Contemporary deliverance in Christianity
This survey grew out of a desire to understand the common teachings of contemporary deliverance ministries, and the reasoning behind them.
It isn't about casting demons out of someone who isn't filled with the Holy Spirit — that's not in dispute. It's specifically about ministries that teach a Christian can be "demonized." As the word study in Christians and Deliverance Ministry covers in more detail, that's largely a choice of English gloss for the same underlying claim the term "demon possession" would otherwise carry, not a distinct, milder condition the Greek text actually supports.
What follows is a collection of quotes from specific contemporary deliverance ministries, gathered by search rather than exhaustive survey. The goal is direct quotation, not editorial assessment — the reader can weigh these for themselves. Two representative lines, without attribution to any one ministry below, give a sense of the register this teaching is often couched in:
He may speak things that seem strange and unusual to you, but it is the Holy Spirit.
You are receiving a fresher and newer anointing.
Overall, time is better spent reading God's Word directly. This survey is offered for anyone for whom one of these specific ministries is already an active influence.
Andrea Williams
Eventually, the Lord guided me to lead my daughter through deliverance from spiritual oppression enough to get her functioning again. We were able to identify a spirit of fear and a spirit of death that were tormenting her. The spirit of death came through her listening to and singing the lyrics of a song on the radio. I was relieved, but I still wasn't satisfied. I wanted to know for sure that those things, those demons that had been tormenting were all gone. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. I wanted that root cause completely gone, and I wanted evidence to prove it.
In March of 2020, I had the opportunity to train with Don Dickerman ministries. Through Don's ministry, the Lord taught me the key that I was missing. Victoria went to them for her first full deliverance session. She had several more mini-deliverance sessions with me as she worked through the strongholds of fear and anxiety. It is not uncommon at all for people to need a few more sessions for areas that have a really big hold on their life. Through deliverance, surrender, and coaching, Victoria learned how to resist the enemy and stay in a place of freedom. Staying free is a choice just as much as receiving freedom is a choice. Sometimes, it takes little work on our end to stay free. It can take us some time to learn how to choose freedom and keep choosing freedom. God doesn't require us to be strong. He actually encourages all throughout Scripture to rely on His strength. Much of staying free is learning how to rely on His strength to keep us free from the grips of the enemy.
Don Dickerman
https://www.liberatedliving.info/
Perhaps it will help you to understand and receive the truth if you can see the comparison. As long as you remain blind to the truth you will be subject to deception and control. It is difficult to combat an enemy you don't know you have. If you will search scripture with Holy Spirit guidance you will see the truth and once you do you can help to liberate others. If the scripture was not clear enough on this, I would have to believe it anyway after experiencing thousands of believers being delivered of demons! One of the foremost Southern Baptist preachers in America recently was delivered of demons.
We are the one who had the debt we could not pay and God forgave us, just wiped it away! When we refuse to forgive someone after receiving God's great forgiveness, it is the ultimate insult to God and the most severe penalty comes with it. God turns the unforgiving believer over to the tormentors. No, we don't lose our salvation, we are never disowned, but God allows demons access to our life. Don't think they will not come. They do, and they have a God-given right to be there as long as there is unforgiveness.
Toach
Virkler
Prayers That Heal the Heart (2021) shares substantial similarity with the Rob Reimer material below, published somewhat later.
Seven possible roots to "sin energy":
- Generational sins and curses
- Ungodly soul ties
- Negative expectations
- Inner vows
- Traumatic pictures
- Word curses
- Demonic oppression
Seven healing prayers:
- Breaking generational sins and curses
- Severing ungodly soul ties
- Replacing negative expectations
- Renouncing inner vows
- Receiving divine visions
- Breaking word curses
- Casting out demons
The material also urges confessing any sin in your life, so you are not cut off from ongoing revelation (Isaiah 59:1-2; 1 John 1:9).
Ellel
Another ministry in the same space; not yet surveyed in depth.
Rob Reimer
Reimer's "soul care" framework. Recurring language includes "more of God" and "it's all about life change."
Seeking authority
Soul care's seventh principle is deliverance, framed around developing personal spiritual authority:
Consider authority. Jesus cast out demons by authority. Jesus gave his disciples authority to drive out demons and heal the sick (Matthew 10:1). Authority is developmental. Are you developing authority? Is it demonstrated in your life? Are you utilizing the authority that you have developed to advance the Kingdom of God? How can you develop your authority further? (Note: Dr Rob Reimer's book Spiritual Authority looks at how to develop spiritual authority and can be a useful resource on this subject.) What practical action steps are you going to take to intentionally grow in spiritual authority? Read a book, like Spiritual Authority. Join a conference like the Deliverance Training Workshop. Join a ministry team in your local church. Dialog with the Holy Spirit to see if He invites you into anything specific.
Related teaching
- A third-party review of Bill Johnson's When Heaven Invades Earth — Bethel Church represents a related strand of the same broader movement.
References
Commentary
A third-party critique raises two concerns:
- The use of contemplative meditation techniques (Lectio Divina).
- Overlap with wider concerns raised about the same broader movement, which the reader should weigh independently rather than take as settled.
Conclusion
Across every ministry surveyed here, the same underlying pattern recurs: an appeal to "more" available from God than what is already fully accomplished in Christ, and a technical vocabulary ("demonized," "soul ties," "authority," "sin energy") that reframes ordinary Christian categories — sin, forgiveness, temptation — as things requiring a specialized session or practitioner to resolve. See Christians and Deliverance Ministry for the biblical case against a believer being "demonized" in the first place, word study included.