Church leaders have it easy; they deal only with nice people. At least that is the common assumption.
But pastors encounter evil-twisted personalities and sorry situations-with regularity. Churches attract troubled people, and pastors are called into dark situations.
So how do you tackle the effects of evil? LEADERSHIP talked with four leaders whole experienced spiritual warfare:
-Harold Bussell, dean of the chapel at Gordon College and preaching pastor of First Congregational Church in Hamilton, Massachusetts.
-Mark Erickson, a physician with mission experience in Africa and pastor of Eastbrook Church in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
-Earl Palmer, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, California, who has also served pastorates in Seattle and the Philippines.
-Timothy Warner, who served as president of Fort Wayne Bible College after a missionary career in Sierra Leone, and is now director of professional doctoral programs at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.
Leadership: Where do you see evil at work?
Earl Palmer: On two levels. One is bad choices. Choosing is part of the genuine freedom, within boundaries, God provided us, but through our bad choices we become alienated and experience the evil of garden-variety sin.
The other level is the Evil One tempting us to distrust God. Think of the biblical language for the Devil: the Twisted One, Slanderer, Accuser, even the Destroyer. Spiritual evil tempts me not only to distrust God but to distrust God’s will toward me.
Harold Bussell: There’s a tremendous propensity for self-preservation in evil. The Evil One tempts us not only with unbelief but also tries to convince us we’re in danger when we get near to God.
Timothy Warner: The issue, as I see it, is the glory of God. Satan wanted it; he was jealous of it. He’s trying to get us to buy his lie that we can be like gods and go it alone-we can run our own lives. That’s the fundamental evil. We sometimes become so preoccupied with the acts of sin that we forget the base of it is coming short of the glory of God. Sin and evil are known by proximity to holiness.
Bussell: It’s easy to assume that evil is not at work in success. Success woos us. Remember in the seventies when the Mary Hartman television series came out? Although it centered around popular themes like adultery and the brokenness of people’s lives, it was doomed to a short run because of its lower-class setting. Place a similar show in a wealthy, “successful” setting, and you have a long-term series like Dallas.
Evil can be at work in success, too. To the degree we deny evil’s existence, to an equal degree we are vulnerable to becoming evil. Evil always alters reality, and at the point we redefine reality, we are open to the demonic.
Leadership: How would you define evil?
Mark Erickson: I don’t think you can clearly define evil, because evil is wreckage.
It’s like we’re living in soup. The evil is within us as well as without, so it’s hard for us to get a sense of what’s normal. Getting to heaven will probably be like breaking out of muddy water into clean air.
Warner: Evil is fundamentally a perversion, or counterfeit, of something good. For example, God desires humility. Satan’s counterfeit is inferiority. Humility comes from examining God’s greatness. Feelings of inferiority come from examining myself and seeing my own weaknesses. Satan tries to get us to focus on ourselves.
Erickson: One trademark of evil is alienation-deep loneliness-which runs not only through, say, the homosexual community but right through the board of deacons.
Another trademark is spiritual shallowness. How much of a life can you build from eight hours of television a day? I knew men who became believers, yet it was years before they could get to Bible study and grow because they were so busy doing nothing! I’m indicting myself, too. We turn life into money, put it into a mutual fund, spend it, and have nothing to show for our lives. That disturbs me.
Leadership: Can you give examples of ways evil presents itself at your door?
Palmer: We first have to look inside the door, at ourselves, before we look outside. We need to understand our own vulnerability and our need to stay under the Word, under God’s grace. The line of alienation goes through not only our deacon board; it goes through us.
Erickson: When someone opposes us, it’s all too easy to consider that person the evil one. Not too long ago, two men squared off against each other, and one of them came and told me his side of things. When he was done, I thought the other person was Satan incarnate. The conflict was taking place in another church, so I stayed out of it. As I watched it develop, however, I began to realize both men were guilty, but each could see only the other’s guilt.
Bussell: I agree. It’s risky to identify evil in other people unless we’re in touch with how it operates in our own lives. True discernment comes from self-examination. Refusing to deal with our own potential for evil makes even our goodness dangerous.
