Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08097 Asking whether something is demonic or psychological is one of the most delicate questions a pastor gets, and getting it wrong in either direction causes real damage. I have seen unwell people treated as though they were possessed, and I have seen genuine spiritual trouble waved away as a chemical problem. So let…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08071 The practice of exorcism carries a great deal of cultural baggage, most of it supplied by films rather than by Scripture, and that makes it difficult to discuss calmly. People arrive at the subject already braced for something lurid. So let me set the films aside and describe what the Bible actually shows,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08070 Deliverance ministry covers a wide range of practice, from careful pastoral work with genuinely troubled people to something closer to a stage act. Because the label is so elastic, I want to describe what it usually involves before saying what I think of it. I write as someone who believes demonic activity is…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8057. Sleep paralysis is one of the most frightening experiences a person can have, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. You wake, you cannot move, you cannot speak, there is often a weight on the chest and a sense of a presence in the room, and it can last long enough…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8053. Can Christians be demonically oppressed? I believe they can, and I want to say so carefully, because this is an area where careless answers do real damage in both directions. A believer cannot be owned or inhabited by an unclean spirit. A believer can certainly be harassed, pressed and worn down from outside….
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 8052. The words demonic possession, oppression and influence get used almost interchangeably in Christian conversation, and the confusion causes real harm. I have sat with people convinced they were possessed who were exhausted and unwell, and I have met others who dismissed every spiritual dimension of their trouble because they had only ever heard…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8036. Few questions at the meeting point of theology and pastoral care carry higher stakes than whether demons cause mental illness. Get it wrong in one direction and you tell a person with a treatable condition that they need an exorcism. Get it wrong in the other and you leave someone facing a genuinely…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8035. Whether demons can cause physical illness is a question the New Testament answers with more directness than many Christians expect, and with more care than many teachers show. The Gospels do connect certain conditions with demonic activity. They also, in the same breath, refuse to make that connection universal. Getting this right matters…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 7090 Few situations in pastoral work are as uncomfortable as sitting with someone who has come forward at three separate meetings, prayed the same prayer each time, and can point to no genuine change of any kind. They are not play-acting. The tears were real. The desire was real. And yet a year on,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 07022. Where do those who commit suicide go? I have been asked this question across a kitchen table more often than from a pulpit, usually by someone whose face tells me the answer matters more than any other thing in the world just now. So I want to answer it plainly and gently, and…