Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 440 ｜ Facing Demonic Forces & Spiritual Warfare ｜ Guest： Billy Hallowell

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am talking to Billy Halliwell. He wrote a book

00:00:15.600 called Playing With Fire, and it's about supernatural activity, demonic possession,

00:00:21.580 Satan, satanic powers, things that we don't necessarily talk about explicitly that much

00:00:27.780 on this podcast, or really in Christian culture at all. But he has uncovered why he thinks it's

00:00:33.080 so important, especially in this present moment, for Christians to understand that this is going

00:00:37.900 on, to see how this is going on, and then for us, with the power of Christ, to push back against

00:00:43.980 this. First, we're actually going to talk about a little political subject, but it'll tie all

00:00:48.880 together, because he did not vote for Trump in 2020, and so we're going to talk a little bit

00:00:54.220 about our differences and our agreements there. So it's a really good conversation that I'm

00:00:58.980 looking forward to you hearing. Here is Billy Halliwell.

00:01:06.240 Billy, thank you so much for joining me. I think a lot of people who are listening or watching

00:01:11.320 already are familiar with you and your work, but just in case, can you tell everyone who you are

00:01:16.060 and what you do? Sure, yeah. So I am a journalist. I'm a commentator. I actually worked at The Blaze.

00:01:22.820 I was the faith editor at The Blaze for about five years, and so I'm a huge Blaze fan. And I've

00:01:28.240 been working for really the last 15 years, more than 15 years now, in media. And so politics and

00:01:35.120 faith, and in the last really five to seven years, my focus has been culture and faith and just diving

00:01:40.860 deep into the patterns of what we see happening, why it's happening, and sort of helping people

00:01:46.560 navigate that. And you wrote a book called Playing With Fire and about supernatural activity

00:01:54.280 and demonic activity, and I want to get into all of that, and I'm super excited. That's going to be

00:01:59.160 the bulk of our episode. But something that you and I have talked about on Twitter before that we

00:02:05.420 talked about a long time ago discussing on this podcast is your support, then you're not support

00:02:11.240 of Donald Trump. And by support, I just kind of mean that you voted for him in 2016. You did not

00:02:17.960 vote for him in 2020. And I'm just so interested to hear your reasoning on that, because that's not

00:02:23.280 something that I hear a lot of conservative Christians say that they did. It's sort of the

00:02:28.820 opposite, right? You hear a lot of people say, I didn't vote in 2016, and then I did in 2020. And so

00:02:34.500 here's the thing. I live in New York, and I had said many times during the campaign, and this is,

00:02:39.400 it sort of sounds like a cop-out. But if I lived in a state where I felt like it really mattered,

00:02:43.280 I would have shown up and voted differently, right? And so I didn't vote for either Trump or Biden.

00:02:49.160 And I really struggled, you know, honestly, with the entire thing. And I think for me,

00:02:54.740 it was, you know, in 2016, I sat down with Trump two weeks before the election. He called a bunch of

00:03:00.640 never-Trumpers to Trump Tower. And I have to tell you, I wasn't a never-Trumper. Like, I've never been a

00:03:05.420 never-Trumper. I've never been a, you know, pro, pro, pro, raw Trumper. But I sat there,

00:03:10.220 and I listened to him. And I was really conflicted in 2016 as well, not between the two candidates.

00:03:15.660 I wasn't going to vote for Hillary, but whether or not I wanted to put my name, you know, on this

00:03:20.860 whole, you know, Trump thing. And so at the end of the day, I felt like I wanted to give him a shot,

00:03:25.040 and I did it. And I have to tell you, policy-wise, I think it's really hard for a lot of conservatives.

00:03:30.820 Of course, we can pull out little bits and pieces of things we don't agree with or we don't like.

00:03:34.920 It's really hard to walk away and say, oh, Trump did a terrible job on policy. I think, you know,

00:03:40.240 take the Capitol and all that other chaos, no matter what people think about that, and push it to the

00:03:44.080 side. For me, his rhetoric has always been very problematic. And I am the first person to say,

00:03:50.560 you vote on policy. And so when I walked into the polls and I was voting in 2020, I honestly didn't

00:03:57.900 know what I was going to do walking in. And I just prayed about it. And I felt like, you know what,

00:04:01.500 I live in New York. I don't need to do this. And so I chose not to do it. Now, a lot of people have

00:04:07.480 been very angry at me, but I make the point, it doesn't really matter. I live in New York. The

00:04:11.160 state was going to Biden. And so it was a sort of an easy cop out for me. So it wasn't based on any

00:04:16.480 kind of principle or any reason other than you just didn't think that it was going to do anything?

00:04:21.760 Well, no, of course, you know, for me, the principle was, you know, having having struggled

00:04:27.720 with the rhetoric and having struggled with the behavior, you know, I've spent a lot of time

00:04:33.420 looking at my own behavior in media, the things I've said. When I started in media, I was 15 years

00:04:39.000 old. I'm 37 now. So I've been doing this for a long time. I've been out there talking and saying

00:04:43.820 things and speaking for a very long time. And I don't know that for me, I've always handled myself

00:04:50.180 the way that I would want to. Right. And so I look back at that and I look at the way that Trump

00:04:54.300 is. And for me, I just felt convicted that I wasn't going to go out there. I wasn't going to

00:04:59.360 support it. I'm not judging those who did. Listen, I understand the reasons for supporting Trump.

