Call Off the Taylor Swift Witch Hunt

A number of videos have been circulating in Christian circles accusing Taylor Swift of worshipping the Devil.

The mega pop star just passed the Beatles’ record for most cumulative weeks in the Top 10. So, agreed, that does look like some kind of Faustian bargain has been struck.

But the criticism has focused on her music video for the song Karma. In the video, she is shown in the popular depiction of hell, wearing a horned, demonic-looking mask.

It sure looks bad. But Taylor Swift is no more worshipping the Devil than Hieronymus Bosch was. No, I don’t mean the TV detective Bosch (great show) but the 16th-century artist who painted macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell. Or for that matter, Dante, who wrote about traipsing down into the lower levels of hell and purgatory.

Disclaimer: I’m old. I actually could not tell you from memory the name of any Taylor Swift song. She only recently took on solid form for me by her association with the Kansas City Chiefs.

But her video does harbor an important doctrinal error -  one that most evangelical Christians are also inclined toward.

First, what galls me about preachers loudly condemning popular culture is that, for the most part, they're not really interested in getting at the truth. They just want to stir up controversy (and maybe bring in more donations).

My first question when I heard these accusations was, what religion does Swift actually claim to adhere to, if any? Google is there to help. Turns out she is a follower of Santaria Zoroaster Muhammad Aleister Crowley Buddha Jesus.

That's right - Jesus. And not just as a child, or in her youth, or briefly. 

In her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, Swift said she was raised a Christian, but that she felt real Christian values were not being upheld by current lawmakers who claimed to be believers.

During Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn's run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, Swift criticized Blackburn's policies opposing abortion access and gay rights.

Swift said in the documentary: "I can't see another commercial and see Marsha Blackburn disguising these policies behind the words 'Tennessee Christian values.' Those aren't 'Tennessee Christian values.' I live in Tennessee. I'm a Christian. That's not what we stand for." She went on to endorse Joe Biden in 2020.

And this seems to be the real problem conservative evangelicals have with Taylor Swift. She's a mega star but not a MAGA star.

Whether or not her policy opinions make or break her as a “genuine” Christian is not for me to say. That's God's department. At worst she's merely mistaken.

Swift sprinkles religious references in some of her other songs. According to the website Premier Christianity, which focuses on these kinds of things, in the 2007 song Christmas Must Be Something More, she refers to Jesus as “the birthday boy who saved our lives.”

In other songs, she refers to prayer. In the evocative song Soon You’ll Get Better, Swift talks about praying to Jesus when her mother was diagnosed with cancer: “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you / Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.”

With ups and downs in her private life, good boyfriends and bad, perhaps her journey of faith has evolved. But in which direction? Until she decides to reveal more, that's all we know about the faith of Taylor Swift.

But what about that Devil mask?

There are actually two music videos. One that was released with the original song. It's the other one featuring a "duet" with Ice Spice that is receiving the criticism. The first video is all about the boyfriend. In the second, the director apparently took the “hell” theme and just ran with it.

There is an easy way to clarify the meaning of those scenes of hell. Look at the song lyrics.

“Karma” here is not the principle as strictly defined by several schools of Hindu religion. It is merely the adapted western concept of "what goes around comes around." And the music video's “hell” is not the theological conception of the Hebrew sheol or gehenna or the Greek hades or Tartarus where the unbelieving dead suffer in unquenchable fire. It's the cartoon version of hell that has emerged in popular culture.

Swift is using concepts like Karma and hell outside of their original settings as artists have always done. They illustrate the message of her song - that her old boyfriend is experiencing the Karma he deserves for his betrayal. His suffering is depicted as being in hell, while in contrast Swift is happy with her life, receiving good from the universe for good works she has done.

In the first scene, Swift holds a pair of scales posing as Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution and divine justice. Then the stage flips, with the underworld coming to the surface showing the retribution enacted.

