Deliverance ministry – by which we take to mean the freeing of human beings from subjection of some sort to the forces of evil, however one may choose to define them – has been part of the church's ministry since its inception. Despite being a legitimate aspect of the healing ministry of the Body of Christ, it tends to be shrouded in mystery, superstition and misunderstanding.
There are many reasons for this. Some lie in its origins within the Catholic Church. Hundreds of years ago, a family who approached the church for such help could find themselves facing fearful reprisals from the local community. For centuries, the church considered it best practice to hide away all records of this ministry for the sake of the suffering. It was an approach which worked well until the advent of the 20th century.
As the contemporary age dawned, the church's other activities – particularly such areas as its ministry to children – came under public scrutiny as never before. Church congregations and the communities they belonged to began to demand transparency and accountability in all of the church's activities. Changes in the law, particularly around the treatment of vulnerable adults, meant that deliverance ministry was unwittingly being drawn out of the darkness and into the cold, hard light of public scrutiny.
At the same time, an enormous rise in interest in the paranormal and its scientific study led to calls for such phenomena as deliverance ministry to be properly recorded and researched. And as the 20th gave way to the 21st century, there were ever-increasing pressures to make clergy accountable for their actions, especially when dealing with vulnerable groups. The age of the church remaining silent on such matters seemed to be at an end.
The protestant Free Church had additional dilemmas to deal with. Deliverance ministry was the preserve of the Catholics for a long time and did not make the leap through the Reformation entirely unscathed. In the UK, the Anglican Church continued to meet this ministerial duty alongside its Catholic brethren, but the Free Church denominations fractured into many different views on the subject. Some have no theology of the demonic and therefore no deliverance ministry to offer. Others seem to have an overly eager desire to jump into this area. But as the nets of legality and liability tighten, each needs to consider its response to the issue before a tragic case lands on the desk of its safeguarding officers. Our Anglican friends have learnt this lesson the hard way.
The Baptist Deliverance Study Group (BDSG) was set up in 2017 to help Baptist ministers navigate their way through the dual demands of our call to ministers to souls and our society's demands for accountability and transparency. Since its inception, it has helped many church leaders with advice, training and support.
There are two dangers we wish to avoid in our provision of deliverance ministry. We need to avoid complacency and continuing to advocate that each minister just do what he or she thinks is right, hopefully guided by the Spirit, and hope for the best. But on the other hand, we need to avoid getting so tied up in the things of the world – the legal and liability issues – that we are paralysed with fear and withdraw deliverance ministry from our congregations. We have a sacred duty to help those who suffer. The BDSG was set up with the vision of being a resource which helps Baptist ministers navigate the complex demands of this ministry and the legal implications so that we have a safe and positive outcome.
Deliverance ministry will ultimately, inevitably, take the minister into a preternatural world where it is all too easy to feel overwhelmed. We have to accept that we cannot hope to analyse and understand everything that exists in the universe. The Word tells us that our powers of reason are not sufficient for this task, and we cannot allow our rational, scientific, Western mind-set to trick us into thinking that we can fathom all things. We may like to defer to our Catholic friends here and accept that there are indeed mysteries in the universe.
On the other hand, we do not need to lock our powers of logic away altogether. As with so much in the spiritual life, balance is the key. We should be confident in walking a line between these extremes. We can take seriously the need to care and comply with the demands made on us by society for openness and circumspection, but also take seriously the mysteries of our calling which we cannot hope to explain adequately to a post-Christendom society.
Rev Jane Irlam is co-minister of Church Without Walls, a Fresh Expression of church in Manchester, and works in forensic medicine for Greater Manchester Police. She is happy to be contacted about deliverance ministry at irlamjayne@gmail.com
