While these two articles and one court case focus on Christianity as the religion of the vast majority of Americans, other religious traditions, e.g. Islam and Zoroastrianism, also contain the idea of Satan as an evil personage.
HE IS THE EVIL ONE, THE ADVERSARY, THE PRINCE OF darkness, the Father of Lies. Among his many proper names are Satan, Lucifer and Mephistopheles. Skeptics dismiss him as "Old Scratch"; the Rolling Stones knew him as "a man of wealth and taste," But in every language he answers to his generic title: Diabolos, El Diablo, the Devil.
Throughout most of Western history, the Devil was both familiar and feared. Jesus was tempted by him. Saint Anthony wrestled with him. Luther mocked him but trembled in his presence. For the Puritans of New England, Satan was never just a metaphor for evil: he was Evil personified, an intimate cosmic presence transcending individual sins and sinners. In Milton's "Paradise Lost," his story achieved the status of a Western classic.
Then came the Enlightenment, with its sunny view of human nature and distaste for the supernatural. Almost overnight, the figure of Satan vanished like a nightmare from the moral imagination of the West....
Is Satan dead?
To many, the question may seem frivolous. Yet a culture that now sees angels everywhere may be ready to confront history's most celebrated angel, the Devil. According to a recent Newsweek Poll, two out of three adult Americans do indeed believe that the Devil exists. For a fourth of them, however, he is merely a symbol of man's inhumanity to man. Among Christians, only the born-again reveal a robust sense of the Devil's presence. Sixty percent of born-again believers report that they have been tempted by the Devil and half as many say they have met someone whom they thought was in Satan's control. Many see the Devil's hand in social problems. "Satan is the enemy of families, of children," says the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "The drug problem that is destroying so many children is a program straight from hell."
In contrast, only 26 percent of Roman Catholics say they have been tempted by Satan and 31 percent of nonevangelical Protestants insist that there is no such thing as the Devil. Social class is a factor. "Look at the parking lot outside any church," suggests Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow. "If you see Lexuses and Cadillacs, you won't hear Satan preached inside. If you see a lot of pickup trucks, you will." Education plays a crucial role as well: college graduates, the Newsweek Poll shows, are twice as likely as Americans with no higher education to deny the Devil's existence. ...
In a Newsweek Poll, 66% of adult Americans-and 85% of evangelical Protestants-say they believe the Devil exists.
FOR THIS Newsweek POLL, PRINCETON SURVEY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES INTERVIEWED 752 ADULTS BY TELEPHONE JULY 27-29. THE MARGIN OF ERROR IS +/-4 PERCENTAGE POINTS; THE MARGIN OF ERROR FOR SUBGROUPS IS HIGHER. The Newsweek Poll 1995 copyright by Newsweek, Inc.
28% think the devil is a fallen angel; 31% view the Devil as the source of evil; 24% as a symbol of man's inhumanity to man
37% say they have been tempted by the devil; 61% of evangelical Protestants say they have been tempted by the devil.
FACE-TO-FACE ENCOUNTERS BOLSTER THAT BELIEF.
Bernice Butler saw the devil at a church service in Brunswick four years ago.
The scene she describes is only slightly less dramatic than the famous film "The Exorcist."
During a worship service at a revival where Butler's father was preaching, a woman and her family came into the church and asked for help.
"She said the devil was in her," said Butler, 34. "She was mutilating animals, setting fires, cursing people and getting in fights."
At the front of the sanctuary, Butler's father, who is a Church of God minister, and some of the men of the church gathered around the woman. They prayed for her, blessed her and anointed her with holy water, while the woman's eyes bulged, saliva came out of her mouth, and she made animal sounds, Butler recalls.
Then, she calmed down.
"It was amazing to me. Her voice changed. She began talking normally. She was even walking differently," Butler said. Butler's father called the exercise "(re)'buking the devil."
"It made me a believer," said Butler. "I've seen this with my own eyes."
Butler was one of a majority of Southerners in a recent Southern Focus Poll who said they believe people on Earth are sometimes possessed by the devil. In the poll, conducted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of North Carolina, 61 percent of Southerners --- 71 percent of those who say they attend church weekly --- expressed that belief. Outside the South, 45 percent of those questioned said they believe in devil possession.
"The devil has many minions and people can be possessed by demonic spirits," said poll respondent Clifton Walker, 38, of Dallas, Ga. Walker, an upholsterer who goes to church "a couple of times a year," sees demonic possession as part of "the ultimate battle between good and evil that we all fight every day."
"The devil is as real to me as the Lord is," said Linda Kimsey, 50, a Baptist who works as a transcriptionist in Loganville. "He likes nothing better than to cause trouble."
An acceptance of demon possession is "an extension of the general Southern view that the devil is very real, the devil has great power and is vibrantly at work in the world," said Samuel S. Hill, professor emeritus of religion at the University of Florida. "You can extend that to the devil (who) is as active in trying to possess my life as the Holy Spirit."
Within Christianity, the practice of exorcism goes back to Jesus himself. The Christian Gospels include accounts of Jesus casting demons out of a man having convulsions in the synagogue (Mark 1), a violent man from "the country of the Gerasenes" (Mark 5), and a boy who fell to the ground foaming at the mouth (Mark 9), for example.
Today, most mainline Protestant groups give little attention to specific doctrines of demonology. In one exception, two years after the 1973 debut of the movie "The Exorcist," the then-Southern branch of the Presbyterian Church issued a statement that acknowledged the "reality of powers of evil," but said the church has no "developed satanology or demonology." It went on to caution against using demons to excuse "human sinfulness" or to conceptualize the devil as equal to God.
