Spiritual Warfare? Prayer Warriors? Fighting the battle with evil? Believing that evil in some form is controlling their lives or our world, people engage in all kinds of battle tactics in the name of spiritual warfare. In this video, I explain why I find these concepts to be dangerous and based on false notions about life and spirituality.
The following is a text version of this blog.
Spiritual Warfare: Yes, it’s warfare. It’s a battle. Many people believe that spiritual warfare is real. They look for ‘prayer warriors” to participate in combat. While spiritual warfare is rooted in Judaism and Christianity, it’s also a prevalent concept among those who practice alternative spiritual paths. It’s dangerous and a falsehood.
The concept of spiritual warfare is based on the belief that there are supernatural forces beyond our control. There are forces for good and forces for evil. Good forces are associated with God, Jesus, Spirit, and angels. Evil forces, well, that’s the devil and the devil’s minions. It’s believed that these forces have control over us and affect our lives.
I understand that in a pre-enlightenment era, this kind of thinking made sense. Many aspects of life couldn’t be understood. For example, why did some people die in plagues and others didn’t? Today we know: viruses cause infections. Why do natural disasters happen? Today we know: certain areas are prone to tornadoes, hurricanes, and other storms. Why does someone win the lottery? Well, it’s not because God likes that person best or that their guardian angel picked the numbers, that’s for sure!
I don’t believe that there are supernatural forces that control our world. As much as people want to quote the 1960s comic, Flip Wilson, and his assertion that, “The devil made me do it!” life just doesn’t work that way.
There is good and evil in our world and our lives. But we don’t need supernatural forces to explain the good and evil in the world and the tragic things that happen. Most of us don’t question that good exists. We experience people treating others with compassion, love, and kindness. Good things happening in life make sense to us. But evil is a challenge for us to understand.
We don’t like to admit it, but just as people have the capacity for good, they also have the capacity for evil. Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, explained that each of us has a shadow self. While the shadow isn’t exactly evil, our shadow fails to live up to our best selves. The shadow is where we find feelings of being inferior. It’s a place of guilt and shame. Often based on guilt and shame, jealousy, rage, greed, and the desire to control others emerge in our lives. These and other aspects of the shadow are the foundation for evil in the world.
Evil isn’t just about one person’s actions. Social systems and movements can grow out of evil. Think for a moment about war. Perhaps the war in Ukraine, the war in Chad, or the ongoing political failure in Haiti. Isn’t that rooted in some people wanting power over others? Poverty and hunger are found around the world and in our communities. It’s not there’s a lack of food in the world. Instead, some people are greedy and want more than their share. We see increases in cancers, asthma, diabetes, and other diseases. So many of our health problems are related to a food industry built on overly processed food as well as the pollution of our environment. That’s selfishness and greed.
While I respect that people are free to believe anything they choose even when it makes little sense to me, the danger of spiritual warfare is that it prevents people from taking responsibility to make the world a better place. If evil in the world is the result of supernatural forces, then the only thing we can do is pray. But when we understand that the problem of evil in the world is of human origin, we need to take responsibility for bringing change that makes the world a better place for each and every person.
Oh, how I would love to abdicate responsibility. You are right, we do need to be responsible for those actions we commit, which adds to the situations we find ourselves in today. Not blame others or the “Devil” for our problems.
Doing more than just trying to use less plastic and traveling less in our car. Giving real support to those who are trying to effect change, be it political or social.
I remember an old expression “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” Well, I have to be honest and admit that I am not one of them. I don’t want to do the little things let alone the difficult ones. Hopefully, my conscience will continue to prod me on to make choices that are beneficial to the many and not just to me.
I understand the dilemma that unfolds when people interpret reality to be out of their control and the lack of accountability it permits people to perceive and act from. But there are aspects that influence mankind to make lesser choices and that comes from our vulnerability to our own selfishness. But I believe that its important to realize that the influences are a part of the reality and that they work through deception within us. To me its not the faces of good and evil that we are in battle with but the energy within the reality that we live within that is attributed during the lifetime for mankind to utilize and learn from and hopefully transmute to higher standards while we are living. Its the combination of that provides truth to me and I find it easier to navigate the difficulties as well as remain humble in accomplishment, not because I can use it to my advantage, but more for a stabilizer of the polarity we bounce between if we don’t have a framework of understanding. The diversity that exists as a natural state of creation, allows us to learn from all that we are not, that must be realized through removal of everything we identified ourselves through, until we are back to origin. This period of uncertainty and suffering will continue until there is no more room to hide from truth, and the choice to see clearly will cause the ripple that reverses the destruction. In this life, its hard to not fear what is in front of us, its our physical existence that makes us believe we are this life. But that is the only connection that holds truth to the experience we are having. if we could find the right perspective to understand from, we could realize that the external view will always appear beyond us, as if we will never measure up, and hopefully, you never convince yourself that you are equal or better than our external image, because it is the veil of deception for truth. Removing this veil of illusion and allows actual expansion and less conflict that ripple outward one individual at a time. There is not quick fix or blame or solution that will clean anything up. Its the individual realizing what is good and not good to the point that you aren’t choosing yourself or anything or anyone over another. Its when you find yourself free of the duality and there is no choice to make. You only have to be, because at some point you embodied your power. This can be viewed in many ways, but never should it be assumed that this will be easy or without conflict. And another persons interpretation can manifest differently, but inevitably it will all flow back together. The greatest delay we are facing is the distraction that we continue engaging in to avoid our vulnerability.
Amber, Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Lou