Skip to main content

Chapter 3: Conflicted Spirituality in Modern America

The Lord our God is supernatural. Put another way, He exists beyond everything we consider ordinary. Scripture shows that many of His attributes are found nowhere else in the natural world, placing Him outside the laws of nature and physics. For example, the Lord has no needs (Acts 17:24–25). He can control the sun and the moon (Gen 1:14–18; Josh 10:13; 2 Kgs 20:8–11). Everything that happens is plainly known to Him (Prov 15:3; Jer 16:17). He holds in His hands the keys of life and death (Isa 44:24; Num 16:31–33; Matt 27:52–53). Although the Lord is eternal in age (Ps 90:2; John 1:1–2), He also chose to be born as an ordinary human into the same world He created (John 1:10, 14). He died a horribly painful death, but once dead, the Lord raised Himself from the dead (Luke 24:39) and ascended back into heaven (Luke 24:51) where He continues His eternal reign. There is simply nothing and no one else like the Lord (2 Sam 7:22). He is supernatural.

None of this should surprise a Christian. The world, however, says these assertions cannot be proven so cannot be true. Christians can accept that our God is supernatural because we have the benefit of the Holy Spirit teaching us; those who reject God can only see foolish superstitions because they lack this same divine tutelage (1 Cor 2:14–16). Therein lies the struggle of our age. Christians believe. The world disbelieves. People on both sides occasionally cross lines and join the other camp. But when Christians listen too closely to those who disbelieve, who have radically different worldviews and objectives, doubt can begin to creep in. This doubt does not necessarily lead to apostasy—although it can if not addressed—but instead, it undermines and contradicts what Scripture plainly teaches. Gradually, the Bible becomes an improbable collection of ancient stories woven around moral principles. Throw out the improbable parts! Keep the moral lessons! Or toss those out, too, because once we question whether the Bible actually speaks for God, it becomes inconsistent to believe that any of it speaks for God. This path frequently leads to the kind of “spiritual but not religious” identity confusion that drops us squarely in the middle of a not-quite-Christian and not-quite-atheist frame of mind.

Doubt is not inherently wrong. In fact, doubt can be healthy when it encourages us to explore what we truly believe and why we believe it. The disciple Thomas has an unfairly negative reputation for doubting because He needed Jesus to prove the validity of Jesus’s resurrection. But the amazing thing about that? The part demonstrating that God still loves those who doubt? The resurrected Jesus invited Thomas to put his hands into Jesus’s crucifixion wounds (John 20:27). Is there anything more tangible and intimate than that? These are not the actions of a God who is afraid of our doubts! Christian brothers and sisters who doubt the Bible speaks for God or doubt the Bible contains truth need only express their doubts to God in prayer and then ask for His help to believe. Thomas had his doubts, but that did not stop him from seeking answers from Jesus, nor should it stop us from seeking our own answers from Jesus. He was and remains perfectly willing to meet us where we are in matters of faith.

Part of that faith is acknowledging the supernatural exists. There are different genres within the Bible that all require different ways of reading and interpreting, but whatever the genre, the Bible clearly contains supernatural elements from cover to cover. Why, then, should it be difficult for Christians to believe that biblical supernaturalism is true? Nevertheless, for some Christians, it is very difficult to believe this. We know that God is supernatural based on Scripture. His very existence proves the supernatural, and belief in God is the basic premise of Christianity. The pieces are all there. When we believe in God but deny the Bible’s other supernatural claims, we adopt an irrational view. How far are we willing to take it? Are we willing to deny other supernatural biblical claims to preserve this inconsistency? The Bible says God has an army of angels (Ps 148:2; Rev 19:14). Do we believe that? The Bible says Satan is a real being at war with God (Zech 3:1–2; Rev 12:7–9). Do we believe that? Most Christians readily believe both claims.

The Bible also says demons are real (Matt 8:28 par.). Are they? This is where some American Christians reach their tolerance for supernaturalism and draw a line. Surely these are just stories of mentally ill people! Surely these descriptions fit undiagnosed diseases that biblical authors simply did not understand! This perspective unspooled all the way cheerfully asserts that Satan, angels, and God Himself are equally fictitious. Acknowledging some of these biblical claims but not others pokes holes in the Bible as a record of God’s truth. There are great multitudes of scholars at prestigious universities who spend their days attempting to decipher what is true and what is false in the Bible, but why would Christians allow the secular world to be an arbiter of Christian theology? What does Christian faith have in common with worldly skepticism? It does not help that many churches ignore or do not teach the biblical reality that demons are real. Yet Jesus taught that Scripture can never be tossed aside, even when we would prefer it said something different (John 10:35).