00:05:04.720 I've been out of, you know, the strict politics world now for a couple of years. And so I've had

00:05:09.920 the flexibility to sort of not have to dive into those discussions if I don't want to. And for me,

00:05:14.760 I just really felt like I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to put my name on it. I'm not

00:05:19.400 going to subscribe to it right now. And having said all of that, I know it sparks anger in some

00:05:25.220 people. And I've had a lot of conversations about this. People who feel that people like me haven't

00:05:29.860 helped the problem. Right. We've made the problem worse because we haven't stood up and supported

00:05:35.400 Trump. For me, it's about the policies. And I've always been very open and vocal on policy. And I

00:05:40.920 will continue to be pro-life policy, you know, in conservative values. I just felt like in 2020,

00:05:46.760 I had I had the ability to not have to show up. So for me, it was principle and it would have been

00:05:52.340 a struggle for me to to go out there and say, I love Donald Trump. I love everything Donald Trump

00:05:56.880 stands for, because the reality is I agree with the policies, but I don't love many of the things

00:06:01.580 that Donald Trump as a person stands for. Yeah. And I mean, I would agree with that. And everyone on

00:06:07.540 this podcast knows how I feel about it. And I even have some people who have told me that,

00:06:13.440 you know, I am the reason or I'm part of the reason why Donald Trump lost, because there's

00:06:19.120 I so often caveat my support of him with saying, you know, I love that he did this. I am going to

00:06:24.880 vote for him. I did vote for him in 2016 and 2020 based on the reasons that you just said. And so

00:06:29.720 you and I both had the same kind of reasoning and the same kind of logic and feelings about Trump.

00:06:34.440 I ultimately, you know, I ultimately voted for him both times based on those policies that

00:06:40.780 that we agree with. But I very often offer the same kind of qualifications and caveats that you

00:06:46.660 do that. Look, I don't like when Trump says this. I don't like when Trump does this. I don't like

00:06:50.580 this part about his character. I don't like when he did this or that's hypocritical or that's not

00:06:54.400 conservative or something like that. And unfortunately, I do a lot of people on the right

00:06:59.580 and the left when it comes to their respective candidates really do want total puritanical support

00:07:05.780 of their guy, of their champion. And they think any kind of coloring outside of those lines

00:07:13.140 means that you want the destruction of America or you want the failure of that candidate or you

00:07:18.780 precipitated the failure of that candidate. And that's just not true. Do you agree?

00:07:24.980 Well, I do agree. And I will I will tell you that looking at what has happened in the last

00:07:29.540 month and a half, two months, looking at cancel culture, looking at all of these things,

00:07:34.200 it again brings that question up. Is this the kind of America that you want to live in?

00:07:38.840 And I think people like me who really had that struggle, right, you know, you kind of come back

00:07:44.040 to, well, what kind of policies do I want to live under? We're having the debate about the Equality

00:07:48.260 Act. We're having all of these discussions now. And so and I know that people will kick me for

00:07:53.380 saying this, but my vote didn't really matter in this case. I'm a New Yorker. I know what it's like

00:07:57.800 here. And I didn't feel compelled to stand up. But I will tell you, I feel compelled to stand up on

00:08:02.580 those issues. And when we have another election in 2024 and we have to look at this again,

00:08:07.960 these are huge, important issues. And it makes me very nervous looking at the sort of culture that

00:08:13.900 is being incubated and created by the people who are claiming to be so liberal and open when in

00:08:19.180 reality they're not. And so we've got big issues in this country. But for me also, I would say,

00:08:24.420 you know, I came off of writing this book, which we're going to talk about. And so I was looking at

00:08:27.780 everything in a hyper spiritual way. And as I was doing that, I felt convicted to sort of pull

00:08:33.540 myself away from politics a little bit. And so it was kind of the perfect storm when the election

00:08:37.440 hit of me sort of saying, I'm going to pull and it's a little selfish, right? Admittedly,

00:08:41.380 but I'm going to pull myself out of this right now. And I really want to put my focus on reaching

00:08:45.940 people, because at the end of the day, we can debate politics. And don't get me wrong,

00:08:50.160 politics are important all day long. But if we don't start reaching people,

00:08:53.900 and this is from a Christian perspective, for Christ, there is going to be no change,

00:08:58.040 right? And it has to start at the individual level. And of course, it has to move into the

00:09:02.040 corporate level as well. So there was a lot going on in my heart and in my mind during this election

00:09:07.300 season. And I would counter anybody out there who's getting angry or frustrated with people based on how

00:09:12.080 they voted to actually sit down and talk about it, because you and I probably agree on 99% of things.

00:09:18.240 And I think most of us, you know, do on the conservative side when we sit down. And so that to me is the

00:09:23.240 important starting place. Yeah, I, I agree. And I know plenty of people who didn't vote for either

00:09:29.460 candidate, either in 2016, or 2020, or both. Obviously, as a conservative, as if someone who

00:09:36.420 looks at these policies and looks at politics and talks about these things a lot, it is harder for

00:09:41.080 me to be as sympathetic toward a vote directly for Joe Biden or, or Hillary Clinton, just because of the

00:09:49.200 policies that are promoted there. And that doesn't mean, though, that I think that those people,

00:09:55.940 you know, I've revoked their salvation card, which thankfully, I do not have the responsibility nor the

00:10:01.280 ability to do, or that I don't think that they were well-meaning people. You can still, you can still

00:10:08.920 though say, and I know that you agree with this, that, you know, I think that that was a wrong choice.

