Many Christians
say they are
η Need
eliverance
CASE φ
A smell—any smell—nauseates
her. Her eyes squint at the 4 P.M.
daylight. Amy turns off the radio,
gulps a fistful of Ibuprofen, and
swears softly. Her temples pulsate
with thumps of debilitating pain
for the second time this month.
Like many other evangelical
women in the 21st century, Amy is
suffering from:
a) a migraine headache
b)PMS
c) demon harassment
d) all of the above
CASE φ
Bob catches a glance of porn actors
disrobing as he surfs the hotel TV.
At first he wants to change the
channel, b u t s o m e t h i n g makes
him linger. He indulges. Later he
despises himself.
Like many other evangelical
men, Bob wishes he could get rid
of this:
a) psychosomatic addiction
b) sinful nature
c) demon of lust
d) all of the above
but some may
be giving demons
more than their due.
CASE φ
When someone insults Nancy, she hears voices in her head telling her
to kill the offender. She prays for this to go away, but to no avail. Nancy
needs to:
a) cut back on coffee
b) get professional help for her dissociative identity disorder
c) see an exorcist
d) all of the above
More commonly than ever, evangelicals have been embracing
options c) and d) as bona fide explanations in scenarios like these. One
no longer needs to levitate to be diagnosed with demonic infestation.
Stunning numbers of North American Christians believe demons may
be at the root of apparently natural maladies or temptations. Between
the cinematic release of The Exorcist three decades ago and its re-release
last year, evangelicals like Amy, Bob, and Nancy have sought help from
deliverance ministers, spiritual warfare counselors, or exorcists. Many
of those who had their demons removed vow that liberation from the
internal tormentors often resulted in shedding of bad habits, physical
illnesses, and false idols.
Besides headaches, addiction to smut, and hearing voices, deliverance
manuals list alcoholism, chronic fatigue syndrome, homosexuality, night­
mares, persistent anger, and jealousy among the possible symptoms of
demonization. Increasingly, even the most common ills and sins are

being linked to demonic sources and healed
by demon expulsion. The magic takes place
when demons are—depending on whom
you turn to—confronted, expelled, driven
out, dismissed by the Lord Jesus, sent to the
pit, coughed up, spewed, vomited, dis-
gorged, cast out, dispossessed or exorcised.
Or so some believe.
Have Lucifer and his subordinates real-
ly chosen to raid the church in a more
spectacular way? If so, why in the United
States? Why at this time in history? Or is it
possible that beside evil spirits other fac-
tors have provoked the rise of deliverance
and exorcism ministries?
DEMONIC REVIVAL
Christians weren't the first to confront evil
spirits. In ancient Mesopotamian cultures as
well as Judaism and other religions, banish-
ment of evil spirits was also believed to end
human suffering. Indisputably, the proto-
type of Christian deliverance was estab-
lished by Jesus Christ and the apostles (see
Clinton E. Arnold's "Exorcism 101," p. 58).
Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian
described dispossession in the second cen-
tury, and Origen wrote in the third century
that "the name ofJesus can still remove dis-
tractions from the minds of men and expel
demons and also take away diseases and
produce a complete change of character."
Even John Foxe, known for his Book ofMar-
tyrs, freed a law student from "no less a
demon than Satan himself in 1574, writes
Kathleen Sands in the February 2001 Histo-
ry Today. Church historian Richard F.
Lovelace told CHRISTIANITY TODAY that
the Devil seemed to have taken a plunge
after the 1692 witch trials, shyly reemerging
in North America in the 20th century when
Jessie Penn-Lewis wrote War on the Saints.
With the expansion of overseas missions,
Americans also began hearing about
demon confrontation from missionaries to
non-Western nations. But a true demonic
revival didn't arrive in the United States
until the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"Exorcism prior to the late 1960s was
virtually dead and gone in the United
States, a fading ghost long past its prime,"
says Michael W. Cuneo, author of the
recently released American Exorcism:
Expelling Demons in the Land ofPlenty (Dou-
bleday). "And then in the early to mid-
'70s, untold numbers of Americans, many
4 8 C H R I S T I A N I T Y T O D A Y
IN NEED OF DELIVERANCE
of them staunchly middle class, the kind ologian Robert Barron, a spokesman on
of people you might chat with at the exorcisms for the Catholic Archdiocese of
supermarket checkout counter or bump Chicago. The tendency to explain every-
into at a local mall, became convinced thing through reason has been eclipsed by
that they or their loved ones were suffer- explanations that go beyond what reason
ing from demonic affliction." can grasp, he adds.
