CGR Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2001)

In early December of 1994, I discovered that a parishioner in my congregation was suffering from demonic oppressions. This person had received Jesus Christ as Savior and I had baptized her the previous Easter. Now, after three ambulance trips in two days to the local hospital, she was in the psychiatric ward suffering from seizures, exhaustion, and the awareness of a presence in her that was threatening, malicious, and dangerous. Little did she know that this signaled the beginning of inner healing and the expulsion of many evil spirits. Much less did I know that it also launched a personal odyssey which would take me into three symbiotic experiences: the hands-on pastoral practice of what is usually called ‘deliverance ministry’;[1] a major theological research project inquiring into the demonization and exorcism of persons from an Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective;[2] and an intense and life-threatening battle with evil spirits in my own life.

    These varied influences have deeply shaped my present understanding of the spiritual, theological, and pastoral foundations which undergird the Christian practice of deliverance (exorcistic) healing. Though evil spirits – demons – and their expulsion are widely rooted in scripture, church tradition, anthropology, and even political history,[3] exorcism’s profile in Mennonite circles is peripheral at best. It’s true that there are several acknowledged pioneers in deliverance ministry amongst Anabaptist-Mennonites,[4] but candor still forces us to admit that exorcism is rarely even on the margins of congregational and institutional life.

    Consequently, my purpose in this article is to demystify exorcism by demonstrating its coherence with the center line of God’s universal saving and cleansing work in creation which is being accomplished through Jesus Christ. In the light of scripture’s assertion that evil is rooted in the rebellion of Satan and his fallen angels, the expulsion of demonic spirits from people is analogous to God’s cleansing of evil from the whole of creation. This cleansing and restorational work is a direct outcome of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and is a ministry which Jesus mandates us to continue today. I believe it is extremely important that Mennonites– who wish to proclaim their congregations as “Communities of Healing and Hope”[5] – include deliverance healing as part of the ministry package.

Mennonite interpretations of the demonic

Contemporary Anabaptist-Mennonite assessment of the biblical demonic data has generated three major lines of interpretation. The first and most predominant follows the work of John Howard Yoder and his translation of Hendrik Berkhof’s book Christ and the Powers. In a translator’s epilogue, Yoder calls his own book, The Politics of Jesus, “little more than an expansion of Berkhof’s analysis.”[6] Berkhof interpreted nine New Testament epistolary ‘powers’ texts to be a description of the subjection of humans to social structures when these systems are in active opposition to their God-given creational mandate of nourishing human community.[7] He denied both the powers’ supernatural and intrinsically evil character: “The Powers belong to human experience, within which God works to preserve, reconcile, and fulfill.”[8] This structuralist view has taken over mainstream Mennonite demonology, as witness the 1995 Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Article 7, ‘Sin,’ states that “By our sin, we open ourselves to the bondage of demonic powers.”[9] The article then defines these powers in strictly structural terms.

    We may make two observations about this understanding of the demonic. To begin with, it clearly echoes the classical Greek definition of the demonic as a force which might be either evil or good.[10] Though the Greeks believed in real personal demons, and Walter Wink, following Berkhof, holds that the demonic is a zeitgeist, an impersonal driving force that impels the system,[11] the crucial point is that each sees the demonic as ethically, morally, and spiritually variable. In this specific sense, it is fair to say that demons-as-structures applies a pre-Christian definition to a postmodern world. What is especially intriguing about this is that the demons-as-structures approach is based on the assumption that the personalistic view of demons in scripture must be demythologized to fit a modern scientific worldview.[12] So the ‘Berkhof School’ selectively and inconsistently demythologizes. On the one hand, it denies the Greek and biblical view of demons’ real personal existence. On the other hand, it accepts the Greek view of demons’ moral variability, and in so doing it rejects the emerging biblical view, which by the New Testament period perceived demons as completely evil.

    In addition, and very significantly, the reinterpretation of demons-as-structures has arisen out of the historical context of twentieth-century political and social violence. The Berkhof School is rooted in an earlier book by Heinrich Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament. Schlier’s original essay wrestled with the Russian Revolution and Hitler’s rise between the two world wars.[13] In turn, Berkhof’s work was an effort to understand WW II; Yoder wrote during the Vietnam War; and Wink was struggling to explain institutionalized Latin American violence in the 1980s.

    Now, there can be no doubt that twentieth-century systemic evil demands a theological interpretive grid. But does this require us to dispense with demons-as-personal-beings in favor of demons-as-structures? No. The sounder approach is to do good social systems analysis out of a profound regard for the degree to which Satan’s hierarchies of personal demons operate behind and within the people in structures (Eph. 6:12). This positions the data more clearly into its anthropological, sociological, and theological strata. Apart from such a correction, we are left with a thorough-going structuralist reinterpretation of the biblical materials which cannot withstand the biblical, theological, and clinical evidence supporting the demonic oppressions of persons.[14]

    The second Anabaptist-Mennonite understanding of the demonic is found in the theoretical constructs of modern depth psychology. Demons in psychoanalytic terms are “bad ego introjects,” that is, objects created internally by the psyche which represent real-life negative experiences. Since these psychic complexes – or objects – are self-created by the person, the goal of psychoanalytic ‘exorcism’ is to re-integrate all the objects, whether good or bad, into the person’s core conscious identity.

    When this model is transferred to the Mennonite context, the result is an analysis like Paul Miller’s The Devil Did Not Make Me Do It. In that book, in a section called “Pastoral Care of Demonized Persons,” Miller lists fifteen caveats which, by placing restrictions on Christian exorcism, effectively serve to label it as unreal and thus ensure its non-practice. The real exorcist is the psychiatrist:

Any competent psychiatrist can diagnose many weird phenomena in personality…If in addition to being thoroughly trained psychiatrists they are also committed Christians, they probably will combine fervent prayers with their therapeutic care, even though they know the psychiatric diagnostic terms for all the phenomena, which exorcists insist are purely demonic.[15]

    Miller’s denial of the reality of demonic spirits reflects another strand of 1970s Anabaptist theology. For example, Mennonite missionary-anthropologist Don Jacobs wrote of his East African ministry that “in my experience, the general feeling among missionaries is that even if there should be an exorcism ritual, it would simply be a farce because that which it seeks to exorcise doesn’t exist.”[16] And Paul Hiebert, referring to his time as a missionary in India, acknowledged that he had excluded the middle level of supernatural but this-worldly beings and forces from his worldview.[17]

    The net theoretical result of the secular psychoanalytic approach is to define out of existence true Christian exorcism of real supranormal evil spirits. Even more to the point, the net therapeutic result is that persons troubled by these real demons are left to suffer when the genuine solution – the power of Jesus Christ to break demonic bondages – is available

    The third Mennonite interpretation of demons is that they are evil spirits. In their study of five North American Anabaptist-Mennonite denominations (published in 1991), J. Howard Kauffman and Leo Driedger found that 90 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “Satan is an active, personal devil.”[18] This is impressive, if for no other reason than that a marginally lower number of Mennonites believed in god, and in Jesus’ humanity and divinity, (88 percent each) than in Satan! If, though, we also place it alongside the earlier comments about the 1970s-era Anabaptist Mennonite dismissal of evil spirits, we are left with questions such as these: Do Mennonites believe in a Satan who has no demon followers? Has Mennonite opinion changed during the course of one generation? Is there a disjunction between missionaries of the ‘70s and pew-sitters of the ‘90s?

    Part of the solution to this anomaly lies in acknowledging the influence of fundamentalism on Mennonite theology. Rodney Sawatsky writes that “between 1908 and 1944, Fundamentalism became the decisive theological force within the ‘Old’ Mennonite Church… .”[19] The significance of fundamentalism’s influence on Mennonites’ doctrine of evil spirits is that fundamentalism leaves no room for demonization of Christians. This is the case, whether on dispensational grounds (the age of exorcism is past), or because conversion by definition exorcizes the demonic, or – as a corollary – because the Holy Spirit cannot co-exist with demons in a person. So it is theologically possible within this system for a person to believe in Satan and in demons who have a true ontological reality, but to still deny the role of deliverance healing.

