Socrates, Justin Martyr, Demons, and the Divine Conspiracy

What if Socrates was executed not for philosophy… but for spiritual warfare he didn’t understand?

What if Socrates didn’t just die for philosophy… but because he was questioning demons he couldn’t fully name?

And what if that same presence is still scripting the story we’re living in now?

Let’s get into it.

Lately, I’ve been diving into the writings of early Christian thinkers. I don’t always understand everything, and I certainly don’t always agree with every word (and to be fair, many of the early Christians had disagreements with each other), but I love digging through the ancient soil of the Church to see what kind of gold I might find buried there.

My latest focus has been on Justin Martyr, and it’s been wild... in the best kind of way.

Someone recently told me that what I’m doing with our School of Discipleship here in Oklahoma reminds them of what Justin was doing in his day: gathering people together not just to learn about Jesus, but to live out a totally different way of being human in a world run by empire, entertainment, and power.

So I’ve been exploring his writings... and wow, he goes hard.

Let me show you what I mean.

Justin, Socrates, and the Logos

Here’s a passage that lit my brain on fire this week… Justin is speaking boldly to Emperor Antoninus Pius:

“And when Socrates endeavoured, by true reason and examination, to bring these things to light, and deliver men from the demons, then the demons themselves, by means of men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the charge that ‘he was introducing new divinities.’

And in our case they display a similar activity.

For not only among the Greeks did reason—that is to say, the Logos—prevail to condemn these things through Socrates, but also among the Barbarians were they condemned by Reason Himself (the Word, the Logos) who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus Christ.

And in obedience to Him, we not only deny that they who did such things as these are gods, but assert that they are wicked and impious demons, whose actions will not bear comparison with those even of men desirous of virtue.”

— Justin Martyr, First Apology, Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius

What I Think Justin Is Saying

Here’s my best take on what Justin’s getting at:

He’s saying that even Socrates... yes, the old toga-wearing, question-asking philosopher of Athens... caught a glimpse of the truth.

He saw, dimly, that the gods of the age were corrupt.

He sensed there was something evil behind the spiritual systems of his time.

In my understanding… Socrates, in Justin’s mind, had begun to tug on a very dangerous thread.

And for that, he was silenced. Killed by powerful men, yes (accused of corrupting the youth and causing people to doubt the gods and the state), but Justin implies that behind these powerful men were much more powerful forces of darkness.

We like to think demons are old myths.

Justin? He thought they were running the show.

Justin seemed to believe those gods weren’t just myths or misguided legends. He saw them as real... but not divine.

Instead, he called them what the Bible calls them: wicked, fallen spiritual powers... what Paul might call principalities and powers... what the Old Testament might call “Elohim gone rogue.”

Think Deuteronomy 32: the gods of the nations rebelled... and humans keep giving them platforms to preach their perverted gospels.

These aren’t mere characters in mythology. They are rebellious spiritual beings who have been manipulating humanity for ages… and still are.

And Socrates... though he didn’t have the full picture... was trying to wake people up to this spiritual reality. For that, he was executed.

And now, Justin says, the same thing is happening to the followers of Jesus.

The Gods of the Age Still Don’t Like Being Questioned

Here’s the part that hit me hardest:

It seems to me Justin is saying to the Emperor (and us) that the demons were the true forces that got Socrates killed… and they’re heavily invested in silencing all who preach the true Gospel of the Kingdom.

Why?

Because when you begin to question the gods of the age, you threaten the system.

And I don’t just mean ancient statues of Zeus or modern cults. Too often we reduce “false religions” down to weird fringe groups wearing hoods and drinking Kool-aide in an abandoned ranch somewhere.

If Justin were here today, I think He’d argue that the false-gods are crafty, and they love to present false religions to people in every age in the form of what we crave most.

I’m talking about what Paul means in Romans 1... where people exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship created things instead of the Creator. Those false gods still exist today.

Sometimes they go by names like:

• The American Dream

• Status

• Self

• Freedom

• Sexuality

• Empire

• Entertainment

• Control

They live in algorithms, echo chambers, TikToks, pulpits, and bank accounts.

And the demonic is still hiding behind many of them.

This is, I believe, why Jesus Himself was crucified.

He didn’t just teach a few unpopular ideas... He challenged the entire spiritual structure of both the religious elite and the empire.

