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Has the naturalistic worldview that permeates our culture impaired our perception of spiritual reality and hindered our ability to minister to people who are deeply afflicted?

Clinton E. Arnold is chairman of the department of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and author of Three Crucial Questions on Spiritual Warfare.

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Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due.

Exorcism Therapy | An interview with Michael W. Cuneo, author of American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

Alter Possession | Some "demons" are better left unexorcised.

Pandora's Box of SRA | Satanic ritual abuse is often hard to prove, but it may not matter.

Learning English From MTV | Inside Agnieszka Tennant's article on deliverance ministries.

Arnold wrote a paper on "The Christian and Demonic Influence" for the Northwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in March 2001. Other papers presented at the meeting were the Christian Research Institute's Elliot Miller on "Deliver Us from Deliverance Ministry" and Western Seminary's Gerry Breshears on "Basic Principles for Dealing with the Demonic."

Talbot School of Theology has a brief bio on Clinton E. Arnold.

Arnold's books include Three Crucial Questions on Spiritual Warfare, Power and Magic, andPowers of Darkness.

ReligiousTolerance.org focuses on what the Bible says about exorcism and the variety of Christian beliefs on the topic.

The Text This Week offers links to historical and contemporary commentaries, sermons, notes, study guides, and other resources based on Mark's and Luke's accounts of the Gerasene demonaic (Matthew's, apparently, is not part of any denominational lectionary). Ranging from Thomas Aquinas's collection of early church commentaries to a Sojourners magazine article on the relevance of the story for addicts, the collection of links here is impressive.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also defines exorcism and examines its Biblical origins.

The Lausanne Movement's August 2000 Deliver Us From Evil consultation, held in Nairobi, discussed many issues related to spiritual warfare, and included several analyses of spiritual warfare in the Bible.

Into His Own: Perspectives on the World of Jesus, a project by Rutgers University's Mahlon H. Smith, offers comparative texts on demon possession from the ancient world.

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September 3 2001, Vol. 45, No. 11