Supply followed demand, and 600 evan- Clinton E. Arnold, professor of New
gelical deliverance ministries—"quite possi- Testament at Talbot School of Theology in
bly two or three times this many"—have La Mirada, California, has also noticed that
sprouted by this year, Cuneo told CHRIS- a naturalistic worldview no longer seems as
TIANITY TODAY. The Fordham University compelling as it used to. "There is a broader
sociology and anthropology professor spent yearning for spiritual experience," he says.
two years investi- "There seems to be a correlation between
Holfywood Half-Truth. gating the demon- this yearning and some of the rise in deliver-
io the 1949 Mt Rainier ic revival and wit- ance ministry in the church." Thus the
pos&ession, on which nessed over 50 popularity of books by Neil T. Anderson,
The Exorcist ts based, mass and individ- C. Peter Wagner, Mark I. Bubeck, Frank E.
it was a nightstand ual exorcisms, dis- Peretti, C.Fred Dickason, and Arnold.
tila! levitated missals, or deliver- Perhaps G.K. Chesterton was right in
anees (see "Exorcism Therapy," p. 49). saying that when people cease to believe in
Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox experts God, they don't begin to believe in noth-
in demon expulsion have admitted in con- ing—instead, they will believe in anything.
versations with CHRISTIANITY TODAY that In the psychedelic '60s, Americans began to
they too have noticed an upsurge of the believe in anything. Consistent with
demonic—or at least perceptions of such— Chesterton's words, this relativism encour-
in U.S. churches in the last two or three aged unorthodox spiritual searches. Man's
decades. The number of official Roman first steps on the moon, flower power, sexu-
Catholic exorcists climbed from one or two al freedom, peace marches, Woodstock, the
in 1995 to 15 to 20 now, and the number is Beatles, and the Vietnam War, as well as
expected to rise, Cuneo says. Plus, it's easy women's and gays' liberation movements,
to find "maverick" exorcists who will fill in were the context in which American society
for the desperate who cannot get the offi- opened up to exploring unconventional spir-
cial exorcists' services, he says. itual answers. Doctrinally indecisive at the
"People are more willing to entertain time, many Protestant churches didn't steer
the possibility of the spiritual," says the- people away from modem superstitions.
| S e p t e m b e r 3 , 2001

QUIET DISMISSALS AND PAPER TOWELS
The dawning of the Age of Aquarius ush-
ered in the demonic malignity—not just
among charismatics but also in conserva-
tive evangelical circles, where most dis-
cussions of this topic began and ended
with the assertion that "Christians cannot
be demon-possessed." Many straight-laced
fundamentalists accepted the teachings of
such noncharismatic p r o p a g a t o r s of
demon confrontation as Kurt Koch, Mer-
rill F. Unger, and Mark I. Bubeck. Among
them was C. Fred Dickason.
Dickason told CHRISTIANITY
TODAY he got involved in spiritu-
al warfare ministry "rather reluc-
tantly." In the late '60s, when he
was teaching at Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago, the school
began to receive calls from "peo-
ple with occult or demonic back-
grounds who sensed they were
being oppressed." The calls were
forwarded to Dickason because
he was teaching a course on angelology,
and soon after that he became chairman
of the department of theology. So he "had
to learn in a hurry" how to deal with fall-
en angels. Since that time, Dickason and
his wife, Jean, have counseled more than
600 Christians with demonic problems
and say they have "seen the Lord dismiss
many demons."
"Spiritual warfare confrontation and
dismissal of evil spirits are done by the
Lord Jesus," Dickason says. "We're only
facilitators to the situation. And since we're
counseling the entire person, we're not
there primarily to confront the spirits; we
are trying to clear up some problems in
people's lives by getting them to recognize
truth and apply it to their lives." Simply
dressed and conservative in both manner
and theology, Dickason clearly isn't after
money. His counselees hear about him by
word of mouth and get help free of charge.