Other American Christians draw a different line. They might admit to believing demons exist somewhere out there but struggle with the claim that the Bible contains the full truth and everything we need to know on the matter. How can an orthodox Christian viewpoint be sufficient when competing spiritual philosophies from other religions also discuss demons? Surely a synthesis of available information would form a more holistic understanding! This perspective implicitly asserts that biblical teaching is inadequate. Rejecting the Bible as the complete Christian authority on spiritual matters is to say spiritual teaching from theologically incompatible sources is on equal footing with whatever God has revealed to humanity. That is also a view inconsistent with Christian beliefs. We either believe God has revealed everything we need to know about spiritual matters or we deny it. One is the Christian viewpoint, the other is not.

None of these worldly views make rational sense in light of Christian beliefs until we consider the philosophical forces shaping modern American culture. As a point of comparison, it is also instructive to consider how ancient Israel viewed demons during the time of Jesus. Understanding where we have been, where modern America is right now, and where American culture appears to be headed reveals the urgent necessity for Christians to prayerfully address any lingering doubts that the Bible is our best source of spiritual wisdom for understanding and practicing our Christian faith. Demons are a real force in this world. As we will see, coming to terms with that reality will be important as American culture continues its march toward a post-Christian future.

Supernaturalism in the Gospels​

The Pharisees and Sadducees were the two competing Jewish factions we see depicted in the Gospels. Luke tells us that one primary difference between these two groups comes down to a belief in the supernatural, “[f]or the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all” (Acts 23:8 NASB). The Sadducees did not believe in supernatural beings like demons, despite the abundant firsthand accounts of demonization we see in the Synoptic Gospels, because they based the majority of their doctrine on the Pentateuch1 and did not find enough evidence in those books to compel them to believe in anything supernatural other than God. This was a case of rationalizing away the evidence plainly before their eyes, a classic example of “missing the forest for the trees.” Jesus told them, “You are mistaken, since you do not understand the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29 NASB) when they questioned Him about marriage at the resurrection. He pointed out their theological understanding of God and the supernatural was woefully incorrect. Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees and Jesus had at least one thing in common: they both believed in a resurrection of the dead as well as angels and demons. Mistaken, anti-supernatural bias goes back at least two thousand years as seen in this bitter dispute between the Sadducees and Pharisees. Among other Jews of the era, demons were an unfortunate reality in their daily lives.

Jesus regularly taught in different synagogues throughout ancient Israel. One of the first public sermons He gave was at a synagogue in Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. On a particular Sabbath when Jesus was standing before the assembled Jews to preach, a man attending this service began to publicly heckle Jesus. He shouted across the room where everyone could hear, “Leave us alone! What business do You have with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34 NASB). Some of the gathered Jews were likely very annoyed at this outburst. Leave us alone? This was a Sabbath, and shouting like that during the service was incredibly disruptive. Other people with a more discerning take on the situation probably suspected something was off with the man. Who was “us”? Why would any rabbi want to destroy Jews gathered in worship? Was there something happening on a spiritual level that was harder to recognize? Perhaps without missing a beat, Jesus paused His teaching and appeared to scold the man, saying, “Be quiet and come out of him!” (Luke 4:35 NASB). If the crowd initially wondered what Jesus meant, it was soon clear to everyone present in the synagogue that day.

In a very public and undeniable response to Jesus’s words, the man among the assembled Jews immediately fell to the ground, suffering convulsions, while those gathered around him could do nothing but watch (Mark 1:26). It rapidly became clear that Jesus was not talking to the man but a demon controlling this man. The drama soon ended; the demon left the man (Luke 4:35). And what did the gathered Jews take away from this encounter between Jesus and the demon? They marveled that Jesus could command “even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him” (Mark 1:27 NASB). Neither Mark nor Luke writes that the people were surprised to have a demonized Jew in their synagogue. The point of interest for these Israelites was that someone could successfully command a demon to leave. In fact, they were so amazed at what Jesus did that news about Him “spread everywhere into all the surrounding region of Galilee” (Mark 1:28 NASB), and they brought Jesus other demonized individuals for Him to heal that very same evening (Mark 1:32; Luke 4:40–41)—just as soon as the Sabbath was officially over and they could do the work of presenting demonized friends and family to Jesus. Demonization was clearly a commonplace occurrence for them. This was not some new discovery or abstract superstition in their culture. It was a real problem impacting the ordinary people they loved.

Capernaum’s overwhelming reaction to this one, brief encounter in the synagogue strongly indicates they had never seen anyone like Jesus who had real authority over demons. Some rabbis dabbled in Jewish mysticism and occasionally attempted to cast out a demon, but if those practices had been consistently effective at dealing with demons, Jesus’s display of power would have been far less impressive. That, however, was not the case. Jesus amazed the Israelites; the demons Jesus commanded to leave did not amaze them. Gentile communities surrounding Israel also shared this same reaction to exorcisms and demons.