For example, as ministers, we like to help people. But we can begin to enslave them if they become dependent on us; instead we must enable them to become healthy people dependent on God.
Leadership: How would the Evil One like to damage you?
Palmer: It’s like a pendulum. I can swing to the side of success, where I’m tempted to think that because things are going well or the budget is met or people are appreciating what I preach, I no longer need to be under discipline. Or that the doctrine of sin doesn’t really apply to me because I’ve been given a special position. That’s a common danger.
Swinging the other way is when I feel sorry for myself because I’ve met reversals or someone has confronted me, and that can happen just minutes after the first swing. It’s ironic. I can be riding the crest of power, and then in the same meeting someone will strike a vulnerable point, and I’ll think I’ve failed. I experience the temptation to distrust God and his good will for me at both ends.
Erickson: As pastors we tend to have a lot of power, whether we want it or not. I learned that when we made unanimity necessary for certain decisions in our church constitution. I thought it was a great idea until I started staying awake nights trying to figure out who was against what I wanted to do-you know, who was “spiritual” and who wasn’t. It’s a short step from there to thinking, These people are my enemies. And that’s evil.
The truth is, sometimes one person voting no has saved us from a poor decision. Once we were going to send a couple overseas, but two people said no. We had never said no to anyone before, so we wrestled with it. The nays stood firm, and the couple ended up not going. I have to believe that’s exactly what God wanted. The couple now has another vision that may be a better fit.
After a few of those things happened, I began to realize that pastors can want or have too much power, and evil often inhabits this excess power.
Bussell: One of the most tragic examples I’ve seen was the staff of a prominent church. Every year a psychology class visited the services there to study the abuse of power. It was so evident in relationships, even on the platform, that you could plan field trips to see it.
In another church, bitter feelings were all spiritualized under the carpet. I was invited to preach there, and when I arrived I found the staff in terrible turmoil. Yet the pastor got up in worship and asked the congregation to sing “There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in This Place.”
In California, as a contrast, I worked in a church where the senior pastor had a grasp on the power of evil. He would say, “We’re in a power struggle. Let’s deal with it.” It seems the grace of God should free us to talk about power struggles openly, and out of that can come healthy relationships.
Warner: Christian life is the exciting struggle to keep your balance. To avoid evil on one side, our tendency is to overreact. Yet Satan is on all sides of the equation, as C. S. Lewis says, driving you into materialism, so you don’t believe in the demons, or driving you to an unhealthy interest in spiritualism, so you’re seeing demons behind every bush.
Leadership: How do you keep that balance when trying to help other people overcome the influence of the Evil One?
Warner: God operates in triangles; he doesn’t operate unilaterally very often. The “God told me to do this” idea has to be tested by the church and the Scriptures. God forces us to come together to confirm what he says to us and what he’s doing through us.
I’ve reluctantly gained a reputation for dealing with people who have demonic problems. Unfortunately there aren’t many Christians prepared to minister to such people, so the burden falls on a few. Those of us who are involved in such a ministry, however, need to be accountable to the church, but it has to be an informed accountability. I can’t be accountable to others for something they don’t understand.
Yet isolating myself and becoming a Lone Ranger is extremely dangerous. It can lead to evil.
Leadership: How do you help someone who is possessed?
Warner: Possession is a most unfortunate word, freighted with all kinds of wrong meanings, and I don’t think it’s a valid translation of the Greek. Demons can exert a degree of control but seldom total possession.
The people I deal with, for the most part, come because they hear I’ve dealt with demons. Some don’t have a demonic problem at all; they’re looking for an easy solution to a personal problem. But I need to balance that with the realization that many times demonic problems are real.
A young woman was referred by a counselor to my wife and me-we always work as a team-because therapy was simply not working. She was self-destructive. One of her aberrations was to beat herself with a hammer.
We tested for demonic influence and contacted a demon, who told us the woman didn’t consider herself a legitimate human being; she didn’t deserve to live. So we talked to the woman about that. She was an unwanted child, convinced both through the influence of the Evil One and her home life that she was worthless. She was under this kind of bondage. So we prayed that God would take her back to the earliest point in her life where that became a problem for her.
