← Thinking Fellows
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith. Today I am joined by Bruce Hillman and Adam Francisco. My dad is away in Finland, I think, still somewhere. He's somewhere in Scandinavia and he's there teaching. He's been teaching at schools and churches in a camp for the last several weeks. And I think he'll be back for our next episode. So we should see him again. But while he is gone, we are going to do the forbidden episode or the episode. I think we talked about this. It had to be two years ago, even now. But he just didn't really want to do it, which is. We're going to talk about angels and
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C
demons, not the book.
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B
Yeah,
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C
the book is the secret to the Da Vinci Code. Yeah.
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B
I guess the framing here has to be what are the questions we're going to try to answer about angels and demonstrations? Demons get talked about a lot right now, which is interesting, oddly enough in political context because of the UAP UFO thing. I think it was from this recording maybe just two weeks ago, J.D. vance was in a interview where he said he believes that a lot of the documents on aliens are actually that they're demonstrating. So I think that I've actually shared an opinion like that. I think like in brief bursts here on the show before too, that I have. I have concerns about the U.S. government and working alongside demons. But the. But that gets talked about a lot. I don't know. The other podcasters out there love talking about demons in various world governments of various stripes. So maybe talking about demons and earthly power, the kind of princes and principalities thing is important. I think from a theological perspective, one of the reasons this question comes up in our tradition is you could ask, why are Lutherans so silent about supernatural beings?
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C
And Luther wasn't.
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B
Yeah, that's a good.
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C
Luther talks about it all the time.
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B
Point.
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C
So we think of a mighty fortress as our God, which is, you know, Luther's great hymn, which is a spiritual warfare hymn against demons. Or Luther's extensive work on Tentatio temptation, where he talks a lot about demons. So it is interesting that modern Lutheranism is like, eh, I don't want to go there.
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A
But early Lutheranism, well, that's modern Christianity.
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B
Right.
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C
Went there all the time.
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A
Yep. Is it modern Christianity generally or Western Christianity because of.
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B
I don't know.
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A
Bruce, you're going to like this. I don't really like it. But because of modernism, it's ruled out or acts as if the unseen realm doesn't exist. It relies on science in the horizontal plane, and then acknowledges, of course, a transcendent God and so on. But the accusation, the critique, and I think it's right, actually, is that we, we have for so long kind of lost sight of the fact that we don't just struggle against flesh and blood, but also even more so powers and principalities of darkness. So, yeah, I think there's, there's a. There's an old. I guess he was an anthropologist, missiologist from Trinity, now closed seminary here in, in Deerfield, and he wrote a fairly famous essay called the Fault of the Excluded Faulty or the. Is it the fallacy, the excluded middle or something like that. It was a. I think it's piece
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C
middle, if that's the one you mean.
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A
Yeah, it's a piece on how it's a. He's offering missiological advice, if you will, to missionaries that if you, if you're out on the foreign mission field where like animism is prevalent and, you know, spiritual realities, witch doctors and so on are just. Are kind of a normal thing and you bring a Christianity informed by a Western worldview that's tinged with modernism of some sort and scientism of some sort, it will leave people you're. You're speaking the gospel to and perhaps you're instrumental in the conversion of. Not in terms of a salvific way, but, you know, as the preacher there, it will leave them ill equipped to handle the realities still in their world if you're bringing kind of like a, you know, modern Western Christianity. And I don't think he's wrong. I don't know how. But with Caleb, you mentioned this renewed interest in angels and demons. I think it's actually, I think there's a lot of sensational stuff here. I know Tucker Carlson calls everything a demon, but anything he doesn't like is a demon. I think you can over emphasize it, but I think actually it's quite helpful or it can be quite helpful in recovering a. I would just say a biblical worldview where there is an unseen realm, as we confess every Sunday, the, you know, visible and invisible created order.
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B
So can I kind of add to like the, I don't know, the renaissance of speaking about demons in Western.
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A
Can you, could you pronounce it a little better though?
