I have often reflected on the history of demons. It seems we can’t do without them. I suspect that it's because we need to find somewhere to place our more difficult feelings about our sense of our own ‘badness’. We mostly recognize that we are not perfect and we have to find somewhere to externalize those difficult feelings. If we are honest, we may find that some of the less positive feelings we have toward others are too difficult to manage internally.

As I look back on just the last century, we have had a whole series of demons that we have either created, or who have presented themselves to us for further enhancement.

Perhaps the most obvious demon from that period was Adolph Hitler. I wonder if, in him, all the worst feelings we have toward those different from us became focused and so safer for us. Safe, because by externalizing them into him, we did not have to recognize them in ourselves.

Perhaps that’s an extreme example for some, but there is a whole other long list. Currently the demon of South America is to be found in Venezuela. In the Middle East there is a fair choice from the faith of Islam to the leaders of Iran, to Hamas, to Al Qeida and, we can go back through the century to North Vietnam, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, China. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned names. I am sure you can do that for yourself. In how many of those places I have named have we found a really bad guy on whom to focus our fears, as well as that which we cannot resolve within us?

Why did this all surface for me again now?

It was that election we had recently in the USA. In the State of California a proposition on the ballot there outlawed gay marriage within the State. It came as a great surprise to me, as I had been led to believe that California was a ‘liberal’ State. How could this happen? I discovered that, in the analysis of the voting, the strong support of the black vote against the proposition is what made the difference. This is not any comment about one race being superior or inferior to another. It strikes me that here is a formerly, though some would say still, oppressed minority voting to oppress another.

It has been ever the case in history.

It seems we have a long way to go still in affirming the value of each other which is at the heart of the message of Jesus.