(Yet Another) Satanic Panic

Paranoia, Profit, Conspiracy Theory and Evangelicalism

Who Pushed The Button?

There’s a “satanic panic” button on the console controlling evangelicalism. And it just got pushed. The reactionary takes to Sam Smith’s Grammy performance are still swirling. Senator Ted Cruz (R) called it “evil”. Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk told his million Twitter followers it amounts to “spiritual war”.

But I see Smith’s performance as an expression of post-Christian culture. This turn is best described by David Bentley Hart who sees “post-Christian” signaling less neo-paganism and more nihilism. Less a spiritual being called Satan, more the human will emerging as the apparent final possibility in the ruins of Christendom.

Maybe Smith’s performance was less an embrace of the occult or the waging of spiritual warfare. Maybe it was more a declaration of nihilism decorated with the trappings of Christendom. This nihilism is present, too, when politicians inscribe God’s name on their political will. Let the reader understand.

But conservative evangelical reactions to Smith have largely conformed to the basic forms and types of yesterday’s Satanic Panics, along with the suspicions best expressed in today’s conspiracy theories. This is because evangelicals have been here before.

We need another introduction to one of the architects of yesterday’s evangelical Satanic Panic, Mike Warnke. Even when exposed as a fraud, his influence lives on.

Eighties Evangelicals and Satanic Panic

(Pick up “Selling Satan” for a full account of Warnke’s rise and fall)

Mike Warnke came to fame in evangelical circles in the 80’s because of his testimony. He claimed to be an ex-Satanic priest. The problem? He wasn’t. In the early 90’s, Warnke’s lucrative ministry was fractured by charges of personal embellishment—he claimed to lead a coven of 1500 followers which proved totally unfounded, plus charges of financial scandal.

Warnke’s wildly successful book (he claimed it sold +3 Million Copies) The Satan Seller, recounted his life in Satanism in the 60’s. The book detailed sensational, personal claims of obscene rituals—and how Jesus had saved him out of Satanism. These personal claims also lent legitimacy to a fear many evangelicals harbor then (and now): a Satanic conspiracy influencing the highest levels of politics and culture.

In the height of the Satanic panic of the 1980’s, Warnke’s “insider” experience made him into an expert on the occult. He was featured multiple times on ABC’s 20/20. He also was invited onto Focus on the Family, the radio ministry of renowned evangelical parenting and family expert, Dr. James Dobson.

Satanism made Warnke a national expert and evangelical celebrity. One of the first of his kind. He built (along with his ex-wife) a highly lucrative evangelism ministry that visited churches across the world. In a weird twist, the ministry evolved to feature Warnke not only as a gospel evangelist, but also as a stand-up comedian.

Even though Warnke was exposed as a fraud, that didn’t stop his influence in evangelical sub-culture leading right up to today.

In their book “Selling Satan” which lays out the case against Warnke, investigative journalists Mike Hertenstein & Jon Trott concluded in 1993:

The parallels between the Salem Witchcraft Trials, McCarthyism, and the “contagious hysteria” of satanic panic in the 1980’s are disturbing. The role of evangelical Christians and their own media in fanning the flames is even more so.

A communications network created to distribute the truth [of the gospel] can be, if mechanisms for accountability at every level are not developed, a pipeline for deception.

Panics Then and Now

We need to remember Warnke.

Warnke’s fictional account of Satanism found a home in evangelical hearts because of evangelical fear and faith. That Warnke turning out to be falsifying his experience did not displace the more fundamental combination of fear and faith which legitimized the panic in the first place.

Warnke’s account—though false— only served to confirm the concrete suspicions of evangelicals; it also conformed to the theological claims about God and the world which seemed to prove “they” are bad and “we” are good, “God loves us not you”.

The Satanic Panic then is not unrelated to the panic now. I think there are two united impulses, one theological and one cultural. Evangelicals do see Satan as a real being described by the Scriptures they read seriously in their own way. And yet, they often fail to interrogate the broader cultural and ideological reception of “Satan” that inform those readings. The strong reaction to Smith’s “Satan” is because evangelicalism’s theology of Satan has more in common with Dante than the Bible.