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B
Like Rennie also, that's what podcasting is. It's a Reynoldson. The, the thing that I at least appreciate about the, the, you know, bro, sphere political demon talking, kind of like you said, Adam is, is recapturing some of that. But it's also the first time in my lifetime where perhaps demons were talked about more in some of the ways or the ends that scripture or the Christian tradition talks about them rather than sort of disattached possessions that don't seem to be for any reason besides randomly harming people. So in my experience, sort of Christians do two things. Either they kind of do what the Lutherans do, and it's like we don't explicitly or haven't for a long time talk about demons or angels or supernatural powers it incurs in prayers. Certainly within our liturgy and things like that. We talk about angels or renouncing the devil.
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A
Let your holy angel watch over me. That the wicked fool may have no power over me daily.
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B
Absolutely, yeah. So that it's not completely foreign, but in a sense of like, you know, guarding yourself against demons or talking regularly about possessions or something like that. And then the flip side of that has been the sort of, you know, the horror movie into reality kind of thing where I've. I've at least been privy to what I think are like a handful of absolutely fraudulent possessions and then all of the sort of weird superstitious stuff that comes with it too, where you can't really get to what would the ends of the demons be? Whereas right now it's being talked about about, well, earthly power and getting people to reject Jesus Christ or, you know, empowering worldviews, philosophies or religions that are against Christ. And you actually have some talk that then aligns with, hey, demons are at work in the world using earthly power and means to affect the reception and the spread of the gospel. And that, to me, lines up with kind of what we see in the scripture. It lines up with, I think, the concern that most Christians should have, which is not that they're going to be like, bodily possessed and lose control of themselves and be floating and vomiting in their room because of some demon, but that. Because that there's some demonic message and preaching out there that will attempt to attack their ears, their reception of the faith, their heart, and things like that. So I think that much is kind of true. Then I also have, you know, sort of the perspective that the other world religions in large part worship demons as well, some in more obvious ways than others. Like, I think of Hinduism, you know, uses idols and pictures and things that quite frankly, are demonic. And so there's. And it's, you know, more than that. You could say the same thing with the appearances of angels to other people like Joseph Smith or Muhammad as well, where they get divine messages from spiritual beings. Creating these antichrist religions. So I think there, there is stuff to talk about and to be concerned about and like that another Joseph Smith or another Muhammad absolutely could rise again and get, and get thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to follow them with a false gospel is totally realistic. So there's a lot to talk about here. But Bruce, you've, you, you were the one itching to talk about this.
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Of course it was him. Yeah.
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B
So there must. So I'm guessing there's some connection. You obviously see that the Lutheran tradition is not void of talking about spiritual warfare, but it goes farther back from this. So are you under the impression, sort of like Adam, that we've lost touch with something that the church in past early church, the medieval church and the Reformation church actually knew about for sure.
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C
I mean, what a lot of people don't realize is in the early church, like in the second and third century, the lowest church office that you could obtain, which was relatively easy to obtain, was exorcist. And it was very common office. It was before deacon, sometimes it was before even the person who could like light the candles. And that shows you one, a worldview that there was a need for that office in a large amount because a lot of people could obtain to it. And two, it wasn't really the early church believed that they had the power of God on their side. And so you didn't need a bishop or a super uber soldier Christian to perform an exorcism. Any Christian using the word of God could perform an exorcism. It was just not a big deal. I, I wrote about this years ago. I think it was in the Christ Told Fast blog. I don't think I've told the story on the podcast before, but maybe I have. But an illustration that brings us out from a friend of mine. Years ago, he went to Greece and he really wanted, much to the chagrin of his wife, because he had to leave her behind in Athens to go to Mount Althos, which is