We prayed briefly, and she said, “I saw the Lord, and he was holding me. He had a big book in his hand, and he flipped through the pages until he came to my name.”
I opened my Bible and read, “All my days are written in your book before one of them came to be.” You could almost feel the tension drain out of her body. This was the turning point. After further therapy with a counselor, today she’s doing fine.
Leadership: How can you distinguish psychosis from the demonic? How do you know when you ought to probe for the presence of a demon?
Warner: If someone says he’s having problems he thinks are demonic, I go back and see what other factors are present. Problems may be rooted in relationships in the past.
But some symptoms point to demonic activity, and one learns to distinguish between emotional problems and demonization. For example, a psychotic person often is irrational, whereas a demon speaking through a person is quite consistent and rational. You need to recognize there will often be overlap. It’s seldom either/or; it’s usually a mixture of emotional problems, sin, and demons.
As you talk with the counselee, you may begin to see evidences of demonic manifestations. The demon may surface immediately. If you pray with the person, the demon may surface during prayer. If that doesn’t happen, you may need to use a more direct command, such as “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command that any demon the Holy Spirit lays his finger on identify himself.” I’d do this, however, only after careful consideration of all known factors.
Leadership: Do you get the person’s permission to call out demons?
Warner: Yes, that’s essential. You must have their cooperation. Ultimately, the aim is to help people become their own deliverers. They should never have to depend totally on an “exorcist” to resist the Devil and make him flee.
Dependence can be a problem for any counselor, and especially for those who include deliverance in their ministry. One man told me of a pastor who said his church of sixty was probably as big as it could get because he couldn’t keep more people than that free of demons. It’s ridiculous to foster that kind of dependency. The aim is to instruct people so thoroughly about their position in Christ that they can do their own resisting.
It’s not a formula or a rite that sets people free; it is helping them learn to claim their position in Christ and to use the “weapons of our warfare” to bring down spiritual strongholds. Unless they learn to do that, they will constantly return for deliverance.
On the other hand, too many people ignore the Devil. He doesn’t flee when you ignore him. He flees when you resist him.
Leadership: What are other ways to approach this situation?
Bussell: The early church fathers would repeat the Apostles’ Creed because just in stating the creed you are saying “God is sovereign.” The subtle danger in dealing with the demonic is we begin to believe evil is sovereign.
For example, God has been working in wonderful ways in the lives of some people I know. When I share that with friends, the immediate response is “Watch out for the Devil. He’ll be after them.” That’s a glorification of evil. Yes, they’re going to struggle, but God is ultimately sovereign.
Leadership: If a person comes to you and says, “I think I’m possessed,” how would you proceed?
Palmer: I would never want to mock someone’s self-perception, even if I felt strongly he were perhaps confused or hysterical. But I would also want a strategy that slows everything down. I would refuse to be panicked and rush into a hasty conclusion. I think that’s what our Lord does in John 8 when the adulterous woman is thrown at his feet. That’s why he writes in the sand, as I understand it.
I would want to focus that person’s eyes on Jesus Christ and leave aside the possibility of demon possession. Then I’d pray that if there is temptation by the Devil, we claim victory in the name of Christ over whatever evil this person is facing.
In order to be effective as a pastor, I don’t have to come to a judgment about the full nature of the evil the person is struggling with. I can claim Christ’s victory over anything. I would counsel pastors against announcing that this was, in fact, demon possession. I would rather announce what is positive: Jesus Christ is Lord over all demons, over hell itself, and over death. I’d claim his victory.
I would make the prayer as simple as possible. I am wary of elaborate procedures for casting out demons. The gospel encourages me to take the simplest and most direct route, and that is to claim the victory of Christ. The less said, the better.
Leadership: What experiences have you had that you would consider encounters with the demonic?
