The Road Less Traveled

I promised to speak about demon possession. Permit me to focus on one question in particular. Can a person ever be possessed by a fallen angel, a demon? What is the Biblical teaching on this matter and how does one go about dealing with it?

As noted in my previous post the New Testament also recounts many instances of demonic possession, mainly in the synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry. Jesus encounters persons possessed by demons who have take them captive and who cause physical and mental affliction. For example consider the story of two demonized men in the country of the Gadarenes.

And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, "What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?" 

Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, "If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs." 

And he said to them, "Go." 

So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. - Mat 8:28-34 ESV

Here we see the Lord exercising total power over  demons by driving them out and into a herd of unclean pigs. Such an exorcism was a sign that the Kingdom of God had come (Matt. 12:22-23). Jesus has come to rescue us all from the dominion of darkness and has brought us into the Kingdom of God's Son (Col. 1:13). 

The devil made me do it 

That was then, but what about demonic possession today? Does it still happen? A Texas jury found that Andrea Yates was insane when she drowned her five children in a bathtub five years ago. A friend asked if this is an example of demonic possession? Is insanity the modern day example of demon possession?

To answer his important query I turn to a famous and oft cited nineteenth century biography of a German Lutheran pastor. The story is recorded in the landmark biography of Pastor Christoph Blumhard (1805-1880),  The Awakening: One Man's Battle With Darkness by Friedrich Bluendel. This free e-book was published by www.Plough.com and the Bruderhoff Communities of the U.K. The book is introduced as follows: 

When Blumhardt, a 19th-century pastor from the Black Forest, agreed to counsel a tormented woman in his parish, all hell broke loose—literally. But that was only the beginning of the drama that ensued. Zuendel's account, available here in English for the first time, provides a rare glimpse into how the eternal fight between the forces of good and evil plays itself out in the lives of the most ordinary men and women. More than that, it reminds us that those forces still surround us today, whether we are awake to them or not.

Blumhardt served as pastor of a Lutheran church in Moettlingen, a parish at the northern end of the Black Forest, numbering 874 souls and encompassing two villages. The youngest of three orphaned girls, Gottlieben Dittus, had many demons cast out from her through the prayerful ministrations of Pastor Blumhardt. So wondrous and awesome were these events that Pastor Blumhardt was immediately catapulted to nationwide notoriety. People by the hundreds flocked to him for healing. When criticized for using his pastoral office as an instrument for healing, Blumhardt replied,

"According to the New Testament, God wants to offer his gifts through human instruments. The gospel is to be proclaimed by servants of God, ambassadors for Christ, and these messengers are to bear spiritual gifts and powers for the church. That is why the apostles were endowed with exceptional power, both to preach and to heal.

"Christianity knows absolutely nothing of this anymore. Hence all the despair in face of misery, and the devious means many try. Hence, too, the plight medical science finds itself in: it is expected to replace by its skills what the servants of the gospel ought to provide, but have long ago forfeited. In this case, medical science is to be commended for having labored far more faithfully than the servants of the gospel, in spite of the unbelief it professes as a body" (p. 117).

What about today?

Most modern psychiatrists would mock at such an approach to insanity as primitive, simplistic and thoroughly unscientific. To be sure, not all mental illness is caused by demonic possession. However, toward the end of the twentieth century along came a psychiatrist by the name of M. Scott Peck to publish his now famous book, The Road Less Traveled (1978). I commend that book and others by the same author to you as well. Peck draws from his own practice of psychiatry to point out that not every aberrant behavior can be explained as simply another form of mental illness.

Peck says medical scientists and the churches have not been talking together as much as we might about such things as spontaneous remissions of cancer and psychic healings. The attitude of many in the medical professions is that miracle cures are nonexistent. Too many Christians feel the same way, suggesting that such things only happened back in the days of the early church. Peck says he and many other physicians have now changed their minds. Miracles do happen. He also emphasizes that demonic possession is real.

In later writings, Peck documents his own work with truly evil people and the exorcising of demons. See People of the Lie (1998) and Glimpses of the Devil : A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption (2005).

Why should we Christians be surprised by this? That is, after all, what our Bible says. Why do we Christians doubt it, whether it has to do with the healing of the body or the casting out of demons? There is a whole lot more to this world than we thought we knew about. To deny this is to fail to unify all knowledge and experience into our current understanding of human life and activity.

Here is where I stop. I am not intimate with the Andrea Yates case. I have personally had but limited experience with exorcisms. But is there still such a thing as demon possession? Yes indeed. And does Jesus still cast them out? Oh yes! And, further, do miracles of healing still happen? Most certainly! But at the same time shall we throw away all that modern medicine brings? By no means. Let us rather make sure we get into that dialog Peck points to and travel together down that road less traveled.

A Few More Thoughts About Mary Magdalene

The Sabbath was over at sunset on Saturday evening, but it was too dark to visit Jesus' tomb. So the women who had followed Him determined to do what little they could to honor His memory. Even before the sun rose we read of Mary Magdalene:

"Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him"(John 20:1,2). 

So much has been written and said about this Mary called Magdalene, but who was she really and what do we know of her? Outside of the speculation and legends we read only this in Holy Scripture:

"Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him,and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out . . . "(Luke 8:2). 