the holy island where all the monks in Orthodoxy kind of occupy and only men can go there. So he went there for like a two or three day little retreat. And he tells me how it was summertime, he was jet lagged, he was super hot. And this one service that they were doing, it starts at like three in the morning where they like walk in with a candle and they reenact like the first created light of the world and God creating the world. And they kind of just go through the whole scripture over like a course of like a six hour service or A five hour service and about three hours in, he was just exhausted. He was feeling kind of sick, was hot, there's no air conditioning. So he stepped outside, got some fresh air, took a little nap, and then went back in. Later, after the service was over, he went up to the abbot of this place and he shook his hand and he just said, hey, I'm really sorry, I was jet lagged, I wasn't feeling good, I had to step out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the abbot, while shaking his hand, looked at him and said, brother Matt, that's not why you left the church and walked away. And he was like really confused by this. He had to think about it for a while. And so in the evening at suppertime, he went back up to the abbot and he was like, what did you mean by that? And he goes, well, maybe you felt jet lagged and maybe you felt sick, but the reason why you actually walked out of the church was because you gave in to the temptation of the evil one to pull you away from the service of the Word. And so like the monk's worldview is that there is a spiritual warfare taking place against God's people all the time. And I think that is the way the early church sort of saw it too. Not that there's a devil behind every bush and that the flesh doesn't do its own thing, but that this world really is overlaid with the spiritual world and that demons really are out to harass, to oppress, in extreme cases, possess, to encourage you to sort of arouse your selfish passions and to doubt and confuse the word of God as they did with Jesus in the wilderness to tempt you to do wrong. Like the early church saw all that is happening constantly. And I think Christians today have lost that. And they kind of think like, well, if I do something wrong, if I sin or if I give into a temptation, it's just because I'm weak. Well, yeah, the flesh is weak, but you do have a tempter and you do have forces of darkness that are eagerly trying and passionately trying to pull you away from the work of the Spirit and the work of the Lord. And I think just having that awareness without being overly afraid of it is an important part of living a healthy spiritual Christian life, whatever spiritual means. But you know what I mean, like living a truthful Christian life in light of the revelation of scripture.
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A
Well, it's not just the early church either, Bruce, as you mentioned earlier. It's also, I mean, all the way up through the Middle Ages, even to Luther, early On you use the term tentatio with reference to Luther, Bruce, and the German version of that word is anfectung. And for Luther, and it's everywhere. Anytime he's giving pastoral advice, if you will, he mentions this term anfectung, and how it's just sort of a normal part of the Christian life. And anfectung is. It's not just like. Like run of the mill temptation. It's. It's assault to the devil, trying to. As you described with the early church. Yeah, yeah. To get you to doubt, to cave into your temptations and. And so on. And so what's really interesting with, you know, you. When you're talking about the. The early churches, this long continuity of this idea. I bet if we. I mean, we're all three Lutherans here, so we probably don't know anything about medieval history because it doesn't exist for us in our typical curriculum. But that's kind of a joke. But I bet if you look close enough to even the great scholastics of the high Middle Ages, you know, maybe we'll get somebody who will correct or give us some bibliographical data or something. I wish Rod were here. He was a great. He was a master at dropping bibliographical references. But I bet even the great rational scholastics, if you will, have a very healthy. Well, healthy. A very biblical view of the unseen realm. So, Caleb, you asked the question about. I forget how you phrased it, but there is this long continuity, and for whatever reason, it's sort of. It's been lost in the Christian vocabulary worldview. At the same time, I don't know that it really. I think that maybe is too strong of a critique of modern Christianity. I think with like, the.
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The.
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At least in the Lutheran tradition, it's always present that there is this unseen realm. Anybody who confesses the creeds, you know.
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B
Yeah.
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Visible and invisible. It's just that I wonder if, like.
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If you.
