Are there demons? EV church representatives speak of imagination

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Demons are certainly a concept in the Gospel, and therefore also for Christians. Are there actually demons? The Word of God clearly says yes, just from the context. The representatives of the evangelical, liberal church say “imagination”.

Are demons real or imaginary?

Demons are fiction, not real, and merely a construct of the human mind. These spiritual beings only become real for those who believe in them. Representatives of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) are making this statement again, with the intention of being able to give (some) answer to anyone who is interested. One questioner asked whether “there is a demon behind every foreign god.” (Source).

The reason for this question is the statement in c:
“What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.“

Someone trusted EV Church expertise

The questioner knows that objects are dead and God is alive, and that people should therefore only pray to God. The verse from 1 Corinthians clearly indicates, “to which God we belong.” Man should not “do things with God by halves.” Now, the questioner cannot imagine that prayers that are not addressed to “our triune God” are automatically addressed to demons. At this point, the questioner requests the expertise of representatives of the Protestant Church.

Your own world of expertise

Accordingly, belief in demons was normal “in the time of Jesus”. The demons had malice and a desire to take possession of people and separate them from God. Demons are mentioned in the New Testament, for example in the miraculous healings of Jesus. Such demons were also real for Paul. In the verse mentioned in 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned with a warning against participating in other people’s ritual meals. It can be assumed that some Christians took part in these “social events”.

For Paul there were no gods of other religions, was the answer. There is only one God and Paul deduced from this that communion with demons was celebrated at these feasts.

The question, however, is whether one should worry that one is actually worshiping a demon if the prayer is not directed to the Christian God but to another god. The first question to be answered is whether there are demons at all. Not really, that’s the answer. Rather, demons exist for those who believe in them. The demons become so real to these people that they also feel “the effects of evil itself.”

These “uneducated superstitious”

Foreign religions were “something frightening” for Paul, according to the church experts’ response. That’s why he believed that it was not a god who was being worshiped, but a demon. Paul must be contradicted here. You can meet the Trinitarian God and feel the closeness, but people of other religions feel this too. This belief cannot be denied. It is already helpful to trust that God has the right path ready for every person. That’s why, despite all the differences, it is exciting to come together with believers from other religions and exchange ideas about different experiences with God. Together we can think about what faith means to us.

One just has to trust that God loves all creatures, regardless of whether they are believers or not, or belong to other religions. Trust must also be placed in the fact that God protects all people.

Disbelief in action

An answer that is completely misleading. But this is not surprising, because the descriptions show the enormous distance from the gospel. A revelation of disbelief in action. And this is still called the Protestant Church based on Martin Luther’s foundation?

The apostles around 2,000 years ago are often portrayed as uneducated “semi-savages” with a large portion of superstition. I bet that only very few representatives of the EKD can even come close to Paul when it comes to education? What is presented here as “superstition” is all based on statements from the literature available at the time. So the part that is now referred to as the Old Testament. There, too, terms like (translated) “demons” are nothing unknown, neither in the word nor in the context.

“Demons” in the Old Testament

In the King James Version the word “devils” is used.
Leviticus 17:7:
“And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.”

Deuteronomy 32:17:
“They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not..”

Psalm 106:37:
“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,“

Exorcised imaginations?

How can this adventurous thesis, “Demons only exist through human imagination”, be explained based on the passages in the New Testament?
Jesus Christ cast out far more demons than were specifically attested to. An example is Mark chapter 5. Jesus Christ encountered a man who was possessed by demons. According to the “Church Expertise” reading, he was just imagining it. There were so many demons that they gave themselves the name “Legion”. Is it just the person’s imagination? Until then still possible. But then the (“imagined”) demons begged to enter the nearby pigs. So it happened. The pigs then “went crazy” and all fell into the water and drowned. Is it just the pigs’ imagination?

As is well known, the Pharisees were targeting Jesus Christ. There was a conversation according to Matthew chapter 12. The Pharisees already heard about Jesus casting out demons. They accused him of doing this with the help of the adversary, Matthew 12:24:
“But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.“

Jesus Christ responded, among other things, Matthew 12:27-28:
“And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.”

How can one come to the idea that demons are a kind of “self-realization through imagination” based on these descriptions alone?
Just through blatant unbelief in the gospel. This is also evident in this ominous depiction of God as a kind of “universal God”. Alas, the “monopoly statement” in John 14:6 is quoted here.

Self-attested unbelief in the gospel

One can also draw conclusions from the following verse, 1. John 5:4:
“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
Unbelief is evidence of not being born of God. Whoever does not believe (the gospel) will not overcome the world and will not be victorious. Neither consistent feelings nor extensive exchanges with “God experiences” from other religions help. So it is not surprising that Jesus Christ is generally only a marginal figure, as is the case with this “enlightenment work” of the EV Church (Info).

Anyone who believes the gospel “as much” as the “EV church experts” will not believe the following statement, because after all it does not sound “all-forgiving”, cuddly and “tolerant”.

Bible verses from King James Version