Luciferians set Halloween debut in Old Town Spring
It’s trick-or-treat time in Old Town Spring. Menacing skeletons and grinning jack-o’-lanterns elbow for space in the potpourri-scented craft shops that line the quaint shopping district’s Main Street. This All Hallow’s Eve, though, at least some in the north Harris County suburb fear, a new scent is coming to town: burning brimstone.
On Oct. 31, a day whose traditions, some scholars believe, are rooted in pagan beliefs, the Greater Church of Lucifer formally will debut in a small building just blocks from a local Baptist church. While GCOL leaders insist their Lucifer is a “light bearer,” only a “spark of consciousness that questions everything,” not the archenemy of the Judeo-Christian God, others remain unconvinced.
“They want to turn on an inner light,” said the Rev. Mark Estep, pastor of Spring Baptist Church, “but I believe they are worship-
ping Satan.”
Estep and other local clergy said they will pray for the Luciferians, seeking to understand their beliefs and gently prod them onto what they consider a more righteous path. “The Lord,” said Estep, “instructed us to love all people.” But others, anonymous and angry, have called for Old Testament retribution, praying, in one instance, that the Luciferian church erupts in flames and incinerate all inside.
GCOL founder Jacob No, 35, admitted his group chose the Luciferian name, in part, to be “provocative.” Still, he seemed surprised at the intensity of opposition and worried about possible violence. His church, he said, is committed to helping “mankind progress out of the dark ages and create a new world of understanding and tolerance.”
“The essence is we want to help people find themselves and understand themselves in ... a way they’ve never known before,” he said. “We definitely have the skills to guide them along a path they choose — I emphasize a path they choose.”
Until now, he said, the Spring church’s approximately 30 members have met in private homes. A number of satellite congregations, notably in Latin America, have organized after becoming familiar with the Luciferian creed through books or the church website, https:// greaterchurchoflucifer.org.
Reared a Mormon, No credited the Luciferian philosophy, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, with turning his life around. The church bills itself as a “powerhouse of top leaders.”
“I was living on a friend’s couch and had no money,” he said. “I started with zero, literally nothing but the clothes on my back. Now I have a decent home, I’m able to pay my bills, I’ve met the love of my life and I’m going to have a child. I got off my butt and did something. I didn’t have to pray to God when I realized that it all was me. No god is going to save my butt.” A 3-day opening
Beginning Oct. 30, the three-day church opening will feature presentations by leaders on the Luciferian philosophy, history and future. Halloween afternoon, participants will have access to the church’s “preferred tattoo artist” for Luciferian skin art. Discounts will be offered. That evening, attendees will turn out — in or out of costume — for a Halloween bash at a Houston nightclub.
Church rhetoric tends to the grandiloquent.
“There comes a time in every era where history changes course ... This is now one of those times,” the church website proclaims. “Never in history has anything like this happened before: an open-tothe-public home for the Left Hand Path, a church dedicated to the mental freedom of all mankind, a home for all those who are not conformists to the common way of thought and a temple to the higher self!”
The church itself is an unassuming white frame building, furnished with theater-style seating and adorned with Luciferian symbols denoting the balance between light and darkness, freedom from superstition and the apotheosis of the individual. Question everything
Services tend to be group discussions, where members debate the applications of the philosophy’s “11 points of power,” which include such injunctions as, “To become your own god, you must have the wisdom and strength to govern and guide your life as if your mind is to survive beyond the mortal body.”
“We’re not anti-Christian, we’re anti-dogma,” said church co-president HopeMarie Ford, 42. “We advocate questioning everything and not letting anyone tell you what the answer is ... One of our cornerstones is balance. We don’t believe there can be light without darkness, good without evil. They coexist in nature. We don’t try to separate them.”
Acknowledgement of such balance, Luciferians believe, is key to plotting a rational, self-actualizing path through life.
“Going beneath the symbolism, there’s an understanding of how to apply it to daily life, knowing you are accountable for your here-and-now choices,” said Ford’s husband, Michael Ford, 39, a church co-president and an author of 23 books about Luciferian philosophy. “It’s not something outside of yourself, not the work of some spiritual mother or father. You must seize the moment, plan ahead and avoid the trap of guilt.”
Although many Americans consider “Lucifer” just another name for Satan, religious experts said, the melding of the two didn’t begin until Jewish scholars in the Second Temple Period, about 530 BC to 70 AD, reinterpreted verses from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah.
In Isaiah, the term “light bearer” is applied to a human being, the Babylonian king, said Baylor University professor Mike Parsons. “In the Jewish literature of the Second Temple, as interest in and speculation about Satan intensified,” he said, “some interpreters shifted the identification from a historical figure (king of Babylon) to a cosmic one, Satan.”
In that revised story, Parsons said, the light bearer is cast from heaven to hover over a “bottomless pit” after attempting to usurp God’s authority.
Possibly drawing on Second Temple writings, some New Testament authors transform the light bearer into a Satanic figure. The Apostle Paul, for example, asserts in Second Corinthians that Satan disguises himself as “an angel of light.”
The name “Lucifer” entered the Christian lexicon as the scriptures were translated into Latin — Lucifer being Latin for “light bearer,” said Jaime ClarkSoles, a professor at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. In the English-speaking world, the association between the light bearer and Satan was cemented by John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy.” Words of reassurance
HopeMarie Ford, a former Southern Baptist who has explored beliefs of other Christian denominations, sought to reassure Spring-area residents that “we are not devil worshippers.” Many — if not most — church members do not believe Lucifer is a real entity, she said.
“They have nothing to be afraid of,” she said of townsfolk. “We’re not doing anything amoral or against the law. We have families. I have grandchildren.”
Since a brief news story about the church appeared on Houston television, Old Town Spring visitors have flocked to the church to pose for photos next to its front yard sign. Nearby merchants seem more curious than hostile, Ford said. At the same time, though, Web postings associated with the television broadcast have brought a plethora of angry responses, prompting HopeMarie Ford to avoid appearing in media photos and No to adopt a fake identity for public pronouncements. ‘We do fear for them’
Despite Luciferians’ claims of being harmless, some Christian clergy remain wary.
“Christians are not threatened by them,” said Estep, the Baptist pastor. “Would we prefer the group not exist? Yes.”
Estep said he will wait until hubbub generated by the church’s debut fades, then pay the Luciferians a friendly visit.
“You can’t argue anyone into salvation,” Estep said, “but you can show the love of our trust in the holy spirit.”
The Rev. Andy Sytsma of Spring’s Presbyterian-based New Life Christian Reformed Church, said he has joined other area clergy in praying for the Luciferians.
“We know they are sincere in their beliefs, but as Christians, think that they are sincerely wrong in what they believe,” he said. “We don’t need to be afraid of them, but we do fear for them because of what the Bible says about how God will handle people who follow such beliefs.”