     The situation is more complex than this, however. I noted earlier the unsympathetic reception that exorcism received from Mennonites during the 1970s; but during the same period, one segment within the Anabaptist-Mennonite community acknowledged the truth of evil spirit possession. In a section titled “Deliverance and Exorcism,” the 1975 Mennonite church Study Guide for The holy Spirit in the Life of the Church said, “Sometimes people are suspected of being possessed by an evil spirit. …When this occurs, exorcism is called for ….”[20]

    Thus, contemporary Mennonites are actually confronted by four theologies of the demonic. Demons-as-structures and demons-as-ego-introjects are well-differentiated beliefs with deep roots in rationalistic worldviews; but we must split the category of demons-as-personal-beings into two. The first option, “demons can’t inhabit us because we’re Christians,” was inherited from fundamentalism. The second alternative, “demons can inhabit us and need expulsion,” comes at least partially though the charismatic renewal stream.

    In summing up Mennonite understandings of the demonic, we turn to Jesus Christ himself as the final arbiter. Though the Old Testament has many references to demons,[21] and though it was largely in the inter-testamental period that a full-fledged demonology arode,[22] Mennonites hold Jesus to be normative. When we turn to his testimony, we find compelling reasons to take evil spirits seriously. The gospel of John four times (7:20; 8:48; 8:52; 10:20) cites the crowds’ decision that Jesus is himself demonized. There are seven exorcisms attributed to Jesus, plus some eight parallels in the synoptic gospels.[23] However, on other occasions, the text states that Jesus exorcised “many,” as in Matt. 8:16 and Luke 6:18. Luke 8:2 refers to several unnamed women whom Jesus had exorcised and who had become part of his entourage. In addition, the exorcism of Mary Magdalene is not described but is mentioned twice. Then we add the deliverance missions on which Jesus sent the disciples. Along with all of thee data, we note that Mark, the author of the earliest gospel, devotes about one-third of his material to exorcistic emphasis.[24]

    Jesus’ convictions about the demonic are given direct expression in the proto-commission of Luke 9:1-2 (cf. Matt. 10:1; Mark 6:7) in which the very definition of the kingdom of God is couched in exorcistic language. “Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” It may make us flinch, but Jesus clearly put deliverance healing on his followers’ agenda as a central sign of the kingdom’s reality. From all this, we can fairly say that not only did Jesus believe in evil spirits and treat them as real creatures complete with names, emotions, social organization, and the capacity to afflict people. We must also acknowledge that he intends that his disciples of every age tale up this healing ministry.

    Hence, evil spirits are not relics of a magical, superstitious, pre-modern worldview, but real, evil, supernatural germs which need to be cleansed from their human carriers by the loving, restoring, powerful healing of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, while deliverance and exorcism are often characterized by the language of spiritual warfare, they are simply the healing prayer and counseling means by which evil spirits are expelled from the individual so plagued. Deliverance healing is a wholesome ministry which is a part of the broader aspects of the healing of our spiritual, emotional, and physical traumas.

Demonic entry points into the human personality

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, a major focus of the nascent discipline of psychoanalysis was to develop a theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of the possessive states syndrome. William James, in commenting on the possibility that demonic possession might really occur, said in his Lowell Lectures of 1896, “If there are devils, if there are supernatural powers, it is through the cracked self that they enter.”[25]

    In the intervening decades, Christian pastoral theology has continued to gather insight into these cracks. Virtually all healer/exorcists propose composite lists of entry points ranging from four to six such portals per analyst,[26] but I suggest that a more systematic approach begins by distinguishing volitional from non-volitional doorways. Volitional entry points depend on the fact that in some way the invaded person has made choices which give permission for demonic ingress. Non-volitional doorways are defined as afflictions in which the sufferer is victimized in some sense by demonic attachments over which (s)he has had little if any control. In the following discussion, I analyze each of these two categories in terms of their components.

    According to its prevalence and negative spiritual powers, the first volitional doorway is personal involvement in, or exposure to, occult practices. The Latin verb occultare means ‘to hide from sight’ and in its noun form occultus stands for that which is not easily understood, revealed, or apprehended. It typically deals with super-rational phenomena: “the appearances which reach over into the metaphysics and the metaphysical  sphere, [and] the relationships between the visible and the supersensible realm.”[27] Magic is closely related and is the “attempt to know and rule the spirit world, human, animal and plant world as well as dead matter in an extrasensory way with the help of secret means and ceremonies.”[28] A partial alphabetical listing of magical and occultic phenomena includes astral travel, astrology, automatic writing, clairvoyance, clairsentience, divination,[29] levitation, materialization, Ouija boards, psychic healing, and spiritism.

    North American Anabaptists in several streams – Amish, Old Order, Old Mennonite, Brethren in Christ – have histories of explicit occult activities. These include psychic healing of humans and animals, fire letters, white magic charming and black magic hexing, water divination, crop fertility animal sacrifices, and wide-ranging fetishism.[30] Divination and the Ouija board are still part of modern Mennonite occultism, and have been joined by such contemporary practices as therapeutic touch, acupuncture, reflexology, iridology, psychic diagnoses, and magnetic and copper bracelet amulets (fetishes). All modern alternative therapies with New Age roots claim to realign the body’s inner energies and/or balance them with the universe’s life force. Depending on the occult system and its cultural roots, there are some ninety psychic energy terms which purport to unlock these alleged energies.[31] A few examples are prana (Hinduism), chi (Taoism), mana (Hawaiian shamanism), animal magnetism (Franz Anton Mesmer), orgone (psychologist Wilhelm Reich), kundalini (Indian yogic), bio-energy (a term preferred by westerners who want to downplay Eastern mysticism),[32] and electricity (Anabaptist-Mennonite charming).

    Why is occultism prohibited in scripture? Research has shown that people engage in occultic activities for three reasons: to gain power or knowledge,[33] to increase self esteem,[34] or to feed their narcissistic urges.[35] In New Testament terms, these stand in direct opposition to the outcomes of being filled with the Holy Spirit: psychological fulfillment (righteousness, peace, and joy, Rom. 14:17); power endowment (miracles, healing, discernment of spirits, 1 Cor. 12:9-10); and God’s actual presence within (Rom. 7:9-11, 14) which leads to loving service to others. In Old Testament terms, occultism is the direct breaking of the first two commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me….you shal not make for yourself an idol.” Thus at one and the same time, occultism accepts the false as a substitute for the genuine and is a direct rebellion against God and becomes subject to God’s judgement.[36]

    In Jamesian language of the cracked self, one aspect of this judgment is that God permits the demonic to enter persons whose God-ordained psychic boundaries have been compromised by occultism. At the most fundamental level, as soon as one turns away from God to occult idolatry, the psyche is perforated and emotional and mental difficulties will result. When does occult exposure result in demonic habitation? We might as well ask, When does sexual intercourse result in pregnancy? This is not mere flippancy, for in either case the act invites the result. Contrary to sexual intercourse, though, which may never produce pregnancy, occult intercourse always produces its demonic progeny in the end. For, as Charles Kraft says, “Invite a demon, whether consciously or unconsciously, and you get a demon….”[37]

    The second cause of volitional demonic entry is serious or besting sin. A prime biblical example is that of King Saul, whose vendetta against David was driven by the sin of envy of David’s popularity (1 Sam. 18:6-10). Saul’s life was akin to a Greek tragedy, as he tumbled from the pinnacle of being anointed Israel’s first king to the abyss of probable demonization which we observe in his fits of anger, murder, fear, witchcraft, and suicide. Though the potential scope of triggering sins may seem endless, sins such as unforgiveness, pride, rebellion, murder, hatred of others, self-hatred, substance abuse, lust, and illicit sexual practices are especially likely to be attaching points for the demonic.[38] It is significant that each of these is prominent in scripture: not generally as identified entry points for the demonic – though 2 Cor. 2:10-11 links unforgiveness to Satan’s wiles and Eph. 4:25-27 warns that festering anger gives Satan entry – but as sins which are major offences against God and people.

    How does sin create a crack in the self which the demonic can use to gain entry into a person? Francis MacNutt thinks that “it is as if the person’s sinning has, over a period of time, built a kind of home that the spirit can enter and feel welcome in while it tempts or aggravates any natural weakness to which the person has already surrendered.”[39] When we examine this in more detail, we observe a continuum which moves from the thought of committing a sinful act, to choice, to habit, to loss of control, then to bondage and finally almost total control by the demonic. Ed Murphy, whose schema this is, locates evil supernaturalistic influence at the points of the original temptational thought and then after demonic entry when the evil spirits produce bondage and near-total control in severe cases.[40] The key is that sin, whether repetitive and venial or one-time and mortal,[41] provides a potential demonic entry-point if it remains unconfessed and unforgiven.