The ancient city of Tyre is northwest of Capernaum and was built on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In the days of Jesus, Tyre was “a Roman province and later the capital of Rome’s Syria-Phoenician province” containing “a large and ornate Roman necropolis” as well as many Roman features such as a water aqueduct, a bathhouse, and an arena.2 This city, once conquered by Alexander the Great, became a prosperous port city under Roman rule. The ancient city of Sidon is roughly twenty five miles northeast of Tyre along the coast. Sidon “under the Greeks enjoyed relative freedom and an advanced cultural life. In the early days of the Roman Empire, Sidon even had enough autonomy to have its own senate and mint its own coins.”3 It, too, was a prosperous and cosmopolitan port city. Given the strong Roman influence in these two gentile cities, many natives living in this region would have practiced the same religious idolatry as the Romans. One idolatrous example is ancestor worship, which was “absolutely central to the Romans’ beliefs about death and the afterlife”4 as seen in Roman funerals. The Romans believed that the spirit of a body not interred would linger “around friends and family, and the spirit would become angered if anything negative was said about it.”5 Families gathered around the tombs of their deceased and made an offering in the hope “this would activate and placate” the spirits of the dead so they could remember details about their lives.6 The Tyre and Sidon region during the early first century would have hosted a wealthy and culturally sophisticated gentile culture steeped in pagan practices.

Jesus visited the region of Tyre and Sidon during His ministry. While there, a gentile woman from this area pleaded with Him to cast out a demon tormenting her daughter (Matt 15:22 par.) Living among the Romans as she did, the idea of evil spirits was a recognized part of life. It was considered absurd in that culture not to believe in evil spirits! And much like the Capernaum Jews, this gentile woman would have been dismayed but not necessarily surprised to discover an evil spirit was tormenting her family. She must have struggled to find anyone capable of treating her daughter’s underlying supernatural problem until she heard about Jesus.

While the Sadducees and Pharisees of Jerusalem held academic debates about whether the supernatural could theoretically exist, everyday Jews and gentiles living in and around Israel commonly experienced demonization as an undeniable fact of life. There was no question for them whether the supernatural was real when sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers were tormented by demonic spirits who could speak through loved ones. Many of these people were educated. Others possessed shrewd wisdom and a discerning eye. They would not easily mistake demonization for a disease. Additionally, the Synoptic Gospel writers all present demonization as a real problem rather than a suspected problem. Luke was a doctor and would have been very familiar with the diseases of that region. Jesus, for His part, fully recognized the existence of demons and never once told those who sought help with demonization that their actual problem was physical or psychological in nature. He knew better. The Sadducees stand alone in their denial of the supernatural. They are the only people in the Gospels, gentile or Jew, who refused to acknowledge the supernatural evidence plainly before them.

Three Hundred Years of Anti-Supernaturalism​

Roughly seventeen centuries later—after the Protestant Reformation—the Age of Enlightenment unfolded in Europe. While Reformers like Martin Luther (1483–1546) viewed Scripture reverently and challenged detractors to prove their points from the Bible rather than subjective opinions or church traditions, Enlightenment thinkers no longer saw the Bible as a wholly credible source of truth. This was an age that celebrated human reason. It lifted intellect above faith and placed humanity at the center of all that mattered.

The Enlightenment individual believed he could have access to pure human reason, which would allow him to tear down traditional ecclesiastical myths that only served to oppress societies of ages past. The Enlightenment man confidently declared to the world that he had come of age intellectually, and it was now time to liberate himself from the assumptions he had previously inherited from mother Christendom. By means of pure reason, he was now capable of discovering truth for himself, and in doing so he would pioneer a new path to enlightenment. Reason was the golden ticket to a life of total objectivity, free from bias.7

Whatever could not be proven with rational thought and careful observation was, at best, set aside as a juvenile idea unworthy of serious consideration. Because the existence of the supernatural (including demons) cannot be satisfactorily proven using thought exercises and controlled experiments, the Bible became an unreliable witness for many thinkers of the time. No longer was it the inerrant word of God the Reformers risked their lives to make available to ordinary people. Now, the Bible was characterized as a collection of improbable stories and speculative history containing potentially useful rules for moral living. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third president of the United States, went so far to create an alternative gospel he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by removing every reference to anything supernatural, leaving behind only historical accounts, parables, and moral teachings. Jefferson “omitted passages that he deemed insupportable through reason or that he believed were later embellishments, including references to Jesus’ miracles and his resurrection.”8

