(LifeSiteNews) — Amazon Video released an animated adult show on Friday called Hazbin Hotel, which praises “Lucifer” and perversely demonizes “Heaven” and “angels” without mentioning God. The series has been widely praised by critics and viewers alike, signaling today’s rampant moral and spiritual confusion.
The raunchy, gory, filthy-mouthed cartoon show is set in hell, where “sinners” live under the threat of “extermination” raids conducted by angels. The daughter of Lucifer and Lilith — said in the show to be the first created woman and portrayed as the original feminist — have a daughter, a bisexual young woman named Charlie, who takes up the noble cause of “saving souls” in hell from Heaven’s “genocide” by attempting to rehabilitate them at the Hazbin Hotel.
An introduction to the show tells the backstory: “Once upon a time” in Heaven there were angels that “worshiped good and shielded all from evil.” One of these angels, Lucifer, “was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation” but “was seen as a troublemaker by the elders of heaven” because they “felt his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world.”
In cheering for Lucifer — who on some level is understood to be evil — and portraying his daughter as a sweet do-gooder, the show essentially flips good and bad on its head. It reflects the actual beliefs of satanists, who for centuries have latched on to this twisted understanding of God and Lucifer.
As in any case, this idea must necessarily involve self-contradiction and obfuscation. While this backstory claims that angels “worshiped good” and opposed evil, the show portrays angels as vindictive and demonic-looking creatures with halos, and the first man, Adam — who is one of their kin — is similarly bloodthirsty, and obnoxious to boot.
Ironically, the best portrayal of goodness in a protagonist is found in Charlie, Lucifer’s daughter. But as a true daughter to her father, she embraces sexual perversity in her lesbian relationship.
This may be intentionally linked to her origin from “Lilith.” Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute and Jesse Romero, a retired veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, highlighted the fact that the show’s character Lilith comes from Kabbalistic mythology, a kind of “Jewish mysticism” that is in fact an occult practice.
Romero also pointed out that “Lilith” is the name of a demon which has revealed “herself” during exorcisms.
“Catholic exorcists in the U.S. agree that Lilith is the demon of female homosexuality, of lesbianism,” Romero told Hichborn during their discussion of the show. “During sessions of exorcism, she’s manifested and given her name … and she identifies herself as Lilith.”
Sympathy for the devil
Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute pointed out in a commentary on the show’s trailer, “They never cite what the nature of evil is of course, because they have this amorphous understanding of evil and good.”
One can argue that the show ventures beyond moral ambiguity into a celebration of evil. If good and evil have any meaning, then we must automatically love what is good and hate what is evil. Why would anyone, this show’s creator included, express aversion to that which “worships” good, and affinity for what is evil?
Such a portrayal of Heaven and hell, and of Lucifer — no God in this universe! — ultimately comes from a full embrace of sin. The show’s creator cannot escape the idea that hell is for sinners — and yet, for someone caught up in serious sin (as we all are without the grace of God), who is fully wedded to or committed to such sin, to “demonize” hell would be to demonize the self.
Thus, a hell for sinners must be given a sympathetic sheen. The open justification for such a twisted portrayal of good and evil is that it is “realistic,” “nuanced,” “sophisticated” and “interesting.” The show’s writer hints at this idea when Adam declares to Charlie that the souls in hell cannot go to Heaven because “the rules are black and white.” In other words, Heaven’s dictates are primitive, unreasonable, and unjust.
It is true that there is moral complexity, so to speak, in the souls of most humans, who usually cannot be described as “purely” evil or “purely” good. But as long as there remain actions that are objectively good or objectively evil, the soul cannot “sit on the fence” indefinitely. Our will must either desire good more, or desire evil more, so that the will leans decisively in one direction or the other. God, who is truly good and desires our salvation even more than we do, gives each soul ample opportunity to choose Him and His ways over sin.
I used to wonder whether this was really the case. After hearing about personal experiences of certain people who continue to reject God’s moral law, however, I realized that God indeed repeatedly invites each soul to Himself, whether through other people (one person I know said he was invited to church three times in one day and said no each time); or through internal experiences of God’s presence. Even the unbelievably wicked serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer repented before his death, while the comparable serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. remained unrepentant to the end.
That God is missing from this entire Hazbin Hotel story hints at another piece of its contradictory puzzle. This ultimately signifies a lack of acceptance of God as a pure, all-good Creator, either through the very denial of His existence or an antipathy that has no desire of even acknowledging Him. Indeed, to those who fully embrace sin, to think of God is painful, since their very will is fixed against His. Either way, His omission from the story tragically echoes the rejection of God by those who embrace sin and hell.
But the story also shows that this rejection of God is often bound up with a misunderstanding of who He is, since in Hazbin Hotel, it is Lucifer’s daughter who wants to save souls from extermination, and not God or the beings of Heaven. But, as reality bears out, it is the soul who sends itself to hell, not God, who could not be called truly good if He did not give every soul the opportunity it needs to repent.
While many show fans and self-described “neutral” observers would argue that the show shouldn’t be taken seriously as “mere fiction,” podcaster Tim Pool has pointed out that the cartoon animation of the show will attract children and distort their understanding of theology and Biblical teaching.
“If they see this show, it’s going to be a negative influence, and it’s going to corrupt their view of what the Bible actually teaches,” Pool remarked.
Noting that Amazon Prime Video now hosts and promotes the anti-sex trafficking film Sound of Freedom, Pool called for the creation of quality alternative media content to counteract the influence of a show like Hazbin Hotel.
“I wish we had cartoons of this caliber competing with and beating these shows,” Pool said.