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It's Saturday, January 6, 2023.

Today’s edition covers the growing “Santa Muerte” cult in Mexico, the resurrection of unbelievers, the historical affair of Abelard and Heloise, and much more.

A prayer for the new year: that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God… (Colossians 1:9-10).

Here’s your first handful of knowledge nuggets of 2024.

Of Christian Concern

SANTA MUERTE: THE GROWING CULT OF DEATH WORSHIPPERS IN MEXICO

“Cult demonstrations at the Tepito market.” (via Associazione Internationale Esorcisti)

A Catholic exorcist in Mexico, priest Andrés Esteban López Ruiz, recently described the growing “Santa Muerte” cult in an article for Associazione Internationale Esorcisti (International Association of Exorcists). This witchcraft religion, which worships a female personification of death, has seen “a notable development” in Catemaco, Veracruz.

The relatively new cult originated in 1961 in Tepito, a barrio in Mexico City, but has influences from older demonic movements from other places: Afro-American religions like Cuba’s Santeria and Brazil’s Candomblé, Umbanda, and Quimbanda. The cult’s “main characteristics” are “esotericism, criminality and syncretism,” Ruiz writes.

Though practitioners “claim to coexist with the Catholic religion,” some aspects of the rituals are all but explicitly Satanic, featuring images of the demon Baphomet and sometimes even apparent cannibalism. The worshippers engage in “all types of magical practices,” from love spells to curses to petitions for protection while committing crimes, and more. 

The cult’s connection to “the crimes of robbery, smuggling, fraud, murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and human trafficking” has led the Mexican government to bar its “ministers” from legal recognition, “since it would structurally represent an affront to public order and human rights.”

The sins associated with Santa Muerte, in Ruiz’s judgment, “place the people who commit them under the direct control of Satan and, with divine permission, can easily constitute the occasion of his extraordinary action.” Ruiz concludes that “The Church's pastoral response must include exorcisms.” 

Also Noteworthy

→ Terrorist-turned-Christian Taysir "Tass" Abu Saada thinks Gazans are becoming disillusioned with Hamas and radical Islam, and anticipates a spiritual awakening leading many to Christ.

→ Abortion was the leading cause of death globally in 2023, according to statistics by Worldometer, The Christian Post reports. | Related: on abortion, religious Democrats agree more with secular Democrats than with religious Republicans, research finds.

→ Anti sex trafficking movie Sound of Freedom made the list of top 10 highest grossing films of 2023.

→ A North Carolina pastor is arrested for assaulting a McDonald’s employee.

→ A lawsuit against Dave Ramsey and his company has been dismissed. Another class-action lawsuit remains ongoing.

→ A Michigan couple sues daughter’s school for treating her like a boy without their consent.

→ The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom condemns the passage of a “blasphemy law” in Denmark, which was introduced after “a recent string of Qur’an burnings.”

→ More Christians murdered in Uganda: in one case, a 46-year-old woman allegedly killed by her son for converting; in another, a 75-year-old grandmother and her two grandchildren, ages 5 and 13, killed during a Christmas celebration.

Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content by Christian creators, or of Christian interest.*

→ A Mission To Savages: January 1 saw the release of the new film Abolitionist, which “documents a powerful ideological movement making a growing impact amongst a heathen people group who practice child sacrifice.” Hint: the people group is us. (Film) 

→ The Anti-Conservative Resistance: Aaron M. Renn highlights an eyebrow-raising revelation from Tim Alberta’s new book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. The revelation: high-profile evangelicals like Russell Moore, David French, and Curtis Chang conspired to raise funds from secular donors to infiltrate an anti-conservative political agenda in the American evangelical church. (Article)

→ LGBT—An Affliction Or A Sin?: Pastor Jared Moore says former Southern Baptist president J.D. Greear “softens the heinousness of ‘LGBT sin’” in a 2019 sermon, outlining a number of issues he sees wrong with both Greear’s message and apologist Neil Shenvi’s defense of it. (Post)

*Not necessarily an endorsement

The Bible, Briefly

The Unbeliever’s Resurrection

“The Last Judgment,” Gustave Doré, 1866. (Public Domain)

Last week we answered the question, “Will believers be physically raised from the dead some time in the future?” (The answer was yes - the future resurrection is physical.)

Now here’s a related question: what about unbelievers? Do they get resurrected too?

As with last week’s query, Matt Perman writing for Desiring God has the answer: “It is not only those who believe in Christ who will experience the resurrection of their bodies. All people will be raised physically from the dead on the last day.”

He offers three passages to prove his point (emphases added):

• Acts 24:15: “there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.”

• John 5:28–29: “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

• Matthew 10:28: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

So, yes, unbelievers will be physically resurrected too, though it’s a categorically different kind of resurrection—a “resurrection of judgment,” rather than a “resurrection of life.” For that reason, we needn’t assume that everything the Bible teaches regarding believers’ resurrected bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-54) can be directly attributed to unbelievers’ resurrected bodies. But, whatever the differences, we know both will be resurrected.

Church History Tidbit

Abelard’s Affair and Its Consequences

Painting of Abelard and Heloise, Salvador Dali, January 8, 1800. (Public Domain)

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was a French philosopher, perhaps the “most brilliant man of his time,” celebrated for his work in nominalism, who also taught theology. He is best known for his salacious affair—and its violent consequence—with Heloise (1101-1164), a beautiful and well-educated woman who was 22 years his younger.

According to his autobiographical Historia Calamitatum, he had already attained academic success and fame, though not without controversy (including accusations of heresy), when he convinced Heloise’s uncle Canon Fulbert to let him live with them as her tutor. His ulterior motive was to seduce her, an effort which was successful.

He describes his descent into the sinful state of mind that led him to this action:

“My school grew and I made a lot of money as well as glory for myself. But prosperity always puffs up the foolish and worldly comfort weakens the soul, leaving it an easy prey to fleshly temptations. I, who had come to regard myself as the only philosopher remaining in the whole world, and had ceased to fear any further disturbance of my peace, began to loosen the rein on my desires, although till now I had always been perfectly self-controlled. The greater progress I made in my lectures on philosophy and theology, the further I slipped from them in the way I lived my life.

“And while I was utterly absorbed in pride and sensuality, God’s grace, the cure for both diseases, was forced upon me — though if I had the choice I would, to tell the truth, have shunned it....”

The secret lovers, he writes, “lost all sense of shame and found ever more opportunities to do what should have shamed us,” and eventually “were caught in the act.” She was soon after found to be pregnant, and he secretly married her (she insisted it be secret, he says, to avoid his disgrace), but her uncle made the secret known. She denied it, resulting in her uncle’s punishing her. When Abelard heard about this, he sent her to a convent.

Fulbert and his family, thinking Abelard was trying to get rid of her, retaliated by breaking into his home at night and castrating him. This violent event went public, to Abelard’s great shame. In disgrace, he retreated to a monastic cloister.

Thus, both Abelard and Heloise “put on the sacred garments.” Abelard continued lecturing on theology and philosophy, and died around age 62. Heloise was buried beside him when she died 21 years later to the day. Beyond the history of their relationship, the pair’s intellectual legacy, such as Heloise’s influence on Abelard’s ideas, continues to draw interest for students of history and philosophy.

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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