The Demonisation of the West: Part 1
Why This Topic Now?
Many of us have avoided spiritual warfare issues because of exposure to erroneous teachings and extreme behaviour. Yet the reality of Satan and the struggle against him is unavoidable in scripture[1]. The practical importance of this was sharply brought to my attention recently in two ways.
In the first place, a Nigerian pastor began to speak with me about “witchcraft” in a church situation. The text that sprang to mind was 1 Samuel 15:23 in the King James Version, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”[2] Whilst I was initially suspicious of my African brother’s reference to the work of evil powers, it soon became evident that we were talking about the same problem, control in the church, from different perspectives[3] and that both psychological and demonic dimensions were involved. The second stimulus for this article was being suddenly struck by the fact that in all my time of lecturing theology I had never taught on spiritual warfare[4].
Something my African friend said led me into further prayer on this topic, “this hidden work of Satan would not happen in Nigeria because the ground there is already softened”. I take it he meant that in Africa things were more evident spiritually because the environment had been softened by prayer and Spirit.
We only have two options, either demons are less active in the Western world or we are somehow blinded to their presence. A major part of this article is devoted to demonstrating that we are blind to the activities of evil spirits[5]. If it is not possible for Western society be exempt from the presence of the evil powers spoken of in scripture, if this is simply a fact of life in a fallen world, we need to ask where the powers of darkness are hiding.
Where do Demons Rule?
In the beginning, “God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””(Gen 1:28). Human beings need to “feel blessed” by some sort of higher power, this is part of being made in the image of God. When Satan interposed between God and humanity he promised that this sense of blessing from above could come from within, “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5). However, instead of having a wisdom that enabled them to rule creation, Adam and Eve fell into folly and were ruled by the forces of nature[6].
With the original blessing of the Creator lost, God is no longer immediately present to man, this is intolerable. Human beings seek substitutes for God’s presence by imagining creation to include a supernatural realm of gods and spirits that they can control. Through idol worship nature is forced to submit to magic in all traditional societies[7]. The real aim of idolatry is not the adoration of a god, but a better life, here or hereafter, for the idol worshipper.
The answer to the location of demons in Western society is found in a basic biblical principle, the power behind an idol is a demon[8]. The intensity of idolatry e.g. consumer goods, sex, fame, in our society is manifest, and demons are present and active in all these evils. Yet there is something more subtle.
“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. (Ps 115:4- 8)[9]. Spiritually, idol –worshippers are as insensible to spiritual truth and reality as the material objects they serve. Since the average Westerner is deeply mired in idolatry[10], it follows that we are blinded to the operation of the powers of evil.
The greater our intellectual arrogance, the less we can see into the spiritual realm. We are heirs to the attitude of the builder of Babylon. Because in his arrogance Nebuchadnezzar said, ““Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”” (Dan 4:30), he was reduced to the level of an animal – totally uncomprehending of the spiritual world[11]. This is a process repeated throughout history, both in wider society and even in the church[12], it should cause us to search our own hearts.
Westerners Worship False Gods
A recent incident in America will illustrate the deep problem we are facing. Many Christians were outraged recently when a Hindu priest opened the U.S.senate in prayer.[13]
Three protesters shouted, “Lord Jesus, forgive us, Father, for allowing the prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight,”. Here is the priest’s prayer, “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven…May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
It is easy for us to decry these as abominations[14], but we are missing the brute reality that Australians, like Americans, also worship the earth, sky and sea, for in these reside the elemental powers that are responsible for our remarkable prosperity.
We have practically deified (made God- like)[15] the powers of nature that so richly supply our felt needs – this is the root cause of the demonized state of the West.
Here in Western Australia we “know” our well – being lies in the earth with its gas, bauxite, nickel, iron ore, gold, and diamonds, in the sea with its pearls, prawns, crabs and lobsters, and in the air with its sun and rain for our food supplies. We are truly “nature- worshippers”. If, as in biblical thinking, behind every idol is a demon, and if we, like the idol worshipers of the ancient world have deified the powers of nature[16], then we are subject to the rule of principalities. This is part of the judgement of God upon our nations[17]. Instead of ruling the world as we imagine, we are being ruled.
We are in much deeper than we think. The most influential New Testament scholar of the twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann, wrote, “It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.”
His argument is that the modern scientific world view of cause and effect excludes a functional belief in spiritual entities, like God and demons. Contemporary Western thinking is closed off to supernatural influences[18], while the world view of Jesus and the Bible is open to influences beyond our understanding. Critics like Bultmann would see this as an inevitable result of hundreds of years of scientific discovery and education[19].
Bible believing Christians in the West will deny this closedness to the supernatural[20], but in practice they rarely if ever experience the world of the miraculous. God has been progressively excluded from our world. Let me use two contemporary illustrations.
The first is the influence of the business community on the church. The most god- like realm for capitalist societies today is no longer the realm of the ancient fertility deities (agriculture) or the traditional gods of war, what is treated as ultimate is “the market” (trading, stocks, business, shares, globalisation etc.). Business models of leadership have replaced biblically based paradigms in many churches[21]. From this perspective, the “seeker sensitive” churches based on church growth theory are actually “market driven churches”. We can see that this is so because their primary orientation is not vertical, towards God in prayer, but horizontal, towards satisfying felt human need.