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the rise of theological liberalism. It grew out of Enlightenment thinking as a way to revise orthodox Christian beliefs into something more palatable for those who based their worldview on what they could deduce or observe. No longer would humanity be confined by authority or tradition. True knowledge of God, it was thought, came from human experience and philosophical inquiry rather than Scripture. Proponents believed that “Scripture may be a classic of human literature, but we can never conclude that it is supernaturally given, inspired by God and without error.”9 Large sections were argued to be entirely fictional, and Jesus Christ was said to be historically inaccurate. While He was a real person who existed in the first century, many argued that the Jesus of the Gospels was a theological construct perpetuated by the early church.10 Anything supernatural found in the Bible could not possibly be true—including demons. Theological liberalism was not the denial of the idea of God so much as the denial of anything judged to be irrational or illogical. Unfortunately, this encompassed much of the Bible.

Postmodern philosophy characterizes the current age. In sharp contrast to Enlightenment thinking, postmodernism concerns itself with ideologies over rationality. This philosophy contends there is no longer any objective truth, and that same notion extends into the idea of meaning itself. Because truth is subjective and different for every person, meaning becomes equally subjective and therefore equally valid no matter how much it differs between people. The Bible is its own truth just as the Qur’an, Hindu texts, Buddhist sutras, and all the other sacred books associated with world religions are their own truths, each as true as any other despite incompatibilities between them in their religious doctrines. This religious pluralism holds fast to the idea that there could be many gods and many expressions of gods. “As a result, biblical authority is done away with. In fact, authority in any text is done away with. It has to be since it is not the text but the reader (or community) who now governs and creates meaning.”11

To the postmodernist, the existence of the supernatural is just one of many different, possible truths. Supernatural experiences may be true for one person but not necessarily true for another. “To claim to know the truth, or to possess the only truth, is the deadliest, most arrogant sin in the postmodern universe.”12 Truth is always in the eye of the beholder, not in the eye of God and not in the eyes of biblical authors. Community consensus determines which truths are acceptable to that community because there is no longer any objective truth to be found. This has striking parallels to the era in ancient Israel just before God anointed Saul as Israel’s first king. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25 NASB). Accordingly, Scripture is no longer authoritative for many people, so many people do what seems right in their own eyes.

It is little wonder that modern Christians often struggle to take the Bible seriously when Enlightenment, theologically liberal, and postmodern thinking have all attacked the foundations of biblical credibility for at least three hundred years. There is often no room for the supernatural in the modern American psyche because it is illogical, outside common experience, and something associated with the personal truths of those who wrote the Bible. Science is as close to objective truth as exists for many Americans, but science does not and cannot provide all the answers to everything we experience in either life or death.

Science and the Supernatural​

Demonization is not a psychological or physical affliction that can be treated with modern medicine. The “Gospels themselves distinguish between the two (e.g., Mt 10:1; Mk 3:10–11), and contemporary experiences of possession and exorcism which science has been unable to explain are too numerous to support this reductionist approach.”13 The Bible is our authority on supernatural matters. While we cannot learn the basic principles of chemistry, fluid dynamics, or metallurgy through reading Scripture, that does not minimize its tremendous value. Science explains natural phenomena; however, it is inherently unable to explain the supernatural because the supernatural by definition transcends the laws of nature and physics. Some occurrences that appear supernatural can be reduced to a naturalistic explanation. In those instances, scientific principles excel at providing a rational interpretation. The fallacy for Christians is assuming we can reduce to a naturalistic explanation every occurrence we can imagine. Can scientific principles explain Jesus’s resurrection? Or can scientific principles explain the nature of heaven? No, because these both possess a supernatural character far exceeding what scientific principles can explain.

Demonization has traditionally been uncommon enough in the United States for many American Christians to feel comfortable ascribing it to ancient problems which no longer exist or ancient superstitions which were never true. In this view, modern progress is assumed to have eliminated the problem, or scientific principles are assumed to have disproved the validity of these claims. But the situation is very different in other parts of the world. “Exorcisms tend to occur most in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel in lands and areas in which Satan has long held sway and in which Christianity has not flourished. To the extent that Western societies continue to become more paganized, one may expect a continued revival of healings and exorcisms there as well”14 because healings and exorcisms have always been signs that validate the kingdom of God, in addition to their more overt nature as restorative miracles. Should demonization become more commonplace in the United States, theoretical explanations will surely take a back seat to the more practical concerns of healing demonized victims. After all, this is one issue that therapies and drug treatments will always fail to resolve. Doctors cannot successfully medicate a supernatural problem.

