There was a time when the world understood symbolism.
We watched Carmen walk into a saloon full of demons, draw his six-shooters and send the forces of darkness running. We didn’t leave thinking Christians should start gunfights. We understood the message. The battle wasn’t against people. It was against evil.
And we loved it.
That is exactly what the internet seems to have forgotten.
A short video clip from Vacation Bible School at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, exploded across social media after showing a group of “Commandos for Christ” pretending to eliminate a figure dressed in black representing the Devil. Children could be heard cheering as the skit concluded, yelling “Take him out, blow him up!” prompting critics to accuse the church of promoting violence.
The outrage spread far faster than the truth.
Pastor Dewayne Walker responded by explaining what anyone willing to look beyond a few seconds of video would have quickly discovered.
“It’s a character called the devil,” Walker said.
That should have ended the conversation.
Instead, critics began claiming the church was encouraging children to kill people who disagree with Christianity. Walker responded with understandable disbelief.
“They’re saying this is killing people that don’t believe like us. All I can say is, ‘What?'”
Exactly.
Walker explained the viral clip represented only a tiny portion of a Vacation Bible School program the church has presented for more than three decades.
“That little snippet is not even close to what we’re about,” he said.
He also made the church’s position unmistakably clear: “If you ever hear that Mount Olivet Baptist Church has a Vacation Bible School that’s for killing people, you heard it wrong or something’s badly wrong.”
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Could the presentation have been dramatic? Certainly.
Walker even admitted as much.
“You may think we went over the top. You may think it was a little bit extreme, and maybe you’re right.”
That honesty deserves credit, not condemnation.
What deserves condemnation is a culture that refuses to distinguish between symbolic spiritual warfare and actual violence. The apostle Paul wrote, “For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12, MEV).
Christians are not at war with people. We are at war with sin, darkness and the Devil himself.
Walker echoed that biblical truth when he said, “I hate sin because of what it does to the sinner. I will not hate sinners. I’m a sinner saved by God’s grace.”
That is the heart of the Gospel.
The real danger is not a church using creative storytelling to teach children that Satan has already been defeated through Jesus Christ. The real danger is a society so conditioned to manufacture outrage that it can no longer recognize the difference between fantasy and faith, between symbolism and reality.
Christ has already won the victory. Our job is to stand firm, put on the whole armor of God and remind the next generation that the enemy has been defeated.
As Carmen declared years ago, “Satan, bite the dust.”
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
