My other reason for being perturbed about The End of Days was that I knew from a biblical standpoint that people who tried to cast out demons, let alone fight them face to face, without the authority of Christ were roundly unsuccessful, even beaten up. “Jesus, I know, Paul I know but who are you?” So how could a carnal Arnold who wouldn’t in biblical terms have the anointing to cast out a low demon defeat the chief of them. It was then that I begin recount the times I’d seen the church portrayed in a frail powerless fashion. Although, movies abound with such views, it is television which equally drives its point home. The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a spin-off of the actual movie and originally begin as a sarcastic take on the vampire genre. Four teen-agers survive by their wits in battling vampires, with the burden of slaying them and keeping everything safe for the world on the shoulders of one girl, with the physical strength to carry out her task.

As time went on Joss Whedon, the writer of the show decided that vampires weren’t enough for Buffy so he added demons and other creepy supernatural beings. To help Buffy gain more of an edge, he made Willow, the smartest girl in the school and Buffy’s best friend, a witch. It all started off innocently of course as it always does, but several seasons later Willow is practicing some heavy witch craft and, just to be politically correct, she becomes a lesbian as well. So once again we have spiritual battles going on, but believers of the Way are nowhere on the scene and when there is a church scene on the show it serves only as a backdrop to fight a vampire or demon. Oh, and quite naturally crosses don’t work all that well on these vampires anyway, not like the old Dracula movies when just seeing the cross was enough to push back evil. The cross and the work of the Lord Jesus upon it has been equally neutered.

In its place now are spells of all sorts, one of which was responsible for raising a dead Buffy, who gave her life to save the world in a Christ-like mimic, back to life. Yes, Willow did what witchcraft and sorcery had never been able to do and that’s bring someone back to life. I thought, “I know this is supposed to be fiction,” but I couldn’t overlook the message that millions of teenie boppers (and whomever else watched the show) were being sent—namely that God is not the one who raises the dead as he did with Jesus Christ, but rather it is Willow via her witchcraft. I was even more floored when Buffy stated that she thought she was in heaven when sorcery by her friends snatched her from it. What heaven? What God? It is sheer insanity to think that you could pluck someone from heaven via a spell. But in Joss Whedon’s world, evil runs amok and there is no representation of God or any kind of supreme being having control. The situation is no better on Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s companion show. Angel is a vampire cursed with a soul by gypsies so that taking human life burdens his conscience. Thus, he spends his time trying to do good to make up for the lives he took as a soulless vampire. Like Buffy, he has to battle everyone from an evil law firm who knows about all the supernatural, vampire, demons, and unexplainable things that happen in LA (unlike the church of course), to gruesome demons, vampires, and apocalyptic happenings. His cohorts are human and otherworldly beings like demons who have visions from the “powers that be” to help alert the team to when trouble is afoot. In one episode, Angel finds out that all his fighting is for nothing as there is no purpose to anything. You can’t totally dispatch evil because it recycles itself as long as there are people. The actual “powers that be” are amorphous detached beings who could be Whedon’s version of supreme beings except they don’t have all control and certainly no love for people and definitely no evidence of a plan for the world.

On the show Charmed three sister witches battle evil to save human life and even the world. This show is even more spiritually brainless than the two aforementioned shows. It includes a character called a white lighter whose job it is to guide the three sisters and heal them when they are wounded in battles with warlocks and demons sent to kill them by the “source” who is evil personified. He seems to be the Bible’s version of Satan. With their individual powers and spells from the book of shadows they engage in habitual life-interfering combat with the source. Once again the body of Christ has no part in any of these spiritual battles because in Constance Burges’ (the writer) world they have been usurped by witches who fight on the side of good. In one episode when the sisters are in a church they freeze a nun who is never any the wiser once she is unfrozen, and she certainly hasn’t a clue about the source who is outside waiting to accost one of the sisters. Oddly enough he doesn’t go into the church as he seemed to be held at bay by a gargoyle type statute. The church once again is reduced to a backdrop in a show about spiritual warfare. Like the other shows Buffy and Angel, God is nowhere on the scene, not even in a mythological sense. Evil is supernaturally represented everywhere, but good is not represented in the same manner, and barely holds its own. Who pulls the strings and controls everything is never portrayed in the show plots.

These shows are hardly alone in their twisted depiction of the spiritual reality promulgated by the Bible. I’ve started to read several seemingly innocent books only to find a negative depiction of the church in relation to spiritual matters. But this is where I would like to set the record straight for any would be reader searching for truth as to these matters. I would like to dismiss these shows as harmless fantasy, but in today’s society, nothing is harmless, particularly when you’re setting shows in real time and real places.

The Bible is replete with supernatural encounters beginning first with God’s creation of the world and man. However, I would like to begin with Moses’ mandate from God to tell the Pharoah of Egypt to free the enslaved Hebrews. It is in Exodus 7:10 that God, through Moses, performs His first miracle. He doesn’t begin with a huge miracle but with a small one by God’s term. Aaron’s staff when thrown down in front of Pharoah becomes a snake. Enter Pharoah’s wise men and sorcerers and they do the same thing by their secret arts. God next turns the waters of Egypt to blood, the Egyptian magicians do the same thing, Then he causes frogs to cover the land and the Egyptian magicians copy the same. As if he’s done toying with them, God next causes all the dust of Egypt to become gnats, and the magicians, try though they might, could not accomplish the same feat. They had to cry “uncle” and tell Pharoah “This is the finger of God”, and basically “we’re out of our league on this one”. By the time its all over Pharoah’s magicians are nowhere to be seen and the Hebrews are on their way to the promise land. The power of God has manifested itself to be in control of nature, people, life and death.