Spiritual Pluralism in Modern America​

In some ways, American culture is a study in contradictions. Centuries of biblical skepticism have caused many Americans to discount the validity of Scripture altogether on grounds that it is both irrational and improbable. Yet many of these same Americans are drawn to supernatural experiences to such a degree that it supplements or even replaces orthodox religious practices. Like the philosophers of the past few centuries, modern Americans often feel justified in jettisoning traditional religious doctrine while, at the same time, picking and choosing metaphysical beliefs from a myriad of different sources to build their own ersatz religions. These new theologies combine everything from belief in an unspecified higher power and reincarnation to practicing indigenous rituals and esoteric mysticism. This is the epitome of postmodern spirituality. “Paranormal beliefs have become the norm in the United States” as more than three quarters of Americans believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon.15 Paranormal beliefs continue to grow,16 and “[w]hat is striking is how rapidly such beliefs are rising.”17 This is not to say that belief in the supernatural is unwarranted. Rather, it is supernatural beliefs collected from a wide variety of unbiblical sources that should give Christians pause.

American adults frequently view Christianity as just one specific expression of spirituality among many others. A survey of the general public found that 83 percent of adults believe there is truth in many religions while 12 percent believe there is truth in just one religion.18 Those who specifically identify as Christian are also looking beyond the confines of orthodox religion to supplement their personal beliefs as interest in alternative spirituality continues to spread. Protestants and Catholics alike believe in reincarnation,19 and about the same percentages believe physical objects like crystals contain spiritual energy.20 Up to a third of Protestants and Catholics believe they have been in touch with someone who died.21 And many of those who infrequently attend religious services have consulted a fortune-teller or a psychic at some point.22

There is a tremendous hunger in modern America for anything supernatural. Christianity expressly prohibits the kind of supernatural exploration many Americans crave, but what some fail to understand is these prohibitions do not exist because God is a tyrant who makes arbitrary rules. The prohibitions we see in the Old Testament were so strong and carried such heavy penalties for the ancient Israelites precisely because God knows the extensive damage that supernatural exploration easily inflicts upon human beings. These practices also undermine our trust in God as our provider and protector. Nevertheless, when those who hunger for the supernatural view the Bible with suspicion, these prohibitions fall on deaf ears. This has led to a culture awash in devotion to the supernatural; ordinary Americans often see it as an enticing aspect of their lives.

Not only are media representations nearly ubiquitous, but increases in reported beliefs and personal experiences suggest that the supernatural has also colonized everyday life. At the very least, the popularity of the supernatural in our era rivals the enormous popularity of séances and the Spiritualist movement in the United States and Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century.23

What we are witnessing in modern American culture is a syncretism (or blending) between faith in orthodox science, morality through emotional experiences, and a patchwork spirituality replete with supernatural interest. This is the union of the dominant philosophical forces of the past few centuries. What may be called the new American religion contains elements of the Enlightenment deification of human reason, the liberal deference to human emotion, and the postmodern veneration of individual truth. None of these philosophies readily accept the Bible as an authoritative source. So while the Bible has a particular viewpoint on supernatural topics like demons, and plenty of modern Americans are likely to believe demons might exist, these same Americans frequently look for answers beyond the Bible. Biblical authority as well as authority figures who point to the Bible are seen as less credible among the general public than the alternatives gathered from a wide array of spiritual philosophies and alternative religions.

Deep mistrust in all societal institutions has been steadily building in the American mindset from at least the 1960s. Since 2005, Americans have generally put more trust in peers than authorities.24 Today, mistrust in our institutions has begun to reach critical levels. Traditional societal leaders—including religious authorities like pastors—are not trusted “to do what is right.”25 Nontraditional leaders like scientists, on the other hand, enjoy the highest possible trust within American culture, surpassing all other groups while utterly trouncing government leaders.26 Nearly two thirds of Americans believe “government leaders are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations,”27 and roughly three fifths of Americans believe the media is either “purposely trying to mislead people” or, at the very least, “not doing well at being objective and nonpartisan.”28 The traditional pillars of American society are crumbling.

To whom do many Americans turn for leading the way forward on pressing societal issues? Not the church. Instead, they look to CEOs. 78 percent of Americans “expect CEOs to publicly speak out about one or more” societal challenges,29 and nearly two thirds believe CEOs should effectively replace the government.30 Successfully running a business is no longer enough. There is now a widespread expectation that titans of industry should directly engage in the thorny moral issues playing out on the public stage. A little more than a century ago, “robber baron” CEOs used exploitative practices to influence the government for their own financial benefit against the best interests of ordinary people. Today, just as in the days of the American robber barons, CEOs and the businesses they run are fundamentally motivated by financial gain. No amount of expensive advertising campaigns or carefully worded public statements touting altruistic motives will change the basic fact that corporations care most about generating wealth. That is simply the way businesses work. Therefore, Americans who anoint corporate CEOs as their prophets, apostles, kings, and queens are placing their well-being in the hands of those whose primary motivation will always be boosting stock prices and increasing revenue. This is hardly the kind of moral leadership that moves a country forward on societal issues.

