June 27, 2016 Show with Robert H. Bennett on “Demon Possession & Spiritual Warfare”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host.

Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Monday on this 27th day of June 2016.

Introducing the Topic of Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare

And I know that I always say at the beginning of every program that I'm excited about the program that I'm about to do but it is, I know, getting redundant that I'm saying this but I am very excited about this program because ever since I launched Iron Sharpens Iron in 2006, I have always wanted to conduct a program on demon possession and a lot of people that I know and a lot of people in the listening audience have asked me to do a program on it because being a Reformed Baptist and having most of my close associations in the church being very conservative theologically Reformed Christians who are outside of the Charismatic or Pentecostal movements and obviously not Roman Catholic either.

I was raised Roman Catholic but became a born-again believer in the 1980s and was saved by the providence of God in a theologically Reformed church. So I always wanted to do this program but coming from the perspective of someone who is not either Roman Catholic or from a more of a fringe group of Charismatics or Pentecostals because it seems that they are the only groups that talk about this.

Now obviously Roman Catholicism, the exorcisms that take place are very rare these days and I don't even know if you could call them legitimate and of course you have some Charismatic and Pentecostal churches that have them every single worship service.

In fact their own members often get exorcised of demons, or so they think, on a regular basis every week, maybe multiple times a week. So I wanted to get somebody from more of a traditional conservative theological background and he happens to be Lutheran, a Missouri Synod Lutheran, and I'm eagerly looking forward to this program today with Dr. Robert H. Bennett.

He is the executive director of the Luther Academy and adjunct professor of Missiology and International Missions Specialist at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is dedicated to illuminating the problems of American spirituality through the lens of biblical and confessional theology and we are discussing two of his books today, I Am Not Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare, and Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time, Dr. Robert H. Bennett. It's wonderful to be here with you today. And let me on air introduce you to my co-host, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Dr. Bennett, very good to meet you. And let me offer you our email address if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Robert H. Bennett. Our email address here is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com. And if you're writing us, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

Perhaps you know of someone that you believe is demon possessed or there's some other reason that you want to remain anonymous. In fact, obviously if you're asking about someone that you do know, we would insist that you remain anonymous because we don't want to identify somebody, especially if we were wrongly identifying somebody as being demon possessed on the air.

But we look forward to hearing from you and your questions. And before we even go into the subject at hand, Dr. Bennett, why don't you tell our listeners about Luther Academy and also about Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana?

Well, Luther Academy exists to provide theological funding and many provide their food of the intensive. Great. And Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne? Concordia Theological Seminary is a seminary.

We have a number of programs. Oh, great. And you are affiliated with the seminary in St. Louis? No, this is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The one would be in St. Louis. The other would be in Fort Wayne.

What I meant was that the seminary is affiliated in some way. Oh, yes, absolutely. Right. And I think Buzz had a question.

Well, yeah, I just wanted to repeat what you specifically teach.

I teach an area of missiology, specifically in the PH program, PhD program.

Well, I'm just thinking of our listeners, missiology.

The study of missions coming out of Christianity.

Yes, missiology is not the study of southern bells.

Yes, I was hoping that would be clarified. Thank you.

And tell our listeners also something about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I know that many folks within evangelical Christianity, when I mention a someone that I might be interviewing who is Lutheran, they very quickly jump to the wrong conclusion that this is somebody from ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and they immediately associate that with extreme liberalism, with being in favor of homosexuality, with having women in the pastorate and so on.

More things that we could even begin to mention.

But obviously the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is one of the more conservative, Bible-based and confessional denominations within Lutheranism.

We are. I think there's a couple of the smaller...

The Two Book Titles and the Question of Fear

Now, I have to right away ask you about the two titles that are contradictory. You have your first book, I Am Not Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare, and the second book is Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America.

Did you make a mistake the first time and then wind up being afraid? Why the two different titles?

I did not. The first book, however, these people who all these horrendous... Now it's a life, even though it's... Now they're able to...

Well, Dr. Bennett, this must be of great interest to our listeners, because I've already got a whole bunch of questions that have come in already. So let me go first to John in Justin, Texas. He writes,.