There's "nothing spectacular" about his
ministry, he says with the polite resignation
of someone who couldn't care less about
fame. Sometimes, he says, there is no need
for confronting demons. Things can be
cleared up easily by getting someone to rec-
ognize and apply God's truth, which he
believes removes the occasion by which
spirits hold on to the person. Such was the
case with a man whom Dickason advised
5 0 C H R I S T I A N I T Y TODAY
IN NEED OF D E L I V E R A N C E
to forgive his father before looking into the
possibility of demonic oppression in his life.
Often, however, "The stubborn, wicked
spirits do not give up just because someone
is aligned with the truth," he says.
In that event, Dickason changes into a
human polygraph. He asks the counselees
some straightforward questions, such as
"What do you think of the Bible?" "What do
you think of Christ?" and "What do you
think of me?" Then he asks the person who
alleges harassment to sign a release permit-
ting him to address a wicked spirit, if one
Out of the mouths of Christians
who had told Dickason they
love Jesus have come loathing
for God, his word, and
Dickason himself.
seems to be present. Dickason asks the same
questions of evil spirits, who—if present—
use the oppressed human's vocal cords to
communicate "very different answers." Out
of the mouths of Christians who had told
Dickason they love Jesus have come
loathing for God, his Word, and Dickason
himself "The reason I ask these questions is
for the person to differentiate between their
thoughts and the enemy's thoughts," Dicka-
son says. "Otherwise, people think they're
going out of their heads."
Once the demonic presence is con-
firmed, Dickason asks Jesus to dismiss the
spirits. Dickason always requests that God
send his angels to escort the evil spirits.
Very seldom, "some physical restraint" is
required when the demons make the
harassed persons want to get up and leave,
he says, but "I'm not there to wrestle with
demons. Angels wrestle with angels. And I
command the spirits to leave quietly."
But if there is no observable manifesta-
tion, h o w can one be sure the demons
have gone? Michael Thierer, pastor of
Hegewisch Baptist Church in Highland,
Indiana, believes lack of struggle proves
that the demons may have tricked the
deliverance minister and never really left
the oppressed. At his 60-member church,
prayer partners may take 25 minutes of
silent prayer before nabbing the spirits, at
| S e p t e m b e r 3 , 2 0 01
which point the latter start screeching,
cackling, convulsing, howling, swearing,
and coming out through their victims' air
passages (as vomit, for example). Each
prayer partner is equipped with a roll of
paper towels. When demons come out,
the absorbent sheets prevent them from
staining the carpet. One wonders how the
prayer partners can predict the way in
which demons will act, but they never fail
to manifest themselves in ways expected
of them: They proceed out of the mouths
and noses of about 30 people per week
and u p to 250 people from all
over the country who attend each
of the three deliverance work-
shops p e r year, T h i e r e r told
CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
The demon-tamers at Hegewisch
are "rude, crude, and unorthodox,"
says Thierer, who often wrestles
the demonized to the floor. "We
sweat, we wrestle, we get spit on—
and we'd like to find a better way."
He lifts his brows and shakes his head slow-
ly as if to imply that there is no better way.
"The demons manifest."
Dickason disagrees. "If you expect wild
manifestations, the demons will be glad to
do that, but you give the enemy great
opportunity for deception." Manifestation
is no proof that the evil beings have left,
he adds—nor that demons were present
to begin with, other critics point out.
EVERYBODY'S DOING IT
Another factor in the renewed popularity
of deliverance ministries is the power of
suggestion. Sociologists and psychologists
have long proclaimed the power of peer
pressure. We tend to do what is expected
of us. There is no reason why the "every-
body's doing it" mechanism would not
extend to the terrain of deliverance—espe-
cially if those demanding or hoping for
certain behaviors from us are in positions
of authority. It is not wise to make light of
the ways Satan harasses believers. But it is
equally unwise to underestimate the
power of peer pressure, ministers with
charismatic personalities, and our percep-
tion of the will of God.
