Popular author and pastor Lee Strobel has suggested that the entertainment industry may be one of the main channels through which the demonic realm influences society.
In a two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, Strobel said: “If demons do exist, we ought to be heads-up about it. Because the two biggest mistakes we can make about the demonic realm: number one, is to deny that they exist; and number two, to see a demon behind every bush and think they're more powerful than they are.”
Strobel, who recently published Seeing the Supernatural, argued that rather than targeting individuals, Satan uses the influence of Hollywood to normalise sin.
“A much more efficient strategy,” he explained, “is to go to Hollywood and to influence a bunch of people there who are very influential… and encourage them to create films and television shows that… have an underlying message… that there’s a normalisation of immoral activity.”
He pointed to the sitcom Friends as one example, saying it promoted “a very ugly sexual ethic that normalises multiple sexual partners and that sort of thing, the kind of thing that Satan would love to inculcate into American culture.”
Strobel warned this influence extends beyond sexual morality to other destructive behaviours, saying such media can “open us up to the occult, open us up to immoral activity” without people realising.
Carlson, who said he knows figures in Hollywood personally, agreed that the industry often leaves people “really tormented… with a string of wrecked relationships, kids who hate them, trans kids, drug problems.”