Devil

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'The Exorcist' at 50 -- If demons are real, how about angels? What about an eternal soul?

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'The Exorcist' at 50 -- If demons are real, how about angels? What about an eternal soul?

William Peter Blatty was pounding out the first pages of "The Exorcist" when his telephone rang -- bringing the news that his mother had died.

The screenwriter was already digging into dark material that was completely different from the whimsical work -- such as the classic "A Shot in the Dark" Pink Panther script -- that established his Hollywood career. He was writing a fictional take on an exorcism case he heard discussed during his Georgetown University studies.

But the death of Blatty's Lebanese-born, fervently Catholic mother changed everything. She spoke very little English and called her son "Il Waheed," Arabic for "the one" or "the only." He struggled with grief for five years and his supernatural thriller turned into something much more ambitious.

"I wanted to write about good and evil and the unseen world all around us. I wanted to make a statement that the grave is not the end, that there is more to life than death," said Blatty, meeting in a diner near the Georgetown neighborhood described in "The Exorcist."

It was 2013, four years before Blatty's death, and our conversation focused on the 40th anniversary of the film that brought him an Academy Award, for adopting his novel for the big screen. Now, on the 50th anniversary of "The Exorcist," critics are still debating why it had such as seismic impact.

Blatty insisted, many times, that he wasn't trying to shock people, even though the R-rated classic sent many rushing for theater exits, sickened by its stomach-wrenching visions. His goal was "apostolic, from the beginning," an attempt to inspire faith and defend core Christian doctrines, he said.

The equation was simple: "If demons are real, why not angels? If angels are real, why not souls? And if souls are real, what about your own soul? … And, by the way, if incarnate evil is real, what are you going to do about that?"

"The Exorcist" set box-office records for horror films, with numbers that soared with subsequent re-releases. At the same time, Blatty was deeply satisfied to hear priests report that, in the weeks after the movie opened, penitents lined up for confession.


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NBC News promotes its own Satanism-scare report, which is itself a kind of scare-news device

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NBC News promotes its own Satanism-scare report, which is itself a kind of scare-news device

I have always found it interesting when major news organizations conduct a public-relations blitz — primarily with messages to other journalists — promoting one of their own news reports.

Obviously, the message to other journalists is this: We deserve praise for doing this story. The implied message is usually: We were brave to do this story. Now, all you other newsroom folks should follow our courageous example and cover this story, too.

In this case, we are talking about an NBC News press release with this dramatic double-decker headline:

NBC NEWS: SATANIC PANIC IS MAKING A COMEBACK, FUELED BY QANON BELIEVERS AND GOP INFLUENCERS

Baseless Accusations Are Branding People As Satanist Pedophiles At The Speed Of The Internet — Just Ask A GOP Prosecutor Who Recently Lost Re-Election.

There are several levels to This. Big. Story.

(1) There is a totally valid story about Internet-based attacks against a progressive Republican — David Leavitt, the prosecuting attorney for Utah County — attempting to smear him with wild stories about Satanic, cannibalistic attacks on children. Leavitt is active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the younger brother of a former Utah governor, Mike Leavitt.

(2) There is a valid, and by now very familiar, story about QAnon, politicians, pedophiles, cannibalism, pizza and, of course, the work of Satan in one form of another (hold that thought). If you have followed GetReligion, you know that we think the world of QAnon conspiracy theories is important and worthy of tight, fact-based coverage.

(3) There are some, repeat “some,” Republicans on the right fringe who now rush to connect Satanic worship to all kinds of trends in the free-for-all that is modern American culture. These politicos have been known to blur the line between organized, public Satanic religious groups and the secret world (it’s hard to know the size of this phenomenon) of people attempting to practice dark arts of various kinds.

(4) There are many conservative, and very mainstream, religious believers who openly state their beliefs that incarnate evil — as in the biblical Satan — is at work, on one level or another, in activities including child abuse, domestic violence, terrorism, warfare, etc. Yes, some believe that using permanent forms of gender-transition surgery and puberty blockers on children fall into this category.

It’s important to note, however, that someone like Pope Francis saying that he sees Satanic forces at work in our world is not the same thing as people making accusations against, for example, the specific and official Church of Satan. Yes, Pope Francis has probably used more Satan-based language than any pope in several generations, including on some issues linked to the Sexual Revolution.

This NBC News report takes the important story at level (1) and links it to level (2) — which is valid. The problem, from my journalistic point of view, is that NBC News then attempts to take some poll-based information about questions at level (3) and even (4) and then blend that material with (2) Qanon and the (1) attacks on someone like Leavitt, arguing that belief in the reality of incarnate evil (a mainstream Christian belief, as in this Catholic Catechism reference) is creating a wider trend that threatens American democracy, or words to that effect.


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There was more to Charlie Daniels than politics and even his music (hint: 'I'll Fly Away')

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Here in the Volunteer State, lots of Tennesseans are grieving the loss of a crucial figure in the history of that unique brand of Southern rock that gave American the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band and lots of other fiery folks.