Let's say Nancy from Case Three has
heard a sermon in which the pastor said
that a desire to kill someone is not of God
but of the devil. Say Nancy shares her dark

thoughts with a friend who has just read in
a popular book that hearing hateful voices
inside one's head is demonic. Nancy's
friend encourages her to attend a Bob Lar-
son mass deliverance rally. At the rally,
Nancy hears Larson announce that he
senses strong demonic oppression in the
crowd. As is his habit, Larson walks up to
people in the crowd and begins to address
demons in them. Some people start to
scream or weep loudly. In some cases,
blood rushes to their faces and they start
speaking in guttural voices, identifying
themselves as demons and barking their
answers at Larson's command. Eventually
the demons appear to leave and the for-
merly oppressed hug Larson and praise
God with a noticeable relief.
While Larson works the crowd, Nancy
gets butterflies in her stomach and starts
to believe that God has brought her to the
rally to set her free. If Larson were to
approach her to search out the demons,
perhaps hitting her with his Bible, as he
sometimes does to those he suspects are
demonized, wouldn't Nancy be inclined
to respond just as Larson and the crowd
were expecting her to? Quite probably the
cues Larson provides will evoke an appar-
ently demonic response. Larson is a con-
troversial figure whose deliverance meth-
ods include mass exorcism and deliver-
ance over the radio. The secular media
adore his showmanship and many emo-
tionally unstable, impressionable people
flock to his rallies.
In January, CT attended a Larson rally
in Schaumburg, Illinois. Larson never
prayed aloud during the session of more
than two hours. In a later telephone inter-
view, he explained that he had prayed
before the session, and "It depends what
you mean by prayer. I rebuke demons,"
which "necessitates calling on the name of
Jesus and invoking his power, and that's
prayer." Nevertheless, those prayers
couldn't be heard as Larson alternately
addressed demons and busied himself
with asking for money and marketing his
books and videotapes that his audience
needed, as Larson informed them, to get
better. When Larson asked for an offering
of $22,000, almost all of the 150 people
present obediently dropped their cash and
checks into big white buckets. Those who
did got a perk: they got to confront the
5 2 C H R I S T I A N I T Y T O D A Y
IN NEED OF DELIVERANCE
demons in Frank, a young man standing
on the stage behind the donation buckets,
on w h o m Larson was working for the
greater part of the evening.
Even t h o u g h Larson's deliverance
methods may seem manipulative, one
cannot discount the possibility that God
has used him to free some people from
evil spirits.
Once the mind welcomes the sugges-
tion of demonization, it falls into the open
arms of another suit-
Cmifr^ or: the desire for
m exoneration. Many
me Christians w o u l d
m when rather be known as
objects of demonic
harassment than struggling sinners.
Think how vindicating it would be for
Bob from Case Two to realize that his
addiction to pornography was not primar-
ily a sin he committed but a result of
demonic infestation. And how affirming it
would be for Nancy to know that she's
not an angry person but merely a victim
of a demon of anger. We all want to be on
God's side, and demons, conveniently,
reinstate us to the army of the Lord with
honors. Before exorcism, an addict is just
a sinner. An addict whose addiction turns
out to be demonic is a martyr for Christ.
Even people genuinely attacked by
demons may have a tendency to ignore
their responsibility for their destructive
behavior. As Cuneo tells CT, exorcism lets
| S e p t e m b e r 3 , 2 0 0 1
us off the moral hook.
John E. Kelley, a clinical psychologist
and director of Biola Counseling Center
in La Mirada, California, cites another
influence that he believes has increased
the n u m b e r of deliverances in recent
years: the philosophical position that we
each have separate selves. The essence of
the phenomenon, he says, is the fragmen-
tation of the postmodern person. It's okay
these days to enact different egos in differ-
ent situations and to apply different stan-
dards of morality depending on the situa-
tion. The epitome of that, Kelley says, is
Bill Clinton, an unfaithful husband and a
great politician in one. Fragile and bro-
ken, American selves have lost the defens-
es that a unified moral character provides,
opening themselves to both demons and
their imitations.