    The third volitional demonic entry point may be labeled circumstantial entry, an umbrella label which describes several types of access. It can involve transferal from spouse to spouse[42] or parent to child;[43] as well as unguarded exposure to infested locations or objects,[44] involvement with false religions,[45] severe non-ritual abuse,[46] and some other lesser kinds. While we may wish to argue that at least some of these are cases of victimization and hence not volitional at all, upon investigation each of them reveals some chosen act of the will which opened a permission-granting fissure in the self.

I turn now to no-volitional doorways as the second general category of demonic entry points. Of the two channels in this stream, the first is multi-generational occultism and sin; the second is sadistic or satanic ritual abuse. Each of these is controversial – in fact, the very existence of aspects of each is denied – but they are nonetheless the sources of some of the heaviest demonic oppressions that exist.

    The theological roots for multi-generational demonic transmission are found in an interlocking set of Old Testament citations. These creedo-formula[47] test are Ex. 20:5-6 (cf. Deut. 5:9-10); Ex. 34:6-7; Deut. 7:9-10; Num. 14:18; and Jer. 32:18. Their common affirmations are that God blesses those obedient to his covenant to the thousandth generation but that disobedience produces guilt to the third and fourth generations. Though there are a few textual variations within these scriptures,[48] Jože Krašovec concludes that “in the end, one has to admit that the interpretation in the sense of inherited guilt is unavoidable….Interpretations to the contrary are too partial and one-sided to be convincing. They have insufficient linguistic and theological support….”[49] And again, “We have a more or less fixed retribution formula.”[50] In light of the fact that other Old Testament texts teach the doctrine of personal accountability (Gen. 18:23; the Mosaic Holiness codes; Job 21:19-30; Jer. 31:29-30; Ezek. 18:1-4), various interpretations have been devised in response to this paradox. Some hold that guilt in Israel began as collective and trans-generational but developed over time into personal accountability.[51]

    This, however, is not tenable, since the doctrines of both multi-generational guilt and personal accountability are present from Israel’s earliest history.[52] Other critics suggest that the issue is one of theodicy and that, in Jer. 31:28-31, Lam. 5:7, and Ezek. 18, the exiles are alleging that God is unjust for unfairly punishing them for the sins of their ancestors.[53] However, in 32:18, Jeremiah himself repeats the decalogual formula, “You show love to thousands, but bring the punishment for the fathers’ sins into the laps of the children after them.” For his part, Ezekiel also knew that ancestral sin really had played a huge role in bringing Israel to its current state of divine judgment (cf. Ezek. 16; 20; 23). Finally, some propose that the exilic prophets taught personal accountability as an antidote to an ethical passivity where people threw up their hands and said, If it all depends on our ancestors, how can our decisions change anything? This cynicism is captured by the proverb, “the fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezek. 18:2 and Jer. 31:29).[54]

    As we look at the broader scriptural context, we observe that the multi-generational guilt formula was well known within Israel across many centuries of its history, and was the stated basis by which God exercised punitive justice.[55] A pre-exilic example is Josiah, who asked Huldah the prophetess if the Mosaic covenant principles of blessings and curses still pertained. God’s answer came through Huldah in 2 Chron. 34:24-25,

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: “Tell the man who sent you to me…I will indeed bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book….Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked me to anger with all the works of their hands, my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched.”

    God’s intention to bring the covenant curses to pass up Israel is stated again in Isa. 65:7, “I will indeed repay into their laps their iniquities [personal accountability] and their ancestors’ iniquities [ancestral guilt] together, says the Lord.” Similarly, Ezekiel, after pronouncing oracles against Israel’s blatant idolatry and the false prophets and prophetesses who promised deliverance, gave the word of the Lord in 16:1-4 that Jerusalem’s abominations were deeply rooted in her Amorite and Hittite ‘parental lineage.’ Using the images of umbilical cord and afterbirth, Ezekiel continues, “On the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you….” Israel suffered from a congenital birth defect inherited from the pollution of the former inhabitants of the land; it harbored a spiritual contaminant which had never been cleansed. The irony, of course, is that Israel’s claim to the land was predicated exactly on the principle that the previous peoples had been evicted when their cup of guilt overflowed.[56]

    Awareness of multi-generational guilt is visible also in several prominent instances of actual acknowledgement of ancestral sins. Nehemiah (1:6-7), Jeremiah (3:25; 14:20), and Daniel (9:4-19) each explicitly confesses Israel’s sin of covenant-breaking and organically links present offenses (personal accountability) with those of their foreparents (ancestral guilt). These confessional prayers reflect the theology of Lev. 26:40-42, where, God promises, “If they confess their iniquity [personal accountability] and the iniquity of their ancestors [ancestral guilt]…if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob….”

    The theology of multi-generational guilt and retributive punishment was well-known to Jesus. When the disciples question the cause of illness of the man born blind (John. 9:1-7) – whether his own sin or his parents’[57] – Jesus replied “neither” or, as Leon Morris adds, “in this case.”[58] For Jesus does not deny the principle of multi-generational guilt; he simply gives a third option which is operative in this instance, “to reveal the glory of God.” However, if J.D.M. Derret is right, in Mark 3:1-6 Jesus directly employs the doctrine of multi-generational guilt and God’s retribution in his healing of the man with the withered hand. Derrett argues persuasively that this healing is directly connected to the blessing-curse theology of Deut. 28:22, where wasting disease is stated as an outcome of covenant disobedience.[59] Jesus, says Derrett, uses the man’s withered hand as a midrash (commentary) on the Deut. text, which reads, “The Lord will strike you with wasting disease….” (NIV).[60] Thus for Jesus, while the Jews’ presenting issue is Sabbath observance, the real problem is the synagogue’s collective accumulated guilt physically evident in the man’s withered hand.

    However, Jesus’ most explicit word on multi-generational guilt is found in Matt. 23:35 (cf. Luke 11:50-51). He categorically tells the Pharisees and teachers of the law that upon them will come “all the righteous blood” spilled from Abel to Zechariah,[61] a Genesis-to-Revelation prophecy we take to be fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 66 C.E. The actual phrase in Matt. 23:32, “Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors,” implies that God’s toleration is self-limited, after which both ancestral and present sin overflow together in divine judgment. Even if we allow for rhetorical flourish, Jesus’ words carry a grave warning about multi-generational guilt which must not be disregarded.

     The whole question may be summarized by granting that personal accountability and trans-generational guilt, rather than being mutually exclusive categories, are continually present in dynamic interaction in the larger biblical witness. Consequently, each plays a crucial role in deliverance healing. On the one hand, unconfessed and unforgiven cross-generational guilt derived from ancestral sins like occultism, gross idolatry, dedications to Satan, murder, illicit sexuality, and emotion-complexes such as rage/hatred/anger gives evil spirits access to persons. Conversely, a personal decision to take the spiritual steps needed will end this transmissional process. Termination is made possible by the new covenant of Holy Spirit heart-indwelling ushered in by Jesus’ death and resurrection. But contrary to orthodoxy’s assumption that multi-generational guilt termination took effect in toto at Calvary – here especially citing Gal. 3:10, 13[62] – discharge of deeply rooted cross-generational guilt awaits action by the living in every generation. Even as conversion is a choice, so too is the cutting of ancestral guilt. Both are dependent on the new covenant of Jesus Christ, but neither happens involuntarily. In other words, the termination of ancestral guilt is not a function of conversion but of sanctification. It fits naturally within the framework of the Christian’s growth in holiness.[63]

    At this stage, we have identified what Krašovec calls the creedo-formula of multi-generational guilt, observed some prominent confessions of ancestral sins and noted several instances in both Testaments where this theology is visible. How, though, does this data account for the deliverance healing claim that multi-generational guilt is directly implicated in demonic entry into the human personality? The answer is to be found in biblical curse theology.

    Curses are first spoken (by God) in Gen. 3 upon the serpent and the ground, although we may legitimately refer to human death as the original curse. A biblical curse Is not just a colorful, metaphorical way of describing God’s judgment against sin; it is an imprecation with the inherent power of carrying itself into effect.[64] When spoken against Israel – and bear in mind that God or God’s servants pronounce the curse in 143 of 202 biblical citations[65] – curses have the express purpose of activating retribution in the believing community after persistent covenant disobedience.[66] This is the pattern in Deut. 27:15-26, where we find a dodecalogue of curses which are activated by specific sins. The blessings and curses were spoken by the twelve tribes as evidence of their acceptance of God’s covenant renewal terms. To reinforce the need for Israel to keep these moral and spiritual promises, Deut. 28 promises the rewards in rather general terms but dwells on the penalties in excruciating detail.

