The problem is that this is not a particularly biblical way of presenting the work of the Devil or Satan. Elaine Pagels has aptly summed up what the biblical figure of Satan really challenges us to confront, “that this greatest and most dangerous enemy did not originate, as one might expect, as an outsider, an alien, or a stranger. Satan is not the distant enemy but the intimate enemy—one’s trusted colleague, close associate, brother…Whichever version of his origin one chooses, and there are many, all depict Satan as intimate enemy—the attribute that qualifies him so well to express conflict among Jewish groups. Those who asked, ‘How could God’s own angel become his enemy?’ were thus asking, in effect, ‘How could one of us become one of them?’

At the deepest level, the figure of Satan and the seemingly cosmic struggle with evil he represents is always actually an incredibly intimate struggle. It is not the struggle with the enemy far off, but with the friend, the neighbor and ultimately with oneself. Satan is not pure evil; Satan is the temptation within, the human struggle to be good in a very broken and conflicted world. Finally the only way to really understand Satan is to understand yourself and your own temptation to abuse power.

It has always been striking to me that when the devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness, his trump card on temptation is political power. “Then the devil led Jesus up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to Jesus, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority…If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’”

Presidential political campaigns are filled to the brim with opportunities to fall into temptation. This is a spiritual lesson, Rev. Huckabee. The apology was good, but learning the biblical lesson is also important. And then ‘go and sin no more’.