One of my very favorite Christian pretendy games is spiritual warfare. For years now, we’ve marveled at just how important this game is to right-wing Christians. The more loudmouthed the Christians, the more control-hungry, the more they love spiritual warfare! There’s a reason for this love, of course. Today, let’s go over some of the more recent teachings around this practice, and maybe figure out why spiritual warriors love it so much.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 2/28/2025. Its audio ‘cast lives there too and is available now!)
Somehow there is stuff about spiritual warfare that evangelicals still need to learn
Spiritual warfare is so fascinating to me. It always has been. Nowhere do we see a greater dichotomy between evangelicals’ self-image and their reality. It’s an imaginary battle fought with imaginary weapons against imaginary opponents on an imaginary battlefield for imaginary stakes. What’s here that isn’t instantly interesting to observers in the Christ-o-sphere?
So when I see evangelicals earnestly intoning at their audiences that there are aspects and strategies involved in spiritual warfare that they have somehow overlooked, I’m hooked. Here’s a YouTube Christian offering one such “simple, but oh-so-effective spiritual warfare strategy you probably were never taught.”
Strangely, he disabled the dislike button—gosh, I wonder why? If you’re wondering, his advice is simply to get enough sleep every night. He reiterated this advice in a column for Charisma News a few days later. He’s so certain that this is utterly groundbreaking advice that he even claims that the word “resist” has something etymologically to do with the word “rest.”
In fact, it’s probably no coincidence that “rest” makes up two-thirds of the word “resist.”
And actually, yes, it’s a total coincidence. The two words aren’t even from the same base languages. “Resist” comes from the 14th-century Old French resisten (“withstand, oppose, stop or hinder, hold out against”), which in turn comes from the Latin resistere (“to take a stand, stand firm”). “Rest” comes from the Old English ræste/reste (“rest; a bed or couch; intermission of labor; mental peace, state of quiet or repose”), which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *rasto- and Old Saxon resta (“resting place, burial”) and the like.
Maybe you can see just why I love this topic so much. These guys are just so amazingly daft and incurious. It would have taken gym-bro in that video 10 seconds to look up the etymologies of his two words. But he didn’t, because he’s just so busy tellin’ Satan to “shut up, devil!” And of course he’s doin’ all that SPEERCHUL WARFARE, Y’ALL! If something sounds good to him, that’s the same as it being true!
The newest advice about spiritual warfare: Hold the line! Stay at your post!
But that was in 2016. What have they done for us lately?
In January, a writer for the evangelical blog Inspire a Fire, Eddie Jones, wrote this absolutely impassioned and militaristic post about “holding the line” and “guarding your front lines.” Dude clearly likes to imagine that he’s about to crash the beach on D-Day every time he prays. Mainly, though, his post admonishes readers to keep their anger and petty vengefulness in check (all emphases in my quotes come from their original sources unless I say otherwise):
Anger leads to sin, opening a hole in our front line. All sin, any sin, creates a temporary gap in the line the enemy will exploit. We must resist the urge to leave our post and give the devil an opening. Instead, we are to be alert. Knowing that the enemy prowls about looking for someone to capture and kill, we must stand our watch with sober vigilance.
That’s not bad advice for evangelicals. They tend to be both hypocritical and prone to anger.
Jesus offers ‘prAir Support’ for his loyal soldiers waging spiritual warfare for him
But Jones follows up this good advice with the tribe’s standard-issue advice to talk very intently at the ceiling for Jesus’ support—and to know Jesus is also talking to his ceiling in turn on their behalf:
Even trapped and with limited supplies, we have this hope: Jesus is praying for us. His prAIR power delivers us from the hand of the enemy. [. . .] Jesus not only intercedes for Peter, but he prays for us as well. [. . .] With Jesus’ overwhelming prAIR support and the prAIR power of our allies—fellow believers in Christ—those prayers will destroy the enemy’s infrastructure, confuse his communications and disrupt his supply lines.
Our writer doesn’t appear to realize that the earliest Christian leaders hadn’t yet hammered out their opinion about Jesus’ divine nature until well after the Gospels were written. In fact, that’s the only way it makes any sense at all for the Gospels’ writers to show Jesus praying for anybody. If he were an omnimax god, then he wouldn’t even need to snap his fingers to make his will into reality. But he’s totally praying for his troops instead of actually helping them. Yep yep!
