Part of the promotion for our new book, If the devil wrote a bible we prepared some interview questions to be used for radio and television. Here are the first two questions and responses. These will help clarify the nature of the book and who might benefit from reading it. More of it can be seen at: www.evpbooks.com
Interview Questions for If the Devil Wrote a Bible by Kent and Katie Philpott
1. What’s in the book?
There are 29 passages from the devil’s bible. Each is followed by the devil’s own commentary whereby he expands on his theme. Then there are the Ten Demonments, Satan’s version of the biblical Ten Commandments of Exodus 20. Last are the Bebaditudes, the devil’s refutation of Jesus’ Beatitudes. All together around 180 pages.
We must sound a warning: the devil’s bible is persuasive and some have said it is too much that way. The devil does not always show up in a red suit, with pitchfork, breathing fire. He has a zillion disguises and is an accomplished philosopher. He appeals to the fleshly desires as well as the intellect. Satan is all about having power, power to rape, rob, murder, steal, and pillage. He just does it in clever ways.
2. What makes you an authority on the devil?
As a kid the devil was merely a cartoon character. While in college studying psychology and philosophy I considered demons, possession, and the casting out of demons we read about in the New Testament to be nothing other than the pop psychology of an ignorant age. Even as a seminary student I inwardly laughed when professors spoke as though the demonic realm was real.
My views changed in 1968 when as a street preacher in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco I encountered demon possessed people and found out up-close and personal that demons were real.
Sometime in 1969 I ran across Carla La Vey, the daughter of Anton La Vey who was the author of the Satanic Bible and head of the Church of Satan in San Francisco. I had heard of him, had even been evangelized so-to-speak by a member of La Vey’s church who gave me a copy of that bible. Carla was what was called at the time a “teeny bopper” or “wanna-be hippie.” I could tell she was much older than her age, meaning she had seen way too much of the seamy side of life for a mid-teenager. We ran across each other a number of times and little by little on Haight Street I got the essential Gospel message across to her. Long story short, she took me to meet her dad, and this several times, and I had a chance to talk to La Vey in his home and church, painted black of course, on California Street. He was a dramatic and imposing individual and I teetered on being afraid of him. After a few conversations, he refused to see me anymore. I think Carla became a Christian but I cannot say that for sure as I never saw her again.
Then, for a ThM degree I spent 3 years researching the occult, this from 1970 to 1973. The thesis become a book, A Manual of Demonology and the Occult, which was published in 1974 by Zondervan. Then, all during the 1970s and beyond, I engaged in hundreds of sessions where we cast demons out of people. With the publication of the occult book, people showed up at my door from literally all over the country wanting to be free of possessing demons.