Severe lack of trust in authority at almost every level affects non-Christians and Christians alike. When paired with widespread religious syncretism, the combined force drives many people to look for answers outside of orthodox Christianity. Thousands of years of Christian thinking, which has been debated, tried, and tested throughout the entire world, has been discarded in favor of personal worldviews eschewing traditionally accepted answers. Asking questions of our faith is healthy, but discarding everything to build an original spiritual philosophy only leads to heartache. Patterning faith after unbiblical beliefs found elsewhere in the world leads to more heartache. This is a new kind of unbelief that many American churches are unaccustomed to handling. It is not necessarily the lack of belief in a higher being. Only about 4 percent of Americans consider themselves atheist.31 Rather, it is unbelief built on the back of a plurality of competing spiritual ideas. Roughly two thirds of Americans identify as Christian,32 but with more than half attending religious services only a few times a year or less33 and many not even reading their Bibles, how many of these Christians have a mistaken concept of the Christian God? How many of these same people who avoid church and avoid reading their Bibles are, in fact, not Christians at all but merely believe themselves to be Christian (Matt 7:21–23)? Spiritual plurality, mistrust of Christian orthodoxy, and rejection of biblical authority is the new unbelief.

The general public regards biblical teachings that either claim moral certainty on divisive issues or suggest conclusions that go against popular narratives with skepticism, if not outright hostility. The very channels that have traditionally existed to answer our big questions about life are no longer seen as realistic. So, for example, while the Bible says that seeking contact with spirits and consulting the dead are detestable actions that defile everyone involved (Lev 19:31; Deut 18:11), those who adopt modern American spirituality seek to “reenact ghostly or other macabre legends in hopes of experiencing contact with the supernatural.”34 They frequent ghost tours, visit the sites of tragic accidents, pursue the thrill of occult exploration, and draw on a patchwork of spiritual beliefs for protection while actively investigating paranormal occurrences with precision scientific equipment.

American Christians, though perhaps not pursuing supernatural experiences at rates similar to their secular neighbors, are vulnerable to this same spiritual and religious syncretism. It has a way of eroding orthodox Christian foundations to the point where every novel spiritual philosophy seems plausible and no biblical prohibition seems truly taboo. Demonization still poses a problem in the modern world, but some will say that demons cannot possibly exist because science cannot prove it, while others might ask what we can truly know about demons when Western religions, Eastern religions, and paranormal investigations all offer conflicting explanations. When there is no objective truth, there can be no objective explanation.

The Unchurched and Disaffiliated​

Meanwhile, church membership in the United States has fallen below the majority of the population35 to its lowest level in eighty years.36 “The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference,” which has jumped to 21 percent of the American public.37 The trends are particularly striking when viewed along generational lines. Those who claim no religious preference approximately doubles across each successive generation. So whereas traditionalists born before 1946 have a very low number of people who claim no religious preference, about a third of all younger adults born after 1981 claim no religious preference.38 Americans who do have a religious preference are also forgoing church membership.

However, not everyone who decides to part ways from traditional church has entirely given up on God. It is clear from the available data that “it is an error to equate the rising preference for no religion with an increase in unbelief,”39 although unbelief is the logical outcome for many “nones” over a longer time horizon. So why are people leaving the church? The COVID-19 pandemic had a material impact on church attendance, but that is far from the only reason. There are several other reasons explaining the broad trend to abandon church affiliation: generational succession in church attendance,40 formal church participation in polarized national politics,41 a desire to worship alone,42 and perceived anti-intellectualism.43

The Christian experience in the United States is fractured. “It is helpful to think of Christianity not as one undifferentiated or uniform mass of believers but as an internally deeply divided community.”44 Serious problems underpin not only our dominant cultural philosophies but also the institutions that are supposed to be a stable fixture in our moral and spiritual thinking. Churches were once pillars of American society in many parts of the country, but that is rapidly changing. “It seems likely that the more pervasive disaffiliation becomes, the harder it will be for the churches to reach the unchurched. If unchurched believers stay unchurched for long, they or their children could easily become not only unchurched but also nonbelievers.”45 The spiritual headwinds devoted Christians face in this country are fierce.

Where It All Ends​

Additional Reading
  • See Appendix D for a lengthier discussion of our Christian responsibilities in the midst of a fallen world.

The United States may very well become a post-Christian nation in another few generations. Current trends certainly point in that direction. As the church age in this country wanes, American culture will continue to invert godly morality into something that more easily fits into its relativistic framework. “[P]eople will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” and act religious but deny the truth of genuine Christian practices (2 Tim 3:2–5 NASB). Like Pontius Pilate, many people will derisively ask, “What is truth?” as they reject Jesus Christ by what they believe or how they behave (John 18:37–38).

