How Satan Casts Out Satan

Jesus poses a riddle to his listeners in the Gospel of Mark: "How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?" The answer to the riddle is that it happens all the time.  In fact, it is one of the fundamental characteristics of human culture.

Satan is translated as the "Diabolos," or the "deceiver." The deceiver, as the name implies, is all about the business of deception.  The Satan's long con in the Church is to convince us that we are doing God's will when we are actually acting in the exact opposite way that God wants.

When wrongdoing or evil is recognized in a community, whether it is within the nation state, the Church, or the family, our propensity is to cast out the evil persons or element and to exclude it.  By doing so, we are acting contrary to the will of God, who entered into the human community with no thought other than our redemption and reconciliation with us.  When God sees evil or wrongdoing in the human community, God seeks to enter into that which is evil and transform it so that it might become good.  Consequently, by casting out that which is evil, the very act of casting out is contrary to God's will.  It is Satan casting out Satan.

The purpose of the Church is not only to be God's conduit to reveal Christ to the world but to retain the practice of casting out those who are not part of the Body of Christ; that is to simply change the subject matter of what is being cast out.  The purpose of the Church is to recognize that in Christ, God changed the way communities are to respond to wrongdoing in their midst; not seeking its exclusion and banishment, but its redemption.