What about this exorcism stuff?
Currently in our church I am doing a series of sermons on the miracles of Jesus. This upcoming Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 the sermon is about an exorcism in Matthew 12:22-29. Rather than load the sermon with background material, caveats, and hedges, I've decided to let this blog do that work.
For starters the world in which Jesus lived was very conscious of angels and demons. Nearly everyone- Gentile or Jew- believed in supernatural powers that were at work in the world. When Paul refers to "powers and principalities" he is referring to such powers. It was a world in which it was widely assumed that a person could be actively controlled by an evil spirit. In this environment there were any number of exorcists practicing their art. Even pagan religions had specified rites and incantations to free someone from demonic possession. There were also Jewish exorcists at work calling on the power of the true God, Yahweh. In this environment Jesus practiced his ministry, and the synoptic Gospels all show exorcisms to be a significant part of that ministry. There was one significant difference in the method by which Jesus cast out evil spirits. He never used set rituals and incantations for this. The striking thing wasn't that he could cast out a demon, it was the method (or lack thereof). Jesus simply commanded, and the spirits obeyed.
So far so good. Now for the difficult stuff. Are there evil spirits and demons? What about a personified force of evil- Satan, Lucifer, the Devil, whatever term you want to use? I'll acknowledge that there are many who discount this. If you the reader are among those, that's fine, but allow me to respectfully disagree. My own feeling on this is colored by my own reading of scripture, by my own logic, and to a small extent experience. The New Testament mentions the demonic and evil spirits quite frequently. It refers to one it calls the Devil or Satan who seems to be the chief opponent to God's rule and reign. The history and state of the world seems to call for some sort of personal force of evil that is external to humanity. Consider how few years the world has had without a major war. Consider the murders, arsons, rapes, torture, and other crimes of the most horrific sort. Consider needless violence, greed, lust, and racism that have been present since time immemorial.
Humanity is said to be created in God's image, and orthodox (meaning traditional) Christian thought has affirmed that in the fall this image was badly distorted but not totally destroyed. If there is no force of evil external to humanity, how can we who bear God's image, however damaged it is, create a world like this. Perhaps I may be overgeneralizing in this statement, but I would assume that some of the same folks who would deny a presence of such a personal force of evil would also affirm that people are basically good. These two positions are inconsistent. If there is no external force of evil, and if humans are basically good, how then do we account for the evil around us unless God is the author of it, a position no believer could hold.
What then about demonic activity today? We tend to allow our own thinking to be shaped too much by popular culture. We think of Jon Lovitz' skits from Saturday Night Live from twenty some years ago. We think of horror movies like The Exorcist, The Omen, or the just released The Rite. In reality, I would assert that when evil appears it is far more likely to be seductive, alluring, and appealing. It's easy to flee something grotesque and horrible, but very difficult to flee something that appears enticing. While I assume that people today can be possessed we need to be very careful with this. Most people who show symptoms of mental illness need good counseling or the proper medications. I've personally known people who've had severe depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and also known people with epilepsy. On the other hand, I've only seen one person who I actually thought may have been "possessed." Perhaps you could summarize my position this way: to say that mental illness and/or epilepsy are all possession is medical malpractice of the grossest sort; on the other hand to simply assume that demonic activity isn't real is spiritual malpractice. One last point about demonic activity. I think that we tend to look at it too much on the micro-level, thinking of individuals who are "possessed." In my opinion at least, we need to think of demonic activity on the macro-level. For example we could think of the world between 1935 and 1950. In this era the Nazi regime in Germany exterminated between 6 and 9 million Jews and others it deemed undesirable. In the USSR in the same time period, Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 20-60 million of his own people depending upon estimates. Tell me that demons were not active then as the firing squads, hangmen, and ovens did their deady work near round the clock.
In an entry in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday's Texts, John Rottman of Emmanuel College in Toronto wrote, "And so we conspire with his family to have Jesus the exorcist put away...But getting rid of Jesus the exorcist doesn't make the evil go away...Getting rid of Jesus the exorcist still leaves us with a world full of evil."