The concept of devil possession, on the other hand, is unequivocally accepted by some major Christian groups, including the Roman Catholic Church and most Pentecostal churches.
Although the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta has never had an exorcism, "we do believe in the devil," said Vicar General Peter Dora. "We believe in evil. We believe Satan can take possession of a person and we base that on the Scriptures."
The Rev. Charles Crabtree of the Assemblies of God says his denomination holds similar views. "We are biblical literalists," he said. "Because of that, we look very closely at the words of Christ, the ministry of Jesus. . . . A great deal of the ministry of Christ dealt with casting out demons."
Among the gifts provided by the Holy Spirit to the church, Crabtree said, are the gift of discerning evil spirits and the gift of casting out devils. Crabtree, assistant general superintendent of the Missouri-based Pentecostal denomination, said he has had to call upon those gifts several times in his ministry.
Years ago, when he was serving as a pastor in Des Moines, Iowa, he said, a man came to his house and asked for help, saying, "I do things I don't want to do."
Suddenly, Crabtree said, the stranger's face "became fixed," and out of the man's mouth came a different voice that said, "He doesn't want to be free."
Crabtree sensed that he was encountering a demonic power.
"It's an unusual feeling one has when you're speaking to someone who really desires to be free and you have faith in the power of Christ," said Crabtree. "There is such strength and authority. I felt that authority."
Crabtree commanded several times, in the name of Christ, that the demon leave. The man let out a gasp and went limp, Crabtree said. His countenance expressed relief, and he began to thank God.
Some people questioned for the Southern Focus Poll said they believe people are tempted by the devil to sin, but stopped short of saying they accept the idea of demon possession.
"Some people are weak enough they let the devil take a hold and go on," said Mary Edna Branstetter, 73, a widow who lives near Hardyville, Ky. But Branstetter, who is a member of a Cumberland Presbyterian church, said she doesn't think a demon can take over a person's body.
On the other hand, Jack Farmer, 57, of Winston-Salem, N.C., says, "I believe demons can possess people."
But Farmer, a disabled veteran and member of a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, said he does not fear that Satan will claim his soul.
"I think I have control over my destiny," he said. "If I trust the Lord, he's gon' see me through. I wouldn't lose one minute of sleep over it."
To Southerners, hell and the devil are very real. Seventy-four percent say souls go to heaven or hell, and 61 percent say people on Earth can be possessed by the devil. Lifetime Southerners are even more convinced, at 81 percent and 64 percent.
These are much higher numbers than for the rest of the country (62 percent for heaven and hell, 45 percent for devil possession). Belief in souls going to heaven or hell tends to diminish with age.
Among Southerners, 81 percent of young adults believe, while 68 percent
of those over 65 do.
Belief in devil possession is strongest among minorities, at 72 percent (compared with 58 percent for whites).
Results of the Journal-Constitution's Southern Focus Poll are based on telephone interviews with 844 adults in 12 Southern states and 413 adults in the rest of the United States. The poll was conducted Feb. 4 through March 24 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
We are confronted in this appeal by a 1974 version of the legislative effort to suppress the theory of evolution which produced the famous Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925. See Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S.W. 363 (1927). In this instance the Tennessee Legislature has sought to avoid direct suppression of speech and has eschewed direct criminal sanctions. But the purpose of establishing the Biblical version of the creation of man over the Darwinian theory of the evolution of man is as clear in the 1973 statute as it was in the statute of 1925.
Plaintiffs are teachers of biology in Tennessee public schools, some of whom are also parents of public school students, plus the National Association of Biology Teachers. The defendants are members of the Tennessee state board which is charged with the responsibility of selecting public school textbooks. Jurisdiction is invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) (1970).
The statute at issue, Chapter 377 of the 1973 Public Acts of Tennessee, is reproduced below. ...:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-2008, is amended by adding the following paragraph: Any biology textbook used for teaching in the public schools, which expresses an opinion of, or relates a theory about origins or creation of man and his world shall be prohibited from being used as a textbook in such system unless it specifically states that it is a theory as to the origin and creation of man and his world and is not represented to be scientific fact. Any textbook so used in the public education system which expresses an opinion or relates to a theory or theories shall give in the same textbook and under the same subject commensurate attention to, and an equal amount of emphasis on, the origins and creation of man and his world as the same is recorded in other theories, including, but not limited to, the Genesis account in the Bible. The provisions of this Act shall not apply to use of any textbook now legally in use, until the beginning of the school year of 1975-76; provided, however, that the textbook requirements stated above shall in no way diminish the duty of the State Textbook Commission to prepare a list of approved standard editions of textbooks for use in the public schools of the state as provided in this section. Each local school board may use textbooks or supplementary material as approved by the State Board of Education to carry out the provisions of this section. The teaching of all occult or satanical beliefs of human origin is expressly excluded from this Act.... [boldfacing added]
While the requirement of preferential treatment of the Bible clearly offends the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the exclusion at the end of Section 1 of the statute would inextricably involve the State Textbook Commission in the most difficult and hotly disputed of theological arguments in direct conflict with Chief Justice Burger's third standard. Throughout human history the God of some men has frequently been regarded as the Devil incarnate by men of other religious persuasions. It would be utterly impossible for the Tennessee Textbook Commission to determine which religious theories were "occult" or "satanical" without seeking to resolve the theological arguments which have embroiled and frustrated theologians through the ages. [Footnote ... See "Satan" and "satanical," 9 Oxford Eng. Dict. 116 (1933), and W. WOODS, A HISTORY OF THE DEVIL (1973) to note how frequently differences of religious opinions are accompanied by denunciation employing the terms "Satan" or "the devil."]