Ep 440 ｜ Facing Demonic Forces & Spiritual Warfare ｜ Guest： Billy Hallowell
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Summary
Billy Halliwell is a writer, journalist, and political commentator. He wrote a book called Playing With Fire, about demonic activity and demonic possession, and why he thinks it s important for Christians to understand that this is going on, to see how this is happening, and to use the power of Christ to push back against it.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am talking to Billy Halliwell. He wrote a book
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called Playing With Fire, and it's about supernatural activity, demonic possession,
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Satan, satanic powers, things that we don't necessarily talk about explicitly that much
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on this podcast, or really in Christian culture at all. But he has uncovered why he thinks it's
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so important, especially in this present moment, for Christians to understand that this is going
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on, to see how this is going on, and then for us, with the power of Christ, to push back against
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this. First, we're actually going to talk about a little political subject, but it'll tie all
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together, because he did not vote for Trump in 2020, and so we're going to talk a little bit
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about our differences and our agreements there. So it's a really good conversation that I'm
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looking forward to you hearing. Here is Billy Halliwell.
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Billy, thank you so much for joining me. I think a lot of people who are listening or watching
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already are familiar with you and your work, but just in case, can you tell everyone who you are
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and what you do? Sure, yeah. So I am a journalist. I'm a commentator. I actually worked at The Blaze.
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I was the faith editor at The Blaze for about five years, and so I'm a huge Blaze fan. And I've
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been working for really the last 15 years, more than 15 years now, in media. And so politics and
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faith, and in the last really five to seven years, my focus has been culture and faith and just diving
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deep into the patterns of what we see happening, why it's happening, and sort of helping people
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navigate that. And you wrote a book called Playing With Fire and about supernatural activity
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and demonic activity, and I want to get into all of that, and I'm super excited. That's going to be
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the bulk of our episode. But something that you and I have talked about on Twitter before that we
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talked about a long time ago discussing on this podcast is your support, then you're not support
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of Donald Trump. And by support, I just kind of mean that you voted for him in 2016. You did not
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vote for him in 2020. And I'm just so interested to hear your reasoning on that, because that's not
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something that I hear a lot of conservative Christians say that they did. It's sort of the
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opposite, right? You hear a lot of people say, I didn't vote in 2016, and then I did in 2020. And so
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here's the thing. I live in New York, and I had said many times during the campaign, and this is,
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it sort of sounds like a cop-out. But if I lived in a state where I felt like it really mattered,
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I would have shown up and voted differently, right? And so I didn't vote for either Trump or Biden.
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And I really struggled, you know, honestly, with the entire thing. And I think for me,
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it was, you know, in 2016, I sat down with Trump two weeks before the election. He called a bunch of
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never-Trumpers to Trump Tower. And I have to tell you, I wasn't a never-Trumper. Like, I've never been a
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never-Trumper. I've never been a, you know, pro, pro, pro, raw Trumper. But I sat there,
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and I listened to him. And I was really conflicted in 2016 as well, not between the two candidates.
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I wasn't going to vote for Hillary, but whether or not I wanted to put my name, you know, on this
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whole, you know, Trump thing. And so at the end of the day, I felt like I wanted to give him a shot,
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and I did it. And I have to tell you, policy-wise, I think it's really hard for a lot of conservatives.
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Of course, we can pull out little bits and pieces of things we don't agree with or we don't like.
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It's really hard to walk away and say, oh, Trump did a terrible job on policy. I think, you know,
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take the Capitol and all that other chaos, no matter what people think about that, and push it to the
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side. For me, his rhetoric has always been very problematic. And I am the first person to say,
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you vote on policy. And so when I walked into the polls and I was voting in 2020, I honestly didn't
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know what I was going to do walking in. And I just prayed about it. And I felt like, you know what,
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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
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been very angry at me, but I make the point, it doesn't really matter. I live in New York. The
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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
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kind of principle or any reason other than you just didn't think that it was going to do anything?
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Well, no, of course, you know, for me, the principle was, you know, having having struggled
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with the rhetoric and having struggled with the behavior, you know, I've spent a lot of time
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looking at my own behavior in media, the things I've said. When I started in media, I was 15 years
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old. I'm 37 now. So I've been doing this for a long time. I've been out there talking and saying
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things and speaking for a very long time. And I don't know that for me, I've always handled myself
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the way that I would want to. Right. And so I look back at that and I look at the way that Trump
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is. And for me, I just felt convicted that I wasn't going to go out there. I wasn't going to
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support it. I'm not judging those who did. Listen, I understand the reasons for supporting Trump.