Demonic possession is held by many belief systems as a reality, but the degree of that reality and the many forms it takes on are varied. First of all, does your belief system acknowledge the reality of demonic possession?

And if so, do you believe that there is a universal spiritual solution that can eradicate all forms of demonic possession, irrespective of the origins or degree of its reality?

Well, a lot of these questions... Whenever I give any type of... Only one exorcist. He may use... But it's the one who can set us free from death. And so it's one of the things that I showed in the first book.

Yeah, in fact, that's why I opened up the way I did. I'm a Reformed Baptist, and you very rarely ever hear Calvinists speaking on the issue. Although I do want to... There are a couple of books, one by Banner of Truth, and Dr. Joel Beakey has written a book that involves Satan and demonic influence, but I'm not 100 sure they involve exorcism or demon possession.

But I will see if I could get to them on a future date to have those interviews. But before we even go into what you were just describing, I just want to go to one more listener question, because it's very relevant to start the program as well.

This is Jim in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Whenever non-Christians, especially here in America, hear about possessions and demons in any kind of news story, the first response is to blame superstition and or say they are faking it.

We can see how Satan works in the USA using subtlety and deception, which causes us Americans to dismiss anything involving demons as unscientific. But what about in places like Africa? I've heard that the occult and demonic possession is much more open in other countries, and you can see the spiritual warfare happening in black and white, rather than shades of gray as in the US.

Can you discuss why they are so different, and if I've heard wrong?

No, let's talk about other various forms of early animism and believe in demons. I'm not talking about the occult. And so this is possessed by those spirits that they think are their ancestors or other type of spirits.

They don't necessarily call them demonic. Indeed, no matter how you are reacting or demons, please possess me to maybe know to the dead, pretend to be these other various spirits. He always comes in the devil because he's afraid he can society.

Well, I already know that. I'm inviting you back on the show to discuss that third book next year.

Yes.

And well, you said that you wanted to go into the first book, the Genesis.

If you let me, I didn't finish answering your question on the titles. I never got to the second.

Oh, yeah, right, right. That's right.

The book Afraid was written really because we hadn't talked about this. I've got this problem. I couldn't relate people's problems because once again, many of these stories...

And so you were studying the Malagasy culture and weren't even expecting or intending to write a book on demonic possession or exorcism. And so tell us about more about how that whole developed. And also what seems to be some kind of an ignoring of this issue by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and obviously also a lot of the heirs of the Reformation, the other reformed branches of the Reformation today.

You don't hear a lot about this subject either. But if you could tell us about this in the first book, how this all came about.

Sure, as I went there to do my research on just the topic of conversion, one of the first... In Madagascar, because of this... Lutheran Church doesn't... They do an exorcism of place, which is really...

And the words be gone in the name of... To clear out any... No one actually responded of all the thousand sidelines. Actually, when she heard the words be gone in the name of Jesus, she started convulsing and screaming out.

And it was interesting because all the pastors and the lay people there, specifically on my webpage, Afraidbook... I think it's book .com. It could be books. And there's actually a video there. It's hard for us to understand because it's in Malagasy.

Words that are being spoken over and over. It was quite odd to me. At first, I thought it was somebody trying to... I was very critical as well.

I didn't...

I heard about the church. I found out this is actually a pretty common occurrence. And actually, people would never want to pretend in this sense to the animistic world. It's an unashamed culture. A big shame at that point to be one who's found to be possessed.

So that's how I walked into the topic. And I decided to do interviews of people who were new to the Jews. What I did is I had these forums. I'd do interviews all over the country. So all over the island.

And we came up with some very common themes. There's stories. The book is filled with individual stories. Focusing on before they were Christians. Part of that first book, I Am Not Afraid. But then after writing it, I was wondering, okay, well, what about our Lutheran church?

Because when I went to seminary, I know I asked the question about demonic possession, spiritual warfare, if you come upon them. So then what I did, I looked at...

Discernment Between Mental Illness and Demonic Possession

Great, well, I will pursue those questions. But I do want to get to some more of our listener questions as well. Tom in West Islip, Long Island, New York. This is likely a very common question asked. But what is done to discern between mentally ill-driven behavior and a true possession?

