Demons and Wounded Warriors

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, I knew a woman who was a disciple of Chuck Kraft. Prof. Kraft taught spiritual warfare at Fuller Theological Seminary – exorcism, praying against "principalities and powers", and such. This woman had taken his classes and pursued skill in that arena.

1. A demonic vision.

I saw her after she returned from South Korea. There, she had climbed up into a prayer tower that had been occupied constantly for years, where persons prayed against the spiritual powers that controlled North Korea. While she prayed, she said, she had a vision. In that vision, she encountered what she believed was the demon king of North Korea. In her vision, she drove a spear into his eye.

When she described this vision to her hosts, they were joyful. They said that they had long hoped for such an prayer-battle to take place.

Later, I think it was months later, I visited her in the office where she worked as a secretary for a seminary professor. I left thinking that she had become mentally ill. She showed signs of early paranoid-schizophrenia. From the titters from other persons in the office, I gathered that her dementia had made her a laughing stock. I was worried about her, but my own plans took me away, and I don’t know what happened to her.

It was odd that she succumbed to paranoid-schizophrenia in her forties. Doctors will tell you that that disease almost always starts in much younger persons – persons in their teens or early twenties.

2. Professor Kraft.

I too took Professor Kraft’s "spiritual warfare" class.

In his class, exorcism and prayers against principalities and powers were taught as a technique that employed God. This was misguided, I think. Exorcism is really a sovereign act of God acting through persons chosen by him: "But if I [Jesus] cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." (Matthew 12:28.) Also Luke 9:1: "[Jesus gave his disciples] power to heal sicknesses and power to force demons out of people." This power doesn’t depend upon technique. Faith, yes (Matthew 17:2); technique, no.

This was not the only aspect of the class that, in hindsight, troubled me. Also, Professor Kraft described his encounters with demons. In those encounters, Professor Kraft conversed with demons. In one encounter in another state, the demon said that he had heard of Prof. Kraft. Prof. Kraft admitted that he was proud to be widely known and feared by demons.

Which might have been the purpose of the demons in feeding him supposed information – to provoke pride in him, and, through him, his students.

I wish Prof. Kraft had been more attentive to Luke 10:17: "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

Or, more frighteningly, Matthew 7:22-23:

Many will say to me [Jesus] in that day [of judgment], Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Or Acts 19:15-16:

And the evil spirit . . .said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?

And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

It seems to me that my friend, the secretary, suffered such a beating – but a beating of her mind, not of her body. She reached into a world that was beyond her scope, and that world reached into her mind and broke it.

3. Kony.

Jason Russell directed and starred in the famous "Kony 2012" video. It highlighted the depravity of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, which terrorizes families in Uganda by seizing children and making them soldiers and whores. I suspect that there is a demonic influence in Kony’s movement.

That suspicion was deepened when Jason Russell succumbed to a so-far unexplained psychic break. Some explanation might come. But in the meantime, I wonder if principalities and powers exacted revenge against Mr. Russell for bringing attention and trouble to a demonic enterprise.

4. What it means.

Even in America, even in my life, I see witchcraft practiced. I see it rarely. I’m not saying that it’s rare, but only that I become aware of it only from time to time.

But the point is this: there is evil out there. There are principalities and powers. They have been fatally wounded. But like a wounded lion, even a fatally wounded lion, they are dangerous. And it pays to put yourself under the protection of God, with humility.