Campaign Diary

Erica Grieder follows the US Presidential campaign

My favourite souvenir from the campaign season is a nine-page handout on ‘The Nature & Activity of Demons’. This was provided during a sort of adult Sunday school at John Hagee’s mega-church in San Antonio, Texas. Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist pastor and candidate for the Republican nomination, was there for a guest-preaching stint, and gave a colourful explanation of why we should strive to be less like Herod and more like Jesus. It was sound advice, but perhaps not as immediate as the lesson that preceded it. Satan is engaged in guerrilla warfare: his minions systematically invade the populace, and infect us with their ideologies. They will look like innocents, and will blame the government for any unrest. They are not sportsmanlike and will ‘employ any scheme to win the loyalty of the people (harass, sabotage, terror)’. They ‘manipulate the populace thru terror and misinformation to remain anonymous’, and ‘no cost is too high for victory’.