This chapter reviews the emergence of strict constructionism and discusses the limitations of that stance. Satanism is used as a convenient example of the limitations of strict constructionism. The chapter shows that strict constructionism places unreasonable constraints on sociologists who hope to understand social problems. Strict constructionism's problems reveal that theory can be taken too seriously. Statements by Herbert Blumer and John I. Kitsuse and Malcolm Spector laid the foundation for contemporary constructionism. They sought to turn social problems into a subject for serious study. The key to any condition becoming a social problem was subjective: "The existence of social problems depends on the continued existence of groups or agencies that define some condition as a problem and attempt to do something about it". The chapter further discusses Peter R. Ibarra and Kitsuse's chapter, Vernacular Constituents of Moral Discourse, to identify the attractions of a weak reading and the limitations of a strong interpretation.