Palmer: A woman once came to me in great terror. She felt unable to live in her house because certain closets had been cursed. I didn’t want to get bogged down in debating whether those closets were cursed, so I used the approach I outlined. I did not make fun of her perception. We simply prayed for God’s victory over evil. In her case, I felt it was right to go to her house with another pastor and pray, claiming God’s victory and his protection over her. She never brought up that question again.
Karl Barth said that he wonders about the possibility of evil spirits, but the fact is that even if they are there, why should he worry about them? Jesus Christ is Lord.
When Barth went back to Germany after World War II, he met theologian after theologian who said, “We have been through a demonic period with Adolf Hitler.” Even non-Christians were saying, “What we’ve experienced was demonic.” Everyone claimed, in effect, “The Devil was responsible.” Barth said he yearned to hear someone say, “We sinned.” He felt there wouldn’t be help until they could admit their own culpability.
That’s what concerns me. We say, “Ah, that’s the Devil at work. We’ll conquer the Devil.” What about the Lord’s “Go and sin no more”? He calls us to responsible discipleship. As a pastor, my goal in people’s lives is to claim Christ’s victory and then to call them to the way of discipleship-to make responsible, free choices in favor of God’s will.
I have to be careful that saying “I’m possessed” doesn’t become the deception.
Erickson: When I pray with someone I think is possessed, I don’t do it alone. I have several people with me. One reason is the deception. You need to have people there to help discern what’s going on. You dare not, with your little bit of knowledge, do it yourself. You need a community.
In the sixties I saw a lot of kids get into the demonic through drugs. One fellow who now is a responsible executive was following a guru, and I’m convinced he was possessed. We prayed with him and commanded the demon to leave, but it didn’t. His mother prayed with him that evening, and he was delivered-and went into a profound depression for four months. He finally did come to faith, but this business of dealing with evil is not clear-cut.
Palmer: Simplicity, however, is key. The gospel can be understood by a four-year-old, and I think the battle with evil can be understood by a four-year-old, too. The moment it becomes so technical it can’t be understood, I think we’re in effect honoring the Devil through the back door by giving him more authority than he really has.
As I see it in the Bible, cosmic evil has only the power of tempting us or slandering us. That’s why we have to be careful about saying the Evil One loves to get us to do such-and-such. That’s incorrect.
Erickson: What about the Bible’s statements that he has the power of death or that he can devour you?
Palmer: The Book of Revelation even places boundaries around that by using the term second death. Only God has the power of the second death. And that’s God’s sovereign decision. So whatever power the Evil One exercises, it is bounded.
Warner: I have difficulty saying that all Satan can do is tempt or slander. Demons can do far more than that. They can create illness in our bodies. They can affect the physical world in significant ways. I wish that weren’t so, but I’ve witnessed it.
Leadership: For example?
Warner: We counseled a man who told us there were three generations of people practicing witchcraft in his family, and they had apparently put curses on his family and things in the house. One of the items was a locket. So we told him to destroy it. If there weren’t a curse on it, so what? It would be gone, and they would feel better about it. If there were, we’d be rid of it.
The man’s brother took it out in the street and hit it with a hammer a few times. When he went to pick it up, it was gone-just gone! The chain was there, the ring it hung on was there, but the locket was simply gone. Not in pieces-gone. What do you tell them if demons don’t have that kind of power over the physical world?
Palmer: I’d still define that as tempting, or deceiving. You see, Satan is also called the Deceiver. The deception may take all kinds of forms that are baffling to us, but it would be deception to say he has great power over our lives. The deception would be to get us to focus our eyes on some abnormal manifestation of power, and in so doing, honor the Devil. Then he would have deceived us.
Erickson: I agree that God is sovereign, but he also gave us Ephesians, which says to put on all the armor. Satan produces broken people. He can incite us to evil, to wars, to beat our children.
If we have a relationship with God, then we can stand against evil. If we don’t have that relationship, although Satan is obviously not sovereign, he’s certainly a lot tougher than we are. He’s going to influence us.
Bussell: It’s the subtle belief that evil is sovereign that is the greatest deception of all in the church. That’s what disables us. Once we believe that, we lose power over evil.
