Question: I just read C. Fred Dickason’s Demon Possession and the Christian and in it he seems to ...

Question: I just read C. Fred Dickason’s Demon Possession and the Christian and in it he seems to be saying that a Christian can be demon possessed. Is that the way you see it?

Response: Concerning demonization of Christians, I’m not sure what that might mean, but I don’t find it in the Bible. I have spoken with those who can recite amazing stories from experience, but when I ask them for either biblical doctrine or example, they can give neither. Dickason also admits that it can’t be supported from Scripture. He then says that we must therefore look to experience. But experience which has no example in the Bible is dangerous indeed and should not be relied upon. Of course the Bible doesn’t include every kind of experience to which man is subject, but for something as important as demonization of Christians the Lord would surely give us careful direction.

The Bible contains many examples of the demonization/deliverance of unbelievers yet not one example involving a believer. This fact is practically conclusive evidence against the alleged modern experience of the latter. And to say that since the Bible doesn’t specifically state that a believer can get cancer, therefore it need not state specifically that a believer can be demonized, simply doesn’t follow—the analogy fails.

Moreover, if Dickason wants to go by experience, then I can tell of believers who were confused and harmed by allegedly being “exorcised.” It seemed real and convincing to them at the time, involving even the manifestation of other voices speaking out of them. Looking back on the experience later, however, they concluded that under the power of suggestion they had been hypnotized to act that way, but that actually there had been no demons involved. (Though hypnosis can open to demonic influence.)

Next Dickason tries to say that demonization is no different, for a believer, than falling into sin. If that is the case, then why does he say that there are no examples in Scripture, when there are plenty of examples of believers sinning? But he can no more show from Scripture that demonization is theologically in the same category as falling in sin than he can show demonization of believers in the Bible.

If Dickason has really gotten information from demons as he claims in the book, then he has embraced “doctrines of demons”—and indeed, much of what he teaches in his book was learned from the demons themselves, who are “lying spirits.” That is a major weakness in his thesis—what he can’t support from the Bible he justifies because demons have told him so. Gathering information from demons is forbidden in the Bible.