While our situation as a country is challenging, there is one fact so crucially important that American Christians should never lose sight of it: God is in control. Believers have thought the end was coming for at least two thousand years (2 Thess 2:1–3). The truth is that we have no idea when it will happen! It could be today, or it could be in another two thousand years. “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matt 24:36 NASB). With “the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:8–9 NASB). Still, given everything the Bible has to say about where things will end up in our present age, we know how the general trend will play out.

Progressively, up until the moment when Jesus comes again, “evil people and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim 3:13 NASB). People will continue to “fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, by means of” hypocritical false teachers with dead consciences (1 Tim 4:1–2 NASB). Such teachers will oppose the truth because they have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith (2 Tim 3:8). More and more ordinary people will be counted as those who are always seeking after the newest spiritual teachings but entirely unable to recognize the truth should they ever encounter it (2 Tim 3:7). The time has come when people “will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:3–4 NASB).

Teachers, either badly mistaken or willfully erroneous in their Christian beliefs, will continue to seek an audience. Some of them will even be ordained pastors. A portion of these false teachers will deceive others, perhaps even themselves, by claiming to have prophetic visions or dreams. They may even produce tangible signs and wonders in support of ideas that conflict with sound biblical teaching (Deut 13:1–5). The Lord is decidedly against teachers who give prophecies they falsely claim are from Him (Jer 23:30–31). Such teachers lead God’s people into sin, telling flagrant lies the Lord never spoke nor commanded anyone to speak (Jer 23:32). Nevertheless, many people “will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned” (2 Pet 2:2 NASB).

Christians will also interact with people who celebrate the virtues of other gods. Some of these gods are old concepts from alternative religions while others are entirely unexpected. For example, there are those who treat science, technology, celebrities, sports heroes, and political figures as secular gods to be worshipped in everything but name. Other new gods may appear superficially similar to the Christian God but openly contradict existing biblical morality. Anyone teaching a false gospel or a radically different interpretation of Jesus is just as destructive as those who evangelize the gods of other religions. If anyone, even close friends and family, attempts to entice a Christian believer to serve these other gods “(whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you, or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end),” that believer is to pay no attention (Deut 13:6–8 NASB). In some cases, it will even be wise to end an existing relationship with these alternative evangelists; for “what does light have in common with darkness?” or “what agreement does the temple of God have with idols?” (2 Cor 6:14, 16 NASB).

The balance of wickedness will continue to grow until the very end. Just as in the days of Noah when the Lord “saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5 NASB), humanity will sink that low again by the time Jesus returns (Matt 24:37). Eventually, that which restrains the Antichrist from appearing on the world stage will be taken out of the way (2 Thess 2:6–7). The man doomed to destruction who becomes the Antichrist will be born, grow up, and one day exalt “himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2 Thess 2:4 NASB), though his power will really come from Satan (2 Thess 2:9; Rev 13:4). “And at that time many will fall away” from the Christian faith, “and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will rise up and mislead many people. And because” sin will have become so pervasive throughout the entire world, “most people’s love will become cold” (Matt 24:10–12 NASB).

The loss of spiritual direction and the deepening of sinful behavior will inevitably result in more frequent demonization. A general increase in wickedness goes hand-in-hand with a general increase in demonic influence. The further one walks away from God in willful rebellion, the more difficult it is to desire the freedom from destruction that only Jesus Christ can offer. Satan extends his own offer that appeals to many but leads only to death. The strengthening bias against biblical authority will surely cause many people to attribute demonic oppression to unfortunate mental and physical illnesses.

Believers with itching ears who stray from sound doctrine are not immune from the consequences of their sins. God has mercy on whom He has mercy (Exod 33:19), yet He also tells us that He rebukes us in love because we are His children, and as such, He expects us to pursue godly discipline (Rev 3:19). Christian believers may be surprised to discover that demonization can be a behavioral consequence even for the elect. As the church age winds down and more people fall away from the faith,46 it is reasonable to expect demonization will become far more commonplace in those regions where it has traditionally been rare.

That is why Christians must come to terms with the existence of demons. A time is coming, sooner or later, when those whom God calls into service will need to be prepared to minister to the demonized within our midst. The body of Christ has many parts (1 Cor 12:12–31). Some of these parts, perhaps ones that are less presentable yet worthy of great honor and care (1 Cor 12:23), will be responsible for tending brothers or sisters in Christ suffering from demonic oppression; for “if one part of the body suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if a part is honored, all the parts rejoice with it” (1 Cor 12:26 NASB). What has been a relatively uncommon experience in the United States is likely to become an unfortunate reality that churches must regularly address. Ministering to demonized believers fits squarely within the Christian purview regardless of whether God calls us individually to be the front-line workers in this particular ministry. Should we fail in our responsibility to be God’s hands in this world, there is no one else who can help demonized individuals understand that moving toward God is the only successful path through their frightening and debilitating trials.

