Abstract
In the 1970–90s, evangelicalism was rife with discussions over spiritual conflict. Much ink was spilled over the appropriateness of approaches that ranged from truth versus power encounter, power healing and evangelism, strategic level spiritual warfare and so on. The debate was wide, implicating theologians (e.g. Clinton Arnold, C. Fred Dickason, Robert Guelich and Sydney Page), missiologists (e.g. Charles Kraft, Paul Hiebert, Scott Moreau, Peter Wagner and Robert Priest) and counsellors (e.g. M. Scott Peck, Neil Anderson and David Powlison). As the dust seemed to settle towards the end of the 1990s, the subject gained traction again in recent years. Besides Graham Twelftree’s In the Name of Jesus (2007), Amanda Porterfield’s Healing in the History of Christianity (2009) and Andrew Daunton-Fear’s Healing in the Early Church (2009), recent treatments have been deeper in their historical, theological and phenomenological assessments. To this, we can now add Collins’ contribution.
Originally a doctoral thesis, the book’s preface indicates that it intends to improve ‘the depth of Christian reflection on the practice of exorcism and deliverance ministry and associated subjects such as sanctification and pastoral care’. It is not a study of the various approaches to spiritual conflict, does not examine broader theological and ecclesial trends that affected the thought and foundations of deliverance ministry (p. 3), but aims to analyse the characteristics of deliverance ministry during the last century in Western Christianity.
In the introductory chapter, Collins’ thesis is that ‘whenever the practice of exorcism deliverance grows in popularity, it invariably does so within those forms of Christianity that might accurately be labeled “Enthusiastic”’ (p. 1). On this, he deploys R.A. Knox’s characteristics of enthusiasm to study these ministries. Collins shows that even though charismatic and dispensational streams of Christianity may at first glance seem at odds with one another for most of the last century, tendencies of enthusiasm such as ‘immanent spirituality, anti-rationalism, imminent eschatology’ and focus on the experiential/testimonial aspects that motivated such ministries and discourses were held in common between the two in the area of spiritual warfare (p. 2). In the rest of the book, Collins surveys deliverance ministries in the late 19th century (chapter 2), charismatic deliverance (chapter 3), evangelical fundamentalist deliverance (chapter 4), enthusiastic sacramental exorcism (chapter 5) and late century trends (chapter 6). Towards the end, Collins suggests further studies such as actual participation-observation of exorcisms and their narratives as recounted by the healed to understand the discourses and presentation of religious experience (p. 201). Another is to examine deliverance in non-Western churches to compare the forms that exist in the West (p. 202).
Collins’ book is laudable on several levels. The inclusion of exorcism ministries in the Anglican and Catholic tradition (pp. 151–185) is important as they are often neglected in most writings on spiritual warfare. Doing so allows Christians among all traditions to fruitfully compare and understand how these ministries functioned within their respective theological schema.
For the most part, the coverage is wide and yet not superficial, adequately discussing popular writers (e.g. Frank Peretti, Rebecca Brown, Mike Warnke and Malachi Martin), practitioners (e.g. Oral Roberts, Derek Prince and John Wimber) and scholars (e.g. Merrill Unger and Michael Green). He also rebuts Michael Cuneo’s influential thesis that The Exorcist movie introduced wide expectations among Christians of the notion and need for deliverance ministries in the 1970s, showing that even before the movie, many other broad cultural trends were afoot, preparing a zeitgeist of acceptance for such ministries (pp. 153–154, 188).
An overlooked but insightful inclusion is Hal Lindsey’s writings in the 1970s that not only ushered an expectation of end times among Christians but may have strongly cemented associating charismatic practices as demonic, adding fuel to the debates (pp. 136–139). However, while charismatics/Pentecostals may find Collins’ book balanced in his appreciation and yet critiques of their ministries, dispensationalists may be offended by his labeling them ‘evangelical fundamentalist’ when ‘fundamentalist’ may easily apply to Pentecostals as well in their adherence to strict biblical orthodoxy.
Notwithstanding this, the book advances our understanding of how such ministries function not merely via theological or ministerial justifications, but is also carried along by socio-historical tendencies and moods of Christian enthusiasm.