INTRODUCTION
The fact that you are reading this reveals the “perpetual interest within the church regarding the things of spiritual warfare.” Especially in recent decades, Christian spiritual warfare writings have been particularly numerous.[1] What is “spiritual warfare” though? Spiritual warfare, based on Ephesians 6:12, is “the battle of the followers of Christ against the unseen spiritual forces of evil.”
Modern approaches to spiritual warfare vary among cultural settings. In many animistic and tribal contexts, power encounter approaches are more prevalent with direct, confrontational dialogues between spiritual leaders and demons with practices such as exorcism. Many western worldview Christians fall into categories of either looking down on spiritual warfare “with disdain” or remaining ignorantly unaware of spiritual warfare. Yet others question spiritual warfare practices while blindly accepting the spiritual warfare views of their leaders, dismissing “new approaches as unbiblical and therefore unacceptable.”[2] In more rationalistic settings, many will place a greater emphasis on psychological or psychiatric solutions to observed symptoms and behaviors rather than considering the spiritual realm.
Although the attention given to spiritual warfare has varied in emphasis and direction across church history, there must always be an ongoing awareness and understanding of Satan’s attacks and methods against the church and Christian believers.[3] The diversity of understandings and approaches across history and cultures must be evaluated with a thoroughly biblical, historical, and theological foundation to determine what should be avoided, corrected, or embraced.[4] This book helps present the primary source evidence of the early church for your consideration to see how the earliest Christian leaders thought of and engaged in spiritual warfare.
TOWARDS A HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE
Clinton Arnold explains the prevalence of spiritual warfare in early church history writing, acknowledging the “numerous accounts of demonization and exorcism as well as descriptions of the deceptive work of demons in pagan religions fill the writings of the church fathers.”[5] Some rationalist and cessationist Christian theologians surmise that spiritual warfare has diminished since the apostolic era, but the evidence is that there “is no hint of demonic activity dying out.”[6] Documentation of spiritual warfare continues “through the whole time period of the ancient church” as well as during the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the early post-Reformation.[7]
In evaluating spiritual warfare writings and practice, early church leaders share a helpful perspective in understanding and evaluating claims of territorial spirits, demonic possession, exorcism, demonic oppression, and other experiences and practices. Church history does demonstrate that church leaders “took the realm of the demonic seriously and believed that Christians could be profoundly influenced by evil spirits.”[8] Clinton Arnold asserts that a “thorough treatment of this topic from the vantage point of church history would be very helpful and illuminating.”[9] History shows a serious concern for the demonic possession of unbelievers and for the affliction of believers.[10]
The focus of this book is to conduct a historical survey of the theological understanding of spiritual warfare. Attention will primarily be given to the early church era (AD 100-400). The church fathers before the First Council of Nicaea (AD 325) are numerous and diverse. Interestingly, they almost all show some concern in addressing spiritual warfare issues among Christians and the church. The focus of the research is on the main characters, councils, and confessions that reflect and represent the general theological considerations of spiritual warfare. Their statements, observations, and practices are of great importance to help you in considering which spiritual warfare understandings and practices are authentically rooted in early church history.[11]
[1]James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, “Introducing Spiritual Warfare: A Survey of Key Issues and Debates,” in Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 1-2. There has been a “heightened interest in this subject in evangelical circles in the last decade or so. . . . almost an explosion of interest in this subject in the last ten years.” “Statement on Spiritual Warfare: A Working Group Report” in Deliver Us from Evil: An Uneasy Frontier in Christian Mission, ed. A.Scott Moreau (Monrovia, CA: World Vision International, 2002), vii; 310.
[2]The various attitudes towards spiritual warfare are summarized by the “Deliver Us from Evil” consultation committee: “In response to these issues churches have tended to fall into one of five categories. First are those that dismiss the idea of the spirit world with disdain. Second are those who are not just not aware of the world of the spirit to any degree and have not, therefore, developed any related disciplines. Next are those who are aware of the world of the spirit, pray, believe in the supernatural and have absorbed and gone along more or less with current changes of practice but have many questions and some discomfort and frustration about it all. Fourth are those who have accepted the views of their leaders or examined it for themselves and unquestioningly adopt the newest teachings and practices associated with spiritual warfare. Finally are those who always have had what they consider to be biblical views and prayer disciplines related to the spirit world and who dismiss the new approaches as unbiblical and therefore unacceptable.” Moreau, Deliver Us from Evil, viii.
[3]Exorcism practice seems “to diminish in the Middle Ages,” but is still referenced among the Germanic tribes, Norwegians, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, the Catholic Church’s 1614 Rituale Romanum (exorcism guidelines), and other sources. Tormod Engelsviken, “Historical Overview 3,” in Deliver Us from Evil (Nairobi, Kenya: Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 2000), accessed December 30, 2013, http://www.lausanne.org/all-documents/historical-overview-3.html.
[4]Moreau, Deliver Us from Evil, 117. Scott Moreau categorizes evangelical approaches to spiritual warfare into seven types of encounters. Four of these approaches closely parallel the structure of Christ’s command in Mark 12:30-31 to love the Lord our God with all of our heart (relational-encounter), soul (truth-encounter), mind (mind-encounter), and strength (power-encounter).
[5]Clinton E. Arnold, Three Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 25.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Oscar Skarsaune, “Possession and Exorcism in the Literature of the Ancient Church and the New Testament,” in Deliver Us from Evil Consultation (Nairobi: Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization 2000), accessed December 30, 2013, http://www.lausanne.org/all-documents/historical-overview-1.html.
[8]Arnold, Three Crucial Questions,112.
[9]Ibid.
[10]“Numerous other accounts and excerpts could be given from Christian leaders throughout the post-Nicene age, the Byzantine Empire, and from luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and the Puritans. . . . They all took the realm of the demonic seriously and believed that Christians could be profoundly influenced by evil spirits. Yet they were also thoroughly convinced that believers had authority in the Lord Jesus Christ to send these spirits packing. As Martin Luther said regarding the devil in his famous hymn, ‘one little word shall fell him.’ That word is Jesus.” Arnold, Three Crucial Questions, 112.
[11]In surveying the historical references to spiritual warfare, this historical research focused on discovering terms such as “Satan,” “devil,” “demons,” “exorcism,” “enemy,” and “evil.” The presence of such terms often revealed the location of writings that demonstrate the theology and practice of spiritual warfare during that period of history.