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If you read like Luther, he's got a very strong sense of the unseen realm, the realm of angels and demons, but he doesn't cave into superstition. He's very. That's the unique thing, I think, with the Lutheran approach to this is it wants to stick with the text of scripture so as to avoid sensationalizing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like totems and, you know, and that sort of thing. So, you know, Caleb, you're. My discussion early on about the, you know, how this is kind of reintroducing a worldview that has place, has room for the supernatural. I think Is true. I don't know that it was for Christians who are part of a Bible alone kind of traditional, you know, in, across the spectrum there you cannot read scripture and not notice. But yeah, you know, like the, I mean ever presence of if you supernatural
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B
are like, you know, so if you're, if you're a Lutheran listening to this or any tradition that would use like regular lectionary or read through whole books of the New Testament, you're going to like encounter this immediately. Right. Like, especially if you open up any of the Gospels, you know, the demons are really. Jesus ministry really messes with their agenda and plans in a pretty open way to the point where Jesus having such open command over them gets him accused of being the prince of demons. Right. So because people, you know, his, his accusers see that he can, he can cast them out, he can tell them to leave. He, he has command over the supernatural. So that's, that's just a part of. Yeah, reading the scripture. As Bruce said, it's part of confessing the. Or maybe you said it too, Adam confessing the creeds. Like this is, this is part of historic Christianity. I think, you know, the speculative part of me thinks that it didn't leave our worship in the sense of like yes, if you're a creedal Christian o. A scriptura, these words, whether you sort of consciously think about or worry about demons or the spiritual on a personal level, every day you are confronted with them and confess some truths about them regularly through worship and through reading the scripture. But that we became uncomfortable with them because we live in a, a pluralistic society where we have to get along with those who actually sort of capitulate with and work with and are of the teaching of demons. Right. Like this. I actually think that if we embrace it fully, it's sort of offensive in the one way because you can see that all sorts of worldviews, all sorts of power struggles would be the goal of the demons and that. I suppose that's the part that should be stated clearly which is the question what is the goal of these negative supernatural powers? Right. Of the devil and the demons and this, this antichrist spiritual set of powers. Because I think apart from a goal, you get into this kind of hokey, you know, Hollywood movie exorcist style approach to that's what that's demons look like. Or I, I saw another one where a priest was naming, you know, you know, basically naming each demon and what sins that demon causes and stuff like that, which I think goes sort of a level of scripture doesn't really reveal much of that at all. There's. There's very few spiritual powers named who are not specific characters. There's like a handful, but not a lot. So if you have a whole book full of the names of demons and their sins, it's probably rather speculative. And I don't think that's as helpful as what we are saying, which is, yeah, there is a spiritual realm that wants you to get, that wants to accomplish one particular thing. And that is the rejection of Jesus Christ as savior of the world to sever people's trust in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of the sins, for their resurrection. And there's mechanisms to doing that, like being tempted into sin, being assaulted emotionally, being assaulted physically with doubts and anxiety and, you know, challenges to the word of God and things like that, which all help them accomplish that goal. And maybe it is even physical oppression and could be a means to accomplishing somebody to cast doubt on the gifts of Christ and that his benefits are real and present in this life. I think all of that is true. And so then once you have that in line, you can start sort of filtering what's an appropriate way to confess this, to deal with it, to talk to and teach my children about it? I think that's something too. Without sensationalizing this, while also not being afraid that this might alienate some people or some people might pick up on that I think their religion is demonic, or that the worldview or the ends of rejecting Christ is demonic. Like I could. I would be comfortable saying something like scientism seems to have demonic forces at play in our world. So it's not just like other religions, it's even sort of anti religions. Why? Because it's a powerful force that attempts to attack the Christian faith, have people cast out in Jesus Christ his power, historicity, and does so under the guise of getting as many people to not believe and not worry about the supernatural as possible. Seems like demons and the devil would benefit from all of that. Pretty comfortable saying, yeah, it's probably. Probably involved the thing that I think. And maybe you guys can both talk about this too and how it affects our ability to speak about this. Is that I do. I think all of that is true. But I'm also. I tend to be afraid of saying something is demonic without actual knowledge of if it is. Does that make sense like that? It is. It does end up being speculation because I can't see the demon or whatever. So is it better to think sometimes
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C