00:10:14.720 They probably think that I had a wrong choice too. But I do think it's important for Christians

00:10:18.540 to sit down and to have those conversations. And look, I have talked to a lot of Christians who

00:10:23.660 voted for Joe Biden. There's not a single reason that I agree with her that I think is a good

00:10:29.120 logical reason, just to be honest. But I still don't, I'm still not in a place, nor do I have the

00:10:36.140 desire to say, well, that means that you're not a believer, or that means that you don't really love

00:10:41.120 God. Maybe they're, maybe we just have difference of opinion, maybe, or maybe they really are just

00:10:47.400 wrong. I do think directly voting for pro-abortion and policies in the Equality Act and all of that

00:10:53.600 is actually very tangibly and clearly wrong. But thank goodness we are not judged ultimately

00:11:01.520 by our vote. Unfortunately, there are people who identify as Christians on the Republican and the

00:11:07.840 Democratic side who really think that we are. And I just praise the Lord that that's not the case.

00:11:14.120 Well, and here's the thing, right? We talk about cancel culture, which I love to call cancer culture,

00:11:18.100 because it infects everything. And the left, I mean, the left is so guilty of this, but it,

00:11:23.040 but it is happening a little bit on the right. And it's happening in these arenas of, you know,

00:11:27.560 if you didn't support Trump, right. And you know, you're just, it's like, we're going to cancel

00:11:31.280 those people. We need to get rid of them. And I think we have to be really careful that while we're

00:11:35.780 calling the left out, that we don't do the same thing on the right. And so I agree with everything

00:11:39.520 you just said. I think for me, I can't possibly grasp what would, what would make a Christian be 0.98

00:11:45.760 passionate about Joe Biden's policies and who Joe Biden is. I mean, it just, it doesn't,

00:11:50.860 it doesn't add up for me. It's one thing to say somebody is a nice guy, or I think he's a good guy.

00:11:55.820 And you may think that, but at the end of the day, you have two things to really base a vote on,

00:11:59.800 in my view, a platform, you know, policies that are laid out. And then you actually have the

00:12:04.940 policies themselves that have been enacted. And so when it comes to those things,

00:12:09.040 particularly on the life issue, on identity and what we see happening throughout our culture right

00:12:13.860 now, to me as a Christian, it's now I'm not, I'm going to do the same thing you're doing.

00:12:17.820 I'm not going to say you can't be a Christian. I know Christians who voted for Joe Biden because

00:12:21.080 they were so disgusted with the rhetoric and the things they saw coming from Trump. But I,

00:12:25.060 but for me, again, it goes back to those hallmarks of the platforms and the policies.

00:12:29.780 Yeah. And you, you mentioned that when you were kind of deciding on your vote and what you were

00:12:35.200 going to do, you were coming off of writing this book, playing with fire, and you were kind of in

00:12:40.360 this hyper or what you described as like this hyper spiritualized perspective. And I think it's good

00:12:47.400 for us to have always that eternal and supernatural perspective of things that are going on. That might

00:12:53.480 not mean that we all land in the same place as Christians, even having that perspective, but it is

00:12:57.900 important for us to think about things eternally. And for us to think about things spiritually,

00:13:02.400 you have touched on this spiritual subject of demonic activity, supernatural activity

00:13:07.660 that a lot of people don't think about. We don't like to think about. We don't like to talk about.

00:13:14.120 Pastors don't talk about. There's not very many books on this subject. And yet I get a lot of

00:13:19.640 questions about this subject about, okay, like what is hell? What is Satan? What power do demons

00:13:25.960 actually have? Because there's a rise in witchcraft. There's a rise in the new age,

00:13:31.100 especially among young women. And so Christians are like, okay, hang on. What does the spiritual 0.99

00:13:36.440 realm of good versus evil actually really look like? So can you talk just to summarize, I guess,

00:13:41.860 a little bit about why you wrote this book and what it's about?

00:13:46.940 Yeah. So with Playing With Fire, this was a book that there was another publisher a few years back

00:13:52.120 that this idea came about of doing a journalistic exploration from a Christian lens, but as a

00:13:57.600 journalist sort of diving into this topic. And at the time, I moved away from it. I had a book

00:14:03.200 offer and I was like, you know what? I prayed about it. I just felt like I'm more into politics

00:14:07.580 right now. Of course, I care about faith. I'm a lifelong Christian, but I don't want to touch 0.99

00:14:11.380 this dark topic. And so it felt very dark to me. I moved away from it. And I have to tell you that

00:14:16.660 God has a way of bringing us back to the things he wants us to do. And so I basically had a book

00:14:21.940 offer dropped on my lap to do this a couple of years after the original book offer. And I sat on

00:14:27.820 it for two months just praying about it and thinking about it. And for me, even when I worked

00:14:32.480 at The Blaze, we would sometimes get these stories, right? You'd get these mainstream outlets that were

00:14:37.920 covering possession stories. And so I was always intrigued by it and we would cover them and we'd do our

00:14:43.060 due diligence to try to understand what people were claiming had happened. But I realized there

00:14:47.060 was this profound disconnect between the claims that people were making, right? And the things we

00:14:53.140 see in the Bible and what was being talked about, not only in secular circles, but Christian circles.

