NOTES for Luk 11:14-23
Apparently, the miracles Jesus performed gave His opponents no peace. They invented the most fantastic explanations for what was happening, simply to avoid admitting the obvious. According to the evangelist's account, matters went so far as to accuse the Savior of using the services of dark powers to perform healings.
The absurdity of the accusations was quite apparent, and Jesus answered His accusers easily. Yet, judging by subsequent events described in the Gospel, any answers were entirely useless: Jesus' opponents heard only themselves, not the arguments the Savior offered them. Something else is interesting: accusations of this kind have been heard repeatedly in Christian history, leveled against people who, for many different reasons, were unwelcome to the religious majority. The fact that this majority was formally “Christian” changed nothing: the pattern of perceiving unwelcome people, and of accusing them, remained the same.
Of course, such accusations were leveled against very different people. Nevertheless, all the accused could be placed in one of two categories: some were atheists, though fairly rarely, or agnostics, much more often; others were Christians whose religiosity, if they had any, did not fit traditional frameworks. Apparently, the two types share one thing: their representatives are equally successful at breaking down the traditional religiosity characteristic of their age. Actual Satanists were virtually never among the accused: they very rarely act openly, just like the one they serve.
Nor, however, is there any need for them to do so: fierce defenders of religious tradition successfully do their work for them, convinced that they thereby serve not the devil but God. Yet, as the Gospel account shows, what is being served is not God at all, but one's own religion, which, when made an absolute, changes its spiritual character into its opposite. It is no surprise that after such a spiritual reversal, black begins to look white and white black.
Of course, atheism and agnosticism also break down religion. But a militant atheist, and even an agnostic, may sometimes find it easier than a religious person to accept the reality of the Kingdom the Savior brought into the world: such people either have no ideology at all, or one that is too rudimentary. Religion, however, can and does produce elaborate and well-grounded ideologies. For such an ideology, the Kingdom naturally poses a far greater threat than atheism: atheism can only very rarely destroy a religious worldview completely, whereas real experience of the Kingdom does so almost instantly.
The intensely religious Paul ceased to be religious immediately after his brief encounter with the Risen One on the road to Damascus. People who worship their own religion sense and understand this perfectly. They take their measures, declaring everything that does not fit within their religion to be demonic: such a declaration immediately places the threat beyond the bounds of the inner, psychological world each person inhabits. Yet those who embody what does not fit traditional frameworks still remain. Then the cross or the stake is called upon to defend traditional religion, depending on the age.