Over the past year, I've been visiting with pastors and asking, "Have you ever encountered anything in your ministry that you would consider spiritual warfare?"

While the answers weren't unanimous, the clear majority responded in a very similar way. At first there was silence. Then the pastor would look at me as if sizing me up, then look down, then look me in the eye and slowly respond: "Let me tell you a story, and I hope you don't think I'm a wacko."

The pastors I talked to—Baptist and Methodist and Anglican and Anabaptist and non-denominational, liturgical and free-form, contemporary and traditional—each shared a story that included elements of the supernatural.

For more than half of those I talked to, this included confrontations with demons, usually speaking through the mouth of a person who had been tormented for some time, who had sought relief in therapy, in medication, and in support groups, but without success. But deliverance came ...