00:14:59.320 And when I went to write Playing With Fire, we did survey research among church leaders. And it was

00:15:03.820 really remarkable to see that the vast majority of church leaders would say, yeah, we believe in demons.

00:15:09.340 Yeah, we believe that. And by the way, church leaders are not just pastors, people who run Bible

00:15:13.620 studies and all sorts of different leadership positions. But they would say, yeah, we believe

00:15:17.720 all this. We know it impacts culture. But then when you'd ask the question, is your church talking

00:15:22.640 about this enough? The vast majority would say no. And so that disconnect for me, I really felt

00:15:28.660 compelled, obviously, to work on this project as I prayed about it. But I became intrigued by that

00:15:32.940 because I thought, gosh, I don't think there's another topic talked about so frequently in Scripture,

00:15:38.420 particularly the New Testament, and spoken about so infrequently in churches. And that is concerning

00:15:44.880 because at the end of the day, Hollywood, and this is sort of remarkable, at the same time churches are

00:15:50.660 talking less about this, you've got Hollywood churning out The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2,

00:15:55.320 all these demon possession movies, right? Again and again and again. And so Hollywood is actually

00:16:01.460 improperly, but they're talking about a topic more so than the churches, and it's actually a church

00:16:07.200 topic. So that was sort of the thing that really compelled me into this.

00:16:11.580 Yeah. So let's talk about demonic activity and the power that Satan actually has on us. Let's

00:16:22.480 start with a specific question so I don't leave it so open-ended. One question that I get a lot is,

00:16:27.480 does Satan have control of your mind? Can Satan read your thoughts? Does Satan have control of your

00:16:32.700 thoughts? Let's start there and kind of move outwards. Can you answer that question?

00:16:38.240 Yeah, it's really interesting. I guess the answer to the question is, how much have you allowed Satan

00:16:43.680 into your life, right? And so the thing in talking with so many theologians and pastors, I mean,

00:16:49.120 the general premise here is that you go back to Ephesians 6, right? And for me, Ephesians 6 is such a

00:16:55.360 fascinating chapter because it tells us everything we need to know about good and evil, and it's

00:17:01.420 encapsulated in just a few verses, but it tells us we're in a battle over good and evil, that what

00:17:06.400 protects us from that battle, taking up the shield of faith, is being Christians, living a Christian

00:17:11.060 lifestyle. It's not just saying, oh, I'm a Christian. It's living that out, having a relationship

00:17:16.200 with Christ. And so when people ask that question, generally, I find that people are afraid. They're

00:17:21.400 fearful of these things, and they want to understand, you know, can Satan read my mind? Does he know what

00:17:25.640 I'm doing? And as Christians, the answer would be no. You're protected if you're living that lifestyle. 0.99

00:17:31.080 If you are somebody who has, you know, opened yourself up to evil, well, then we're talking

00:17:37.580 about a little bit of a different story. And so there's a really wide scale of stories that you

00:17:42.600 encounter. And when you look in Scripture, I mean, we see really, really extreme examples of

00:17:47.020 possession, right? We see children, we see adults, we see Jesus healing people, and we see some of the

00:17:53.360 effects of what possession looks like in Scripture. But we're also given a lot of pieces of advice from

00:17:59.920 the Olds and the New Testament about what we should be avoiding, avoiding witchcraft, avoiding psychics,

00:18:05.920 avoiding all of these things that pop culture actually praises, and that you, as you mentioned,

00:18:11.160 we're seeing increases in all of these things. And I know a lot of people listening, by the way,

00:18:15.300 even in the conservative world, they'll hear some of this, and they'll think, oh, this is silly,

00:18:19.240 this isn't real. But the reality is, you have a scenario, and I talk about this in Playing With

00:18:24.760 Fire, where since the beginning of time, this has been a common experience. The idea that there is

00:18:30.060 obviously a spiritual realm, but not just that, the idea that there is evil, and that evil can affect

00:18:35.740 you. And I know I'm giving a very long-winded answer here, but it's actually very complicated.

00:18:39.900 When you open yourself up to these things, you really are playing with fire. You're potentially

00:18:45.860 transforming your life in a very negative way, just like as Christians, when we open ourself up 0.99

00:18:51.260 to truth and we accept Christ, we are on the opposite end, opening ourselves up to something

00:18:56.460 really wonderful, right? So they're polar opposite dynamics, but there are so many credible and also

00:19:03.740 incredible healing stories in the mix of all that. We hear about witchcraft a lot as it pertains to

00:19:22.160 countries in Africa or even Haiti. When people think about witchcraft, they kind of think about,

00:19:28.860 I think, third world countries or the eastern world. They don't think about things that are

00:19:35.700 happening or trends that we see here in the West. And when we hear about demonic activity or demonic

00:19:41.920 possession, it seems to typically come from cultures like that. So what does demonic possession look like