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the guy who wrote this post, but wow, he likes his WWII history. Let’s not tell him that if his god were real and prayer did anything, there’d probably be millions more Jews in the world today. If Jesus wouldn’t even help them despite many of them doubtlessly praying for aid, then he’s not much use to anybody in the real world.
But we’re not talking about the real world. We’re talking about an imaginary one where Jesus is real and prayers work. There, evangelicals are free to imagine whatever they like. And oh, they do. Get a load of this fantasy in the post:
Conscripted to fight, old men and young boys carried whatever weapons they could find into battle. Carts hauled supplies. Horses pulled artillery to the lines. Fuel for tanks was in short supply. When retreat came, the German’s orderly withdrawal became a route. This is what awaits those who “hold the line.“ We will be victorious and route [sic; he means “rout”] our enemy.
Whew, lads. If he applied himself to real-world charity efforts with this much effort and imagination, he’d be of some good use to someone.
Spiritual warfare doesn’t work if the warrior is sinful
Next, our writer tells us to “run from sin, not from the fight.” He means that if spiritual warriors can avoid offending Jesus’ delicate little sensibilities, then they’ll be better able to “prepare ourselves for whatever salvos the enemy throws at us.” Not only will they be prepared, but they’ll be able to sneer at how ickie “the enemy” truly is:
The righteousness of Jesus—our breastplate—blinds the enemy with its brilliance. The closer the enemy approaches, the more he sees what a puny, sniveling, impish little loser of a defeated foe he is. We are to thrust out our chest and advance with confidence, knowing that the righteousness of Jesus protects us from all weapons of warfare.
Wow, that’s just so loving!
Remember, every one of these weapons and every piece of armor is imaginary, like the breastplate and “the righteousness of Jesus.” This is all literally just imaginary. Maybe that’s why so many guys who get into this kind of imagery are such hypocrites. The only person who could hold them accountable for their hypocrisy doesn’t actually exist, so they’re free to pretend to be at full power, red-hot maximum overdrive effectiveness. Who’s going to know they’re not?
Spiritual warfare in the real world
But then, Jones moves his goalposts. He advises his readers to “flip the enemy’s battle plans” by “return[ing] fire with love.”
But wait. Doesn’t spiritual warfare only happen in imagination?
Yes.
However, in spiritual warfare, often the targets morph from demons to real people. Specifically, spiritual warfare targets the people who make spiritual warriors feel uncomfortable or insecure or weak. The warriors like to imagine that demons make those people oppose evangelical control-grabs.
So when Jones talks about “what a puny, sniveling, impish little loser of a defeated foe” he faces, is he picturing demons or real people?
We don’t know, but we can sure guess!
Fighting demons with Low Christianity’s favorite weapons
The Battle Is Real: Spiritual Warfare, Discipleship, and the Christian “Soldier”
[The actual title of a 2016 Liberty University doctoral thesis
(and possibly the fastest I have ever clicked a download link)]
The techniques for fighting demons—as well as the very concept of fighting them at all—might be one of the most quintessential Low Christianity beliefs there are. That end of Christianity tends to be more emotional and given to extremism and black-and-white thinking. There, we find many folk-beliefs that would instantly give the vapors to theologians in the more scholarly and dignified flavors in the religion.
Chief among Low Christian beliefs might well be this one that so many evangelicals have of suiting up in spiritual armor, unsheathing spiritual swords, strapping on spiritual shields, and stepping onto the spiritual plane to wage spiritual warfare upon the totally-for-realsies demons seeking to harm them and theirs.
As for those weapons, which Jones characterizes as “bullets, bombs, and bayonets,” here is his list of exactly what they look like in the real world:
- “Declaring the Devil’s defeat,” since Yahweh is such an incompetent worldbuilder that he’s allowed Satan to run loose for eons
- “Speaking in Jesus’ authority,” guaranteeing the real world success of the person praying (unless that success proves elusive, in which case the praying person did something wrong)
- “Rebuking the enemy,” being sure to use the actual word “rebuke”
- “The Devil’s eternal condemnation,” which means advising Satan that he is totally gonna get it when Daddy gets home
- “Our spiritual blessings” and “authority over the enemy,” which mean advising Satan that Daddy likes his warriors best and will do whatever they ask
- “Declaring victory,” which probably doesn’t prove difficult at all for spiritual warriors since the battle was imaginary anyway
For about 1800 years, Christians have waged spiritual warfare on demons. In all that time, they haven’t even figured out yet how to reliably, consistently abide by their own rules. I’m guessing demons aren’t super-impressed with their SPEERCHUL WARFARE. (Try it as a yogurt topping!)