    The two following scriptural illustrations show curse theology in action. The first involves the tribes of Levi and Simeon, who were cursed by Jacob for their violence and bloodshed against Shechem the Hivite. In the subsequent exodus and occupation histories, Simeon slowly sank into oblivion,[67] lost its population, and had its land territory absorbed by Ephraim and Manasseh. The tribe is mentioned only once in scripture after the Exile. By comparison, in the first census the Levite males, who were counted above the age of one month,[68] totalled a mere 22,000 (Num. 3:39) but by the next had increased slightly (Num. 26:62). In addition, while Simeon lost all its land, Levi was allocated forty-eight villages, although six of these were cities of refuge (Num. 35:6-7). Later Jewish history saw the Levites in faithful temple service; Josephus puts the number of first-century A.D. Levite priests at 20,000.[69] Modern chromosomal tests show that the continuity of the Aaronic line through Levi has continued until today.[70]

    Why the different outcomes in the curse against these two tribes? Because when Israel fashioned the Golden Calf at Sinai, and incited Moses’ angry challenge, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me,” we read, “all the Levites rallied to him” (Ex. 32:36). Deut. 33:9-10 goes further, recording Moses’ praise of the Levites for having watched over God’s word, guarded his covenant (both past tense), and teaching (present tense) his precepts to Israel. Levi repented and reversed (cut) the curse; Simeon did not and was no more.

    The second case involves just one family. In Josh. 6:26, Joshua, in God’s name, cursed any rebuilder of Jericho by specifying that the life of that man’s firstborn son be forfeited: “Cursed before the Lord be anyone who tries to build this city – this Jericho! At the cost of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation….” The fulfillment came 550 years later in 1 Kings 16:34, “In his days, Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua son of Nun.”[71]

    The preceding discussion shows how the Old Testament frequently explains god’s judgment in terms of curses. In emphasizing God’s use of curses to enforce moral and spiritual order, Allan P. Ross writes that a “curse was a means of seeing that the will of Yahweh was executed in divine judgment on anyone profaning what was sacred.” Further, he says, God personal “would place the ban on the individual, thus bringing about a paralysis of movement or capabilities normally associated with a blessing.[72] Ross’s “paralysis of movement” phrase is highly suggestive, and entertains more than one interpretation. It may perhaps be seen as God withholding some of the possible actualities which might otherwise emerge,[73] characterized as a “long evil arm stretched out from the past” which “may trip you as walk,”[74] or visualized more literally as the angel of the Lord who executes God’s cursive command, as in the divine response to King David’s census in 2 Sam. 24:16.

    Various mechanisms may help to account for the functioning of this paralysis across the generations: engrams (imprints) carried by a Jungian-style clan unconscious,[75] genetics,[76] false religion,[77] attachment of evil spirits to objects and land locations,[78] and direct transfer from one person to another down the family line. Family systems theory which focuses on dysfunctional learned repetitive behaviors[79] can be helpful in understanding direct demonic transfers which occur because of cross-generational emotional wounding. In such cases, genograms (schematical family trees) can help identify recurring spiritual, behavioral, medical, emotional, and psychological patterns which may be havens for evil spirits. The intermixing of causations is both subtle and profound, as, for instance, between psychological scripting and spiritual curses. Larry Constantine writes of scripting which “may describe and seem to program entire life stories.”[80] It is not difficult to reframe this as the outworking of biblical curses which have been set in motion by the sorts of multi-generational sin triggers which I discussed earlier.

    One caveat in family systems theory is its foundational dependence on analogical evolutionary bio-modelling. A case in point is Edwin Friedman, who interprets a striking case study of three generations of female infertility, early male death, and emotionally starved relationships in purely ‘protoplasmic’ terms. By this he means that the phenomena are deeper than even the subconscious and, based on “emotional process,” the observed psychic and behavioral patterns “have an uncanny way of reappearing.”[81] The term ‘protoplasmic’ reflects the Murray Bowen theory that visualizes family systems in terms of such basic physical structures of creation as the atom with its constellation of nucleus and orbiting particles.[82] Such a protoplasmic explanation seems to imply a determinism in relationality, which conflicts with the biblical worldview that humankind has been created in the relational image of freely-shared and received love modelled in God’s triune personhood.

    Whatever the transference agency in specific cases, retributive justice curses are set in motion by the types of severe ancestral sins I mentioned earlier. Curses track the appropriate social path – family, clan, nation – and give the demonic access to the living. While initiator sins may be fairly wide ranging, the biblical and counseling evidence indicates that explicit idolatry and occultism are particularly implicated as curse triggers. This reflects the first two commandments in Ex. 20:3-4, whose thrust is that God is a jealous God who will brook no competitors. God’s jealous love is repeated in Isa. 42:8, “My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.”

    Explanations for multi-generational demonic oppressions in individuals employ a category of demons called “familiar spirits,” whose entry point(s) depend on curses attached to the family line.[83] Several biblical translations use this term in conjunction with the strong prohibitions against wizardry in Lev. 20:27, Deut. 18:11, and 1 Sam. 28:3.[84] Familiar spirits re-appear in various translations of Isa. 8:19, where they function as nether spirits who use the human host to speak in chirping and muttering voices. Isa 29:4 also focuses on the whispering and chirping speech heard from “the dead,” that is, demons impersonating departed people.

    In the New Testament, Paul’s troubles in Philippi (Acts 16:16) began when he cast a fortune-telling spirit from a slave girl. The Greek word used here is linked with the term for ventriloquist, rendered by the Septuagint version of the Old Testament as “familiar spirit.”[85] And in  light of the several accusations reported in the gospels that Jesus was in league with demonic, we note Carl Kraeling’s argument that the real allegation is that Jesus practiced necromancy, that is, calling on the dead for supernormal knowledge and power over unclean spirits.[86] Kraeling shows that both Herod’s and the crowds’ speculation that Jesus was John the Baptist returned is most logically read no as Jesus is John resuscitated, but as Jesus’ mighty works relied for their power and authority on the departed spirit of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-16; 8:28). With the knowledge gained in deliverance healing, we would rephrase this to say that Jesus was accused of doing his mighty works by the power of a familar spirit impersonating John the Baptist.

Deliverance healing literature is replete with cases of multi-generational familiar spirit entry, but the following illustration typifies the genre:

[A] woman who wanted prayer [wanted it] for a relatively ordinary problem: she had trouble being patient and was easily angered – a common human failing. She was a regular church-goer; in fact, she taught Sunday School. But once we started to pray, her face changed into a snarling mask of rage. Worse yet, this ordinarily meek woman started speaking in an altered voice and insulted us. Fortunately someone in our group had a gift of discernment and said, “This all started in a black mass said in England hundreds of years ago, when her family was consecrated to Satan.” As soon as he said this, the spirit responded indignantly, “Who told you that?”[87]

    Finally, we consider the second non-volitional entry-point for the demonic: satanic (sadistic) ritual abuse (SRA).[88] Major controversies swirl around ritual abuse. These include allegations that false memories are implanted by incompetent therapists and charges that the ‘therapy industry’ has a vested interest in perpetuating an illness which is culturally defined and created. The very existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is under challenge in some quarters. Against all of this stands the testimony of many counselors that people – Christians and non-Christians alike – do have psychic lacunae which, when uncovered, contain both human and demonic darkness.[89]

    Sadistic abuse begins in infancy and early childhood,[90] and usually results in the disintegration of the self. The outcomes will virtually always be forced dissociation, the emergence of alters – classic Jamesian cracks – and the arrival of evil spirits. Demons enter because the completely powerless victim pleads for help ‘from anything out there’ as their psyche fractures; or when victims make desperation deals with the deceiving spirits who appear and promise protection when God seems not to have answered; or when dominator persons with occult powers send them into their prey.[91]

God’s solution to demonic oppressions

All cultures without exception have attempted to manage demonic oppressions in people. This statement is equally true of tribal societies[93] and world religions.[94] In the case of the post-Christian west, since psychiatry generally repudiates the objective reality of demons,[95] it must diagnose psychic disorders instead of alien-ego interference or even control.[96] However, from the perspective of Christian healing, our task is not to manage evil spirits but to expel them.