This has a way of binding and blinding evangelical discernment over true evil. Why is this “evil” but abuse in evangelical churches is a matter of opinion? or merely a public relations crises? Why are vaccines the mark of the beast, but the election was definitely stolen? Panic and paranoia are both lucrative as Warnke shows, but they are also deeply moral as they form and shape discernment of reality.

Evangelicals have long displayed moral panic and outrage which also serves to defend and protect the “insider” from the “outsider”. These conspiratorial panics always name the evil “out there” but is blind to the evil “in here”. When moral panics and conspiracy theories take hold in churches, it makes Christians who see evil anywhere but inside the fold. Like Conrad said of London in Heart of Darkness, “this too is one of the dark places of the world.” Do we have the courage to say the same of the institutional church?

Contesting Evangelical Paranoia

When you look at history, you see a pattern. Evangelicalism has historically demonstrated a chronic embrace of conspiracism. Whether over fear of slave revolts, Illuminati, communists, secularists, or woke, pockets of evangelicalism have always developed and defended the gates and the borders.

And conspiracy theory also seems to develop right alongside the material commitments evangelicals make. Whether it’s building institutions, media networks, or political bases, the fear of loss generates a conspiratorial impulse to defend and protect evangelical interests. These interests are often theologized and moralized and represented as “the gospel”—which must be defended at any cost.

What concerns me is how the reactivity to Sam Smith’s performance this week falls right in line with the pantheon of conspiracy theory that has become normative for conservative evangelicalism today.

Research from PEW and PRRI have shown the persistence of Q-Anon in white evangelicalism, nearly 1 in 4. Acute COVID-related conspiracy theories have evolved but persisted. It’s not mask mandates, now it’s heart attacks “caused” by the vaccines. These claims feature in larger anxieties, too. When conspiracy theories come together to form a narrative for interpreting the world, we might call that “conspiracism”

Conspiracism rails against “Big Pharma” or “Big Tech”, companies like Pfizer or Google, and gatherings like the World Economic Forum, a key organization central to the Great Reset “conspiracy universe”. We should also mention the conspiratorial anxieties of nationalism, related to immigration and replacement theory. Turning Point USA has developed an entire theological ideology based on these conspiratorial premises.

While some (rightly) take issue with the irrational nature of conspiracy theories or conspiracism, my research is focused on their moral utility, and how they are determined by and ultimately serve to reinforce theological ideology & authority in Christian spaces.

Fear is one reason why conspiracy theory finds safe harbor in evangelicalism. This fear is related to the many anxieties of evangelical commitments—to politics, to development of media networks, the maintance of its institutions, to social morality, and America. And when these things are so shaken, conspiracy theory is a morally and theological useful way to reset the table, to label the heretic, to blame the outsider, and double down.

Contesting moral panics doesn’t mean we deny the reality of evil in the world. Or deny the fact that evil deeds are done in the dark. Instead, it means accounting for how static moral principles and deterministic ideologies make people of faith prone to moral panic, to a paranoia that is basically faithless—forgetting the world is not only ruled by God according to the gospel, but it is also loved by God—right in the midst of its evilness as Bonhoeffer notes.

It is hard to admit that conspiracy theory is not just rooted in irrationality but in a sort of certainty that is made possible by purported Christian principles. These fixed “Christian principles” are often brought front and center to justify moral judgements and moral panics generated by events like the Grammy’s. And so Christians choose offense rather than witness.

The hard truth is that it is our very “Christian principles” can so abstract the living Jesus Christ into a “morality” that leaves us with an ideology. The moral panics generated by ideology makes Christians prone to crucify Christ in our churches as we allow great evils to persist not “out there” but “in here”. Bonhoeffer’s insight is true, “judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” And in the light and love of Christ, we find the courage to tell the truth not merely or primarily about others, but about ourselves.