it is and sometimes it's not? So for example, there are extreme cases like Mark Chapter. So Mark Chapter five is the most graphic and detailed account of what a genuine possession would look like. You know, the guy has superhuman strength, he can break chains, multiple men can't contain him, he lives in a graveyard, he cuts his skin and he bleeds. I mean, it's pretty extreme stuff. There are other accounts, but none of them are anywhere near as like. They just tell, say that people are possessed. But this one is a very graphic account. So obviously if you come across something like that, you can probably pretty much know for sure that you're dealing with a demon. I mean, there are weird accounts. Some of them are recorded where you have like little kids who can barely speak their own native language, but they're cursing priests in Latin. I mean, there's just weird things where the only really probably plausible explanation is that there is some type of possession there. But yeah, I think outside of those extreme cases, you can't necessarily know. However, I think the early church and even Luther to some extent would also say, yeah, but they're always, they're always there in some way anyway. So your flesh and the demons, it doesn't really matter which one you blame, I guess would be the way I would put it for an ancient context. Either way, your flesh needs to be crucified and the demons need to be rejected. So this sort of response is sort of the same. I think why we are rightfully cautious is the sort of paranoia, the move towards superstition, the loss of personal responsibility that can come with an overtly devil behind every bush sort of thing. I do think too, just real quickly, I. It's absolutely true. The demons want us to doubt. They want to pervert the word of God, the message of God. They want us to fear all that kind of stuff. But I think, and this is a little speculatory, but it's based on scripture, I think the demons and especially Satan still actually think they're going to win. Otherwise none of it makes any sense. Like they still want to be God and I think they still think that they can replace God. So it's not. I think it's not just that, oh, you guys love God, so we're gonna hurt you, which is true. I think it's also, we're gonna take you away from God because we still think we have a chance at running this whole show. I mean, evil and darkness deceive and so they would have to be deceived as well to the truth of, of God. If they can deceive us to the truth of God, they themselves must be deceived about the truth of God. And that makes them a particularly dangerous enemy because they don't even have a self awareness of their own sort of truth about their, their own situation in their arrogance and in their, I mean, when Satan tempts Jesus, that story doesn't make any sense unless he really thinks he can win, you know, and when he shows up and does antichrist and everything at the end, that doesn't make sense unless he thinks he can win. So he's just utterly deceived. And in that deceit, that makes him particularly dangerous. Right, because he's, he, he doesn't have the truth really. He twists scripture. He does everything to, to reaffirm his own worldview, whatever you would call that, I guess. Worldview, I'll just say, but his own philosophy, his own self delusions and one
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B
of the kind of the classical atonement descriptions from the ancient church, sort of often paired with Christus Victor is, is that idea that the devil was so deceived that he, you know, that he actually believed he could possess Christ in death. Right. And so, and so in essence he's, you know, somewhat tricked, bamboozled into. He thinks he can hold Christ and, and so he, you know, he helps work to accomplish Christ's death. Little does he know that this is the end of all of his power.
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A
Right?
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B
So the early church definitely, definitely incorporated this into their thought about justification.
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A
I got a little story for you that fits, but is kind of going to take us out of this stream of consciousness. Probably 2000, maybe early 2001, I was living in St. Louis and some of our, well, you know, Caleb, you know, some of these guys, they were all at seminary and one of them was really into demonology, like not into it, but studying it, you know, and we, it was a weekend, we were all hanging out, there were four of us. And I've got a picture of it somewhere, as does Pastor Pearson in Long Beach. I've been trying to recover it, but we like, we knew that well, because this guy was into demonology. He knew that the famous exorcism case that the movie is based on started at the seminary in St. Louis and the Lutherans turned over the boy. It was not a girl, it was a boy to the Catholics and I think the Jesuits. And so we were like, hey, we should go just like do our own research and see if we can kind of track where all this stuff started in St. Louis. I think eventually the boy was sent to Maryland. But anyway, we Ended up going to a place that is just down the road from Concordia Publishing House that once had Alexian Brothers Hospital, but now was a. Like a retirement home for people from a particular Catholic religious order. And I forget how it is we ended up there because this is 26 years ago. But we went to the place and went to the front desk and asked if anybody, like, randomly, we said, is anybody here, living here in retirement, anybody around at the time of this exorcism case? And they're like. They all knew about it. And they're like, oh, yeah, Brother John. So they called this guy named Brother John down. Well, his name was John, but he was a brother, so that's why they call him Brother John. And he was the last living person who was. He was like an orderly in the famous exorcism case. And sweet. He spent a good hour with us. Real delightful man. And he. I think the St. Louis Post dispatch ran an obituary on him a couple years back after he died and explained that he was confirming what everybody told us when we were doing this on the street research. And he told us that while certainly the movie sensationalized things, he goes. It also got a lot of things right in the sense of the foreign languages that the boy that he had never learned was able to speak. The cutting in the skin that would just. Words would just appear on his skin as scars. There was no. What was in the movie, the head twist or something. Like, there wasn't anything like that. He said. And finally when that demon did leave, there was like the. The smell of roses in the air. And then he said that he watched. And this. This seems like speculation, but there's a ton of books. I don't. I've. Like, I'm aware of some of them. I don't read them because this stuff just gives me the absolute creeps. But I guess after that case, there was another major case of possession. And they're like that particular demon, he said, would hop from host to host. And so, I mean, that sounds like superstition maybe, but, I mean, the Catholics, they document all this stuff. And I don't know, I can't help but think. I mean, a good portion of this is real. I don't know how you know it, though. Like, because you can't measure it, like, by scientific standards.