In addition, when viewing subject matter on this topic, it appears it is important for the demon to state its name. Is that true? And if so, why?

I know it's very impromptu in the research that I did. Madagascar, the woman who has the spirit, who is the medium. He simply says, be gone in the name of as Jesus is dealing with these demons and so forth.

And how Jesus deals with understanding of the name, it only really shows one thing and two more, is they make a point in these books that... Well, that was like the primary focus of the movie, The Exorcist, I believe.

Right, absolutely. And of course, that comes from real events out of a situation that's problematic, whatever we see as an individual.

And when we return from the break, we'll have you comment more on the discernment on mental illness versus genuine demonic possession, as our listener in West Islip had asked. And we're going to a break right now.

And by the way, I've got a surprise for all of you. All of you folks who have written in with questions, you're all getting a free copy of one of the two books that we are giving away today. So make sure that we have your full mailing addresses so we can mail you out these books, compliments of Concordia House Publishing.

And also, they're being shipped out to you, compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, cvbbs .com, Cumberland County Bible Book Service, who mail out all of our author books at no expense to Iron Sharpens Iron, and we thank them for that.

And I misspoke. It's Concordia Publishing House, not Concordia House Publishing. My apologies to Concordia Publishing House for inverting the name there. But we are going to be returning any moment now after this break.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnz. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Robert Bennett. Our ad went out of control there. Our guest today is Dr. Robert H. Bennett, and he is going to be on for both hours today discussing his two books, I Am Not Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare, and his more recent book, Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, that's C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. And Dr. Robert Bennett is dedicated to studying Malagasy culture and the evangelism methods employed by the Malagasy Lutheran Church.

He is Administrative Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church and School in Reese, Michigan, and Adjunct Professor of Missions at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And this topic has been something I've been longing to do for quite some time, although I've touched on it in other broadcasts.

I've never dedicated a full hour or full two hours just to the one subject of demon possession and exorcism. So I'm hoping you're being blessed by this as much as I am. And before the break, one of the questions that Tom in West Islip, Long Island, New York asked you was how to discern between that which is a mental phenomenon coming from mental illness of some kind and that which is truly demon possession.

Sure, and one thing just to clarify before we move forward, I think you read the information on the back of the first book. I'm no longer at Trinity Lutheran Church. Yeah, that's the way I introduced you the first time.

Right, right.

I appreciate that.

Back to the topic of mental illness, a big topic. We'll talk about it for a while and you can continue to get out on the table. Think about exorcism should be because here today, it doesn't mean society continues more and more spiritual by the devil.

We need to be very cautious when seeking those who are in a weakened position. So I think we can establish that many times not, but many times we can. And God has provided means there.

Oh, yeah.

I want you, by the way, Dr. Bennett, I want you when you answer questions to just be as thorough as you feel led to be. You don't have to think that you have to be enslaved to some kind of formula on my end.

I want you to answer to the fullest expression that you care to.

Absolutely. So going to mental illness, I do teach in the... One thing I carry outward, some of the more extraordinary, some of the more common, but most of the time it seems to be in that category of torment where you have this person to go wrong.

And the brain is going to be using brain for that person. There is any evil that you're causing any problems and the circumstance. We take access of down to it with the understanding that in it. So that answers the question.

Why Conservative Churches Avoid the Demonic Realm

Yeah, and I do still want to go to the departure from the discussion of demon possession and things like that, that took place not only in Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, perhaps Lutheranism in general, but the other branches of the Reformation whose heirs rarely discussed this.

So I do want to get back to that, but we have so many listener questions. I do want to at least get one more, especially since this one is a colleague in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod ministry of yours.

I'm not saying that he knows you personally, but he is an ordained Lutheran Missouri Synod pastor. Uh, when I was, oh, this is a pastor, David Anglin of the St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Amityville, Long Island, New York.

When I was attending Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in the late 1970s, there was a lively oral tradition that the seminary had been heavily involved in the original case on which the exorcist was based.