Leadership: How does that loss of power manifest itself?
Warner: Fear. If you mention demons to the average group of Christians, they say, “Oh, I don’t want to talk about that!”
Lying behind a lot of our problems today is a fallacious world view. Our culture basically says that if there is a supernatural realm, it’s “up above” the natural realm. Occasionally these two may meet in religious experiences, but they’re considered fundamentally different worlds.
But this isn’t a divided world. God is as active in the natural as he is in the spiritual. And the spirits, the angels, the demons are as active “down here” as they are “up there” in the spiritual world. We need to see people as whole, not split into two parts.
Leadership: Some people seem to cause hurt continually. How do you deal with the evil people you’re bound to run into in ministry?
Erickson: I have encountered people who have done evil things, but I haven’t met one that meant to. I find each one, at the root, is driven by voices other than the Holy Spirit, and he’s not aware of it.
There’s a man I know, for instance, who I think could kill someone, given the right circumstances. From a medical standpoint, he has psychopathic tendencies. People like him have an overriding voice within that says, Survive at all costs. If you have to jettison a child, or a wife, or the pastor, you do it-whatever is necessary to survive.
People like this come to church because of their need to be acceptable. All of life is a drive for perfection, and thus acceptance. They remove any dirt, and so if they find an imperfection in the pastor-you’re in danger! They become avenging angels if anyone brings disorder to their world. And a pastor is a prime person to do just that. Fortunately, these people are rare.
Leadership: How do you handle such people?
Erickson: I refer them to a highly trained counselor.
But much more common are the good Christian people who become angry-perhaps with good reason-and their sometimes-uncontrolled anger causes alienation. At times I sit down individually with people like this and say, “I want to know all your criticisms,” and they produce long lists. I tell them, “OK. If I’ve offended you, I ask your forgiveness. I’ll work on these things, and I love you.”
If things blow up again, I ask our staff to sit in. After listening to their concerns, usually I’ll say something like this: “Obviously I’m not perfect, and I still need to work on every one of your criticisms. But there’s one thing I want you to know: if you leave this church, you’ll break my heart.”
Often they will turn to the others and ask, “Do you think there’s anything to my concerns?”
My colleagues usually reply, “Mark’s not perfect. Some of your concerns he’s dealt with, others aren’t valid, and some he’s working on. But we think the bigger problem is your anger.” If the person will accept this perspective and allow us to pray together, I’ve seen the Holy Spirit drain the anger out of people as if you had pulled a cork.
There is something disturbing these people, and I have somehow set it off. I think the key is telling people they mustn’t leave. That sets the stage for us to find a way to live together.
Sometimes people fall into a critical trap because they had a critical parent-a father or mother who never told them they did anything right. So they always have that voice saying, You’re not good enough. They can turn into angry people with Christian facades, people who alienate others in the church. I believe most problem people in our churches don’t want to be that way, but there’s a voice driving them. If you or I would hear it, we’d probably be the same way.
Palmer: The key is not letting someone else set the agenda. Mark, you don’t play the scenario in which you are supposed to reject these people and they feel angry and leave the church. Breaking through that scenario and giving a different response is what I think Jesus meant by turning your cheek. That’s not weakness but strength. Hold your ground, but hold it with style. It takes a lot of skill to hold to your instinct and not be entrapped in a harmful scenario.
An example-someone who’s very angry. The person may have good reason, but in effect, he or she is battling your authority. So why not give that person authority over you in another area? I try to find a way to let that person be one up on me in some benign way, like asking a favor of him or her.
Evil is disarmed by being absorbed. That’s what Jesus did on the cross. Now we can’t be redeemers, but sometimes we can absorb evil and not simply isolate it.
Bussell: We invite anger when we teach the grace of God. If I’m trying to model God’s unconditional acceptance, then I’m inviting them to express their inner selves. By teaching the doctrine of grace, I invite people to be real with their hostility. The tragedy is, we’re surprised at the anger. We should say, “This is a sign that God is working, and they feel free enough to let this come out.”