DEMONIZATION BY OSMOSIS
At least one m o r e widespread factor
seems to have loosed demons into Amer-
ican households, says Cuneo: the enter-
tainment culture's fascination with the s
demonic. Peculiarly, demons began multi- "
plying when "demonic grotesquerie" start- £
ed taunting us from the big screen and the *
pages of best-selling books, Cuneo %
observes. American psyches were first -
mass-conditioned for exorcism through ï
their exposure to the 1973 movie The Exor-
cist by William Peter Blatty and William
Friedkin, as well as Malachi Martin's 1976
book Hostage to the Devil, he says.
Other fuel that fed our collective imag-
ination with portrayals of evil were films
such as Devil Times Five (1974), The Pos-
sessed (1977), Good Against Evil (1977),
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Entity
(1982), My Demon Lover (1987), and more
recently The DeviVs Advocate (1997), The
Blair Witch Project (1999), Book of Shadows:
Blair Witch 2 (2000), a re-release of The
Exorcist (2000), Bedazzled (2000), and The
Little Vampire (2000). Evil spirits gained
entry into the kitchens, bedrooms, and
family rooms of America through the
small screen as well. Supernatural evil was
depicted in the television movie The
Haunted (1991), and the series The X-Files,
Bujfy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Charmed,
and Touched by an Angel. Even Judge Amy
Madison Gray on Judging Amy had to rule
in a January episode on whether a 13-year-
 IN NEED OF D E L I V E R A N C E

old girl would be helped by an exorcism. with the biblical depictions of demoniza- were stumped by her condition. Wearing
But what came first—pop culture's por- tion. And, undeniably, some people have a monitor to track her heart rate, the
trayals of the demonic, or the demons them- been helped by exorcism and deliverance. young woman stopped by Arnold's office
selves? Did the media merely mirror reality? Take Michael Easton, a 54-year-old one day to tell him that the heart condi-
Or did they create reality? Perhaps both. businessman. His conversion in 1979 did tion originated when a demon startled her
Pictures hold a lot of power over our not stop him from multipartner homosex- out of sleep. Knowing that she was under
minds. Ask advertising gurus, the glossy uality, alcoholism, and a drug habit. In the the care of a cardiologist, Arnold decided
magazine editors, or pornography addicts. days when he was "drinking to get drunk" to investigate if there was a spiritual root
If seeing is believing and true faith mani- in 1987, Easton attended a deliverance to her condition. He made sure that she
fests itself in action, then what we see, espe- meeting in Montana led by visiting pastor knew Jesus as her Savior, and talked with
cially for the more suggestible of us, influ- Win Worley, a controversial exorcist, her about the possibility of unconfessed
ences our behavior. Could it be that the author of Battling the Hosts of Hell: Diary of sins and her background.
Devil has been helped a little by pop cul- an Exorcist (1976), and then-leader of Having eliminated these as causes of
ture's hypnotic, sometimes scary the woman's condition, Arnold
and sometimes seductive, depic- !BBH| f i l i l i had her ask Jesus for strength and
tions of his malice? (To be fair, one told her to address any afflicting
has to wonder how much enter- Skepticism about the demonic spirit by saying, "I command you
tainment has been inspired by the
Devil—but that's another article.)
is healthy, but we cannot in t h e n a m e of the Lord Jesus
Christ to leave. I am a child of
Cuneo believes that the enter- dismiss the stories of those God and his property, and I don't
tainment industry directly stimu-
lated the market for exorcism.
