The Devil in popular culture

Today, the Devil has lost much of the terror he held in days gone by. We encounter him instead in popular culture – in books, music, and movies.

He appears as the charming tempter, the personification of evil, and as God’s adversary, but equally, too, as the sympathetic and misunderstood antihero.

The social functions he fulfils are as wide-ranging as the forms he takes. Although Satan often appears harmless in modern popular culture, some continue to see his influence at work in the crises of our time, and warn us urgently against him.

What is also remarkable is that, in some branches of Satanism today, the Devil is a figure of religious veneration. A few centuries ago, this would have been unthinkable. Likewise the fact that he has become the much-loved mascot of sports teams, and even a costume gladly worn at carnival time.