21 September 2023
First, let's remind ourselves about the meaning of that word "demons". Common English usage of the word is deeply mistaken, based on Anglo-Saxon pagan mythology. It's part of the reason I tend to avoid the word, because too many people are likely to load the term with false baggage.
The word "demon" is the Anglicized spelling of a Greek word that meant something really quite different. In Greek, it refers to a spirit being that may or may not be evil. The term itself is inherently ambiguous, indicating a spirit being able to drive human behavior for good or ill. The term could accurately apply to the Holy Spirit. And this Greek word is itself a translation choice for a Hebrew term in the Bible. The Hebrew term typically refers to some kind of elohim level of being (not Jehovah), but with the same moral ambiguity as the Greek word.
In the Bible, "demon" does not refer only to evil beings. Sometimes they might be good guys. And the word does not specifically refer to creatures of the angelic class. Angels are rather specific in purpose, mostly as messengers of higher powers. Their message may include miraculous actions, sometimes to bless and sometimes to destroy. This is all consistent with how ancient sheikhs used their messengers. King David, for example, kept a cadre of bodyguard and another corps of messengers. Both were soldiers -- full-time military men -- with special authority to enforce the king's wishes. That's a fair image of what angels do for God.
Thus, the word "demon" is a broad category of beings who often inhabit humans, rather like the Holy Spirit does, but for various other purposes. The whole point of the word is not to transmit a moral judgment, but to indicate how they operate. It's a role, not a specific identity. Thus, in the narrative of the Gadarene Demoniac, there is a whole herd of "demons" who aren't doing him any good. The choice of the label "demons" refers to how they held such power in his soul, not that they were always inherently bad. The moral judgment is in the results, not the ontology (the nature of the beings).
The bigger issue at work here is that this man didn't belong to Jehovah, so his life was forfeit to whomever on the divine council wanted to use him. Since it wasn't the Holy Spirit of Jehovah, you would naturally expect it to turn out bad. The divine council of elohim all have some powers quite similar to those we see Jehovah exercising. If His Spirit can inhabit multiple thousands of people, we should not be surprised if the elohim do the same with their human lackeys.
Thus, a man infested with "demons" might have the chaotic presence of multiple elohim spirits who were up to no good. We need to ditch the idea that it was only Satan and his fallen angels; that's a false mythology. Otherwise, we will never really understand how it all works. The whole point of divine revelation is to give us a functional clue to operations, not to explain the ontology. God wants us to know what we can do about the various situations. In the Hebrew mind, that was the whole point -- what does God require of you? It is entirely natural in their minds that your Master tells you only what you need to know to carry out his will. That's part of what defines a "sheikh" in their thinking.
This points back to that false notion of equality and fairness. You aren't God; you have no "rights" to claim that would limit His authority. He owes you no explanations on anything, and often flatly denies us that kind of knowledge. But by His own nature, He promises we will always know what He requires of us. There are no head games on that point.
What can we do with this today? There's been a lot of noise lately about the film, Sound of Freedom. That's the movie about child sex trafficking and the people trying to rescue the children from that slavery. One report mentions that the executive producer of the film, who was working in those rescue efforts some years ago, was caught on camera sexually fondling one of the girls he was supposed to be rescuing. This man is a noteworthy activist in anti-trafficking, so it turns everything upside down.
You would expect the shallow reaction that suddenly tries to tear this man apart. Some of the same people who previously revered him will now treat him like a leper. But if you've been around church clergy, you'll also expect them to sagely explain that this man was on the front lines of a spiritual battle, so we should hardly be surprised that he was "tempted by Satan's demons" in order to discredit his work.
This kind of thinking seems borne out by testimonies from all sorts of people working in various mission fields that directly confront human evil, such as clergy, police and various activists. The conventional explanation is that people should go into such work expecting a very high level of temptation. "You must be doing it right, because the Devil is hitting you so hard!"
Maybe, but I reject the popular mythology in which such talk is cast. I'm not troubled by the image of raiding the Devil's fortress. The problem is that the raiders aren't properly protected. The persistent American evangelical mythology is not going to get you ready. I've been involved in some stuff like this (not child trafficking rescues, but fighting other kinds of evil) it's a very consistent thing: It's all about the human professionalism (strategy, tactics and training), with Jesus painted on as a last minute addition. The whole thing would be very much the same experience if no one had bothered to stop at the last minute and pray like a bunch of Neo-pentecostals, claiming authority and "binding demons". All it did was make everyone feel better, more enthused; nobody binds the elohim.
In other words, the whole thing remains very much a human effort with an attempt to drag God along. It would have gone down the same without the moment of prayer.
The flaw here is not the desire to rescue kids from egregious sexual abuse. The flaw is that the effort remains under the authority of "demons" -- the opposition in God's divine council. There is no genuine Covenant covering for these rescue operations. We have another case of Achan grabbing some plunder that belongs to God, so it takes away the divine protection for the battle (Joshua 7). These people presume that God is with them, but He's not.