who have been helped by want you." He then joined the
student in commanding any spirit
"We tend to underestimate the exorcism and deliverance. that w a s p r e s e n t t o leave. A
influence of images we get from "shuddering sensation" w e n t
television, cinema, tabloids, and now the Hegewisch Baptist Church in Indiana. through her body as Arnold, the woman
Internet, but they are our common cultur- During the 30 minutes Worley prayed for and her roommate prayed for deliver-
al language," he says. "Most of us are Easton, evil sprits oozed o u t of him ance, the woman later told Arnold. At the
exposed to these images on a daily basis." through "deep, heavy coughing, lots of end of this " p o w e r e n c o u n t e r , " t h e
Others do n o t give p o p culture so tears, things coming out of my nose, a w o m a n recommitted herself to Christ
much credit. While films have generally substance that came out of my stomach— and announced her allegiance to him, and
increased awareness of the demonic, dra- it's just as if a faucet was turned on," East- "that was the end of her heart problem,"
matic portrayals such as The Exorcist were on recalls. Since that day 14 years ago, Arnold says. He admits that he still has
"more a symptom than a cause," says Easton hasn't engaged in any homosexual questions why this took place, but "there
Dickason. The media simply reflected the acts, he has stopped smoking pot, and the was no doubt that something seemed to
spiritual difficulties that people were expe- self-described "fallen-down drunk" hasn't me to be a clear example of the reality of
riencing because they opened themselves touched alcohol. the demonic. Demons attack Christians,
up to real demonic influences when they W o r l e y also exorcised T h i e r e r ' s but we have the resources in Christ to
became involved with the occult in the demons. Thierer was a narcotics addict command them to go."
New Age movement, he believes. and dealer in 1979 when he spent 8 to 10 While Easton, Arnold's student, and
Still, it's hard to see the media as a lit- months "on the floor," he recalled in an many others tell verifiable stories of dra-
mus test for American spirituality. i n t e r v i e w w i t h CHRISTIANITY T O D A Y . matic turnabouts, an instantly cured ill-
Goethe's Faust and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus Once Thierer got rid of his rock music ness or shedding of immorality doesn't
warned against bargaining with the Devil. collection, which he believes was block- necessarily signify demonic dismissal.
Most of today's entertainment has no such ing his deliverance, Worley wrestled "all " D e m o n s " often t u r n o u t t o be
qualms; rather, the mass media love the kinds of drug spirits" out of the man who metaphors for extreme evil, and deliver-
demonic because it makes for lavish spe- would eventually marry his daughter and ance may be a marked way of turning
cial effects and attracts the thrill-seeking take over Hege wisch Baptist's leadership away from it. Such seems to be the case
American audience. Demons generate a after Worley's death in 1994. Since his with dissociative identity disorder, a con-
sizzle equaled only by the Jerry Springer deliverance in 1979, Thierer's drug addic- dition hotly debated in professional and
Show's boxing matches, Hugh Hefner's tion has been gone. deliverance circles because of its link to
girlfriends, and people eating bugs on Arnold also tells a story of a successful another disputed subject, satanic ritual
"reality" TV shows. demon expulsion. A college student had abuse (see p. 54).
episodes in which her pulse would some- The problem, all agree, is telling a
EXORCISM WORKS times shoot up to 150 or more beats per demon from its counterfeits. And when it
Healthy though skepticism about t h e minute; she would black out and often end comes to the methods of discernment, it
demonic may be, it must be reconciled up in the emergency room. Cardiologists seems, all disagree.

5 6 C H R I S T I A N I T Y T O D A Y | S e p t e m b e r 3 , 2001

POSSESSED OR DEMONIZED?
Few areas of ministry are so filled with
opportunities for sincere Christians to
make unintentional but grave mistakes as
is deliverance. An average believer is mys-
tified by what looks like devilish harass-
ment, human imagination adrift, a psy-
chological malady, or a chemical imbal-
ance. In attempts to maintain mental con-
trol over this out-of-control phenomenon,
one is tempted to fall into either unrelent-
ing skepticism or trusting gullibility. We
either tend to dismiss the possibility that
the demonic may be involved—or we
contract demons anytime we brush shoul-
ders with evil (shopping at a store that
sells a New Age magazine, for example).
We are fooled, in Soren Kierkegaard's
words, by either believing what isn't so or
by refusing to believe what is so.
Some refuse to entertain the possibility
that born-again Christians could be
demon-possessed. But we need to move
beyond asking if Christians can be demon-
possessed. Most scholars agree that since
possession connotes ownership, children
of God, who have been "bought with a
price," cannot be owned by the evil one.