The Jewish leaders clung to their heritage: We are children of Abraham! We don’t need a Savior... we’re already chosen!

The Romans clung to their idols: Caesar is Lord. The gods of Rome will protect us.

Jesus threatened both illusions.

He said, “You need Me.”

And they nailed Him to a cross.

Final Fantasy Tactics... and the Pattern Beneath the Pattern

Now I know this might sound like a sharp left turn, but this is my blog, and those of you who have been reading from the beginning already know I am a massive nerd (see my piece "Training Jedi in the Age of AI Clone Wars” for more evidence of this scandalous fact.)

One of my all-time favorite games... Final Fantasy Tactics... was just re-released recently, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

In that game, you play as Ramza, a young man caught in a brutal civil war between Dukes and noble houses.

At first, it seems like the usual medieval conflict: power, land, betrayal.

Ramza tries hard to do what is right and fight for truth and justice… but as the story unfolds, Ramza discovers something chilling (spoilers ahead.. for a game that came out in the 90s...)

Everything he has been fighting for has been a lie.

To his horror, he learns that the war has from the very start been manipulated by literal ancient Demons.

The nobles are puppets. The church is corrupted. The power struggle is a smokescreen for a deeper, darker plan: to usher in an age of demonic domination.

Sound familiar?

That story... hidden evil powers, noble resistance, truth-seeking hero... keeps showing up in games, books, films, and yes... even Scripture.

Why?

Art, even pixelated, sometimes stumbles into spiritual truth.

I’d argue… it reflects the true story.

The war beneath all wars.

The conspiracy behind every corruption.

The ancient evil and the ancient hope.

And I don’t mean in some abstract, theoretical way.

I mean it’s happening right now.

Look around:

Sex trafficking networks that move billions of dollars across borders while governments look the other way.

War profiteering... the kind where defense contractors fund both sides and profit from blood.

Algorithmic addiction engineered by the smartest minds in Silicon Valley to capture dopamine pathways and sell your attention to the highest bidder.

Religious narcissism that builds empires on the backs of wounded sheep while promising them Salvation.

This isn’t conspiracy-theory tinfoil. This is pattern recognition.

The war is real. It’s here. It’s now.

It was like this in the days of Jesus. It was like this in the days of Justin and Socrates. The methods change, but the war has always been the same.

A Tinfoil Hat Is Not the Answer

Now, I know what this all starts to sound like:

“Here comes another Christian conspiracy theory.”

The truth is most Christians do not talk about the demonic or the war behind the war, because the moment we do we start to sound like crazed theorists (although somehow we have accepted resurrections and talking snakes in cosmic gardens as normal).

Hear me: I very much believe in the supernatural.

However, I do not believe a tinfoil hat should ever be the armor a Christian ought to put on.

I don’t think we’re supposed to spend our lives watching grainy YouTube videos about lizard people and Freemason handshakes.

I don’t trust the government blindly.

Far from it... I trust institutions as far as I can throw them.

But I also think trying to map out the exact tactics of the devil behind every single political decision, news story, or TikTok trend will only lead to utter madness.

The goal isn’t to see demons behind every headline, but to recognize the ancient pattern beneath the chaos.

There is so much evil behind the curtain.

You can lose your soul trying to catalog every thread.

That’s not the call.

The real call is simpler... and harder.

The Divine Conspiracy

What we are called to do is recognize the overarching conspiracy... the demonic hatred of all that is good, the spiritual plot to steal, kill, and destroy... and then to live in joyful rebellion against it.

Don’t stare into the madness hoping to find a map.

Look within.

You need to look at your own life.

Look at what threatens your marriage or parenting. Look at what tempts your heart. Look at what drives you into bitterness and rage.

There is a war going on right there. Right at home.

The same demonic forces that are manipulating governments and industries… are also trying to manipulate you.

And the best way to fight it?

Not with paranoia.

Not with cynicism.

Not even with “research.”

But by stepping fully into what Dallas Willard called the Divine Conspiracy.

The secret plan of God to subvert the kingdoms of this world with the Kingdom of the heavens—not by force, not by politics, not by swords or votes or spectacles—but by transforming actual human lives into little outposts of heaven.

A magnificent subversion, a spiritual insurrection, that upside-down revolution of the Kingdom of God quietly erupting in a world addicted to thrones and screens.