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I've been out of, you know, the strict politics world now for a couple of years. And so I've had
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the flexibility to sort of not have to dive into those discussions if I don't want to. And for me,
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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
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going to subscribe to it right now. And having said all of that, I know it sparks anger in some
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people. And I've had a lot of conversations about this. People who feel that people like me haven't
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helped the problem. Right. We've made the problem worse because we haven't stood up and supported
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Trump. For me, it's about the policies. And I've always been very open and vocal on policy. And I
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will continue to be pro-life policy, you know, in conservative values. I just felt like in 2020,
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I had I had the ability to not have to show up. So for me, it was principle and it would have been
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a struggle for me to to go out there and say, I love Donald Trump. I love everything Donald Trump
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stands for, because the reality is I agree with the policies, but I don't love many of the things
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that Donald Trump as a person stands for. Yeah. And I mean, I would agree with that. And everyone on
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this podcast knows how I feel about it. And I even have some people who have told me that,
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you know, I am the reason or I'm part of the reason why Donald Trump lost, because there's
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I so often caveat my support of him with saying, you know, I love that he did this. I am going to
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vote for him. I did vote for him in 2016 and 2020 based on the reasons that you just said. And so
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you and I both had the same kind of reasoning and the same kind of logic and feelings about Trump.
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I ultimately, you know, I ultimately voted for him both times based on those policies that
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that we agree with. But I very often offer the same kind of qualifications and caveats that you
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do that. Look, I don't like when Trump says this. I don't like when Trump does this. I don't like
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this part about his character. I don't like when he did this or that's hypocritical or that's not
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conservative or something like that. And unfortunately, I do a lot of people on the right
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and the left when it comes to their respective candidates really do want total puritanical support
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of their guy, of their champion. And they think any kind of coloring outside of those lines
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means that you want the destruction of America or you want the failure of that candidate or you
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precipitated the failure of that candidate. And that's just not true. Do you agree?
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Well, I do agree. And I will I will tell you that looking at what has happened in the last
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month and a half, two months, looking at cancel culture, looking at all of these things,
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it again brings that question up. Is this the kind of America that you want to live in?
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And I think people like me who really had that struggle, right, you know, you kind of come back
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to, well, what kind of policies do I want to live under? We're having the debate about the Equality
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Act. We're having all of these discussions now. And so and I know that people will kick me for
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saying this, but my vote didn't really matter in this case. I'm a New Yorker. I know what it's like
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here. And I didn't feel compelled to stand up. But I will tell you, I feel compelled to stand up on
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those issues. And when we have another election in 2024 and we have to look at this again,
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these are huge, important issues. And it makes me very nervous looking at the sort of culture that
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is being incubated and created by the people who are claiming to be so liberal and open when in
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reality they're not. And so we've got big issues in this country. But for me also, I would say,
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you know, I came off of writing this book, which we're going to talk about. And so I was looking at
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everything in a hyper spiritual way. And as I was doing that, I felt convicted to sort of pull
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myself away from politics a little bit. And so it was kind of the perfect storm when the election
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hit of me sort of saying, I'm going to pull and it's a little selfish, right? Admittedly,
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but I'm going to pull myself out of this right now. And I really want to put my focus on reaching
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people, because at the end of the day, we can debate politics. And don't get me wrong,
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politics are important all day long. But if we don't start reaching people,
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and this is from a Christian perspective, for Christ, there is going to be no change,
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right? And it has to start at the individual level. And of course, it has to move into the
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corporate level as well. So there was a lot going on in my heart and in my mind during this election
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season. And I would counter anybody out there who's getting angry or frustrated with people based on how
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they voted to actually sit down and talk about it, because you and I probably agree on 99% of things.
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And I think most of us, you know, do on the conservative side when we sit down. And so that to me is the
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important starting place. Yeah, I, I agree. And I know plenty of people who didn't vote for either
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candidate, either in 2016, or 2020, or both. Obviously, as a conservative, as if someone who
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looks at these policies and looks at politics and talks about these things a lot, it is harder for
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me to be as sympathetic toward a vote directly for Joe Biden or, or Hillary Clinton, just because of the
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policies that are promoted there. And that doesn't mean, though, that I think that those people,
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you know, I've revoked their salvation card, which thankfully, I do not have the responsibility nor the
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ability to do, or that I don't think that they were well-meaning people. You can still, you can still
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though say, and I know that you agree with this, that, you know, I think that that was a wrong choice.