     There can be no doubt that during the three years of his ministry, Jesus took personal authority over demons, teaching and practicing the principle of binding the strong man (Satan) and of plundering his house (people in bondage). His numerous exorcisms forced the Pharisees to concede that Jesus exercised power over evil spirits, although they slandered him by attributing this power to his ability to ‘channel’ Beelzebub (Matt: 12:22-32). On the other hand, when Jesus sent the Twelve and then the Seventy-Two on preaching and healing missions, their disbelieving and joyful debriefing was, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!” (Luke 10:17).  Nonetheless, any attempt to root modern deliverance healing solely in Jesus’ life ministry falls fatally short of the mark. To claim that Jesus; saving work was not manifest in his death but in his life and ministry, and that “we [don’t] need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff”[97] is to ignore the center line of biblical theology which stated at the outset. This center line is that evil in the fallen creation, including demonic infestation in persons, can only be cleansed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    The biblical revelation of Jesus’ atonement transcends our urges to reduce this doctrine into one favorite interpretation. In fact, there are supportive connections between each major atonement view – Christus Victor, Legal Satisfaction, and Moral Influence – and deliverance healing. In the following discussion, I suggest some areas in which these three models can help us understand the grounds on which evil spirits may be expelled from a sufferer.

The early church Fathers held strongly that Eden’s sin gave Satan moral and legal rights which transferred the human race into his jurisdiction.[98] This bondage was broken by Jesus’ death, and the victory won be Jesus over Satan is expressed in various texts: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:31-32); “He [Jesus] shared the same things [flesh and blood], so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14); “[Jesus] gave himself to deliver us from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:3); and Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities” on the cross (Col. 2:15).[99] Because Jesus’ victory over Satan was accomplished in the totality of his ministry, death, and resurrection, God exalted Jesus and gave him the name at which every knee in existence shall bow (Phi;. 2:9). Heb. 2:9 adds that by his death Jesus was crowned with glory and honor; and both Rom. 8:34 and Heb. 1:3 say that this has placed Jesus at God’s right hand, that is, the place promised the Messiah in Psalm 110:5.

    The Legal Satisfaction aspect of Jesus’ atonement focuses on the unbridgeable chasm between God as the holy Other and sinful people which truly exists, quite independent of any human feelings. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) gave the theory its medieval shape in his short two-part work Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). In an insightful perspective on the Legal Satisfaction view, John Driver links the Suffering Servant of Isa. 53 with the Son of Man in the gospels. The suffering servant motif can be traced through Jesus’ whole ministry:[100] baptism (Matt. 3:17); Nazareth mission proclamation (Luke 4:18-22); healings and exorcisms (Matt. 8:16-17); suffering and death (Mark 10:45, 14:24); and Lamb of God (gospel of John). The Servant’s substitutionary suffering as a covering for human sin in Isa. 53:10, “When you make his life an offering for sin,” is a clause whose essence Jesus rephrases in Mark 10:45, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a random for many.” We may sum up the forensic nature of the atonement with the statement that Jesus, though innocent of sin, died an unjust and undeserved physical death, so that we, though guilty of sin, will not die a just and deserved spiritual death.[101]

    Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) articulated the Moral Influence understanding of Jesus’ atonement. The classic formulation stresses that Jesus’ example of love motivates our reciprocal love of God and leads to our ethical and moral improvement. In his exposition of Rom. 3:19-26, Abelard wrote this:

Now it seems to us that we have been justified through the blood of Christ and reconciled to God in this way: through this unique act of grace manifested to us … he has more fully bound us to himself by love; with the result that our hearts should be enkindled by such a gift of divine grace, and true charity should not now shrink from enduring anything for him.[102]

    New testament texts which speak of God’s love as expressed in Jesus’ atonement include: “God shows his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners” (Rom. 5:8); “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” 1 John 3:16-17); and pre-eminently, “In this Is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11).

    Though this synopsis of atonement texts does not convey the full truth of Jesus’ atonement, it fairly summarizes some key biblical elements of the classic historical perspectives. I will build on their themes to show how they undergird deliverance healing in three areas.

    To begin with, Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and glorification broke Satan’s claim on humanity. The early church Father Origen said that Jesus’ death constituted the “first blow in the conflict which is to overthrow the power of that evil spirit, the devil.”[103] We may expand this by saying that Jesus, as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), is the first and only human to resist every temptation to evil; to completely do God’s will on earth as in heaven; and to offer this obedience even to the cross. Since Satan’s claim on humanity was predicated on the first Adam’s choice to sin, this claim was annulled by Jesus’ free choice to fully obey the Father. Jesus’ victory of obedience would be incomplete without the cross of Calvary. Post-Easter, we who have the Holy Spirit participate in Jesus’ victory through transferal into the kingdom of God where we sit with Christ “in the heavenlies” above Satan (Eph. 2:6). This means that demons flee when abjured in Jesus’ name because he, and now we also in him, have been given position and authority above Satan. This is not a blank check to abuse our spiritual vocations through exorcistic malpractice, but it is God’s guarantee that when we pray with Holy Spirit leading, Jesus’ power will be manifest for deliverance healing.

    Second, Jesus’ atonement has cut every curse which operates against humanity, including those which evil spirits use to gain access to persons. Though this appears to clash with my ealier statement that curses still function post-Calvary, we shall see that this contradiction is only perceptual. The theological principle is that Jesus’ ministry of curse termination happens across a continuum of time and eternity. The initial curse to be cut is the curse of the law, which so exercises Paul in Gal. 3:10-13. It may startle us to recall that Paul actually kept the whole law: “as to righteousness under the law, [I was] blameless” (Phil. 3:6). However, the curse’s power is such that even if the Mosaic law is kept in its entirety, justification is still not obtained.[104] This is a sobering truth indeed for any who would root soteriology in an ethic of ‘following Jesus’ but not in his death and resurrection. As the fulfillment of the Old Testament typologies of spotless lamb and suffering servant, Jesus’ perfect sacrifice cuts Christians free from the law’s curse on the basis of faith and not of works.

    However, though regeneration is completed the moment the Holy Spirit comes to tabernacle with our spirit (Rom. 8:9-11) and cuts the legal curse, the old nature remains hostile to God. In anthropological terms, the soul – the will, emotions, and mind, and their interconnections with the body – remains sin’s residence and hence the battleground where the Christian is called to grow in the grace-gift of holiness (Rom. 7:14-23). As by the power of Christ and one’s co-operative will the believer progressively puts to death the urges of the lower nature, the soul-rooms which evil spirits prefer are rendered inhospitable. Along with this, any curses, whether multi-generational or not, may be cut and any resident demons present on these grounds may be expelled. Because the ‘carnal’ or otherwise wounded soul is where demons live when they gain access to the personality,[105] growth in godliness therefore goes hand in hand with deliverance healing. And, as I have said previously, this process is called sanctification. Finally, we note that full termination of the curse of death awaits the general resurrection (1 Cor. 15:23) at Jesus’ parousia when time and eternity will intersect. This curse Jesus cut for himself at his death and resurrection; and for each Christian it becomes effectual at the end of the age.

    A third linkage between Jesus’ atonement and deliverance healing consists of God’s immense love for humankind. Though the Enlightenment reduced Abelard’s theology to a mere shell of its former self,[106] its original principle remains profound. The God who love us enough to send his Son to die for our justification is the God who continues to love us enough to provide for our deliverance healing. This reassurance is crucial for the spiritually-oppressed, who often will approach such healing with many mixed emotions and inner resistances prompted by Satan. These negative feelings may run the gamut, e.g.,; You will look foolish, you are insane, this is ridiculous and/or won’t work, you are not a real Christian (or we, the helpers, are not real Christians), you shouldn’t trust this counseling and prayer process, I/we are going to hurt you, Satan is more powerful than Jesus, I/we don’t have the authority to deal with Satan through Jesus’ name.[107]

    Charles Kraft illustrates the resistance facet of deliverance work with the case of a woman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. An alter personality with the maturity level of a six-year-old was controlled by a demon named Owner; Kraft’s basic challenge was to convince the alter – in the face of Owner’s forceful denials – that Jesus was more loving and more powerful than Owner.[108] The cross of Jesus is the ultimate historical evidence that the claims made about God’s love are true. In the shadowy world of demonic infestation, the cross in the tangible, true, and powerful statement that God truly is love.

Conclusion

In this essay I have described the foundational features of a theology of deliverance healing. What is the sum of the matter? Given the mainstream demonologies in Anabaptist-Mennonite circles, theology, ecclesiology, and pastoral practices face major re-orientations if it is true that 60 percent of the people in Mennonite churches suffer from personal or ancestral demonic oppressions.[109] Even if this is a greatly inflated estimate, there are still many people among us who battle futilely with a multiplex of spiritual, psychological, emotional, and physical phenomena directly tied to undiagnosed evil spirits. Anabaptist-Mennonites need to know that deliverance from evil spirit inhabitation is a valid aspect of Christian healing.