The horrors of hell are depicted as the proper payback for evil deeds - something many evangelicals would ascribe to. She takes off the horned mask and laughs, enjoying her boyfriend’s predicament. Later she is in her perfect Barbie world, and mockingly blows a kiss to a coterie of demons or possibly Grim Reapers who “give her the finger.” She is an interloper, not one of them. The scene actually takes up only a fraction of the video.

In the song she oddly portrays Karma as her real “boyfriend,” as her "god," (because it’s powerful?) as “sweet like honey” and a "cat purring in my lap."

(I couldn’t really make heads nor tails of this, and neither could a Buddhist scholar. The original video is even sillier. But hey, it’s a pop song).

Then she tells her old boyfriend, "I keep my side of the street clean, You wouldn't know what I mean" as she sweeps a broom over the path.

“Karma” seems to be an all-purpose word. In a recent concert she changed the lyrics to reference her new boyfriend Travis Kelce: "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me."

Is this a good song? It’s OK. She’s certainly no Joni Mitchell. But is it worshipping the Devil? No.

During her Eras Tour, Swift posted to her fans, "I've been watching videos of you guys in the theaters dancing and prancing and recreating choreography, creating inside jokes, casting spells, getting engaged, and just generally creating the exact type of joyful chaos we're known for."

Casting spells? That reference set off a storm of accusations that she was "celebrating Satanism," even though as rock star antics go, Swift appears to be on the extremely tame side. Could “casting spells” simply refer to flirtatious enticements to romance? Although she never directly answered these accusations, she did caption a video on X, "Never beating the sorcery allegations."

I almost hear a sigh of resignation. She probably realized that people who believe you’re a Satan worshiper would not be dissuaded by a denial.

The whole Taylor Swift controversy has become extremely silly. An article in Forbes noted that she was accused of flashing a Satanic hand gesture during a concert in 2023. Turns out it was probably the American Sign Language sign for "I Love You."

But…

The real problem with the Karma song might be the idea of "good works" -  i.e. that good works will keep you out of hell and reward you with heaven.

This - and not the horned mask - is the concept that might possibly keep Swift's millions of secular fans from understanding and receiving God's grace. And that would be sad.

Sure, if they follow the song's philosophical throughline, they might be persuaded to behave better than the betraying and deceiving boyfriend in the song. But they might never understand that - like the bad boyfriend -  they (and all of us) are full of sin and need redemption. Karma tells us to behave. Jesus calls us to die to self.

But this is just a pop song, after all, not a theological treatise.

Look, Satan would be glad if everybody conceived of him as the horned monster with a tail, cloven hooves and a pitchfork as depicted in the music video. (And the anti-Swift preachers play right into that cartoon version). But Paul says he can appear like an angel of light. C.S. Lewis portrays him more as a sort of Oxford professor. He doesn't necessarily want everybody to jump into adultery, drugs and murder. He'd be fine with humans living out their lives, quietly miserable, alone and in fear, publicly being civil while privately resentful, feigning piety while privately full of lust, or jealousy, or envy, or despair, and never finding Jesus.

And Satan would like us to continue to internally "beat ourselves up" when we don't achieve our goals or commit sin or feel shame, instead of actually repenting and receiving forgiveness and acceptance. We’re very good at creating a little bit of hell for ourselves.

When the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18), they spent all day pleading for Baal to send fire down to consume their offering. The scripture says they leaped and danced, in a frenzy, cutting themselves, hoping the blood would draw the attention of the god and manipulate him into answering their prayers.

The problem was, Baal wasn't real. God was, and He vindicated Elijah without the need for theatrics.

When we depend on our good works, on saying the right thing, trying to be doctrinally pure and pointing the finger at others, and then beating ourselves up when we fall short and sin, then like those false prophets we're worshipping Baal or some other idol - not God.

The hysterical preachers in videos condemning Taylor Swift and spreading conspiracy theories are missing the danger right in front of their faces.

Forget Taylor Swift. The right question to ask is always, "Where am I worshipping the Devil?"