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C
The jumping, though, fits the problem with
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A
what Scripture says, the biblical narrative. Sure.
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C
Yeah. Like when in Mark 5, when he. When Jesus casts out the demons, you know, they. They ask to go to the pigs. Like, they need to go somewhere else. And Then on another occasion, Jesus says, you know, when is when a house is cleaned and the spirit is removed, it goes to waterless places and seeks to find a place to kind of go back to. And it looks for a clean house, interestingly to go back to.
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A
He says this guy was saying that, and I've read a little bit on this in years past that as they think about what allows a demon in, especially this boy was Lutheran, right? He grew up in Lutheran.
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B
This is where I'll just say where I tend to get like suspicious because I kind of find that when it's like Christians, specifically baptized, believing Christians, that they possess the indwelling Holy Spirit and that a demon does not operate on the same level of power as God.
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A
Well, so what this guy was saying, there was no like anti Protestant polemic or anything in hitting the way he was talking. He said the, he goes, you know, the boy was, you know, had. When I said he was a Lutheran doesn't mean he was like some confessing Lutheran or anything like that. He just was in a family that had Lutherans. But he said in his research from that experience, and his research wasn't like scholarly or scientific, but just his like sort of interest in it. He said it almost always these high profile cases is accompanied by dabbling in occultic practices, Ouija boards, or sometimes like psychedelic drugs or seances and things of that nature. So anyway, that's a bit of a distraction. Going back to an earlier conversation about like Lutherans and the spiritual realm, I think it's important that we not forget that in our baptism rite, the traditional baptism rite of Luther, there's an actual exorcism that takes place. And everybody who's been baptized, I presume this is not just a Lutheran thing, but we all renounce the devil, his works and all his ways at our baptism, whether it's through our own mouth or through sponsors speaking for us. And all this stuff gives me the heebie jeebies. I don't even like watching horror films just because I really believe this stuff can be real. And so it just freaks me out. My kids love this stuff and I can't, I have to leave the room because I just. But and it, you know, demons are. All this stuff is just. Is terrifying. But for the Christian, Luther's advice would be it ought not terrify you. First of all, it is very real. It's all around you, as Bruce said earlier. But you have the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit given to you in baptism through hearing the word of God. Sunday After Sunday, hopefully. And you need not fear for Christians. Christians have the benefit of knowing they have a better, I think should have a better understanding of reality because of our openness to the supernatural, in a sense, in terms of our worldview. It's not that we can control it, but in our renouncing of the devil in baptism, we're, for lack of a better way of putting it, good to go. But we will still always be faced with, again, going back to Luther, with assaults from the devil. He cannot do you any harm, but it will be a sort of normal part of your life to. To. Or as Luther put it, if you're wearing the colors of the court of a Christian as a member or a citizen of the kingdom of God, you got to expect that there's going to be constant struggles and combat, spiritual combat, going on around you. And you will see it, you'll hear of it. It'll take different forms for different people in different contexts. But in the end, again, there is no fear. There ought to be no fear of it. So my fear of horror movies is probably terribly faithless. But
- [37:22]
C