    Such a re-orientation can happen in two ways. The first is a spontaneous reordering prompted by peoples’ real-life encounter or confrontation with demonic activity and God’s cleansing power through Jesus Christ. Ed Murphy[110] and Francis MacNutt[111] are examples of this process. The other type of reordering – Charles Kraft being a case in point[112] – happens when a person chooses to become open to changing his or her basic outlook and then taking action which brings this change about. Shifting worldviews is never easy. But it’s necessary if Mennonites are to experience personally the truth of Jesus’ Nazareth proclamation: that he came to bring release to the prisoners, sight to the blind and freedom for the oppressed.

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Lawrence Burkholder is a writer and ordained pastor within the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada. He holds graduate degrees from the Univerity of Toronto (M.A. History) and from Conrad Grebel College (Master of Theological Studies) in Waterloo, Ontario.

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Notes

[1] I apply 'deliverance' to persons whose demonic oppressions are lower-intensity and 'exorcism' to situations of heavy occultism and satanism.

[2] Lawrence Burkholder, Let My People Go: A Mennonite Theology of Exorcism (Master of Theological Studies thesis, Conrad Grebel College, 1999: hereafter “LPG”)

[3] See Elizabeth Leeper, “The Role of Exorcism in Early Christianity,” Studia Patristica, Vol. 26, (1993):60-61; and also Peter Brown’s chapter, “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages,” in Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), 119-46.

[4] Some of the Mennonite deliverance healers of whom I am aware include Dr. James Friesen (Los Angeles, CA), Rev. Randy Friesen (Waterloo, ON), Rev. Dean Hochstetler (Nappanee, IN), Dr. Dana Keener (Lancaster, PA), Rev. James Maust (Royersford, PA), Rev. James Mullet (Humbolt, SK), Ms. Doris Snyder (Vestaburg, MI), Dr. Willard Swartley (Elkhart, IN), and Dr. Lawrence Yoder (Harrisonburg, VA).

[5] The reference is to the formal denominational statement jointly approved by the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church in Wichita, KS, in July 1995. The core Vision statement reads, “God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow as communities of grace, joy, and peace, so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.” Ken Hawkley, Dave Rogalsky, and Eleanor Snyder, “Vision: Healing and Hope – A Congregational Resource for Introducing Vision: Healing and Hope,” (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1996).

[6] Hendrik Berkhof, Christ and the Powers (Scottdale, PA.: Herald Press, 1962 and 1977), 69.

[7] Berkhof lists the following as the ‘powers’ texts: Rom. 8:38ff.; 1 Cor. 2:8; 1 Cor. 15:24-26; Eph. 1:20ff.; Eph. 2:1ff; Eph. 3:10; Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:16; Col. 2:15.

[8] Berkhof, 65.

[9] Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1995), 32-33.

[10] Everett Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), 35-46.

[11] Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 5.

[12] Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” in Hans Werner Bartsch, ed. Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate (New York: Harper and Row, 1961): 1-3.

[13] Heinrich Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961), 25. Berkhof maintained that in Schlier’s earliest lecture on the powers (Mächte und Gewalten im Neuen Testament) published in November of 1930, “Schlier sees in the powers no objective realities, but projections of what we might call, with Bultmann, man’s self-understanding.” Cf. Berkhof, 73, note 3.

[14] Andre Lincoln, Word Biblical Commentary Volume 42: Ephesians (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990), 64.

[15] Paul Miller, The Devil Did Not Make Me Do It (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1981), 195. It’s important to note, though, that in later life Miller apparently believed his earlier analysis to be wrong and changed his mind about demonization. This opinion is based on information cited by Dean Hochstetler in personal correspondence to Willard Swartley, February 15, 1999.

[16] Don Jacobs, Demons: An Examination of Demons at Work in the World Today (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971), 32.

[17] Paul Hiebert, “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” Missiology 10 (January, 1982):43.

[18] J. Howard Kauffman and Leo Driedger, The Mennonite Mosaic: Identity and Modernization (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991), 69.

[19] Rodney Sawatsky, The Influence of Fundamentalism on Mennonite Nonresistance 1908-1944 (M.A. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1973), 123.

[20] “Deliverance and Exorcism,” in The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church – An Assembly 75 Congregational Study Guide (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1976), 28.

[21] D.E. Aune, “Demon; Demonology,” in Geoffrey Bromiley, ed., International Standard Bible Encycopedia, Volume One (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979):919, lists nearly thirty Hebrew and Greek terms (about two-thirds OT) which are certain or possible allusions to demons. A non-exhaustive listing of several dozen relevant texts is found in Ed Murphy, The Handboook for Spiritual Warfare (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1992, hereafter “HSW”), 20-21. Thomas Finger and Willard Swartley also provide numerous biblical references to support several of these identifications in their chapter, “Bondage and Deliverance: Biblical and Theological Considerations,” Essays on Spiritual Bondage and Deliverance (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1988, hereafter “ESBD”), 11-12.

[22] Wink, Naming the Powers, Chapter 2, “The Powers,” and especially notes 25-63.

[23] The seven (withouth their parallels) are: 1) the demoniac in the synagogue, Mark 1:23; 2) the Gerasene demoniac, Mark 5:1-20; 3) the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, Mark7:24-30; 4) the epileptic boy, Mark 9:14-29; 5) the dumb demoniac, 6) the healing of the woman with a spirit of infirmity, Luke 13:10-17; 7) the blind and dumb demoniac, Matt. 12:22ff. Graham Twelftree points out that one-half of these exorcisms have double sources, i.e., both a synoptic writer and Q. See Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus (Tübingen: JCB Mohr-Paul Siebeck, 1993), 213-14.

[24] Finger and Swartley, ESBD:19.

[25] Michael G. Kenny, “Multiple Personality and Spirit Possession,” Psychiatry, Vol. 44 (November, 1981): 341. Kenny points out that James had written these remarks in full in the margin of his unpublished notes.

[26] Kurt Koch, Between Christ and Satan (Grand rapids: Kregel Publications, 1961: hereafter “BCS”), 78-82; Charles Kraft, Defeating Dark Angels: Breaking Demonic Oppressions in the Believer’s Life (Ann Arbor: Servant Publications, 1992, hereafter “DDA”), 68-76; Francis MacNutt, Deliverance from Evil Spirits: A Practical Manual (Grand Rapids, MI.: Chosen Books, 1995: hereafter “DES”), 88-94; Dean Hochstetler, “Discernment of Demonic Affliction, Differentiation, and Basic Cure,” (n.p., 1996): 4-5; Ed Murphy in HSW, 437-48.

[27] Kurt Koch, Christian Counseling and Occultism (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1965, hereafter “CCO”), 21.

[28] Koch, BCS, 72.

[29] Divination is characterized by instruments which function as physical props for the occultist. The following list illustrates this: astrology, horoscope chart; tarot, deck of cards with symbols; I Ching, sticks or printed hexagrams; runes, dice; Ouija board, an alphabet planchette; radionics/psychometry, divining rod or pendulum or ‘black box’ (“a diagnostic apparatus for calibrating energy patters” – Weldon, see the citation which follows); palmistry, the hand; crysta;-gazing, crystal ball or crystal rock; metoscopy/physiognomy/phrenology, forehead/face/skull; geomancy, combination of dots or points; water-dowsing, forked stick and other objects. See John Weldon, “Dowsing: Divine Gift, Human Ability, Or Occult Power?” Christian Research Journal (Spring, 1992):12.

[30] In LPG, chapter 4, “Volitional Demonic Entry into the Human Personality,” I deal at length with Mennonite occultism.

[31] John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996), 492.

[32] Russell Chandler, Understanding the New Age (Dallas, TX.: Word Publishing, 1988), 164. Chandler is here citing Michael Harner, Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Healing and Power (Sna Francisco, CA.: Harper and Row, 1980).

[33] I. M. Lewis, “Exorcism and Male Control of Religious Experience,” Ethnos Vol. 55, Nos. 1-2 (1990): 26-40; Jacobs, Demons, 31;Kraft, DDA, 69.

[34] Jerald Belitz and Anita Schacht, “Satanism as a Response to Abuse: The Dynamics and Treatment of Satanic Involvement in Male Youths,” Adolescence Vol. 27, No. 108 (Winter, 1992): 856. Don Jacobs in Demons, 43-44, sees esteem issues as inspiriting (building up) or dispiriting (tearing down).