00:19:50.200 today and in our own cultural context? Because I can't believe that it's only happening in certain

00:19:55.860 countries and wouldn't be happening here. Yeah, well, you know, it's really interesting about

00:20:01.960 that. As I was working on the book and talking with pastors and priests and individuals who are

00:20:07.180 dealing with this on a daily basis, believe it or not, there are deliverance pastors and there are

00:20:11.740 ministers who deal outside of the Catholic Church in exorcism. And then the Catholic Church has

00:20:16.500 obviously the right of exorcism, which we can talk about. But in America, we've had a really

00:20:21.440 interesting heritage here, right? We've had this Judeo-Christian underpinning. And even though

00:20:26.480 we're moving away from that and we're seeing the effect of that, it's fascinating to look back at

00:20:31.240 that history. I think in a lot of ways, because Christianity has been so, even if it's just nominal,

00:20:36.940 ingrained in who we are, we often don't see these sorts of things. But it doesn't mean they're not

00:20:42.380 happening. And to give you an example, all of these experts told me that they have seen massive

00:20:47.680 increases. And actually, the Catholic Church has openly said this in requests for help,

00:20:52.660 meaning that there are people, whether or not they're truly dealing with these issues,

00:20:55.960 they believe they are. And that is increasing. So as you sort of map out that move away from faith

00:21:02.060 in America, which I think is really fascinating, you know this in talking about culture, we see all

00:21:06.360 these bizarre things happening in culture. But we also see at the same time that people are

00:21:11.620 experiencing more and more spiritual duress as that unfolds. And so we've had a number of stories

00:21:17.520 in America. In fact, one is very famous in Gary, Indiana. Back in 2014, there was a major news story.

00:21:25.620 And what was so unique about this story was that it made its way into the Indianapolis Star. This is a

00:21:31.240 mainstream media outlet that had collected so much data and information on this alleged possession story

00:21:37.780 that they were able to publish a really well-sourced article. And that article went international,

00:21:43.300 but it was really intriguing to see. And I talk about this particular case in Gary, Indiana, quite a bit

00:21:48.820 in the book, to see that one of these things was actually making its way into the mainstream. So the short

00:21:54.460 answer to that is you have a lot of practices going on in other places. You have a lot of things that are

00:22:00.340 happening there spiritually. And you talk to missionaries, they will tell you they've experienced

00:22:04.400 those things. I think we're also having that happen more here. And I'd be really intrigued to map out

00:22:10.540 as we move further away from faith, a development I wish wasn't happening, how much more of these

00:22:15.920 sorts of requests for help we see unfold. And I wonder if it may, if something like demonic

00:22:22.060 possession or demonic influence must, it might just look differently than we imagine it or than it looks

00:22:28.760 in other cultures and countries. Obviously, something can be demonically and is evilly influenced if it's

00:22:35.260 not of God, period. That doesn't necessarily mean someone convulsing or someone having to have,

00:22:41.900 you know, holy waters we see in the movies being thrown on them and their bodies thrashing against

00:22:47.840 the wall. Right, right. It might not look like that. But I think that we do need to normalize,

00:22:54.200 to use a term that is, or a word that's used so often now, normalize seeing the supernatural

00:22:59.680 in the natural. And I do wonder from your perspective, is there, though, a danger in

00:23:07.440 that? Like, is there a balance in describing like spiritual significance to every single thing that

00:23:13.140 happens? Or is that the right way to view things is, okay, there's no neutral ground. Everything is

00:23:19.760 either claimed by Christ or counter claimed by Satan, at least in the here and now on earth,

00:23:25.360 we know that Christ ultimately reigns and defeats Satan and sin forever. So what is the right way

00:23:31.820 to like look at things? Because sometimes it seems like we can over-spiritualize or supernaturalize

00:23:36.740 things as well, but we also don't want to miss it when it is actually spiritual and eternal and

00:23:42.060 supernatural. That's such a good question. And there's two things, okay? The first thing,

00:23:48.180 I was in a debate recently with an atheist, Michael Shermer, who's a prominent atheist,

00:23:53.020 and we were talking about whether or not demons exist. It was a great conversation. But as we were

00:23:57.000 having this discussion, it's so interesting how we break down natural versus supernatural. And we all

00:24:02.480 do this, right? We were like, okay, that's a natural thing, right? Existence is a natural thing. And

00:24:07.520 everything else over here is supernatural. But I've actually started thinking more about that. And it's

00:24:12.320 so fascinating to me that we live in a world and we live in a universe where if the earth was off of

00:24:18.280 its axis just a little bit, we'd burn or freeze. You've got trees, you've got flowers, you have all

00:24:23.400 these amazing systems, right? The human body is incredible. And so we're actually living super

00:24:29.020 naturally, but yet we assume it's just natural. And I think atheists tend to do this a lot. They're 1.00

00:24:33.340 like, yeah, well, that's for this weird category over here. And it's like, well, actually, it's all

00:24:37.800 weird. Like the fact that we have consciousness, that we're sitting here talking in the way that we

00:24:42.860 are, that we have all of this existence before us that points to a creator. It's all supernatural.