The latest intrusion into a genuinely Christian worldview is psychological causation. How often does someone diagnosed with a severe psychological or psychiatric disorder get healed in our churches? Pastors and others are quick to refer difficult cases to a Christian counsellor, who may or may not even pray with the client. Is Jesus still the person who healed the Gerasene demoniac?[22]
Humanism has penetrated all the spheres of our culture that once redounded to the glory of God. The Lord’s Prayer has been prayed at the opening of English speaking parliaments for centuries, because political leaders believed in the sovereignty of God. The greatest artistic and musical works of the Western world were noticeably religious. Today however God is being progressively excluded from our daily frame of reference[23]. We are the heirs of the thinking that human beings are at the centre of everything.[24]
More than ever before, we are surrounded by the works of man’s hands, possessed of technologies that a few years ago were unthinkable. All of this produces a terrible sense of pride[25]. It seems as if we are witnessing the progressive penetration of human understanding into all the realms of existence[26]. In terms of how we see the universe, the cosmos is increasingly conformed to the image and understanding of man[27]. More and more man sees all things through himself. The universe becomes a mirror, not to the glory of God[28] but to the comprehension of man, the progressive human conceptualisation of everything [29] through the lens of a fallen mind[30].
Finding Heaven
One of the outstanding absences in contemporary preaching is heaven. Whilst this is a major topic in scripture, the theme of heaven is rarely taught on today. The current pre-occupation with earthly pursuits, including wealth and relationships, reveals that the heavenly world is unreal to our popular preachers.
This places us in a better position to understand why spiritual warfare is so neglected, “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.” (Eph 6:12). If God’s heaven is not vital to us, “the heavenly places”, inhabited both by evil forces and the church[31] will be absent from our minds also. According to Paul, he preaches to the Gentiles “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:10).
To be ignorant of spiritual warfare is to be ignorant of our heavenly existence. It follows that we are already deceived by Satan and need to confess our blindness to God. Only Jesus can deliver us.
[1] The name “Satan” occurs in 49 verses, “the devil” in 33 verses and “demon(s)” in 78 verses.
[2] The English Standard Version translate the text this way, “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.”
[3]Similarly, note Paul’s wise observation of Satan’s efforts in the church, “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (2 Cor1:10 -11)
[4] Even more concerning, was that we were hardly touching on this theme in the college at all, certainly not practically.
[5] On one of the days I was thinking about this, the weather announcer on TV spoke of rain that was falling over WA without reaching the ground because of the dryness and warmth of the atmosphere, under these conditions, God’s promise does not seem true, ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isa 55:10- 11).
[6] “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (Rom1:22 – 23)
[7] This is true for animism, folk Islam, village Hinduism, certain forms of “health – wealth” theology etc.
[8] “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded”. (Deut 32:17) Compare Psalm 106:37 and 1 Corinthians 10:19 – 20, “What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.”
[9] This text is virtually reproduced in Psalm 135:15 -18.
[10] The “prosperity doctrine” is the most visible edge of a much wider problem.
[11] “The kingdom has departed from you, 32 and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” (Dan 4:31- 32).
[12] The false teachers who have infiltrated the early church are “like brute beasts” (2 Pet 2:12; Jude 10).
[14] A term that appears in 64 verses in scripture.
[15] Atheism, strictly speaking, is an impossibility, we must treat something as ultimate, giving it the status of God.
[16] Baal for example was important as the god of the storm clouds that sent rain for crop growth.
[17] “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Rom1:22- 25)
[18] The so called “New Age” movement may seem an exception, but this is not mainstream.
[19] The most dangerous form of scientific knowledge in Western societies has been theological knowledge. Not because theology as such is dangerous, but because in the attempt to imitate the progress of science theologians lost humility. (In a play on words, one author has spoken of the “D.Minisation” of the church.
[20] A Fundamentalist might reply with “scientific creationism”, but the notion of a scientific approach to creation is already to “bow at the altar of human reason” (Karl Barth).
[21] Think for example of how in many of our churches John Maxwell has more influence than John Calvin or John Wesley.
[22] I am definitely not against Christian counselling, involvement in psychology/psychiatry etc., the observation has to do with non –biblical concepts inundating Christian thought.
[23] The recent EU constitution omits reference to Christianity as an influence onEurope’s history.
[24] “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not” (Protagoras, (ca. 490– 420 BC); ““The proper study of man is man”” (Pope, 1688 -1744).
[25] In his arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar said, “Is not this greatBabylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). “Babylon the great” (Rev 14:8; 16:9; 17:5) always appears as the object of human boasting and divine destruction.
[26] Take the human genome project for instance, the total mapping of all the genes responsible for the human form was completed in 2003.
[27] Contrary to popular belief, technology is not neutral, but shaped and directed to the motives of its inventors. See for example the work ofMurdochUniversity scholar and public Christian,Ian Barns.
[28] “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Ps 19:1)
[29] Science – fiction provides interesting insights. For example, the possible “terraforming” of celestial objects. “The terraforming (literally, “Earth-shaping”) of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, or ecology to be similar to those of Earth in order to make it habitable by humans.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming
[30] A recent example concerns a miraculous healing from encephalitis, http://www.patsysmiracle.com/ The physician in charge of the case could only hedge his bets, “Whether it’s a miracle of science or faith, or all of the above, is sometimes difficult to distinguish.”. Interestingly, he sees the faith of the woman’s husband, but cannot see the hand of God.
[31] “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:3; 2:6)