[35] Gary M. Steck, Stephen A. Anderson, and William M. Boylin, “Satanism Among Adolescents: Empirical and Clinical Considerations,” Adolescence Vol. 27, No. 108 (Winter, 1992): 907; Neil T. Anderson and Steve Russo, The Seduction of Our Children (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1991), 33; “Dabbling in the Occult,” World Press Review, Vol. 42, No. 6 (June, 1995): 4.

[36] Water dowsing is of especial interest because of its continuing acceptance in many Mennonite circles. It is nonetheless divination and thus is condemned in the Bible. In Hos. 4:12, God calls a spade a spade, “My people consult a piece of wood, and their divining rod gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God.” Additional judgments against divination are found in Deut. 18:10, 14;Isa. 44:24-25; Jer. 27:9 and 29:8; Mic. 3:7. More general prohibitions on occultism are clearly articulated in many other biblical passages as well.

[37] Kraft, DDA, 70-71.

[3]8 MacNutt, DES, 88-89, 196-202; Murphy, HSW, 433.

[39] MacNutt, DES, 88.

[40] Murphy, HSW, 134.

[41] Robert Sears of Loyola University uses the term ‘cardinal deliverance’ for the exorcism of spirits whose grounds are repeated acts of sin. See Sears, “A Catholic View of Exorcism and Deliverance,” ESBD: 109.

[42] C. Fred Dickason, Demon Possession (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1987), 208-09.

[43] Kraft, DDA, 73; also Burkholder, LPG, 151, which is a case study citation from Dean Hochstetler, May, 1986.

[44] Burkholder, LPG, 149, gives an account of a young Christian woman who brought tourist objects home to Canada from Papua New Guinea. Several which were infected with demonic attachments and which were found to be causing physical illness had to be spiritually cleansed.

[45] Freemasonry is one example, among many, of a false religion. “The true name of Satan, the Kabbalists say, is that of Yahweh reversed; for Satan is not a black god….For the initiates this is not a Person, but a Force, erected for good, but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will”: Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, “Master Mason/3rd Degree,” 102. Conversely, “It has been found that every act in the drama of the life of Jesus, and every quality assigned to Christ, is to be found in the life of Krishna”: J.D. Buck, Mystic Masonry, 138. Both citations come from Jim Shaw and Tom McKenney, The Deadly Deception (Lafayette, LA: Huntington House, Inc., 1988), Appendix A, 133, 127. Deliverance healing often encounters spirits whose entry was Masonic.

[46] Murphy, HSW, 461.

[47] This is the term used by Jože Krašovec in his lengthy examination of collective retribution in the Old Testament. See Krašovec, “Is There a Doctrine of ‘Collective Retribution’ in the Hebrew Bible?” Hebrew Union College Annual, 65 (1994): 35-89.

[48] According to Krašovec, Ex. 20:1-17 is E; Ex. 32:1-34:35 is a mix of J, E; Num. 13:1-14:45 is mainly a blending of P, JE (old Epic); and Deut. 7:9-10 is based on Ex. 23:20-33. See Krašovec, 40, 45, 49, 62. In the actual texts, Num. 14:18 says that God is slow to anger, but omits the thousandth-generation modifier. Deut. 7:9-10 states that God repays each person for his or her own sin; while Jer. 32:18 holds that God repays guilt into the children’s laps, without specifying the third and fourth generations.

[49] Ibid., 51.

[50] Ibid., 53.

[51] R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1969), 852-53.

[52] Herbert G. Gray, “Individual Responsibility and Retribution,” Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961): 107; Barnabas Lindars, “Ezekiel and Individual Responsibility,” Vetus Testamentum, XV (1965): 453-59.

[53] Daniel Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 10-24 (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1998), 559-60.

[54] Leslie C. Allen argues this “irresponsibility and nihilism among the exiles, revealed in their slogan [i.e. the proverb], are the targets of the oracle….” See Allen, Ezekiel 1-19 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1994), 272.

[55] Examples include David and Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12:14); Saul and the Gibeonites (2 Sam. 21:1); David’s military census (2 Sam. 24); Jeroboam’s apostasy (1 Kings 14:1-18); Ahab and Naboth (1 Kings 21:17-24); Manasseh’s Asherah worship and bloodshed (2 Kings 21:1-16); Jeremiah and Shemaiah (Jer. 29:32); and Amaziah’s false testimony against Amos (Amos 7:10-17).

[56] This evil-eviction linkage is made in Lev. 18:24ff, Lev. 20:23, Deut. 9:4-5, 1 Kings 21:26, 2 Kings 17:7-16, etc. In light of Ezekiel’s statement that the Hittites were one of Jersualem’s unclean ‘parents,’ A. Malamat’s article, “Doctrines of Causality in Hittite and Biblical Historiography: A Parallel,” Vetus Testamentum V (1955): 1-12, is significant in showing that the Hebrew doctrine of God’s multi-generational wrath was echoed in Hittite thought.

[57]Midrash Rabbah: Ruth (London: Socino, 1939), 79, wonders if rabbi Elisha ben Abuya’s apostasy was due to his mother having passed by idolatrous temples when she was pregnant with him, thereby invoking a multi-generational sin.

[58] Leon Morris, The gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1971), 478. Morris also points to citations in Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrash, II (München: 1922), 529, that leprous and epileptic births were due to parental sin.

[59] In addition to the key Deuteronomic text (linked to Isa. 56:1-5), J. Duncan M. Derrett, in “Christ and the Power of Choice (Mark 3, 1-6),” Biblica Volume 65 (1984): 174, cites the Testament of Simeon, Philo, the Targums, and the Jerusalemite Talmud for the connection between curses and withering bodily illness.

[60] Derrett, 188.

[61] Commentators propose at least five historical identifications for Zechariah, the most reasonable being Zechariah the son/grandon of Jehoiada of 2 Chron. 4:20-22. See D.A. Carson, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 485. 2 Chron. Is the last book in the Hebrew Bible, so that the ‘genesis to revelation’ phrase covers the murders of righteous people throughout the whole Jewish scripture.

[62] Gal. 3:10, 14 is based directly on Deut. 27:15-26. The latter passage is often called the ‘dodecalogue’ because of the twelve commandments with accompanying curses which are listed.

[63] Burkholder, “Restoring the Christian Soul,” LPG, 178-88.

[64] T. Lewis and R.K. Harrison, “Curse,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. One (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1979): 838.

[65] Murphy, HSW, 442-43.

[66] J. Sharbert, “me’-r~h,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1974): 410. The curses of Deut. 27 took effect for the following sins: idolatry; dishonouring parents; removing a neighbor’s boundary mark; endangering the blind; perverting justice to sojourners, the fatherless and the widow; mother incest; bestiality; sibling incest; mother-in-law incest; secret murder; contract murder; failure to uphold this law. This is one passage to which Paul refers in Gal. 3:10ff.

[67] The tribe went from 59,300 men over the age of twenty (Num. 1:22), to 22,200 (Num. 26:14), to a mere 7,100 “mighty warriors” (2 Chron. 12:24). Moses didn’t even mention Simeon when he blessed the Twelve Tribes prior to his death (Deut. 33).

[68] They were numbered from this infant age since they were to serve as one-for-one representational substitutes for the first-born males of the other tribes (Num. 3:12). There would have been too few Levite males had twenty been the cut-off age as for the other tribes.

[69] Josephus, Against Apion, II, 8.

[70] “Chromosome test confirms a Jewish priestly caste going back almost to the Exodus,” Toronto Star, July 19, 1998: F8

[71] Various interpretations attempt to explain the curse’s instrumentality: that he who laid the foundation would offer his firstborn as a foundation sacrifice; that the references to the oldest and youngest sons mean that the task would consuke the builder’s whole life; that the sons simply died during the project; that the whole family was wiped out by the polluted spring which Elisha purified (2 Ki. 2:19-22); or that the Josh. 6 predictions is anachronistic, being written after the even recorded in I Kings. See Gwylim H. Jones, I and II Kings, Vol. I: The New Century Bible commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1984), 300; and Norman H. Snaith, The First and Second Books of Kings – I Kings: The Interpreter’s Bible Vol. III (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1954), 144.

[72] Allan P. Ross, “The Curse of Canaan,” Bibliotheca Sacra 137 (July – September, 1980): 232.

[73] Lewis S. Ford, “The Divine Curse Understood in Terms of Persuasion,” Semeia 24 (1982): 84.

[74] Derek Prince, Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose (Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1990), 17. Persons with the gift of discernment of spirits report that the Holy Spirit occasionally indicates generational involvements in a demonized person through the pictorial symbolism of a vortex passing through time.

