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33 Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti Robert A. Guelich

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33 Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti Robert A. Guelich 33 Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti Robert A. Guelich* ' There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist and a magician with the same delight.1 The interest in "spiritual warfare" has grown to the point of headlines in local newspapers and provided the stuff for best selling novels. A spate of literature in recent years has addressed the topic from defining its reality to discussing its strategy. Doubtless the increased interest in Christian circles corresponds to the rise in the occult in general and Satanism in particular in the culture of the USA, phenomena that have been a way of life for numerous other cultures. The move from Enlight- enment rationalism with its developed antipathy for anything hinting of the supernatural to a reasoned acceptance even in academic circles of the "para-phenomena" that lie beyond our rationalistic, naturalistic assump- tions has definitely changed the popular climate for such a discussion. Add to the cultural and intellectual shift the latest interest in "spirituality" of various forms and one has the critical religious factor contributing to the rise in interest. Consequently, the prevailing error of "disbelief' of a previous generation is in danger of giving way to the error of "belief." Who, however, is in such danger-"we" or "they?" The image of spiritual warfare has a long and rich history in the life of the Church. Its roots lie in the New Testament. Constantine made it into a political agenda. The Crusades made it into a holy war against the infi- dels. Martin Luther gave it a classic Reformation expression in his "A Mighty Fortress is our God." The motif echoes in the hymnody of the intervening years and reverberates in the Gospel songs like "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus." Today issues of spiritual warfare have become the concern not only of Christians in general but especially of those engaged in evangelism, church growth, and missiology.2 *Dr. Robert A. Guelich is Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theo- logical Seminary, Pasadena, CA 91182. IC. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1962) 3. This arti- cle was written with a stipend from the Wallestad Foundation of Edina, Minnesota. 2See the articles, for example, in Wrestling with the Dark Angels: Towards A Deeper Understanding of the Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare, ed. C. P. Wagner & F. D. Pennoyer (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1990), a collection of papers and responses from the Academic Symposium on Power Evangelism hosted by Fuller Seminary School of World Mission, December 13-15, 1988. Seven months later at 34 What began as a metaphor for the Christian life has become a move- ment whose expression is found above all in Frank Peretti's novel, This Present Darkness, first published in 1986 by Crossway Books of Westchester, Illinois. In many ways, though a novel, this book captures the popular understanding of the character of contemporary spiritual warfare. The extensive spread of this movement finds its best attestation in the book's sale of over one and a half million copies as well as in the immediate success of the sequel, Piercing the Darkness. Consequently, it offers an appropriate case study by which to examine and compare the teaching found in this spiritual warfare "movement" that has spread across denominational and theological boundaries. What are we to make of this shift from a metaphor to a movement? Is it a biblically based shift that calls us back to a newly perceived biblical mandate for personal and global evangelism? Does it offer new insight . into the biblical revelation about the nature of our world and our mis- sion ? Is it a recovery of a lost heritage, a rediscovery of the reality of Satan and his hosts? How does it compare with Jesus' message of the . Gospels and the teaching of the Pauline corpus? Is it a rediscovery of the biblical witness to Christ and the believer's mission by avoiding C. S. Lewis' first error that de facto has marked the life of much of the con- temporary Church and many believers, or is it a distortion of that wit- ness by falling into the second error of an excessive and unhealthy, indeed, unbiblical interest in the "devils?" The purpose of this article is to pursue these questions in an attempt to discern ultimately how biblically rooted are the concerns and strategies of the spiritual warfare "movement." Most would anchor the language and tactics of spiritual warfare in the Gospels and Pauline corpus. Con- sequently, we shall look at the ministry of Jesus as found in the Gos- pels, the teachings of Paul in the Pauline corpus, and the "teaching" of Peretti in his novel. Then, based on this analysis, we shall conclude by drawing several comparisons between "Peretti" as a representative of those for whom spiritual warfare has become more than a metaphor for the Christian life and our findings from the Gospels and the Pauline corpus. 1. Jesus The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke3 make clear that the "King- dom of God" lies at the very core of Jesus' gospel.4 Therefore, the Lausanne II Congress on World Evangelism, one of the highest attended of the numerous workshops was the one on Spiritual Warfare. 3The Gospel of John, which has two references to the Kingdom (3:3,6), uses "life" as the Leitmotif. 4E.g. Matt 4:17; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:43. Consequently, one can legitimately refer to Jesus' ministry as that of "Kingdom evangelism." Cf., for example, J. Wimber, "Kingdom Evangelism," (pamphlet, Ann Arbor, MI, Vine, 1989) and .
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