In conclusion though, let me mention some far higher authorities though. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12 The good news though is this, "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) ) "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels or rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
For starters the world in which Jesus lived was very conscious of angels and demons. Nearly everyone- Gentile or Jew- believed in supernatural powers that were at work in the world. When Paul refers to "powers and principalities" he is referring to such powers. It was a world in which it was widely assumed that a person could be actively controlled by an evil spirit. In this environment there were any number of exorcists practicing their art. Even pagan religions had specified rites and incantations to free someone from demonic possession. There were also Jewish exorcists at work calling on the power of the true God, Yahweh. In this environment Jesus practiced his ministry, and the synoptic Gospels all show exorcisms to be a significant part of that ministry. There was one significant difference in the method by which Jesus cast out evil spirits. He never used set rituals and incantations for this. The striking thing wasn't that he could cast out a demon, it was the method (or lack thereof). Jesus simply commanded, and the spirits obeyed.
So far so good. Now for the difficult stuff. Are there evil spirits and demons? What about a personified force of evil- Satan, Lucifer, the Devil, whatever term you want to use? I'll acknowledge that there are many who discount this. If you the reader are among those, that's fine, but allow me to respectfully disagree. My own feeling on this is colored by my own reading of scripture, by my own logic, and to a small extent experience. The New Testament mentions the demonic and evil spirits quite frequently. It refers to one it calls the Devil or Satan who seems to be the chief opponent to God's rule and reign. The history and state of the world seems to call for some sort of personal force of evil that is external to humanity. Consider how few years the world has had without a major war. Consider the murders, arsons, rapes, torture, and other crimes of the most horrific sort. Consider needless violence, greed, lust, and racism that have been present since time immemorial.
Humanity is said to be created in God's image, and orthodox (meaning traditional) Christian thought has affirmed that in the fall this image was badly distorted but not totally destroyed. If there is no force of evil external to humanity, how can we who bear God's image, however damaged it is, create a world like this. Perhaps I may be overgeneralizing in this statement, but I would assume that some of the same folks who would deny a presence of such a personal force of evil would also affirm that people are basically good. These two positions are inconsistent. If there is no external force of evil, and if humans are basically good, how then do we account for the evil around us unless God is the author of it, a position no believer could hold.
What then about demonic activity today? We tend to allow our own thinking to be shaped too much by popular culture. We think of Jon Lovitz' skits from Saturday Night Live from twenty some years ago. We think of horror movies like The Exorcist, The Omen, or the just released The Rite. In reality, I would assert that when evil appears it is far more likely to be seductive, alluring, and appealing. It's easy to flee something grotesque and horrible, but very difficult to flee something that appears enticing. While I assume that people today can be possessed we need to be very careful with this. Most people who show symptoms of mental illness need good counseling or the proper medications. I've personally known people who've had severe depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and also known people with epilepsy. On the other hand, I've only seen one person who I actually thought may have been "possessed." Perhaps you could summarize my position this way: to say that mental illness and/or epilepsy are all possession is medical malpractice of the grossest sort; on the other hand to simply assume that demonic activity isn't real is spiritual malpractice. One last point about demonic activity. I think that we tend to look at it too much on the micro-level, thinking of individuals who are "possessed." In my opinion at least, we need to think of demonic activity on the macro-level. For example we could think of the world between 1935 and 1950. In this era the Nazi regime in Germany exterminated between 6 and 9 million Jews and others it deemed undesirable. In the USSR in the same time period, Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 20-60 million of his own people depending upon estimates. Tell me that demons were not active then as the firing squads, hangmen, and ovens did their deady work near round the clock.
In an entry in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday's Texts, John Rottman of Emmanuel College in Toronto wrote, "And so we conspire with his family to have Jesus the exorcist put away...But getting rid of Jesus the exorcist doesn't make the evil go away...Getting rid of Jesus the exorcist still leaves us with a world full of evil."
In conclusion though, let me mention some far higher authorities though. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12 The good news though is this, "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) ) "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels or rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
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