You don't have to read very far in any of the four Gospel accounts of Jesus' life to come across demons and exorcisms. In fact, in the life of Jesus, it can almost seem like He was encountering a demon possessed person practically every other day. (Okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but you do come across quite a few of them.)
I remember a time growing up where I heard many "theories" being presented as to these demon possessions. One that has stuck in my mind deals with the psychological. It's the idea that the people that Jesus encountered were dealing with some kind of psychological illness rather than demon possession, and that Jesus really did nothing more than set them free from that illness, through some kind of psychological assistance. The idea behind this whole theory seems to be that there really aren't demons, just psychological disorders that need to be dealt with, and the people of Jesus' time didn't know the difference, so they just assumed that the people had demons.
In recent years, I've thought a lot about this particular theory regarding demons and exorcism. One thing that stands out to me in this is the denial of unexplainable spiritual beings. This theory seems to indicate that there is no such things as demons. Demons are only psychological disorders. We don't need exorcisms, we need a cure to the illness.
To me, that's way too easy of an answer. It also seems to fit with the modern mindset that we can get to the root cause of illness and then get rid of it. But for some reason, the more we seem to dig into illnesses, the more we seem to discover that we don't really know all that much about them, much less how to eliminate them. Plus, it seems that there are many who are starting to lean back in the direction of unknown spiritual forces at work in the world that simply cannot be explained.
In one way, this is a good direction for us to go. It means that our minds are opened up to things that we can't necessarily explain or prove, and most things of a "spiritual" nature fall along those lines. That would seem to open the door toward the belief in God a bit more than what modern science had done.
Yet, there are also dangers to this. You may have noticed the recent number of movies and books that highlight werewolves, vampires, and the like. An acceptance of the spiritual world is not without its dangers, as we humans seem to have a tendency to be drawn toward the darker side of things. And these things don't draw us closer to God, but rather away from Him.
Dangers, and opportunities. How will we, as Christians, respond? Silence doesn't seem to be an answer. It seems that the fallback is what it has always been for Christians. We fall back on God working in this world, and especially in Jesus, God in human flesh, who overcame those unexplainable things through His life, death, and resurrection for us.
I remember a time growing up where I heard many "theories" being presented as to these demon possessions. One that has stuck in my mind deals with the psychological. It's the idea that the people that Jesus encountered were dealing with some kind of psychological illness rather than demon possession, and that Jesus really did nothing more than set them free from that illness, through some kind of psychological assistance. The idea behind this whole theory seems to be that there really aren't demons, just psychological disorders that need to be dealt with, and the people of Jesus' time didn't know the difference, so they just assumed that the people had demons.
In recent years, I've thought a lot about this particular theory regarding demons and exorcism. One thing that stands out to me in this is the denial of unexplainable spiritual beings. This theory seems to indicate that there is no such things as demons. Demons are only psychological disorders. We don't need exorcisms, we need a cure to the illness.
To me, that's way too easy of an answer. It also seems to fit with the modern mindset that we can get to the root cause of illness and then get rid of it. But for some reason, the more we seem to dig into illnesses, the more we seem to discover that we don't really know all that much about them, much less how to eliminate them. Plus, it seems that there are many who are starting to lean back in the direction of unknown spiritual forces at work in the world that simply cannot be explained.
In one way, this is a good direction for us to go. It means that our minds are opened up to things that we can't necessarily explain or prove, and most things of a "spiritual" nature fall along those lines. That would seem to open the door toward the belief in God a bit more than what modern science had done.
Yet, there are also dangers to this. You may have noticed the recent number of movies and books that highlight werewolves, vampires, and the like. An acceptance of the spiritual world is not without its dangers, as we humans seem to have a tendency to be drawn toward the darker side of things. And these things don't draw us closer to God, but rather away from Him.
Dangers, and opportunities. How will we, as Christians, respond? Silence doesn't seem to be an answer. It seems that the fallback is what it has always been for Christians. We fall back on God working in this world, and especially in Jesus, God in human flesh, who overcame those unexplainable things through His life, death, and resurrection for us.
Pastor Scott, my danish wife tells me of a well-respected Christian phichiatrist who wrote a book on demons, demons' influence/possesion. The book made such an "impression" on his colleagues and specialist in his field, that his work/patient files were re-visted and examined to see if his personal/religious views affected his psychiatric practices/scientific methods. No fault found!
ReplyDeleteBut it still goes to show, how skeptical the scienctici/materialistic view only of this work approach anything bordering the mysterious/ethereal/transcendant.
Thanks for posting your thoughts!