Johnson's songs are very religious. He doesn't praise the devil but recognises his existance. Like most christians, Johnson uses the devil as either a reality, or analogy,to explain the dark side of human existance and why we do evil. Most blues singers in the 1930s Mississippi Delta were hell and brimstone christians and reference to the Devil came naturally to them. Skip James, who also sang about the Devil, was a preacher and saw no contridiction with that and singing the blues. Johnson could not convert to something in which he already believed.