The name Magdalene identifies her as from Magdala. Does this refer to Magadan, the name of a town appearing only in Matt. 15:39? The name Magdala means "tower" (Migdol in Hebrew). After feeding over 4,000 men, not including women and children, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus went by boat to the region of Magadan (Magdala?), Matthew reports. Magadan was a small fishing village between Capernaum and Tiberias. Mark, in a parallel to Matthew's report, calls it Dalmanutha (Mark 8:10). Confused yet? Me too. It seems that we know next to nothing about this little village of Magdala from which Mary came.

Of Mary Magdalene on the other hand the legends and apocryphal accounts abound. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia the name Magdala may come instead from a Talmudic expression meaning "curling women's hair." The idea is that she did this to attract men. If this is true then the name could connect her to the woman who came to Jesus begging for forgiveness (Luke 7:36-50). Of course, we have no reason to connect Mary to that woman. Indeed, the Talmudic expression was so pejorative and contemptible that one wonders if the disciples would have nicknamed her Mary, the hooker, especially given her exemplary role in following Jesus to the cross. We are left rather with the understanding that she was from Magdala and that Jesus had driven seven demons from her.

Ah, but then what does that mean? It refers to a worldview rejected by most of the educated and rational of our day. No one really believes that demons are real and that they can indeed occupy a human's body along with that person's soul do they? Of course not. That's but the stuff of entertaining exorcism movies. They make for good box office and plenty of scares, but do we really, really believe in such stuff? The Bible writers—and Jesus—certainly did. Here are some of the many examples of the casting out of demons or exorcism:

Psalm 106:37 - They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons 

Matt. 8:16 -That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.  

Matt. 8:31 - And the demons begged him, saying, "If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs." 

Matt. 12:24 - But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." 

Mark 1:39 - And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. 

Luke 4:41 - And demons also came out of many, crying, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

Those who reject these accounts as real and yet want to maintain a high view of the inspired nature of Scripture speak about them as accommodation. Jesus knew there are no real demons. He was rather accommodating himself to the prevailing and non-scientific notions of his day. Don Stewart in the Blue Letter Bible website points out that "this theory does not really take into account what the Bible says about itself. The Bible claims to be God's truth to humanity. It makes no distinction between the spiritual and the scientific."


Given that, one can readily see why Mary was so dedicated to Jesus. We don't know what the demons living within did to her. We can only imagine what it would be like to hear them in your heart and mind day upon day. The temptations, the guilt, the fear and anxiety, the utter darkness and despair—who wants to think about it? 


So in this week in which we continue with Christians around the world to rejoice in Christ's resurrection, we also pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the power of the devil and his hosts!" And we can be confident that He will, for His is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever! Hallelujah! Christ is risen!

Demons Are In The News

The end of last week and the first of this, I posted three guest blogs by my friend Bob Schwarz about a Zulu Lutheran pastor who reported the successful exorcism of demons in Africa. The questions that remain here in the United States—and elsewhere—have to do with the reality of this experience. Did it really happen? Are there indeed such beings as demons that can and do occupy the souls of others?

No matter what I say there will be those who simply deny the existence of evil spirits or demons. It does not fit into their worldview. Others go further and claim that such things are entertaining fantasy, like pretending there are dragons, vampires and Harry Potter. It is a big piece of today's entertainment industry. Samples:

• Vampires—background
• The pilot for the Dan Curtis 1972 television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker revolved around reporter Carl Kolchak hunting a vampire on the Las Vegas strip. Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter, such as Blade in the Marvel Comics' Blade films and the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, released in 1992, foreshadowed a vampiric presence on television, with adaptation to a long-running hit TV series of the same name and its spin-off Angel. Still others showed the vampire as protagonist, such as 1983's The Hunger, 1994's Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles and its indirect sequel of sorts Queen of the Damned, and the 2007 series Moonlight. Bram Stoker's Dracula was a noteworthy 1992 film which became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever.^[162] This increase of interest in vampiric plotlines led to the vampire being depicted in movies such as Underworld and Van Helsing, and the Russian Night Watch and a TV miniseries remake of 'Salem's Lot, both from 2004. The series Blood Ties premiered on Lifetime Television in 2007, featuring a character portrayed as Henry Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry VIII of England turned vampire, in modern-day Toronto, with a female former Toronto detective in the starring role. A 2008 series from HBO, entitled True Blood, gives a Southern take to the vampire theme.^[158] Another popular vampire-related show is CW's The Vampire Diaries. The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of sexuality and the perennial dread of mortality.^[163] Another "vampiric" series that has recently come out is the Twilight Saga, a series of films based on the book series of the same name.
• The Discovery Channel - Real Life Exorcisms 

News of the Roman Catholic church training priests to be exorcists has been widely publicized recently. Last November you may have read that "Overwhelmed with requests for exorcists, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are holding a special training workshop in Baltimore this weekend to teach clerics the esoteric rite, the Catholic News Service reported."

For Lutherans the sole source of teaching about such things is the inspired Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. In the next days I'll access that Word to discuss and apply what the Holy Spirit says about these rebel spirits and what that means for us believers in Christ.