00:24:49.220 And so I just wanted to mention that because I think it actually reframes the way that we think

00:24:53.500 about some of this. But to more specifically answer your question, the thing that I encountered a lot

00:24:59.240 in researching this topic is just like you were stating, there are two dynamics. There's the demon

00:25:04.280 under every rock, right? Those are the people who they think everything is demonic, every bad decision,

00:25:09.380 every disease, every illness. If it's cancer, there are some people who believe cancer is caused

00:25:14.700 by demons. And then you have the other dynamic, which is what we were talking about before. And

00:25:18.740 that's sort of the, oh, demons aren't responsible for anything. They don't exist. They're not around

00:25:23.140 anymore. Or I just don't care. I'm not going to think about it. And there's a middle ground that

00:25:27.580 you have to sort of strike with this to understand. Again, you go back to that Ephesians 6 chapter

00:25:32.200 that we are living in a battle, whether we like it or not, whether people want to admit it or not,

00:25:37.460 we have this battle over good and evil. And we're in the middle of this. Every human being is. And so

00:25:42.380 to your point before, when you were sort of asking about the different ways this manifests itself,

00:25:48.400 we tend to talk about possession because it's the strangest and it's the most stark. And we see those

00:25:53.560 stories, obviously, in Scripture. But we also see that demonic influence is a totally different and

00:26:00.260 more pervasive thing for most people. Possession is very uncommon. And even the Catholic Church and

00:26:07.020 Protestants who deal with this will tell you that the majority of cases that come to them,

00:26:11.000 when they investigate them, they find something else is going on there, right? Whether it's

00:26:15.300 a mental condition, whether it's some other explanation. So it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

00:26:21.260 It exists. It's just not as often as we think. But what is very common is the affliction of having

00:26:27.040 evil come into our life in some way or seize on some struggle that we're having. It was interesting

00:26:33.340 to talk with mental health providers about addiction. And so many of the people who I

00:26:39.400 spoke with, they would say, well, listen, they very infrequently would encounter somebody who

00:26:45.380 had addiction who didn't have a spiritual issue going on alongside it. And so that obviously is

00:26:51.180 a major issue of debate. And I spent a lot of time talking to mental health providers because I

00:26:56.060 wanted to understand that dynamic. Because this is an area, when you talk about what's demonic,

00:27:01.340 what's not, where a lot of confusion happens, the mental illness versus possession, or at least

00:27:07.260 infestation debate. So there's a lot going on there. But we want to have discernment. And we want

00:27:13.200 to make sure that we know what we're dealing with when it comes to spiritual matters.

00:27:17.100 Yes, I think that that explains it really well. And there is a balance because obviously,

00:27:21.920 if we ascribe every sickness or cancer or addiction to some kind of specific demonic

00:27:28.560 possession, then that could lead to a faulty mentality about people who get sick and somehow

00:27:34.720 blaming it on them. What did you do to open yourself up to this kind of demonic force? And

00:27:39.780 I don't think that kind of thing is supported by scripture at all. And unfortunately, we do see

00:27:44.840 that kind of wedding of kind of weird occultic New Age practices with some forms of Christianity,

00:27:54.800 humanity, unfortunately, and I think we do have to be discerning. At the same time, we understand that

00:28:00.880 every bit of sadness and sorrow and sickness and corruption and sin in this world is due to evil and

00:28:09.440 is due to the fall. So like you were saying, it's not specific demonic possession that causes these

00:28:17.900 things. But it is evil. I mean, as Ephesians 2 says, Satan is the prince of the power of the air.

00:28:25.900 So he does have jurisdiction, no more than God allows, but he does have jurisdiction and evil and

00:28:33.120 satanic forces in a general sense is the reason for, you know, every malady and every injustice and 1.00

00:28:41.360 every kind of trespass. And I think the hope that we have both in the present and but ultimately in

00:28:49.480 the future is that God is going to take care of all of that. Like he is going to right those wrongs

00:28:55.460 and he is going to defeat Satan and sin once and for all. Thankfully, in the new heaven and the new

00:29:01.080 earth, we won't be having this conversation about sin and Satan and demonic power. And so I think

00:29:07.900 rather than being scared, Christians can be aware and we can also be super hopeful.

00:29:14.480 Absolutely. I mean, that's that's the whole thing. And so when I when I was putting this book together,

00:29:18.800 my end goal was not to freak people out or scare them. You know, playing with fire is filled with

00:29:23.740 stories of people who have dealt with possession. They've dealt with spiritual issues. They've overcome

00:29:28.660 them. There are pastors. There are people who on the mental health side, as I mentioned, who talk about

00:29:33.900 what they've experienced. But I wanted to point people back to hope, because what you just said

00:29:38.620 is so true. And one of the things for me in writing a book where you pull things out of the Bible that

00:29:44.480 only deal with evil. I mean, I was actually getting this opportunity, which I know sounds strange to

00:29:49.720 look at, OK, who is Satan? What is what does Jesus tell us about Satan? What are the scriptures tell us

00:29:54.320 about evil? And let's look at all the stories and to put that all together, what it actually did for me.