[75] Koch, CCO, 114 – 115. Koch is here using Jung’s three levels of the subconscious (personal, clan, general) and arguing that multi-generational occultic “typing” (my word) enters the hereditary transmissional chain at the clan level. Conceptually, Koch sees engrams as analogous to physical genes; thus, magic conjuration may become recessive for a generation if occultic activity is not practiced and still reappear as a dominant trait later. The theoretical basis for, and interactions amongst, engrams, multi-generational psychological scripting, and protoplasmic emotional transfers blends speculation with some fact.

[76] Kraft, DDA, 74; Prince, Blessing or Curse, 32

[77] Kraft, DDA, 125; MacNutt, DES, 281 – 88; see also Burkholder, LPG, 136 – 40.

[78] MacNutt, DES, 119; Murphy, HSW, 447; Koch, BCS, 152; Dean Hochstetler, Case Study, February, 1997.

[79] George A.F. Knight in Isaiah 56 – 66: The New Israel (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1985), 93 – 94, notes that in ancient Israel, the phrase ‘to the fourth generation’ applies to a family household in which all of these generations are present. Thus inherited guilt in such an environment has natural relational conduits of the type discussed by Carter et al. in Secrets of Your Family Tree (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1990). Note especially chapter 3 by Dave Carter, “Passing the Torch: The Multigenerational Transmission Process,” which focuses on learned patterns.

[80] Chapter 20, “Generation on Generation: Children and Parents in Family Therapy,” in Larry Constantine, Family Paradigm: The Practice of Theory in Family Therapy (New York: The Guilford Press, 1986), 375. An excellent biblical example of scripting is found in Gen. 16:12, where the hostility between Sarai and Hagar is spoken by the angel of the Lord as an oracle over Ishmael in the womb: “He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.” The multi-generational pattern is scripted out for Ishmael.

[81] Edwin Friedman, From Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synogogue (New York: The Guilford Press, 1985), 32. The genogram (multi-generational family tree) of this case study is depicted on hip p. 33.

[82] Daniel V. Papero, Bowen Family SystemTheory (Needham Heights, MA: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 4 – 5.

[83] I. Mendelsohn, “Familiar Spirit,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962): 237 – 38, gives an etymology of the term and its usage in the Old Testament. This usage is different than that which refers to a spirit embodied as an animal which is at the beck and call of a medium.

[84] The NAS, Webster, Young’s Literal, ASV, Jewish Pub. Soc. and Green’s Literal translations each render one or more of these texts with the term ‘familiar spirit.’ Even further, all of these verses include reference to spiritists and consulting the dead (necromancy), as do Lev. 19:31 and 20:6, even though the latter two do not mention familiar spirits per se. One of the deceptions of familiar spirits is that they are prone to impersonate dead ancestors.

[85] F.F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1954-1976, many editions), 332, n. 35. Bruce mentions Plutarch, whose term for such a person was a ‘ventriloquist’ in reference to the control demon who speaks through the human ‘dummy.’

[86] Carl Kraeling, “Was Jesus Accused of Necromancy?” Journal of Biblical Literature 54 (1940): 147 – 157.

[87] MacNutt, DES, 108. “Who told you that?” is a good question! LPG, 127, note 10 reports a case where the discernment of spirits (1 Cor. 12:7) was similarly crucial in the exorcism of a woman whose multi-generational linkages went back as far as a 1791 satanic ceremony in Haiti. The full citation in LPG combines supernatural and documentary sources of information.

[88] Gwen Wellington has analyzed and summarized the debate within the therapeutic community over how best to conceptualize and define SRA. See Wellington, Conceptualizing Pervasive Sexual Abuse: A Grounded Theory Study (University of Calgary, M.S.W. thesis, 1998), 9 – 14.

[89] Dr. Dana Keener of Lancaster, PA cites a case involving one of his clients. This person suffers from extreme dissociative polyfragmentation (personality mini-fragmenting), in which pre-alters have formed around specific traumatic memories but have not yet coalesced into alters with personalities of their own. The client’s father hid his “Satanic High Priest activities by going to a Bible preaching Evangelical church” (client quote). She is now a member of a Brethren in Christ congregation. See LPG, 169.

[90] Margaret Smith, Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why It Happens, And How To Help (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1993), 117. For general abuse see David B. Peters in Betrayal of Innocence: What Everyone Should Know About Child Sexual Abuse (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1986), 28.

[91] James Friesen, Uncovering the Mystery of MPD (San Bernadine, CA: Here’s Life Publiswhers, 1991), 210; also MacNutt, DES, 234.

[92] Justin Martyr, “First Apology,” in  Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. The Anti-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1951, hereafter “ANF”), Ch. Xxvii; “The Guilt of Exposing children,” Ch. Xxvii; William Langer, “Infanticide: A Historical Survey,” History of childhood Quarterly 1 (1973 – 4): 360; John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 257 – 60, 327 – 29.

[93] “Demons and Spirits,” in James Hastings, ed. The Encylopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 4 (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1911): 565 – 636.

[94] J. Bruce Long, “Demons: An Overview,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume 4 (New York: Macmillan Publishing co., 1987): 282 – 88.

[95] See the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition, revised (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1987), 270 – 271 for psychiatry’s stance: “The belief that one is possessed [DSM bold print] by another person, spirit, or entity may occur as a symptom of Multiple Personality Disorder. In such cases the complaint of being ‘possessed’ is actually the experience of the alternate personality’s influence on the person’s behavior and mood. However, the feeling that one is ‘possessed’ may also be a delusion in a psychic disorder, such as schizophrenia, not a symptom of a Dissociative Disorder.”

[96] W.R.D. Fairbairn writes, “It becomes evident, accordingly, that the psychotherapist is the true successor to the exorcist. His business is not to pronounce the forgiveness of sins, but to cast out devils.” See Fairbairn, “The Repression and Return of Bad Objects (with Special reference to the ‘War Neuroses’),” in Peter Buckley, ed., Essential Papers on Object Relations (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 113.

[97] This is a Delores Williams quote from the Re-imagining Conference in Minneapolis in 1993 as cited by Joseph D. Small and John P. Burgess, “Evaluating ‘Re-Imagining,” Christian Century, April 6, 1994: 344.

[98] Several references illustrate the progression of thought: Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” ANF, Voll. I, Bk. III, Ch. iii, Sect. 23:1; Justin Martyr, “The Second Apology of Justin,” ANF, Vol. I, Ch. vi; Origen, “Contra Celsus,” ANF, Vol. IV, Bk VII, Ch. xvii.

[99] The alternate NRSV reading here for apekdusemenos is “divested.” According to F.F. bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Colossians (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1975), 239 – 40, n. 68, the Greek Fathers saw Christ as stripping off the powers “like a shirt of Nessus” and the Latin Fathers saw him as stripping off his body.

[100] John Driver, Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1986), 20.

[101] Since the Nicene Creed states that Jesus descended to hell, the issue is raised as to whether he in some sense died spiritually as well. However, in the context of Jesus’ preaching to the imprisoned spirits of Noah’s day (1 Pet. 3:19), the context clearly says that Jesus “was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,” vs. 18.

[102] Pierre Abelard, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, quoted in Leon Morris, The Cross of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1988), 16.

[103] Origen, “Contra Celsus,” ANF, Vol. IV, Bk. VII, ch. xvii.

[104] F.F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1982), 160.

[105] This connection dates from as early as the third century. “As they [demons] see faith grow in a man, in that proportion the depart from him…from those who believe with full faith, they depart without any delay.” However, when infidelity exists somewhere within the Christian, the demons can cling “and it is the greatest difficulty for the soul to understand when or how, whether fully of less fully, the demon has been expelled from it.” Cited from “The Recognitions of Clement,” ANF, Vol. VIII, Ch. xvii.

[106] The theory came to define redemption as our increase in God-consciousness (the subjective aspect) so that sin is the gap between what God wants us to be and what we are. Under the influence of Enlightenment, Jesus’ atonement was reduced to a mere – though admittedly powerful – model for human emulation.

[107]LPG, 70.

[108] Kraft, DDA, 177 – 80.

[109] Dean Hochstetler to Lawrence Burkholder, Personal Correspondence, February 6, 1997. Hochstetler speaks from the perspective of nearly forty years of deliverance healing experience.

[110] Murphy, HSW, pp. viii-xi.

[111] MacNutt, DES, pp. 18 – 20.

[112] Charles Kraft, Christianity With Power (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1989), 1 – 9.