Erickson: I have an example of that. A woman’s husband left her with a couple of kids, and she was angry. She listened to me preach and then put all my mistakes in a letter. By the time I got to the second page, I was really steamed-and hurt, too.
Then I began to think about this woman’s situation: she’s angry but hasn’t been close enough to anyone recently to vent it. So here I am. I wrote her a letter saying, “You’re angry. Let’s talk about it.”
She came, and I thought, Boy, I’m really asking for it! But she sat down like a kitten. I said, “Hey, I love you. What can we do?”
The anger was gone; she’d gotten rid of it and wasn’t even carrying it anymore. And then she said, “I was in the radical feminist movement, but that’s not where I want to go. What does it really mean to be a woman?” We began to talk about it, and she’s gone a long way.
Leadership: What about the times when the anger hasn’t all been spewed out or absorbed? Do you ever have to take measures to protect yourself or other people from the angry person?
Palmer: Sometimes I have to invoke the law. After all, that’s what “the righteous sword” is. No human being should be threatened. I’ll ask straight out, “Are you threatening me?” When you ask that, it is usually a shock, since people rarely realize that’s what they’re doing. I continue, “Because if you are, I’m going to tell the police I’m under threat by you. I don’t have to be threatened by anybody.”
Leadership: Is it common to be threatened?
Palmer: It’s a rare occurrence, but you have to be alert to it. You need to be street wise-maintain a reality orientation at all times-or you’re no help.
I made use of the Berkeley police with great effect once when a young man called, very depressed, and spoke about life not being worth living. I didn’t feel good about the conversation, so I called the police and said, “I just talked to a man at such-and-such an address. I think he might hurt himself. Would you please check in on him?” Within three minutes a policeman was at the door, saying, “Reverend Palmer called and said he’s concerned about you.”
That was a splash of cold water in this kid’s face. He called me that night and said, “I didn’t mean it. I’ll never commit suicide. But I’m glad you called them.” It showed him I cared, but that uniformed officer standing at the door was also a restraining presence that shocked him into realizing how serious it is to play this threatening game with people.
I think I once saved a child from further abuse because I reported it. That’s what being street wise is: we have redemptive concern, but we also know when we’re out of our league. We should be stewards of all the resources at our disposal, including psychiatry and medicine-even the police-when we’re dealing with evil or anger.
Leadership: What other street-wise lessons have you learned about dealing with evil?
Bussell: You have to help people develop interests outside the area that’s obsessing them, because the more you focus on the problem, the more you feed the obsession. They need to see there are other things in life that God has given them, rather than this one area where evil has surfaced.
Take sexual temptation, for example. The more a person prays about sexual temptation, the more he’s obsessed by it. Don’t focus on that one aspect of reality. Give him something else so this doesn’t become the one issue. Focusing on the evil alone can actually add to his pathology.
Erickson: Leanne Payne calls that “practicing the presence of their problem.” Christianity is practicing the presence of Christ.
Bussell: I’ve adopted a principle: If I have to confront a power-hungry or vindictive person in a public meeting, I commit myself to take that person out to lunch twice in the next two weeks, and after that, once a month. Unless I’m willing to block out that time, I will not confront, because that person is hurting. Meeting with the person builds a relationship. When we don’t have a relationship, we begin to construct images of each other that often are projections of our own insecurities.
Leadership: With multiple dangers and deceptions abounding, it seems you have to tread lightly through the wreckage of evil. What gives you hope?
Warner: Demons are able to cause harm, and we need to be ready to deal with them, but not from a stance of fear or subservience. We don’t operate toward victory; we operate out of victory. Christ won an absolute victory at the Cross.
Palmer: I’m impressed by Paul’s attitude in Romans, his major work. Only twice does he make reference to the Devil, and in both cases he is pointing to the Devil’s weakness. He uses the term principalities in Romans 8: no “principalities . . . will be able to separate us from God’s love.” And then in the sixteenth chapter: it is God’s will to “crush Satan under your feet.”
We’ve got to keep that fundamental ground rule in mind: The good news is that the power within us is greater than the power that is without.
Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