  1. The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy.↩
  2. Gary A. Byers, “The Biblical Cities of Tyre and Sidon,” Bible and Spade, Autumn 2002, 15:110, https://biblearchaeology.org/research/divided-kingdom/4180-the-biblical-cities-of-tyre-and-sidon.↩
  3. Byers, “The Biblical Cities of Tyre and Sidon,” 15:110.↩
  4. Steven Fife, “The Roman Funeral” (World History Encyclopedia, 18 January 2012), https://www.ancient.eu/article/96/the-roman-funeral/.↩
  5. Fife, “The Roman Funeral.”↩
  6. Fife, “The Roman Funeral.”↩
  7. Matthew M. Barrett, God’s Word Alone: The Authority of Scripture, vol. 1 of The 5 Solas Series (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 78–79.↩
  8. Endrina Tay, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” (Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, 1 October 2014), https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/life-and-morals-jesus-nazareth.↩
  9. Barrett, GWA, 92.↩
  10. Barrett, GWA, 97.↩
  11. Barrett, GWA, 135.↩
  12. Barrett, GWA, 132.↩
  13. C. L. Blomberg, “Healing,” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 300.↩
  14. Blomberg, “Healing,” 306.↩
  15. Chapman University, “Paranormal America 2018 - Chapman University Survey of American Fears” (The Voice of Wilkinson, 16 October 2018), https://blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2018/10/16/paranormal-america-2018/.↩
  16. There has been up to 17.3 percent growth in paranormal beliefs from 2016 to 2018, depending on the specific belief, according to Chapman University, “Paranormal America 2018”.↩
  17. Chapman University, “Paranormal America 2018.”↩
  18. Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer, “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987-2012,” Sociological Science 1 (2014): 429, https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-vol1-24-423/.↩
  19. Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths” (Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 9 December 2009), https://www.pewforum.org/2009/12/09/many-americans-mix-multiple-faiths/.↩
  20. 20 percent of Protestants and 28 percent of Catholics believe in reincarnation while 20 percent of Protestants and 29 percent of Catholics believe in spiritual energy according to Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths”.↩
  21. Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths.”↩
  22. 19 percent of those who attend religious services monthly or yearly have consulted a fortune-teller or psychic according to Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths”.↩
  23. Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton, eds., The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018), 5, http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000009554.↩
  24. Edelman, Country Report: Trust in the U.S., Edelman Trust Barometer, 2021, 3, https://www.edelman.com/trust/2021-trust-barometer.↩
  25. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 21.↩
  26. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 21.↩
  27. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 24.↩
  28. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 28.↩
  29. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 38.↩
  30. Edelman, Trust in the U.S., 37.↩
  31. Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace” (Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 17 October 2019), https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/.↩
  32. 43 percent identify as Protestant, and 20 percent identify as Catholic according to Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace”.↩
  33. Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.”↩
  34. Waskul and Eaton, The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, 4.↩
  35. Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time” (Gallup.com, 29 March 2021), https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx.↩
  36. Church membership is at 47 percent of the United States population according to Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time”, although this is not exclusively Christian church membership. The survey asked, “Do you happen to be a member of a church, synagogue or mosque?” The percentage of Americans who are a member of a Christian church is even lower.↩
  37. Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time.”↩
  38. Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time.”↩
  39. Hout and Fischer, “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference,” 430.↩
  40. Hout and Fischer, “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference,” 427–28.↩
  41. Hout and Fischer, “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference,” 423, 425–27.↩
  42. Lydia Saad, “Sermon Content Is What Appeals Most to Churchgoers” (Gallup.com, 14 April 2017), https://news.gallup.com/poll/208529/sermon-content-appeals-churchgoers.aspx.↩
  43. Bernard Daley Zaleha and Andrew Szasz, “Why Conservative Christians Don’t Believe in Climate Change,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71.5 (2015): 20–21, 23–24, https://doi.org/10.1177/0096340215599789; Barrett, GWA, 123–26.↩
  44. Zaleha and Szasz, “Why Conservative Christians Don’t Believe in Climate Change,” 21.↩
  45. Hout and Fischer, “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference,” 444.↩
  46. While we know this will happen sooner or later, we must remain active in our Christian faith and not wait around for the world to end. Jesus could return today or two thousand years from today. See Appendix D for why Christian fatalism is not what the Bible teaches.↩