Rick Santorum is looking to keep America safe from Satan

The presidential Republican hopeful Rick Santorum is on the front page again, this time over a speech he gave in 2008 in which he dissects Satan’s tactics.

If Rick Santorum and Rep. Bob Morris are not friends by the end of the day, they need to be. The two would surely agree on such key issues as traditional family values, abortion, women in the military and – Satan.

While Morris made headlines today by boycotting the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts over the organization’s alleged ties to Planned Parenthood and a politically liberal agenda, Santorum is making his own waves over a video which dates back to a speech he gave at Ave Maria University in 2008. In the talk, Santorum says that Satan, a.k.a., the devil, Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc., has been attacking this great nation by attacking its traditionally strong institutions.

“Satan [has been] attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that [have] so deeply rooted in the American tradition,” he declares in the video.

Ironically (given the setting of the speech), Santorum said Satan has been most successful in infiltrating academia, but he (Satan) has also had great success with popular culture and even churches. Politics and government institutions were in immediate danger as the next slated targets in Satan’s plot. Santorum already sees the beginnings of the downfall. “The body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades but it is falling too,” he said.

Though the statements seem rather extreme for a presidential contender, they are unlikely to derail Santorum’s meteoric rise in the Republican Party. He has, after all, come out with other, similarly risky positions, and they have not slowed him down one bit.

As we have emphasized here repeatedly, Santorum’s position is one of reactionary, Christian evangelical politics, the proponents of which see themselves tasked with a great commission – to bring America back to its Biblical, righteous roots, and to bring about the flowering of a Biblically obedient nation. Santorum and his conservative, Christian colleagues believe that Satan quite literally is waging war on Christ – and they constitute generals in his (Christ’s) army.

Santorum’s views about Satan are unlikely to cause a serious uproar for another, practical reason. The majority of Americans – seven out of 10 – believe in the devil too, according to a 2007 Gallup poll. Twenty one percent said they don’t, while 8 percent are not sure. A 2009 Harris poll suggested the figure of Satan-believers to be at 60%, but that can hardly be called a significant change of opinion.

Whether these same folks also believe that Satan has attacked key American institutions in tangibly direct ways is an interesting question – perhaps one which could be well-served by another poll.

Theologians were quick to point out that Santorum’s black-and-white view of Satan do not sit so easily with them.

"Santorum's comments regarding his theory of the fall of American institutions is, I think, quite relevant in the current presidential debate," said C. Melissa Snarr, associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

"In a public speech, Santorum offered a grand interpretation of the current challenges facing the United States. I think it is imperative to analyze and debate his version of a political theodicy (or why bad things happen to good countries) and ask whether his interpretation is one that voters should feel comfortable backing," Snarr added.

Well. Her multi-layered statements might only serve Santorum as an example of Satan’s subtle tactics, since, as he alleges, the Dark Angel has completely taken over the academics.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, watch the video below:

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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