a cord?” (Job 41:1, ESV).

“The Christian is the One Whose Imagination Should Fly Beyond the Stars” ($24). This quote by renowned philosopher Francis Schaeffer reminds all Christians to exalt Christ in our fantastic imaginings.

Click each one to jump straight to the purchase page.

You can find each wearable design in other forms: hoodie, T-shirts, V-neck T-shirts, and long-sleeved shirts! See the full online store.

And see two more wearable designs, plus more Lorehaven-made products, in the complete Lorehaven Gift Guide.

(Plus we review and refer a few more gifts of benefit to the Christlike and discerning fantastic reader.)

What sorts of future, fantastical merch would you like to see? Please let us know here, or send us a note via social media: Twitter @Lorehaven, or Facebook, or Instagram. Meanwhile, keep listening (hint) for more Lorehaven updates going into 2020 . . .

Godspeed!

Stephen

On October 31st my regular Thursday slot for Speculative Faith happened to fall on Halloween and now the same slot falls on the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, about a month later. It might come as a surprise to some people, but I’m going to offer the same bottom-line advice about both holidays. Just as I recommended “Reedem Your Halloween,” likewise let me suggest you redeem your Thanksgiving! (What I mean by referencing the phrase “Day of the Action of Thanks” I will explain lower down.)

The article on Halloween looked at an Answers in Genesis article that suggested that the Halloween holiday reflects a memorial that ultimately may have its origins in the Flood of Noah. I found flaws with that reasoning (holidays related to the harvest are not as universal as Answers in Genesis suggested), but agreed when the article said that even though there are clear Pagan roots in elements of Halloween, we can claim it and celebrate it if we choose to do so. Though not celebrating is also fine, I said. But if we celebrate it, we ought to celebrate it in a way that intentionally honors God, I said.

“How can he say the same thing about Thanksgiving?” someone might ask. “Thanksgiving is as opposite as possible from Halloween!” someone might declare. Not even close to everyone would say that, of course. But the person who would say it probably would be thinking about the fact the origins of Halloween are ancient and traditional and a bit obscure but clearly have Pagan elements. Whereas the origin of the Thanksgiving is not at all ancient and is considerably less obscure and is definitely Christian.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation of a US Federal holiday dedicated to Thanksgiving did not begin the holiday for the first time, but unified a number of different celebrations of thanks held differently in various US states back then. But still, all of the pre-1863 versions of Thanksgiving in the United States (many of them declared as special holidays based on specific events that didn’t repeat every year) were thoroughly Christian. A day of Thanksgiving was set aside to pray to thank God for something or other within the bounds of not only Christian tradition, but more specifically, English-speaking Protestantism. Though our most famous example, the feast of the Pilgrims in 1621 at the time of the harvest in Plymouth Colony was of course both a day of eating and of prayers of gratitude.

For the 1863 holiday, the feasting as part of the giving of thanks wasn’t as important as the thanking. (Lincoln felt that during the horrors of the US Civil War, officially remembering to be thankful on a specific day, the last Thursday in November, would provide a boost for United States morale at a grim point in history.)

Though pretty much right away the feasting rivaled the thanking in importance. Traditional Thanksgiving dishes were derived from foods people in the late 1800s  thought early settlers to the United States enjoyed. (Though the menus weren’t always historically accurate–for example, did you know the Pilgrims’ famous meal in Plymouth Bay in 1621 included venison and shellfish?) Though of course as important as feasting was, it didn’t displace the thanking God part.

Since it became common for most people to have Thanksgiving Day off work for almost all jobs (this became standard in the late 1800s and early 1900s), Thanksgiving Day became the day above almost all other days to set up a reunion with family and enjoy their company in a group. Christmas probably has always been number 1 in that regard, but in the USA, Thanksgiving came to mean “family” perhaps even more than Christmas. For a while, at least. Though of course, it was generally expected that getting the whole family together and having a feast with them would also include thanking God as a group.

Because Thanksgiving falls within the season in which American football is played, it was a pretty early development that someone decided that since people are off work on Thanksgiving Day, they might enjoy a football game. The first football game held on Thanksgiving was the 1934 match between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears, broadcast nationally on radio (the Lions lost). Eventually of course other football games, more than just one per day, would be scheduled for Thanksgiving, so that, for many families in the United States, football-watching dominates what people actually do on the holiday. Though you can gather family together, have a feast, watch football, and also thank God, right?