Most spiritual warfare guides go heavy on imagery and light on specifics
Jones’ post included a lot of specific magic spells to cast during SPEERCHUL WARFARE. (Try it as a hearing aid cleaner!) It also went very heavy on the military imagery and exhortations to avoid being sinful to make the spells work correctly.
Most recent posts about spiritual warfare contain similar admonishments—and similar magic spells. Last July, a site called Bible Based Living offered similar advice and admonishments to its own readers. Hilariously, a green box appears before the post to let us know “this article has been fact-checked and verified for accuracy.”
(Nope! It sure hasn’t, and it sure isn’t! Also, that post uses such bizarre bolding that I found myself trying to figure out if it was a code asking for help. Blink twice, Bible Based Living writer, if you need an extraction. I’ll send my imaginary troops right over.)
This post made me realize that nobody in Jesus-land ever really specifies what a “spiritual attack” even is or looks like in reality. Is it feeling blue? Is it feeling annoyed at the coworkers going to HR over their unending evangelism attempts? Or is it wanting to win a lawsuit over building a humongous megachurch in a tiny town that skews very liberal? Or perhaps is it noticing all kinds of details about their religion that don’t align with reality?
Most Christian writers don’t even try to describe spiritual warfare in concrete, real-world ways. One site aimed at Christian men takes this truth to absurd levels. Another vaguely gestures at evangelism as a form of spiritual warfare, but offers nothing beyond that as a description. Unsurprisingly, by the way, most of these guides aim squarely at men. Women venture there as well, yes, but the kind of Christians who get into this nonsense tend to also subscribe to very limiting gender roles.
Quick segue: This Low Christian folklore is not by any means universally-embraced
Only occasionally will you see Christians pushing back against the dogma. I loved loved loved this post from last year at r/Christianity. In response to a mainline Protestant who just wanted to know what spiritual warfare even is, one reply advised:
Avoid your local DMV. All demons, all the time.
Sure, a few responses parrot the dogma. But the best reply nailed it:
Spiritual warfare is when something bad happens but you don’t want to examine the root causes or structural causes of it because otherwise you stop feeling like the main character in an MMO. [. . .] In a very individualized culture with a high emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus. . . it also means that there is this expectation that your quotidian life is dramatically affected by unseen forces. [. . .]
It becomes downright sinister when it is used to obscure structural issues, or cast large population segments as ‘demonic.’
Of note, not a single dogma parrot even tried to argue with that person.
What spiritual warfare looks like in reality
Spiritual warfare relabels and recontextualizes the many real-life problems that Christians can’t face or even adequately address according to their rules. They will never hold accountable the hucksters who offer it as a surefire solution to those problems.
Captain Cassidy
We’ve already seen that guides don’t usually offer hints about what spiritual attacks look like in reality. So Christians are largely on their own in recognizing when it’s happening so they can respond with spiritual warfare tactics. To find out what they think a spiritual attack looks like, we must go to the informal social-media sphere.
When I read the accounts of Christians who think they’re under spiritual attack and need spiritual warfare training to respond to it, I get the unmistakable whiff of anxieties unaddressed, angers bottled up, interpersonal problems ignored, mental illness compartmentalized away.
On the subreddit r/TrueChristian, one young woman offers us a good representative description of these supposed attacks:
Now, every now and again, like now. I just feel an overwhelming negative and depressing idk, energy or spirit of some kind in my house. I don’t feel like doing a thing even though there’s things to do, I feel like my daughter gets off. And my husband for sure is negative and just not energetic to do things. It just feels like my house has some darkness.
That sounds like depression to me—and someone did suggest she get evaluated for postpartum depression. I hope she took that advice.
A self-described Calvinist “new minister” reports mysterious loud noises and visual apparitions in his home. The real parts of his “spiritual attack” consist of “an almost crushing heaviness when praying and reading (several times a week)” and feelings that “distress and distract.” I wonder what his second guess is about what’s happening, because it’s definitely not supernatural beings who care enormously about hurting him or his church.
Another r/TrueChristian poster blames “spiritual warfare” for the ending of his longtime romantic relationship. Rest assured: the breakup had nothing to do with his completely unaddressed anxiety, codependence, and dysfunction problems. Nope, demons caused his breakup! To the subreddit’s credit, the replies tend to be realistic—though one person warns him that moving forward, “the devil can use her to knock you off your path.”
