I am extremely pleased to get feedback on the HM shirt designs we’re messing with. I have not decided yet which design (if any) to go with for the next round of HM merch. This post is not meant to be a defense for deciding to carry this shirt. It has another motivation. This motivation is based in hope. It is opinionated, to be sure, but it is aimed at edification and growth. In a word, you could say the motivation is intelligence.
Is the goat a symbol of evil?
The bible has many stories that explain the kingdom of God. Jesus spoke in stories that He and others called “parables.” One very important and famous parable is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where Jesus says, “…as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…” We learn that there are some people that will incur judgment of destruction and punishment and to others reward and joy. For some reason, we equate sheep with Christians and goats as non-Christians. If you think about it reasonably, this is not really the implication or conclusion that Jesus wanted to make. The point wasn’t necessarily the object of the shepherd’s action as much as it was the action he was making – separating. The teller of the parable gets to pick his or her own details as they compose the story. And they get to assign meaning to each word as they so choose. I can only guess that He could have just as well used: “…as a bank teller separates the bills into ones and fives…” The detail at this point of the parable is setting up two distinct groups of people. I think He chose this metaphor because it was one His hearers would understand.
“Oh yeah, we know how a shepherd separates sheep from goats.” Why does he separate them? A few amateur answers I found are:
The reason for separating the sheep from the goats could be for the difference in their grazing patterns, and for wool gathering.
I have heard that sheep graze closer to the soil than other animals. If that is so, you want the goats to feed in a pasture before the sheep, or the sheep will not leave enough for the goats to feed on.
Sheep are better producers of wool than goats. When you are shearing sheep, I imagine you do not want to have to deal with a goat that might have gotten into the herd. Goats are more willful creatures than sheep, and so they would be not as cooperative at shearing time.
Also, I believe there is a prohibition in the Law of Moses against wearing a garment of mixed thread, so they would not mix wool from two different kinds of animals. This might have practical aspects along with the theological. In those days, they probably didn’t have the ways to treat the threads like we do today. Mixing threads of two different types of wool could affect the fabric’s durability, strength, and other characteristics.
Middle Eastern sheep look very different to our western breeds, in fact they look remarkably like goats. Shepherds often run mixed flocks. When I lived in Beirut, our cheese came from a shepherd who grazed his mixed flock in between buildings in the bombs sites and vacant lots. He sold both sheep’s milk and goat’s milk cheese through the office windows to our staff.
In short, both produce milk, but it has a different flavour and makes different kinds of cheese. The meat also tastes different so flocks do need be separated out. The type of flock referred to in the New Testament is the Middle Eastern flock where the sheep and goats cannot easily be distinguished at a distance.
Goat manure has a bad smell and the sheep will not pick any where it is.
Run the Sheep in the pasture first the the goat behind them to eat the garbage weeds.
For whatever the reason, I think talking about the two general actions and attitudes of the people are the most important parts of the parable (those that helped those less fortunate than themselves and those that did not). To conclude that sheep are good and goats are bad might be missing the point or extracting too much from the details. Sometimes the details of a story are just background. Other times they are vital details.
There are many other passages about goats in Scripture. Goats were simple farm animals. They yielded milk, meat and their hide. They are more akin to the “hinds feet in high places” (as is a goat’s specialty) than deer and sheep are. If you looked up all the references to goats in the Bible, I believe you would find a fair and appreciative attitude towards this animal, which was useful to quite a few farmers in that day.
Are we to fear the symbol of the goat?
I know that many pentagrams use a goat’s head to refer to Satan worship and satanism. I know that the Rolling Stones had an album called Goat’s Head Soup. I know that people associate the goat head with satanism. I think sometime in the ’80s us evangelicals got really good at passing judgment by the “guilty by association” method. We developed a skill that rewarded persuasive speakers (like a lawyer) that could connect one person or action or thing with something else that was commonly thought of as evil. It was like a silly game of Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon. We’d flash a photo of Amy Grant using the “horns” hand symbol, which could have been a salute in Austin, Texas for the Texas Longhorns or even the International Sign Language gesture for “I love you.” Then we show a picture of Ronnie James Dio flashing these horns and then quote some of his lyrics from Black Sabbath, like the song “Heaven and Hell,” where he talks about “…burning in hell with all of you!” and there you have it: GUILTY! EVIL! SATANIC!