Though Thanksgiving also falls in the period prior to Christmas, which has for a very long time been the premier holiday in which to buy presents in Western culture (and now, all around the world). Retailers came up with the idea of boosting their sales post-Thanksgiving by advertising themselves on Thanksgiving by sponsoring a parade. This actually happened in Canada first, in 1905, but was copied in the USA starting in 1924 by Macy’s. And the tradition of having a parade on Thanksgiving Day continues, with the idea that the parade would boost sales for the Christmas season after Thanksgiving was over. Though of course you can get family together, have a feast, watch football and/or a parade, and also thank God.

It wasn’t until the 1950s it became extremely common for people to take the day after Thanksgiving off work as a major day for shopping and not until 1966 that the term “Black Friday” was coined for the frenzy that post-Thanksgiving discounts inspire. Because of the fact that it used to be the case that retailers had an agreement among themselves that major promoting of Christmas sales wouldn’t start until Thanksgiving was over, giving that holiday some space, “Black Friday” reigned supreme for a number of decades as the official opening of the Christmas shopping season (and of course is still very important).

Though the traditional respect retailers used to have for Thanksgiving Day doesn’t hold true anymore. Post-2000, we see certain sales deals arising prior to Black Friday. A “Pre-Black Friday” sale, plenty common nowadays, actually means a sale on Thanksgiving Day (or even earlier than Thanksgiving, but to include Thanksgiving Day). So that adds shopping to the things people do on Thanksgiving. But a person can still get together with family, have a feast, watch football, watch a parade, go shopping, and still offer thanks to God, right?

And here’s the point we admit the truth. Yes, people can as in it’s possible, but is that what people actually do? Even the common current use of “Turkey Day” to jokingly refer to the holiday downplays the thanking part. While I would say most people really do think you ought to reflect on your blessings on Thanksgiving Day, isn’t it true that most people do so very briefly? And of course, no surprise, a culture that isn’t mindful of God in general isn’t into thanking God specifically. Even those who feel thankful are often not thankful to God.

I don’t want to overstate the case here and claim that in 1863, one hundred percent of everyone only prayed and thanked God on Thanksgiving Day, whereas now the percentage of Americans who do so has fallen into the single digits. That wouldn’t quite be true–there were secularists even in 1863, for example–so the sentence before this one would be an exaggeration of what actually is true. Though it in fact is true that the celebration of Thanksgiving Day has changed–there really is less thanking now and a lot more of everything else than there used to be.

For some people, what Thanksgiving has become is so commercial and revolting that they may not want to celebrate it at all. Hey, if they don’t want to, that’s their business. Though I imagine that attitude is rare–probably the main people who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving are those from other countries in which it isn’t its own holiday (such as the United Kingdom). But for me, I want celebrate the holiday while deliberately remembering the specific Christian meaning behind the very idea of Thanksgiving–that is, thanking God for blessings.

In an interesting irony, I chose this image from a nation that doesn’t recognize an official national day of thanksgiving. Image credit: Jesuit.org.uk

Which brings me around to something I mentioned both in my first paragraph and the title of this piece. If you don’t speak Spanish you may not have known this, but in Spanish, there is no single word that means “thanksgiving.” So the name of the US holiday “Thanksgiving Day” is usually rendered in Spanish as “Día de Acción de Gracias.” Which, if you translated that literally back into English would mean: “day of the action of thanks.” Yes, exactly.

Image credit: playbackmedia.com

There should be an action with our thanking, something we actually do, as we literally offer prayers in the act of expressing thanksgiving to the God who gave us the things we are thankful for. That’s how we redeem our Thanksgiving, my friends, that’s how we do it the way it was intended to be done. We can have the feasting and family time and football and parading and shopping, too. But we cannot forget the literal thanking–yes, thanking people is good and should be part of the holiday as well. But first and foremost, we redeem our Thanksgiving by thanking God in prayer. Openly and without shame.

Don’t forget to do that–even though surrounded by a culture jokingly calling the holiday “Turkey Day,” even though surrounded by a culture that rarely prays. Please remember to keep the overt act of thanking God in prayer as a central part of your Thanksgiving holiday.