But the term demon-possessed is an example
of poor translation. The biblical word
translated demon-possessed is daimoni-
zomenos and comes from the Greek verb
daimonizomai, which should be translated
as "demonized." Passages using daimoni-
zomai are Matthew 4:24, 8:16, 8:33; Mark
1:32, 5:15; and Luke 8:36. In his book
Demon Possession and the Christian: A New
Perspective (Crossway, 1987), Dickason says
the etymology of the term demonization
conveys "a demon-caused passivity," or
control to some degree by inhabiting
demons, not "possession" as in ownership.
Along the same lines, Merrill F. Unger in
What Demons Can Do to Saints (Moody,
1977) describes demonization as control of
a person by one or more demons, affecting
both the mind and the body.
Another Greek term used to convey
demonic harassment is echo, meaning
"hold" or "have," which, combined with
the Greek for "spirit," creates the phrase
"having the spirit," which is joined with
"of an unclean demon" in Luke 4:33.
Biblical passages describing demoniza-
tion don't say if the demonized were Chris-
tians or non-Christians (though some
6 0 C H R I S T I A N I T Y T O D A Y
IN NEED OF DELIVERANCE
scholars argue that some cases imply the
demonized professed allegiance to Christ).
HUMBLE SKEPTICISM
For all it has to say about demons, the Bible
doesn't say definitively that modern Chris-
tians can be demonized. Neither does it say
they cannot. Thus, open-minded but guard-
ed humility is a
good foundation
Id for any considera-
Hay ward, and Keltay tion of the demon-
it ¿orles ic. That type of
humility embraces
scrutiny as well as
openness to the biblical realities playing out
in today's world.
A wide range of today's spiritual war-
fare counselors, scholars, and writers such
as Neil T. Anderson, Peter C. Wagner,
Timothy Warner, Mark I. Bubeck (and
others from the International Center for
Biblical Counseling), as well as Arnold,
Dickason, Thierer, Barron, and the Ortho-
dox Father David Barr, agree that believ-
ers can be influenced by demons and that
the degrees and disguises of influence
vary. To complicate things, demonization
may go hand in hand with a psychological
disorder, physical illness, and sinful habits.
Demonic invasion emulates the most
ordinary symptoms.
Christians must use their brains (to
learn from various disciplines), mouths (to
ask God's assistance and to ask discerning
| S e p t e m b e r 3 , 2 0 0 1
questions), and—yes—even the elusive
medium of spiritual intuition (to exercise
discernment) when examining claims of
demonization.
No Christian group has so carefully laid
down laws of demon discernment as the
Roman Catholic Church. It has long main-
tained that exorcising someone who is not
possessed by a demon and who is instead
dealing with a psychological or physical
problem can be dangerous. Some unskilled
exorcists have ended up killing the people
they attempted to help.
The Archdiocese of Chicago's officially
appointed exorcist, who prefers his name
not be disclosed, works in close collabora-
tion with physicians, psychologists, and
psychiatrists, Barron says. "We want to be
extremely careful in discerning what's at
stake before using the rather heavy tool of
exorcism," he says.
The Catholic Church has set the bar so
high that only demons can levitate over it.
A Catholic exorcist looks for four criteria:
superhuman powers or physical capacities
(e.g., lévitation); a fierce aversion to holy
things (such as a crucifix); knowledge of
hidden things; and the use of languages
one has never learned (e.g., a child who
begins to speak medieval Latin). H o w
common are these instances? Very rare.
The Devil, Barron says, is more likely to
move through temptation, insinuation,
and suggestion rather than the "strange,
anomalous, mysterious thing" that is
 LEARN IN NEED OF DELIVERANCE

FROM THE demon possession. Since his appointment
in September 2000, the Chicago exorcist
MASTERS has performed two exorcisms, Barron
Learn from says. Over 95 percent of people w h o
renowned authors asked him for exorcisms haven't qualified.
and scholars Although Orthodox churches have no
anytime, from official d e m o n policy on the books,
anywhere. monastics who occasionally perform exor­
cisms share the Roman Catholic Church's
Take free and skepticism, says Barr, who has been an
tuition-based
Orthodox priest for 13 years. Once "other
courses developed
causes" have been painstakingly eliminat­
for online learning
using state-of-the- ed, services of exorcism are granted.
art media. Besides these unusual cases, the Orthodox
baptism service blesses recipients with
three prayers of exorcism because those
receiving baptism "live in a world influ­
enced by the evil one," Barr says.
