I’m hesitant to use ‘Satan’, ‘Demon’, or ‘Powers’ type language when formulating an understanding the root cause of issues be they spiritual, emotional, or relational. I find that thinking in those terms leads me either to feelings of helplessness or it leads me to adopt a combat and struggle mentality instead of a mentality of compassion and love.

I like Walter Wink’s understanding of ‘Satan’ and ‘The Powers’ as the fallen spirituality at the heart of our institutional and human systems that lead us to use power, coercion, and violence to get what we want or need.

Name-calling is a form of violence. When I call something ‘demonic’ I practice the violence of name-calling. I think it is the subtle and clever nature of evil to tempt us to use its own tools of power, coercion, and violence to confront it. When I indulge in the violence of labeling something as ‘demonic’ I am in the thrall of the very same fallen spirituality that I want to confront. I fall to this temptation when I am frightened by the destructive potentials I see in the person or system.

Having said all that, I recognize that when we ‘name’ our fears [demons] that have control over us, they often lose much of their power. But we need to name them specifically and with compassion, not condemnation. When we name our vulnerable places, our shame, our fears of disconnection; incompetence; loneliness; helplessness; hopelessness; then we start to take away their ‘demonic’ power over us and start to claim our healthy desires and initiate the process of healing.

When I start such name-calling I am indulging in lazy-mindedness and avoiding the work of understanding motivation and needs of the person or system I’m labeling (be it me or a client).

When I start such name-calling, I am indulging in the blame-game and abandoning responsibility to work towards the redemption of the person, system, or situation.

I subscribe to Walter Wink’s formulation:

• The Powers are created by God [and hence good].
• The Powers are fallen.
• The Powers are in need of redemption.

When I adopt this point of view, I can let go of a little of my fear, I can ask the object of my fears such questions as:

• What wholesome purpose are you working towards or what wholesome desire is driving you?
• If all things are Gift, in what way are you a Gift to me?
• How can I best respond to you with Love?

In the therapy process some of the process is making friends with those parts of our selves we don’t like or are frightened by. Those parts may be the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, or those parts that are frightened or those parts that are in pain. To make friends with our hurting parts is to ask them:

• How they are working to protect us?
• How did they grow so strong?
• What is their wholesome desire for us?
• What do they want/need?

In these ways, we are working to redeem those fallen and death dealing parts of ourselves, to respond to them with love and healing.