They Asked Me if I Believed in Demons
The class was talking about demons. I don’t attend an evangelical school, and plenty of teachers and students are quite proud of their “post-Christian” views, but my classmates were not ashamed to admit their paranormal fears.
At least two students mentioned personal experiences with some sort of “dark feelings” they experienced when visiting places where violence had happened. Our professor said that he couldn’t think of another explanation for the Holocaust other than something demonic. Neither could anyone else. I was astonished that not a single person said that they didn’t believe in demons (or something similar), at all.
But what about me? The conversation was interrupted before I could answer.
Last week, something terrible happened in my hometown. A man went to a party and was attacked by a few men. A broken beer bottle was stabbed into his back, he was punched repeatedly, and then he was thrown into a burning barrel while his attackers laughed and watched him burn. At last, some party-goers intervened and he managed to escape with his life – barely.
And, they did this to him because he is gay.
The men have been arrested, and I hope the law finds them very guilty. I’ve known people like this all of my life; they know they are strong, and they find weaker people to brutalize. It makes me feel like nothing is right in our world when these things happen.
An old friend of mine said that he hopes these guys get murdered in prison. Normally, I would protest that sort of hatred – we should love our enemies, right? – but, not this time. To my own horror, I agreed. I can’t force myself to forgive these sorts of people, and that means that I’m not as enlightened and loving as I pretend to be. And that makes me even more upset about this whole thing. Meanwhile, back home, a man is looking out his window and hoping that no one is coming to kill him.
Do I believe in demons? Do I think that there’s something in this world that is working against us, to try and hurt us?
I most certainly do.
Related Posts
About The Author
Great post, Adam.
Demons or no, every heart is capable and willing to be evil. God made that clear over and over in His Truth. Just takes giving in to small stuff at the start. Grabs you and builds. Most though avoid going farther than “the norm”–questionable choices that politicians love to argue over.
We must forgive them for their acts but I do not believe we are to be fools in the matter and forget. We cannot have anger in our hearts which is impossible in our broken state but when convicted we can correct it through prayer and focusing on our Lord.
Even murderers and persons with hate in their heart can be redeemed. God has a view of things we cannot comprehend; far higher than our own.
The party incident brings back the shade of Edmund Burke: “For evil to triumph, good men must simply do nothing.”
I cannot bring myself to wish death upon these men in prison. I do wish that enough bad happens to them in turn that they feel an understanding of what it’s like to be on the other side of the equation. God’s redemptive love can reach even into a prison, in the end.
It strikes me as awfully imbalanced that Hollywood (and, following blindly, our culture) is so quick to believe in demonology and paranormal activity, but so slow to balance the picture with God’s love, his holy wrath against such terrors, and his angelic and comforting presence.
Instead, men and women themselves are elevated as the winner in such conflicts. There is a legitimate aspect to humanism, but that is not it.
It is good that you believe their redemption. I will come around, eventually, it’s just too difficult, at the moment.
You’re right about Hollywood and their flawed understanding of metaphysics. However, you might consider the film 1408. It’s based on a Stephen King story (that I’ve never read), and it says something interesting about the existence of paranormal evil and what that means for the existence of The Good. King obviously would disagree with me on the nature of that Good, but he’s quite smart about these things from a philosophical point of view.
I think blaming stuff like that on demons the easy way out. Easier at least than admitting to oneself that normal people are capable of doing such things. Because, if normal people can do this, does that mean I could act like that, too? Given the right (or wrong) circumstances?