Charlie Daniels mixed rock, blues, country, bluegrass, folk, Texas swing, gospel and every other stream of music that flows through Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and everywhere else in the Cumberland and Great Smoky Mountains. You heard his music in bars and you also heard it revival meetings in evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

At a crucial moment in music history, Daniels was Bob Dylan’s favorite Nashville guitar player. He also was known to do at bit of testifying at Billy Graham crusades. In a way, those two facts don’t clash all that much. President Jimmy Carter was a fan, too.

As you would expect, this music legend’s sudden death — his final tweets gave no hint of the stroke and collapse to come — received quite a bit of attention in The Nashville Tennessean and the other Gannett newspapers that dominate this state. Here’s the headline on the main Tennessean story: “Charlie Daniels, 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' singer, famed fiddler and outspoken star, dies at 83.”

In social media, the tributes to Daniels — by music stars and ordinary fans — almost all stress his Christian faith. You can see that in this collection of tweets that were part of the online Tennessean package.

But if you dig a bit deeper into the comments on these tributes, it’s easy to see that quite a few other people hated Daniels because of his conservative Christian convictions.

Consider, for example, the hurricane of hate and bile running through many of the comments following the typically sweet tribute tweets that came from Dolly Parton. (Make sure you read her second tweet and the comments connected to it.)

I would argue that it’s impossible to understand the “outspoken” side of this man’s life — that word shows up over and over in coverage of his death — without understanding his faith. So what made it into the main Tennessean obit?


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Lead us not into confusion -- concerning The Lord's Prayer in French

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Writing the story of the Belgian dockworkers was like eating sand.

 Once upon a time he’d persuaded himself that technical facility was its own reward: a sentence singing hymns to the attainment of coal production norms in the Donets Basin was, nonetheless, a sentence, and could be well rendered. It was the writer’s responsibility in a progressive society to inform and uplift the toiling masses.”

-- Dark Star by Alan Furst (1991)

I have my favorites. Writers whose work I turn to for enjoyment, inspiration and to steal phrases. The American spy-thriller novelist Alan Furst is a craftsman and storyteller whose work with each re-reading offers different insights into the human experience. It is fun, too.

The passage above from Dark Star illuminates the mental processes of reporting. For every exclusive or breaking story, for every fascinating glimpse or profound discussion of life, God, or the world -- come hundreds of other pieces reporting on committee meetings, speeches and conventions. The eating sand imagery is quite real to me, as is the sense of pride and pleasure of mastering a craft.

Technical ability -- things such as cleverness of language or an edgy tone -- are welcome but cannot make a story great. For an article to break free from the pack of mind numbing junk that overwhelms journalism, the writer must have technical facility but also a sense of the background to the subject. Knowing why the story matters moves it beyond being merely amusing.

The Times story of Nov. 17, 2017, entitled: “Revised Lord’s Prayer delivers French from confusion” is technically proficient, but dull. The author recites but he does not report.

The lede states:

God will no longer be asked to do the Devil’s work in a revised version of the Lord’s Prayer that has been adopted by the French Catholic Church.


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Concerning the Planned Parenthood shooting suspect: Did the Devil make him do it?

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Did the Devil make him do it?

In a massive front-page story today, The New York Times delves deeper into the background of Robert L. Dear Jr., the suspect in last week's shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Earlier this week, GetReligion highlighted the two prevailing media streams concerning Dear and the "Why?" factor in an attack that left three dead and nine wounded.

In today's report, that dichotomy of certifiable lunatic vs. religious anti-abortion warrior prevails again. The Times paints an in-depth portrait of "an angry and occasionally violent man who seemed deeply disturbed and deeply contradictory."

The Times opens with a focus on Dear's religion:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The man she had married professed to be deeply religious. But after more than seven years with Robert L. Dear Jr., Barbara Micheau had come to see life with him as a kind of hell on earth.
By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”

But then the story moves to Dear's views on abortion:


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After the synod: Was 'confusion' caused by the press, the pope or the devil?

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After the synod: Was 'confusion' caused by the press, the pope or the devil?

Let's walk into this minefield very slowly and carefully.

This week, "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I talked about the recent Synod on the Family at the Vatican and some of the themes that emerged out of it. Click here to listen to the podcast.

Truth be told, that primarily meant discussing the tsunami of news coverage about a draft report earlier in the week that was hailed by a major gay-rights group, and thus the elite media, as a "seismic shift" in Catholic attitudes toward the LGBTQ community, the divorced, cohabiting couples, etc. By the end of the week, following blasts of input from cardinals and bishops from around the world, the synod's more modest official report placed a heavier emphasis on affirming Catholic doctrine and, thus, drew far less coverage.

Once again, many Catholics were asking a familiar question: Is there some way for the Catholic church to let the public, especially the world's Catholics, hear the full sweep of what the pope is actually saying? The pope keeps talking about sin, penitence, mercy and salvation, with a strong emphasis on the symbols and language of mercy, and elite news headlines usually report him as saying something like, "Who knows what sin is, anymore, let's show mercy -- period."

After that, criticism of what the press reported the pope as saying -- including attempts to note the content and context of whatever Pope Francis actually said -- is hailed in the same news outlets as criticism of the pope or a rejection of his alleged new direction for the church.

Rinse. Cycle. Repeat.


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