That said, it was funny to see one Christian blogger advise against calling “everything” spiritual warfare. (Try it as a simmering sauce for chicken!)
The game that is not a game to its players
Christians who feel the way that lady does need to talk to a real therapist, but the folks over at r/TrueChristian won’t seek that help or recommend it. One TrueChristian commenter breathlessly assures her that “haunted houses are a thing.” Another thinks she needs to round up some Pentecostal friends to dispel her home’s “evil spirits.” The group’s suggestions go on and on like that. You can see the same advice coming from the hardliners at r/Reformed.
If one remembers that spiritual is just another way to say imaginary, that wrecks these Christians’ entire game.
But to its most enthusiastic players, as LifeWay discovered in 2013, spiritual warfare is serious. They think that spiritual warfare actually does stuff in the real world. It protects them from enemies they can’t perceive in any tangible way. It provides them relief from oppression and mental illness. Most of all, it helps them attain the control over other people and the self-importance that they desperately crave.
To such Christians, as one Liberty University student put it, “the battle is real.” Thus, every single ministry group in Christendom must implement “a spiritual warfare basic training plan.”
It keeps them busy, at least.
How spiritual warfare looks in Reality-Land…
What I describe is the same impulse that led my then-boyfriend Biff to exorcise my parents’ house one night not long after his conversion to Pentecostalism. See, he got creepy feelings in the house that night. Immediately, he confidently asserted that the source of these feelings was literal demons oppressing everyone in the house. And he was just as confident that he knew exactly how those demons had entered our house: my dad’s impressive porn collection, which was stored in a nice bookcase in my parents’ bedroom.
Biff went from door to window to room through our house while my increasingly-freaked-out sister and I trailed behind him. In a loud voice, he chanted prayers and spoke in tongues—and, of course, he anointed the top edges of every window frame and doorway with the small bottle of Pompeiian extra-virgin olive oil that I later learned had been commandeered from his church.
(What I describe here is, by the way, a very common method of waging SPEERCHUL WARFARE Y’ALL. A few months ago on Reddit, an Anglican made this very same suggestion.)
I really think, looking back, that he felt more important and epic in that hour than he had ever felt in his entire life.
It was time for him to wage spiritual warfare to protect his beloved lady and future wife! HOO-RAH! Hooray Team Jesus! SPEERCHUL WARFARE! (Try it as a floor wax!)
…And its real effects
But spiritual warfare wasn’t yet my jam (and to an extent, never was). Nor was it ever my sister’s jam. I was still in-between my two Pentecostal sagas, and my sister of course never had one. In my 30s, I ended up apologizing profusely for not reining Biff in that night.
To us, Biff looked like an out-and-out lunatic. Spiritual warfare is not cutesie-poo, charming, or impressive to behold when you’re not on board with the context informing its customs. It’s scary to be around someone whose behavior runs wildly counter to the context we expect—that is, if it isn’t tediously self-important.
So when normie onlookers watch evangelical dudes conducting SPEERCHUL WARFARE, it produces anything but good feelings in them.
I’m sure that doesn’t bother the guys engaging in spiritual warfare nowadays any more than it did back then. When I confronted Biff with how scary his behavior was, he just shrugged and said of course we hadn’t been as impressed with him as he was. We weren’t filled with Jesus Power, see, so anything divine would feel unsettling to us—while anything demonic would feel good or at least normal. And that is how I hear today’s Christians describe reactions to their spiritual warfare!
(Try it as a sheep dip!)
What happens after all that spiritual warfare
After a spiritual battle, of course, nothing whatsoever changes.
As Biff discovered, as I discovered, as countless other Christians discover, an exorcised building still feels creepy and weird afterward. The off-limits emotions and needs banished through Jesus Power return all too soon, while the unresolved conflicts continue unabated. The situations this warfare was meant to combat only worsen considerably afterward—often precisely because they weren’t adequately addressed in the first place.
But I reckon that just means that the hucksters pushing this folklore will never be out of work. They know the flocks will never hold them accountable for their bad advice and non-solutions. Spiritual warfare just sounds so incredibly Jesusy, and it makes practitioners feel so very very important while they perform its rituals.
The further Christianity declines in the West, the more its believers polarize into extremist right-wing beliefs. So we haven’t seen the last of spiritual warfare!
(Try it as a band-aid for your major world religion!)
NEXT UP: Speaking of Christianity’s decline, evangelicals are leaping upon the latest attempt to hand-wave away their increasingly negative reputation. We’ll explore that attempt next time. See you soon! <3
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