Tag: Christ

I Never Stopped Being a Christian

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 3 Comments


A mother once wrote to C.S. Lewis on behalf of her concerned son, who was worried that he loved Aslan, the lion Christ figure from Lewis’s children’s series, more than Jesus himself. Lewis wrote back with this consolation:

Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.

Lewis obviously meant this literally: Jesus is a real, living, breathing, present being, and the third person of the Trinity. But, even if we don’t take a literal view of the Christ myth, there is truth in Lewis’s words, if only at a cultural and psychological level. Imagine my bewilderment in realizing that I, a 35-year-old secular atheist, am the little boy Lewis was writing to.

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Sacred Tension: The Reconciliation of Christ and Satan with Lucien Greaves

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

In this episode of Sacred Tension, I am joined once again by Lucien Greaves, founder and spokesperson of The Satanic Temple. We discuss the philosophical underpinnings of TST, the influence of The Process Church of the Final Judgement on the development of TST, his recent appearance on Tucker Carlson, and much more. 

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Living as Satan

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 7 Comments

I’ve discussed in great detail the ways in which Satanism works for me. I’ve explained that I see self-aware, non theistic religion as healthier and more enlightened than theistic and un-self-aware religion. I’ve explained that Satan is not a real figure, but a metaphor for the unbowed will and icon of the outsider, and that my Satanism is not necessarily anti-Christian, but rather a positive and separate post-Christian concoction.

And yet, I realized recently that one of the most crucial aspects of my Satanism, and religious life in general, has been neglected in these explanations.

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Suffering and Sacrament: On Finding Connection as a Grocery Store Cashier

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 4 Comments

Every day, I go to work as a grocery store cashier at a family-owned business in a prosperous region of the more generally depressed Appalachian mountains. This work has transformed my life, not because it is the exciting, high-impact, high-power job so many of us dream about in our twenties and thirties, but because it brings me into direct contact with humanity.

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