I think this “skill” we developed is embarrassing and immature and false. God gave us instruction to take judgment seriously. There is the matter of “two or three witnesses” to prevent a rush to judgment. Many believers are guilty of using a flawed foundation to base a lot of decisions, reactions and rash statements with. That foundation could be defined as: If it gives me the heebie jeebies, it is evil, satanic and let’s get out of here now! Do you really want to be associated with Scooby Doo, who runs from ghosts out of fear?
The really good news about Christianity is that the power of death and hell has been broken. We have been rescued from its clutches.
When I was young I used to read Sgt. Rock comics. I thought it was so cool when I’d see an illustration of a tank rolling through somewhere with a human skull impaled on a sharp object on the front of the tank. It was like a sign to the enemies they might encounter later, as well as to the villagers that would see this skull and know that it was evidence that their oppressor had been vanquished in battle. It brought fear and awe to its onlookers. You can tell I was an adolescent male by my “oh wow! that is so cool!” reaction to the skull, but this is the imagery I still think of when I read that passage in Colossians (2:15) that talks about Jesus making a “public display of His enemies.” He triumphed over them by the cross.” What’s awesome about this news for us is that Jesus gave His followers authority of all demons and even Satan himself.
By being “washed” or covered or taken into full account by the blood of Jesus (His sacrificial death, like a slaughtered lamb or scapegoat) we are given freedom from our invisible captors and set free from the clutches, penalty, identity and powers of death and hell. If and when we ever encounter an evil spirit (much less a cartoon symbol on a Slayer shirt) we can have the full confidence that God has given us authority over these powers. We don’t have to fear evil.
If we know this, why do we sometimes act like little ninnies when we’re around so-called symbols of evil? Isn’t that kind of silly? I’m not proposing that we take Satan, demons and/or evil too lightly. We just need to see these things in light of our identity in Christ and in the true reality of how the universe operates.
Okay, let’s say I’m wrong about all that and let’s pretend that God Himself sides on the issue of the poor goat as being the symbol of Satan. Let’s say that the illustration proposed for an HM Magazine t-shirt design symbolizes not a farm animal listening to Christian metal or rock, but instead a demon or the devil himself – or maybe even a follower of Satan. Are we to conclude that it is a bad thing that this character would be listening to Christian hard music on his iPod? Why wouldn’t it be a good thing for a “lost” person listening to music that might help him or her become “found?”
Have we really been fair to the goat here in this “trial?” And are we really acting in our own best interest to live in fear?
Don’t offend my conscious and my decision to act this way!
There is that verse about “avoiding the appearance of evil,” but this argument gives all the ground away to the enemy in its conclusion that goats are devils and therefore evil. If someone is willing to concede that a goat is a symbol of the devil and therefore avoiding its appearance is their practical “walking out” of their faith in this matter, then ridiculing them is not really my place. I may think their premise is faulty and ridiculous, but I should probably keep any mockery of that to myself.
Why did you create this art and use a goat anyway?
Well, I didn’t draw this. I would probably have picked another animal if I were designing this, but another artist approached us about designing a shirt for us. He gave us three possible ideas. The one with a goat shredding a copy of HM Magazine seemed the funniest, so we encouraged him to explore that one. I presume that the artist’s idea and intentions were pure. It’s a simple as that. A goat is an animal. An annoying little guy that’ll eat almost anything – including my uncle’s telephone pole. We had a similar piece of art that David Quiggle illustrated for us almost 10 years ago. He did a series of illustrations. One was the “flaming bird,” another was “Exodus 7:12” and a third was “Devil Under Attack.” The Flaming Bird, Quiggle told me, was like his impression of what Heaven’s Metal and HM Magazine was – an invading power that went into the territory of the enemy (rock and roll/metal, etc) and redeemed it – like a dove flying into the flames. Exodus 7:12 was simply the staff that Aaron and Moses threw down in reaction to the Pharoh’s servants, whose staffs became snakes. The one Aaron threw down became a serpent and swallowed up the staffs-that-became-a-serpent that the magicians had thrown down. The Devil Under Attack was a goat with a gasmask on, symbolizing a defensive gesture that the devil would do or was doing in trying to keep himself impacted by the power of God through Christians making metal and rock music. Sometimes an artist has a very purposeful reason for choosing a certain symbol. Thus far, my conclusion is that this artist has chosen the goat because it is a comical animal/creature that would look fun in a giant comic-style illustration.
That’s what I think.
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