Basically the contention was that the seminary, like the family's pastor in suburban DC, had failed in driving out the demon. So the Jesuits were called in and succeeded. However, in none of the books, documentaries, and websites devoted to the case in Concordia St. Louis, in none of the books, documentaries, and websites devoted to the case is Concordia St. Louis ever mentioned.

Does Dr. Bennett have any information on involvement of Concordia St. Louis in the original case from the 1940s, I believe. Blessings be with you, cordially, Pastor David Anglin, Amityville, New York.

I do actually. There was a book and it was written on a PDF. I'm not in the distribution business. I don't have any rights to be distributing for it. But there was a book that tried to deal with this issue once again.

And he actually does name some names and give... However, the book actually wasn't a very good source on the rest of the topic because the seminary student who tried to do this, he really didn't look deep enough.

Okay, well, we were trying to eventually get to your thoughts on why the Lutheran Church and obviously other more conservative, traditional, reserved types of churches have really... It seems that they have become embarrassed, disinterested, or perhaps even frightened.

I don't know.

But to delve into the area of the demonic realm, demonic possession, exorcism, why do you think that this occurred? Especially, obviously, your main experience is with the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

So if you could explain that.

Sure.

Even Fundamentalist Baptists and other groups like that.

Sure. Well, you know, it's interesting. In my research here, during his time, he identified three problems or causes. Seminaries. And I want more of an academic to talk about society today. And just think of how rarely now people are expressing their own religions, believed as.

So I think that's one of the major reasons that we have lost this point, was that it became very difficult. He says this, Evil cannot be seen by evil just as...

Yeah.

Thank you for answering that question.

But, you know, I think he's right on all these points. Within our churches, it just became, as rationalism followed it back to where we lost it. You know, at the very beginning, likewise in Fort Wayne, it was actually a part of the pastor.

He actually wrote, talked about it as being a thing that still happened. And I know you guys here have a hard time understanding that, but it's still a reality. And then from there, it disappeared. It no longer exists.

Now, do you think some of this, there is a fear, I know, at least amongst Calvinists. Calvinists, my fellow Calvinists, so I want my listeners to be clear. I'm not insulting anybody that is not from a background that I also possess.

Calvinists have a dreaded fear of guilt by association. And they, you know, sometimes people may even start to get help heart palpitations and grow faint if somebody is raising their hands in the congregation, because they don't want to be associated with the charismatic movement or the Pentecostal movement.

And then, of course, you also have those that don't want to be associated with the superstitions of Rome. Now, do you think that has something to do with the more conservative Protestant groups wanting to just totally leave this on a back shelf somewhere?

Because they just don't want to be associated with things that appear to be superstitious, anti-intellectual, and filled with charlatanry.

And I think you touched right on exactly where we're at right now. I was giving you the, but I think you described very well. And of course, following one of these, you deal too much with this because of that very reason that you put forth.

However, I must say that from their local pastors and because of some of what they told them, or when we turn this subject over to the more fringe theologies and no longer speak on the subject, now we're not the flock that God puts before us.

You can't deny these topics, find these stories if you go back. What we've done is we've turned this over because of that fear that's driving there.

You know, I think we've got to strike up a little bit of balance here because, well, I'll give you an example. And I think the word that we're not using here is, and I think believers should not think of this stuff as being spooky, you know, in that regard.

I'm not sure, why not?

Well, because we are believers and we understand the nature. Well, I want to get more into the biblical text later on, but my point is this, you know, there are those who won't want to have anything to do with it because they feel it's spooky, something.

I just don't want to be anything around the other.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

The other is, well, unfortunately, we had an interview on a local Christian station where some ladies were exorcists.

This was not my program.

No, no, no.

This was Radio Waves. But they were talking very light about it, like, well, you know, everybody has back problems and, you know, some people regularly go to a chiropractor and, you know, sometimes we have demon problems, too, and so, you know, you should go to your exorcist on a regular basis and get, you know, de-demonized or whatever.

You know, that's such a cavalier attitude towards it.

Well, if it's something that's, like, saturating their typical worship experience, like with the deliverance ministries, you can understand that. But if you want to comment on that, Dr. Bennett?