there's a book written maybe 15, 20 years ago called the Rite R I T E. They made a horror film on it which has nothing to do with it other than keeping the same title. But the book was a. I think he was American, I can't remember now. He's a journalist, and he got permission from the Vatican to go to their exorcism school for priests, which they've had since, like, the Middle Ages. And he just writes the book about, like, what it was like. He kind of went into it not believing any of it and came out totally believing it. And so he goes in the book, he kind of goes to this school and he tells you some of the things they teach and what it's like. And then afterwards, he kind of goes and follows around some of these exorcist priests. They're commissioned just to do exorcisms. That's their ministry. And I don't remember. I remember there's. I mean, there's three official classifications that the Catholic Church has, which is of how demons can harm people, which is temptation, oppression and possession. And I don't remember, though, like, what I'm about to say where that falls. But they. They follow this one guy who's like, the most famous exorcist in the world at the time. He's probably dead now. He was really old when the book was written. He's an Italian priest, and he's the guy, like, he's but everybody in the Catholic Church knows who this guy is. When there's a possession, they fly him around. But he's both. He lives in, like, this works in this little church in Rome somewhere. And he goes and watches this guy, and he performs exorcisms. He performs like 200 exorcisms, like, a week. But that's the point. The point is that people come to him, and if they have, like, migraines or if they have certain sicknesses or if they have the. He exercises that. And that's very much similar to how the early church saw exorcisms as sort of not like this Mark 5 crazy guy that's possessed and, like, doing crazy stuff, but like, oh, you have a sickness. The demon is causing your sickness. Oh, you have a temptation or a habit or an addiction that you can't break. The demon is doing that. I don't know if they classify. I'd have to read the book again. I don't know if they classify that as a possession or an oppression, but they do call it an exorcism and what the priest is doing. So I don't know. My point with this, Caleb, is I don't know if there's a sort of. I kind of agree with you that you can't be a Christian and have the Holy Spirit and have a demon possess you. But I also kind of see the other side here in this ministry, this guy as an example, where, like, we're too quick to be like, oh, no, everything is material.
- [40:05]
B
Yeah, Bruce, I want to jump off this maybe as kind of our. Our last major one for this. I feel like that's what I'm trying to say with that, too, is kind of what. What Adam was getting at, which is a comfort for Christians that, you know, how. How. How could we. What could we be afraid of? You have the creator of the world already, to use the Word possessing you. He dwells with you. You have been united to Christ, and you receive that word time and time again, assuring you that you belong to him. And this is a different. What we're saying here is this is a completely different power level than. Than what the demons operate on. He has complete authority over all created things, physical and spiritual, and he has no intent. Yeah, he has no intent of, you know, turning you over to them. You belong to Him. So.
- [41:16]
C
But Satan caused Job's. Job's sickness with God's permission. So they're just saying there's like this weird.
- [41:22]
B
So I then would say to what you just said about these Exorcisms, these sort of minor exorcisms or exorcisms regarding oppression, you know, spiritual warfare. I think that we do this without calling it an exorcism, which is what. When somebody is oppressed by forces in this world, sin, their temptation, and falls into sin, the sin of the world, the death and destruction that in this life it places on them and their family, what is the balm to that? It is the word of God. It is the comfort of Jesus Christ. It is the assurance of his death and resurrection for you. It is the remembrance of your baptism. And we don't just look in our heart for that. You don't just have to battle alone. But that Word which has been delivered to us from the outside, confidently from another place of which God has placed in the church, in the Christian community for you, comes and can deliver that externally to you again, so that when a person feels oppressed, when you have fallen into sin, you have a place to, for instance, go confess those sins. You can go confess your sins to your pastor and receive the absolution, the word of God assuring you that your sins are forgiven. We gather together on Sunday and we literally sing the Word of God to one another, to our joy and to our uplifting. And then we receive his promises and his gifts and His Word, and it's all placed in. In and for us. And so I think in that sense, you have the positive tools against this kind of spiritual warfare. And you don't have to, you know, convert to Catholicism and go see an exorcist to go get the external word of God against this, too. Because I also kind of see that as well, where it's like, well, Protestants don't really believe in this. And I'm struggling. I need to go see a priest. No, that's what this is.
- [43:41]
C
The priest did in St. Louis.