00:30:00.140 And I'm not going to lie to you. I was afraid to write the book. I know I mentioned I said no the first time

00:30:04.760 and then I sat on the contract for two months. But after as I was writing it and then after I felt this

00:30:10.400 incredible peace because it actually points you back toward good understanding evil points us back to our

00:30:17.420 need for grace. And for me, I felt like there was such a big piece missing in the understanding of what all of

00:30:25.020 this actually means. And it feels weird. And I'm a journalist. So by nature, I like to question

00:30:31.160 things. I want to be proven. I want somebody to give me details and facts and to prove to me that

00:30:37.180 their experience is real. And so having that chance to sort of vet these stories and go into them and

00:30:42.720 then to present them and to say, listen, you don't have to believe these things. I'd encourage atheists

00:30:46.940 to pick up the book and read it because it helps you understand from a Christian perspective what we

00:30:51.400 believe. But as Christians, it's really refining and really helpful to get that full picture that I think

00:30:57.820 sometimes our churches, you know, and we're part of this too as Christians, we sort of fail one another

00:31:02.380 and not talking about it because it feels weird or we don't want to be looked at strangely. I mean, Hollywood's

00:31:06.940 got no problem talking about it. And of course, they think it's fake. They think it's not true. Many of

00:31:12.320 them, but they're presenting it. And yet we have these incredible opportunities to really help people

00:31:17.380 because if you are dealing with evil in some form, and by the way, most of us do at some point in our

00:31:22.860 life, we're dealing with this, you know, this pressure that evil can inflict even on Christians'

00:31:28.080 lives. And we don't know how to properly deal with that. That's how you really run into problems,

00:31:32.340 not only individually, but corporately and as a culture.

00:31:35.600 I think there's also an opportunity, you said that Hollywood presents this stuff is not real. Well,

00:31:50.460 I've also seen a lot of, especially in like the young woman influencer self-help realm, that there

00:31:58.860 are a lot of women who are open to the existence of the supernatural. Unfortunately, it's leading them 1.00

00:32:05.100 into unbiblical kind of like occultic type practices where they think that there's supernatural power

00:32:13.280 in crystals or there's supernatural power in, you know, chakras, whatever it is, the strange new age

00:32:20.320 stuff that they actually do see some kind of empowerment from. Yes, that's dangerous, but it's

00:32:27.840 also an opportunity for Christians to say, you know, I know where the real power lies. Like you want 0.79

00:32:33.840 supernatural power. You're right. It exists. It is absolutely out there. Yes, we are in a battle

00:32:39.420 between good and evil, which a lot of new age people think, but like, let me redirect you towards

00:32:44.420 the truth. Let me redirect you towards reality. Let me show you the true rock, not your crystals that

00:32:50.680 don't have any supernatural power. The crystal thing is crazy, by the way. Like the crystal thing is

00:32:55.520 blowing up everywhere. And it's remarkable to watch this void. And you know this, as we move away from

00:33:02.060 God, as this void opens more and more, because everybody, I mean, God made us to connect with

00:33:07.720 him. And when we don't do that, when we choose not to do that, we have, there's a void and we're

00:33:12.260 going to fill it with something. And we're watching culture scramble right now to fill the void with

00:33:16.860 all sorts of things that I think actually feed off of this sort of evil and this evil actually vice

00:33:23.140 versa feeds off of. And so the crystals have been fascinating to watch. And I've seen some

00:33:28.420 Christians who I know who have just descended completely into this world. And so you're 1.00

00:33:32.900 right. It's a real opportunity to connect with people and to talk about it. And I've had people

00:33:36.640 coming to me, emailing me, sharing stories. I can't tell you how many people are afraid to share

00:33:42.240 their story. They're afraid to talk about the things they've gone through in this arena, whether

00:33:46.140 they've gone into crystals or other things, or whether they went through what they believe was a

00:33:52.020 possession or some sort of spiritual affliction. And I would encourage people to be there and to have

00:33:56.660 these conversations because a lot of people have these stories. When you look at the polling data

00:34:01.460 among Americans, not just Christians, you have almost half of the population experiencing this

00:34:08.020 sort of thing or believing that it exists. And so it's not as weird as we think it is. We know if we

00:34:13.560 believe the Bible, okay, if we believe scripture, we absolutely cannot ignore all of these stories

00:34:19.980 throughout scripture. And I use the word stories lightly because we believe these things happened

00:34:23.740 of Jesus confronting these things. And by the way, not to go on a tangent, but if people are going

00:34:29.420 to say, well, this ended with Jesus, you know, there was no more evil demonic force walking around

00:34:34.680 after Jesus came. Well, we see in Acts 16, we see Paul dealing with this, with this slave woman who's 0.99

00:34:40.940 following him around, who, by the way, has a spirit that allows her to be a fortune teller,

00:34:46.580 essentially a psychic. And I had never noticed that story, but I found it fascinating because I've

00:34:52.500 encountered many Christians who believe that these issues ended with Jesus. Well, they didn't. And 0.64

00:34:57.340 there are a lot of stories today, even in our country, that show that that is not the case.

00:35:03.120 Yes. And I think Christians just have to be so discerning in, even if something doesn't seem

00:35:08.860 explicitly satanic or explicitly demonic, like playing with fire, as you've said, leads probably

00:35:19.040 to more explicit forms or more obvious forms of demonic activity. There's a reason why in the Old

00:35:23.960 Testament, like God warns his people against seers, against psychics. And we see, like you said,

00:35:31.700 that that is actually a demonic spirit in the New Testament. There are a lot of Christians or, 0.98

00:35:36.440 you know, professing Christians who are interested in their zodiac signs. They're interested in tarot 0.99

00:35:41.820 cards. They ascribe supernatural power to things that don't have supernatural power. There are some

00:35:49.220 Christians, I know this is controversial, but who ascribe way too much power and authority to 1.00

00:35:54.640 things like the Enneagram. And I just think that— People are obsessed with that, by the way. Yes.