Sure, and I'll go back to the quote I used earlier. That's one amongst many aspects.

If it was right, it was me.

Okay. This becomes your primary theology, or it becomes that which you're—. Hold off on it. You can ask me some questions. And an exorcism combined more than it is. And there he is. What we call the exorcist.

Thank you for sharing that.

And, Buzz, if you have a question, you could ask him when we come back from the break, because we've got to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And we do already have still quite a number of people anxiously and patiently— I guess that's a contradiction in terms— patiently waiting to have their questions—.

We hope patiently, anyway.

Well, nobody's calling me up and yelling at me or anything, so. They're patiently waiting to have their questions asked and answered. We will get to you, God willing, one by one before the two hours is up.

And if we don't, we'll have to have our guest Dr. Bennett back to discuss this subject again. But we'll be right back after these words from our sponsors, so don't go away. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year-round Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the Jersey Shore.

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Spiritual Warfare, Authority, and the Believer's Response

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, we have already had, for one hour, a fascinating conversation today with Dr. Robert Bennett, who is the author of two books that are our topics today.

One is, I Am Not Afraid, and the one is Afraid. And this is all about the demon realm, demonic possession, and it has truly been a fascinating subject, and we are going to continue that for the next hour to come.

We would probably never run out of steam, even if we did this for eight, ten hours more, but we are allotted two hours today, so that's what we're going to deal with. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Bennett, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Before I go to another listener question, Reverend Buzz, did you have a question?

Well, actually, I do want to spend more time yielding to the listener questions, if there's that many waiting out there, because I want to make sure their questions are answered, but I just wanted to specify a little bit more about what I was referring to when I said spooky.

I think we have a tendency, because maybe it's the unfamiliarity with these things, that we tend to be freaked out by it, and you know, I remember, I like what you said, Dr. Bennett, about, you know, there can be oppression without not necessarily possession, because, you know, I've even, like, we lost a child years ago, and back in, this is back in actually 1987, and there were some weird things happening around our house at that time, and weird things like, you know, a faucet coming on when nobody was in the bathroom, and kind of stuff, and I like the way my wife dealt with that.

She just kind of looked at it like, is that it? And she went and turned it off, you know. It's not something that we have to be scared of, because in Christ we have authority. Now, of course, Buzz leaves the.

Water running every time he uses the bathroom here in the studio. Now, Chris is going to be.

Telling all these secrets now, but anyway, could you explain a little bit about, well, first of all, I'd like to hear a little bit more about our authority as believers. I understand what you said at the beginning, that it's really Christ who's doing the exorcism, but yet, as his ambassadors, as his spokesmen in this world, he does use us.

So, as we submit to his authority, we do exercise some degree of authority here on earth, and I would also like to hear a little bit more about some of the biblical texts dealing with this subject, because I'm sure they're of concern to a.

Number of listeners also. Sure. As far as the spookiness goes, and sometimes these things are pretty spooky, maybe the water being left on the hill for us, but some people, the second book has a number of problems, that the devil is very authority, and a little bit, rather than an authority, recognizing who we are, that we are those who Christ has called.

They don't need to fear these things, because they are in Jesus. And so they can go to the devil, and one of my favorite Luther quotes of all time, dealing with this particular thing, at the point of death, so look what you've done to the church, your district church, you're a sinner, look at all these horrible sins that you've done, and should be baptized, and I think that's who I am, or as a result of that, anything you have...

Yeah, I want to pick up after I read a listener.

Question about the spookiness aspect as well, but we have a listener who actually was a guest of mine perhaps eight months ago, I'm not sure exactly how long ago it was, but by the way, folks, for those of you who don't know, Iron Sharpens Iron is now, this month, celebrating its first anniversary on the air, as far as our relaunching from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, we started in 2006, but as far as here in Pennsylvania, June of 2015 was the relaunch date after a four-year absence from the airwaves when we left New York, so just wanted to let you folks know that, and we thank God that you are out there listening and helping us celebrate this first year anniversary just by letting us know that you love the program and that you're submitting questions regularly, and we thank God for that.