Just in case you haven’t heard, within the last few days I’ve seen an article online discussing “Satan Shoes.” Apparently, a hip-hop artist named Lil Nas X has collaborated with another person to create shoes with Satanic emblems and a drop of human blood in the shoe soles. They plan to release only 666 of them and are charging over $1,000 for each pair.

A couple days ago Lil Nas X released a music video in promotion of these shoes. I wasn’t tempted to watch it. The thumbnail was enough to let me know that’s not something I’d care to watch, so I read an article of someone discussing the video instead.

I know many of you are sharing articles about this and seem very aghast about it and rightly so. Why is someone putting human blood in shoes?!? What kind of society are we living in that a person can openly celebrate what has traditionally been viewed as evil?

Stories like this may seem startling but they’re not surprising. If someone has an allegiance to a deity, it’s logical that they would show their allegiance in some way, even if it is to Satan. That’s just the natural progression of things. It’s clear that a person’s life choices are a natural outflow of his inward life.

I don’t think anyone in the Christian community is fooled or tempted by this display of overt obsession with Satan. It is obviously evil and no one in the Christian church is going to be lining up to buy those shoes. However, I think this is a great moment for us to pause and reflect.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “Discernment is not telling the difference between right and wrong. It’s telling the difference between right and almost right.”

In an article at the Daily Wire, they shared that David Harris, magister for the Church of Satan praised Lil Nas X for his accuracy in depicting Satanism- specifically the scene where he removed the crown from Satan’s head and placed it on his own. Harris saw that as “the most Satanic part of the video”.

They went on to share:

The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, claims not to worship Satan as a deity but rather elevates the self and one’s own will as supreme. “Basically we worship ourselves. We refer to ourselves as I-theists,” Harris told Rolling Stone. “We see ourselves as our own god.”

. . . . . . . . . . . .

I thought this was very interesting because you would think if you’re a Satanist, your worship and allegiance should be to Satan. But apparently, as long as you are holding yourself in the highest esteem, sitting on the proverbial throne of your own life you are giving Satan all the allegiance he needs.

This was a very telling thing for me because I feel that within the church some have accepted a theology that sets us at the center of our own life. We assume that God wants to answer all of our prayers, in our timing, in our way, at our bidding. I don’t know if anyone would straight up acknowledge it but I feel that we frequently live our lives as if God exists to do our will and not the other way around.

I think theology like this is far more likely to lead people astray than a blatant display of devil worship. We aren’t tempted to worship the devil because that’s obviously wrong. But it does seem like (far too often) we’re content to set ourselves up as the central figure of our own lives.

Originally posted March 29, 2021