Willard meant it literally. There is a conspiracy—a real one. Not the kind involving shadowy figures in dark rooms with secret handshakes, but the kind hatched in broad daylight by a resurrected King who told us that the poor were blessed and that the meek would inherit the earth.

You can see why it had to be kept secret. It’s too dangerous for Caesar, too beautiful for cynics, and too ordinary for empire.

Here’s how Willard described it:

“In the Gospels, ‘the gospel’ is the good news of the presence and availability of life in the kingdom, now and forever, through reliance on Jesus the Anointed.”

— The Divine Conspiracy

Did you catch it?

The Kingdom is here.

Not behind a veil of fog and Gregorian chants. Here… Now and forever.

Which means that every soul you pass in a grocery aisle, every diaper you change, every late-night text from a hurting friend, is holy ground. The Kingdom has already landed.

And the Church, God help us, keeps looking at the sky.

Willard lamented that many Christians have missed it entirely:

“The idea of having faith in Jesus has come to be totally isolated from being his apprentice and learning how to do what he said.”

— The Divine Conspiracy

And that is the scandal: that modern faith has been neutered. Discipleship has been replaced with sentiment.

We sing of a King whose teachings we don’t trust enough to obey.

But the conspiracy persists.

It grows in prison cells and nursing homes.

In whispered prayers and untelevised kindness.

It grows when a man forgives his enemy, when a mother blesses her screaming child, when a lonely teen chooses hope over despair.

Willard beautifully paraphrases Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are the spiritual zeros—the spiritually bankrupt, deprived and deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of ‘religion’—when the kingdom of the heavens comes upon them.”

— The Divine Conspiracy

Now that is scandal. That the losers of the world get the throne room of God.

And if you think the Kingdom is a nice idea with no real teeth, remember this:

“So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence.

Rather, we pray for it to TAKE OVER at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.”

With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence.”

Take over.

That’s not sentiment. That’s sedition against the demonic order that Justin Martyr was preaching against.

This is the Divine Conspiracy:

A plot to overthrow hell with hospitality.
To wage war against despair with joy.
To confound the powers by washing feet and breaking bread.

To make you not just a believer, but a participant in the rebellion of resurrection.

Willard saw what most people miss: that the Kingdom isn’t waiting for your death. It’s waiting for your attention.

And if you want to join, there’s no form to fill out.

No subscription fee.

No secret knock. No degree required.

Just open your eyes.

“Unless you understand that Jesus invites us through faith in Him, that means, putting your confidence in Him, to actually live in the Kingdom of God now, there will not be a basis for discipleship and transformation.”

- Willard, Catalyst West Conference, 2010

So the real question is:

Are you following Jesus because He’s true, or just because He’s safe?

The Kingdom is not waiting for revival to fall like fire.

The Kingdom is crouched beside your feet, whispering: “Walk this way.”

The conspiracy of the kingdom of God. The slow, secret, glorious plan of the Spirit to undo the works of the devil.

The gentle subversion of evil through love, obedience, truth, and joy.

You don’t need to track the demons.

Just follow the King.

So What Do We Do?

The demons want you angry. Distracted. Cynical. Addicted.

Jesus wants you free.

Yes, Justin Martyr saw demons behind the empire.

And yeah, maybe Socrates died for questioning the wrong gods.

But you? You’re living that story right now.

Here’s what that means:

Wake up to the actual spiritual war playing out in your own chest. In your scrolling habits. In the way you treat your spouse when you’re tired. In the bitterness you nurse like it’s keeping you warm.

Stay sharp. Keep learning. Read the old saints. Study Scripture. Ask hard questions.

But don’t chase shadows... chase the Light.

Fight locally. You can’t fix the Pentagon or dismantle Silicon Valley.

But you can love your neighbor. You can love your enemy.

Disciple the kid who feels overlooked. Resist the algorithm.

Pray when rage feels easier.

Choose fidelity when lust whispers.

Give when greed makes sense.

That’s the rebellion.

That’s the Divine Conspiracy in action.

Not loud. Not viral. Not impressive.

Just faithful.

And the demons?

They hate it.

Because faithfulness is the one thing they can’t corrupt, co-opt, or commodify.

It just keeps glowing.

“Take heart. I have overcome the world.” — Jesus

So learn. Discern. Stay awake.

But above all...

Follow the Logos.

He’s already won.

And He’s waiting for you to join the fight and walk in the victory.