00:35:59.180 Like, that's another thing. It's like, okay, you know, I can't—well, it's just, you know, these—not to

00:36:04.220 interrupt you, but these things are— No, it's fine. We start to put our faith in these things. Yeah.

00:36:07.520 We start to put our reliance in these things. Even the Ouija board, which everybody laughs whenever

00:36:12.920 it's brought up. I actually did—I did a chapter on it, and I was even laughing about the—I mean,

00:36:17.320 I never touched a Ouija board. I always knew, as a Christian growing up, stay away from them. You

00:36:21.060 don't want to mess with it. But when you go into the history of the Ouija board and you start to look

00:36:25.040 at where it came from and all of these details about the fact that there was a medium involved in

00:36:30.700 actually creating it, you walk away and you say, gosh, you know, these are tools that people are using

00:36:36.160 to put their faith in something else. And many times we're desperate. We want to connect with

00:36:40.920 a dead loved one. And that's—it preys on those sorts of desperations. And instead of putting our

00:36:47.060 faith in Christ, we start to put our faith in any of the things you just mentioned or the Ouija board

00:36:52.380 or whatever it is that's going to give us that immediate satisfaction when, again, it needs to be

00:36:57.380 in something higher and above ourselves. Yes, and amen. And thankfully, that longing that we all have for

00:37:03.240 something bigger, for something spiritual, that's something that God placed in all of us. That's

00:37:08.160 not something that you have argued so well, like that we need to just turn off and just deny exists.

00:37:13.900 But that spiritual curiosity that we have is thankfully satisfied in the spiritual reality

00:37:20.240 that is dictated by God himself and is found in Christ. Can you tell people, again, how they can

00:37:29.040 follow you, where they can find your book, anything else you want to direct them to, or anything else

00:37:33.600 you want to say as well? Absolutely. Yeah. So if you go to playingwithfirebook.com, you can grab it.

00:37:40.440 It's at Walmart and Amazon and all the places that, you know, books are sold. And I would just encourage

00:37:45.400 people—and by the way, you can follow me at Billy Hollowell. It's my website and all the socials.

00:37:50.600 But I would just say for anybody who's curious about the topic, who wants to know more about it,

00:37:55.880 obviously grab the book. But really, look at our culture. Look at what is happening around us.

00:38:01.360 It is not a coincidence that we're watching chaos ensue as we're moving more away from faith. And

00:38:08.040 don't be afraid to really dive in and understand what is going on, because I think it's so easy for

00:38:13.600 us to get consumed by the politics, to get consumed—not that we shouldn't care, don't misread me here—but

00:38:20.260 to get consumed with all of these details outside of truth, outside of the gospel. And it's really

00:38:25.920 easy in a material world—and we all fall prey to this—to assume that everything we're seeing is

00:38:30.780 all that's happening before us. But there is a lot more going on behind the scenes. There is a

00:38:35.840 spiritual battle. Scripture tells us this. And if we don't acknowledge that, that's how we find

00:38:41.140 ourselves. And again, individual and cultural trouble. And right now, we are in cultural trouble.

00:38:46.280 And I know a lot of people are struggling. A lot of people are afraid. People are looking at what's

00:38:51.260 going on, and they're wondering what the future holds. And I've really come in the last year or

00:38:55.640 two to really fall into my faith and to realize that at the end of the day, no matter what is going

00:39:00.180 on around us, Christ is what matters most. And that's the message we need to get to other people.

00:39:05.820 And so I would just encourage people that understanding evil points you back to truth. And I just

00:39:11.580 appreciate you having me on today.

00:39:12.780 Yeah. And just to tie a bow on this, to loop it back to how we started this conversation,

00:39:17.660 it's important for Christians as well to remember who the true enemy is. It's not fellow Christians 1.00

00:39:22.760 with whom we have political disagreements. Those political disagreements, like you've said and like

00:39:28.660 I believe, are very important and should be talked about and can be discussed. And there is

00:39:33.940 probably a right and a wrong to those things. So I'm certainly not saying that they don't matter.

00:39:38.000 But at the end of the day, Satan, of course, would love to distract us from who the true enemy is.

00:39:42.380 And for us to believe that everyone who disagrees with us is on his side. So we kind of forget and

00:39:48.540 obfuscate who the real enemy is. And that is Satan and sin. And thankfully, we have victory and unity,

00:39:55.440 by the way, in Christ. And I think that is the hope also that your message brings.

00:40:00.760 So thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for writing this book,

00:40:04.360 even though you did so with some trepidation. I know that it's going to help a lot of people.

00:40:08.640 We'll make sure to link it in the description to this podcast. So thank you again.

00:40:14.020 Thanks so much for having me.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 17, 2021

Ep 440 ｜ Facing Demonic Forces & Spiritual Warfare ｜ Guest： Billy Hallowell

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