I don’t ever plan to conduct an exorcism. Pastors seem the most appropriate personnel to conduct those, ideally pastors trained in that aspect of spiritual warfare. Yet I have been greatly edified and spiritually instructed by reading Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance: How to Minister to the Demonically Oppressed and Possessed, a slim, readable volume out this week by Rev. Dr. Harold Ristau that aims to equip lay Christians for spiritual warfare without the sensationalism or false doctrine that typically accompanies this topic.
Attempts to interact with demons are growing across the West as formerly Christian nations apostasize and invite mass immigration of peoples who worship gods that the Bible says are demons. The Wall Street Journal recently published a feature about the increase in especially Gen Zers purchasing spells from witches on Etsy.
Brazilians pay witches to brew potions over relationship troubles, and Haitians murder over their culture’s widespread voodoo practices. The increasing use of psychedelics also promises extraterrestrial encounters. Many Muslims believe in good and evil spirits, spiritual possession, and magic charms.
While researching my latest book, it surprised me to discover that people professionally dedicated to hating Jesus Christ are often more outspoken than Christians about the spiritual dimensions of our culture wars. For example, many of the growing number of “witches” today openly declare that their LGBT sexual choices correlate with Satanism.
An early transgender activist proclaimed in an “academic paper” that his choice to fake a female body was a deliberate act of rebellion against God and a declaration of allegiance to Lucifer. (Lucifer is the Bible’s name for the chief fallen angel; it means “angel of light.”) The “Church of Satan” in the United States is majority-queer and manipulates the United States’ historic legal protections for freedom of Christian worship to force anti-Christian blasphemy into public displays.
Many Christians, including pastors, are far more delicate and ashamed than Satanists to say what the Bible says about these spiritual matters. This leaves God’s Word poorly defended by many who are duty-bound to proclaim it in the public square. Pastor Ristau treats of this reluctance throughout this no-nonsense book.
“Caricatures of demons as comical, mythological cartoons … offer an effective deterrent to taking Satan seriously,” he writes in his introduction. “Only crazy people believe in the devil, right? No wonder so many Christian denominations are so embarrassed by the idea of hell and the devil that they do everything they can to avoid those subjects entirely.”
As Ristau notes, however, while many Westerners scoff at the idea of supernatural beings, people outside the West are likely to have seen evidence of their existence. Ristau has worked as a missionary to developing countries and Third World migrants in Canada, his home country. Missionaries to such cultures regularly encounter strong local beliefs in evil supernatural beings, often bolstered by eerie physical evidence.
Now faculty at Luther Classical College in Wyoming after a recent stint teaching seminary, Ristau has three advanced degrees. He was awarded one of Canada’s highest military honors for his service in Iraq and Afghanistan as a chaplain. Ristau says he believes demonic manifestations will continue increasing in the West as Christianity recedes and paganism expands.
This author of two previous books about battling demons says the number of phone calls and emails asking for his help with demonic oppression has quadrupled since 2020. He told me by phone that he gets at least one such request per week.
“Western society is changing, and the devil’s tactics are not as covert as they used to be,” Ristau observes in this book. “With the demise of the Church as a governing influence in our world and the decline of devoted Christians as spiritual warriors comes a stronger dose of demonic attack around the globe … based on my observations throughout twenty-five years of ministry as pastor, chaplain, and professor, I have a sneaking suspicion that things are indeed getting worse and true spirituality is becoming harder to come by; formerly solid church bodies continue to succumb to the temptations of doctrinal compromise.”
Ristau is prudent to keep salacious stories that glorify demons out of his writing. While he does tell of some of his exorcism experiences, they are not The Exorcist-style dramatic retellings. Their purpose is to establish that the mostly unseen spirit world is as real as the Bible says. This is really a handbook to ground Christians in the reality that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Ristau explains what the Bible says about demons, who are rebellious angels; “how to deal with the Devil”; symptoms of demonic influence; and how to resist Satan so he flees. Accordingly, Ristau preaches courage and self-discipline, soldierly traits for a spiritual war: “The first thing every Christian needs to know about spiritual warfare and demonism is that the devil hates order and is the author of confusion.” Demons’ goal is to “kill, steal, and destroy.”
How do they do that? Chiefly, Ristau says, “demons’ greatest strategy against us is lying.” Satan is the “Father of Lies” who disguises himself as an angel of light. Evil’s greatest weapon is disinformation.
Indeed, the mass censorship that accelerated during lockdowns increased my conviction that speaking the truth is a form of spiritual warfare. The immense cultural pressure to shut the truth up — or, failing that, to distort it — is not just political. It is spiritual. Behind that effort is evil itself.
That’s because speech can change reality. Free speech allows for persuasion, for people to change their minds, to grow and change. It allows us to align our lives with the truth. Anywhere you see a lie, you should consider that allowing it to reign grants evil power.
“Devil literally means ‘slanderer,’” Ristau notes. “Slanderers throw accusations at us in order to poison the truth with half truths. They seek to ruin our reputation or have us doubt our Christian identity. … What is fascinating and comforting is that God still uses this wicked serpent for His good and divine purposes, whether the devil likes it or not.”
This isn’t to say that we should hallucinate the proverbial “demon under every doily.” Humans have a vast capacity for evil that doesn’t require external influence. But engaging in evil certainly seems to invite external forces to amplify its effects. Ristau says that sexual sins, participating in false religions, and drug abuse especially tend to invite demonic oppression. All these are dramatically expanding within Western countries.
Realizing this has caused me to change my habits to become better fit for spiritual warfare. Now I read the Bible, pray, and work on memorizing a hymn every day. I also attend church services at least twice and as many as five times a week. I’d like to get that to daily. My husband also reads the Bible and a devotional exposition every day to our family.
We are all soaked in a pagan stew and need to reorient ourselves constantly to the truth. I started with just reading one chapter in the Bible each day instead of wasting time scrolling social media, and slowly added a little more one step at a time over the last four years. Recently, I added wearing my crucifix necklace, because Pastor Ristau says demons hate crosses, especially those bearing Christ crucified. The necklace isn’t a talisman or idol; it doesn’t have any intrinsic powers. It is just a reminder of the God who does have all power.
Perhaps the best thing about the book is Ristau’s faith-filled tone. While dealing with dark materials, he has an upbeat, encouraging, and matter-of-fact tone that conveys a deep trust that Jesus Christ has completely conquered Satan. Simply reading Ristau’s words a little bit each day while I was going through the book fed my faith.
“We’ve been equipped and sent by our Lord, who has already achieved the victory,” Ristau reminds us. “Yet we don’t just sit still. We fight. And the best way to fight is not with our fists, but on our knees. Lord, teach us to pray.”