Do you recall Jehosephat's army, marching to battle with the choir out front? How about Moses keeping his arms in the air during the battle? And how about Gideon with his mere 300 troops against the whole army of Midian? It's not that God never works through conventional means, but that they do not confine Him. A clear sign of God's involvement is that, at least part of the time, conventional means go out the window, and He does something magnificent for His own glory, something totally out of the ordinary.
Why do so many people act as if God no longer works that way? It's because they have forgotten the Covenant. It's no longer central; it's not even discussed. Without a specific deference for the Covenant, those child rescuers are working without clear divine authority. Their covering is, at best, only partial and very thin. Much of what they do exposes them to the invasive touch of "demons" that don't support God's agenda.
Do you realize that the victims are no longer innocent children? Those kids are infested with evil spirits, and may often be interested only in their own hedonistic comforts. Wouldn't you expect them to have learned manipulative behavior? Knowing this adds a whole new dimension to the endeavor. How often have rescuers of any sort been faced with hostile "victims", where the victims are as much of a threat as the pimps running them? It requires a very strong resolve to handle that.
You don't do that work for the victims. You do it for the glory of God. The mythology of victim innocence, just because they are kids, can really ruin the outcomes. They got into that situation because they weren't under any covenant, either. Stop worshiping the victims.
What happens when we start off with a different set of assumptions about reality? I'm quite sure the whole effort would be organized quite differently. To be honest, I suspect it would be more violent, hunting down and eliminating the traffickers and their customers. It's not crime, but a form of warfare. Even then, you would get involved in that only because it involved your own community's children. The Bible makes it clear that you have no duty to the children of foreigners.
Children are precious, but only if they are your children. You cannot give proper parental love and covering to children you cannot parent.
You can adopt them under certain circumstances, even as a community covenant adoption, but one of the worst lies of Anglo-Saxon mythology is that the mere existence of a human life gives you a kind of ownership interest in them. This is where the intrusive Nanny State comes from, the idea that your government owns your economic output. There is this overwhelming background assumption that the government -- or if you prefer, "society" -- has a claim on your existence merely because you live within the jurisdictional boundaries.
It's no longer a question of avoiding harm, but there is a presumption of duty to conform to whatever society/government thinks is in its own best interest. You are a wholly owned subsidiary, and you are not permitted to hold motives and interests that don't line up with the prevailing orthodoxy of the day. Even if we understand there are competing orthodoxies, it's the underlying structure of society itself that is so deeply flawed. This is what's behind the rescuers and their work, and it doesn't come from Scripture.
Thus, I'll go so far as to say that the rescuers are not doing God's work at all. They are simply acting out the assumptions of American mythology and trying to drag God into it. Thus, it's a wonder they aren't getting entangled in even worse hypocrisy. The Lord is not protecting them at all; He is merely restraining His wrath on His wayward children. That's assuming that only some portion of the rescuers are actually His Elect. They are certain not a covenant community.
I wonder what we would say about this kind of work if we could follow the children in their lives after rescue from sex trafficking. I've done some follow-up for some of the work I did sponsored by the US government helping victims of other kinds of crime. It's not just the trauma that marks those victims; some of them were victims because of deep moral flaws that already compromised their situation. Without escaping those moral flaws, it was frankly wasted effort. And as long as it was government-sponsored activity, moral flaws were not a concern at all. Do the mission and drive on; forget the victims. The real issue was how crime interfered with government prerogatives, and I knew it. My superiors often flatly said so.
I am aware of a number of operations structured to help the child victims of trafficking. So far, not a one of them is actually under the Covenant. Yes, they are often distinctly religious organizations, but their methods and structure are not according to the Covenant. They must answer to all kinds of secular government regulation. I'll let you guess how that works out. I'll tell you that, by far, the most effective ones are not working with group rescues, but individual rescues in a very private setting that avoids government interference.
Basic principle: If any human government is involved in any endeavor, the whole thing is controlled by demons. There will be a thousand deceptions that make people think they are doing good, but the elohim will gladly do anything to keep people away from God's agenda.
The question is not whether the children are suffering evil. The question is: What does God want us to do about it? What will He empower for His glory? Don't presume the answer is obvious simply because human answers already exist.
Comments
Linda
This was one heavy read. I learned quite a bit about "demons" that I had no knowledge of prior. Thanks for the lesson. I am still a bit unclear about the elohim or divine council; perhaps you could teach about that sometime or provide some Biblical references for a study?
Catacomb Resident
That was the business of the books by Dr. Michael S. Heiser mentioned here over the past month or so. Granted, his explanations are laborious, so I guess I can review it for you in a later post.
This document is public domain; spread the message.