- [43:45]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:50]
C
Can I read? Because I think it's really good. Just a little bit of the, you know, the Mighty Fortress lyrics. Because that song, Luther's Hymn there really sums it all up.
- [44:01]
A
Well, right.
- [44:01]
C
He says, a mighty fortress is our God. Which is an interesting image, right? Like, he's a castle you can run to against the enemy.
- [44:09]
B
All right.
- [44:09]
C
A bulwark never failing a helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing for still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe his craft and power are great and he's armed with cruel hate and on earth is not his equal. So he sets up the first stanza with this. Hey, this guy's bad news. Like, he. There's nothing like him. Like you can't. You have no chance. But then he says in verse two, did. Did we in our own strength confide Our striving would be losing? We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's own choosing. Who ask you ask who this may be? Christ Jesus. It is he. And he must win the battle, right? And then my favorite verse is the third one. And he says, and though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of darkness grim we tremble not for him, his rage we can endure. For lo, his doom is sure. And here's this great little thing, right? One little word shall fell him. Like the power of God's word is that great. Which is why the last verse goes, that word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth the spirit and the gifts are ours. Through him who with us sideth let goods and kindred go this mortal life. Also the body they may kill, but God's truth abide it still. His kingdom is forever. So you get this whole arc in that one song of like, oh my gosh, I'm afraid of this guy because he's a real enemy. And I. I have no chance to, but I have the Word and the gifts have been given to me, so I don't need to fear him because Christ is mine. And that word is above all these powers and above all these forces of darkness. And, you know, we don't tremble. They tremble.
- [45:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. The entire armies of the devil can't last one. One word from God, which you see
- [46:04]
C
in scripture, you know, where the demons tremble before Jesus and say, you know, what do you want with me? He just walks by and they're like, what do you want with me, son of man? You know, like, why did you come here? What leave you?
- [46:18]
B
So, yeah, yeah, I think that's good to end on. We definitely didn't get to angels this episode. So Bruce predicted right before the show, good guys, the good guys that'll.
- [46:30]
C
Who are mentioned way more in scripture, by the way.
- [46:32]
B
They have mentioned way more in scripture, mentioned positively, like in prayers. I think that'll be an interesting episode to ask, sort of like, what are the role of angels? Obviously we can say some positive things about angels in a future episode. So I think that'll be great too. I think you can also, if you. If you want to see like how this is treated. It's kind of. It's similar to a lot of what we've been saying. But the demons also, these spiritual forces also do appear in the Lutheran Confessions. I came. Our conversation went a different way. I came prepared with some of that, but it's mostly about false teaching. Shocking enough so you can go kind of check that out too. You can go search in it. The apology has the most references. So if people are curious, like, does this. What do Lutherans say about this as far as our belief mostly has to do with false teachings that oppress the gospel. And who would want to accomplish that oppression but the devil. So you can sort of go check that out as well.
- [47:36]
C
Addition, I have a recommendation too. It's. It's Catholic, so you have to, you know, you're going to get some Catholic theology in it. But it's. There's a lot of verses and stuff you can look at too. It's a great little book. Peter Kreeft has a book, Angels and Demons, which is set up like a catechism on this subject. So you just go to the question that you want. Some questions I think he answers better than others. But yeah, most of the questions he got from teaching over all the years, like, I think one of them. So one of his students asks like, you know, can Aunt can cats be possessed? And he's like, yes, because cats are completely evil anyway, so they're already possessed. But oh my gosh.
- [48:20]
B
Anyway, yeah, it's funny. That's kind of. My dad would say that about snakes. He really doesn't like snakes.
- [48:25]
C
And he goes, that one has actual natural support behind it.
- [48:31]
B
Stuff like that. Well, great. Hey, we hope you enjoyed this episode. Maybe help you think about some stuff, learn some things. If you liked this show as well, remember to share it with family and friends. In fact, I've been getting some emails and stuff like that. I got a great email from somebody who had a friend share the show with them recently and had some thoughts and shared some work they had done on the same subject with us. So definitely keep that up. We appreciate your support of this show like that. We will catch you next week.
- [48:59]
C
Bye.