Barr draws an analogy to describe the
suspicion with which Orthodox believers
approach allegations of supernatural inter­
vention: "If an icon begins to weep, our
first reaction is to wipe the tears off and
VS:PE:AK:|:NGÍ^::H:;:
say, O h , probably something was spilled.
IN MlNIISTRY
Why should an icon weep for me? Who
am I?' If we act with humility, and it keeps
Friendship
Eva hg e l i s iti
persisting, the bishop will read a prayer of
exorcism, and if it continues to weep,
then perhaps it's of God." Paradoxically,
resorting to exorcism in this case is the
result of deep skepticism.
Arnold usually doesn't take claims of
demonic manifestations at face value. "If a
person hears voices in their head, it might
be a hallucinogenic drug; it might be disso­
ciation, some kind of psychological disor­
der; or it might be an evil spirit," he says.
"At the same time, I believe in a biblical
worldview that espouses the realities of
demonic spirits and doesn't dismiss that as
a possible etiology to a person's problems.
So I take a multifaceted approach to deliv­
erance." That's reflected in the fact that
Arnold, Kelley, and anthropologist and
missiologist Doug Hayward together teach
a course on spiritual warfare, probably the
best of its kind. Talbot School of Theology
students get their money's worth: Arnold
brings his Ph.D. in New Testament exege­
sis to the mix, Kelley his doctorate in clini­
cal psychology and insight into the human
psyche, and Hayward his Ph.D. in anthro-

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ONE WILD TRUTH

So, what do all these experts—Catholic,
Orthodox, and evangelical—advise we do
when we suspect demonization? How do
we know if we're dealing with demons or
their imitations?
First, we need to get ourselves in that 3#
teachable place between credulity and
skepticism. There we can learn from the
collective wisdom that Christians have
accumulated over the ages. We should

c
watch for paranormal symptoms, like lév-
itation. We should consult medical doc-
tors and trustworthy psychologists who
don't read too much into things. The psy-
chologists would eliminate dissociative \
identity disorder, an illness that may
resemble demonization but more than
that is a cry for help. We should refuse
counsel from entertainers but seek out
m o d e s t exorcists, the kind we find
through word of mouth, who pray a lot,
refuse to become media personalities, and
admit they d o n ' t always k n o w the
answers. We should admit that in some
cases we may never be able to distinguish
between the direct and indirect ways in Pictured are: jerry Rankin, president, International Mission Board; Morris
which the demonic may be attempting to Chapman, president, Executive Committee; Jimmy Draper, president, LifeWay
thwart God's purposes. Christian Resources; O. S. Hawkins, president, Annuity Board; Bob Reccord,
Over time and in prayer, we should
president, North American Mission Board (Internationally Baptist leaders
look at family background, unconfessed
include Nilson Panini, immediate past president, Baptist World Alliance)
sin, and level of suggestibility, as well as
d e m o n i c "inroads"—ways in w h i c h
humans invite, knowingly or unknow-
ingly, the p r e s e n c e of d e m o n s . W e For almost 100 years, Southwestern Seminary in
should pay special attention to involve-
m e n t in the occult, generational sins Fort Worth, Texas, has prepared more pastors,
("sins of the fathers"), and sexual
molestation or other ways in which one teachers, missionaries, and denominational leaders
person gets control of another's body
a n d / o r mind. Once possible natural
than any other seminary in the world. If you
causes are examined, deliverance minis-
ters will either recommend or discourage
asking God in prayer to expel evil spirits.
believe God is calling you to prepare for ministry,
Perhaps then we will know if true
demons are involved. c a l l i -800-SWBTS-01 t o schedule a free 2-day
But even if we d o n ' t , we should
remind ourselves of this wild truth: God, campus visit.
who is victor over both demons and their
counterfeits, will come to our aid. ©

Agnieszka Tennant is an assistant editor of >outfnvesfern B a p t i s t 1 heologfical S e m «

CHRISTIANITY TODAY. g> T o i i c i i t h e W o r l d ... I n i p a c t B t e m i t y
www«i an
 ^ s
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