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They probably think that I had a wrong choice too. But I do think it's important for Christians
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to sit down and to have those conversations. And look, I have talked to a lot of Christians who
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voted for Joe Biden. There's not a single reason that I agree with her that I think is a good
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logical reason, just to be honest. But I still don't, I'm still not in a place, nor do I have the
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desire to say, well, that means that you're not a believer, or that means that you don't really love
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God. Maybe they're, maybe we just have difference of opinion, maybe, or maybe they really are just
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wrong. I do think directly voting for pro-abortion and policies in the Equality Act and all of that
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is actually very tangibly and clearly wrong. But thank goodness we are not judged ultimately
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by our vote. Unfortunately, there are people who identify as Christians on the Republican and the
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Democratic side who really think that we are. And I just praise the Lord that that's not the case.
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Well, and here's the thing, right? We talk about cancel culture, which I love to call cancer culture,
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because it infects everything. And the left, I mean, the left is so guilty of this, but it,
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but it is happening a little bit on the right. And it's happening in these arenas of, you know,
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if you didn't support Trump, right. And you know, you're just, it's like, we're going to cancel
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those people. We need to get rid of them. And I think we have to be really careful that while we're
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calling the left out, that we don't do the same thing on the right. And so I agree with everything
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you just said. I think for me, I can't possibly grasp what would, what would make a Christian be
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passionate about Joe Biden's policies and who Joe Biden is. I mean, it just, it doesn't,
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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.
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And you may think that, but at the end of the day, you have two things to really base a vote on,
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in my view, a platform, you know, policies that are laid out. And then you actually have the
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policies themselves that have been enacted. And so when it comes to those things,
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particularly on the life issue, on identity and what we see happening throughout our culture right
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now, to me as a Christian, it's now I'm not, I'm going to do the same thing you're doing.
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I'm not going to say you can't be a Christian. I know Christians who voted for Joe Biden because
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they were so disgusted with the rhetoric and the things they saw coming from Trump. But I,
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but for me, again, it goes back to those hallmarks of the platforms and the policies.
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Yeah. And you, you mentioned that when you were kind of deciding on your vote and what you were
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going to do, you were coming off of writing this book, playing with fire, and you were kind of in
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this hyper or what you described as like this hyper spiritualized perspective. And I think it's good
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for us to have always that eternal and supernatural perspective of things that are going on. That might
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not mean that we all land in the same place as Christians, even having that perspective, but it is
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important for us to think about things eternally. And for us to think about things spiritually,
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you have touched on this spiritual subject of demonic activity, supernatural activity
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that a lot of people don't think about. We don't like to think about. We don't like to talk about.
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Pastors don't talk about. There's not very many books on this subject. And yet I get a lot of
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questions about this subject about, okay, like what is hell? What is Satan? What power do demons
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actually have? Because there's a rise in witchcraft. There's a rise in the new age,
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especially among young women. And so Christians are like, okay, hang on. What does the spiritual
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realm of good versus evil actually really look like? So can you talk just to summarize, I guess,
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a little bit about why you wrote this book and what it's about?
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Yeah. So with Playing With Fire, this was a book that there was another publisher a few years back
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that this idea came about of doing a journalistic exploration from a Christian lens, but as a
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journalist sort of diving into this topic. And at the time, I moved away from it. I had a book
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offer and I was like, you know what? I prayed about it. I just felt like I'm more into politics
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right now. Of course, I care about faith. I'm a lifelong Christian, but I don't want to touch
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this dark topic. And so it felt very dark to me. I moved away from it. And I have to tell you that
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God has a way of bringing us back to the things he wants us to do. And so I basically had a book
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offer dropped on my lap to do this a couple of years after the original book offer. And I sat on
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it for two months just praying about it and thinking about it. And for me, even when I worked
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at The Blaze, we would sometimes get these stories, right? You'd get these mainstream outlets that were
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covering possession stories. And so I was always intrigued by it and we would cover them and we'd do our
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due diligence to try to understand what people were claiming had happened. But I realized there
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was this profound disconnect between the claims that people were making, right? And the things we
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see in the Bible and what was being talked about, not only in secular circles, but Christian circles.
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And when I went to write Playing With Fire, we did survey research among church leaders. And it was
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really remarkable to see that the vast majority of church leaders would say, yeah, we believe in demons.
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Yeah, we believe that. And by the way, church leaders are not just pastors, people who run Bible
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studies and all sorts of different leadership positions. But they would say, yeah, we believe
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all this. We know it impacts culture. But then when you'd ask the question, is your church talking
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about this enough? The vast majority would say no. And so that disconnect for me, I really felt
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compelled, obviously, to work on this project as I prayed about it. But I became intrigued by that
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because I thought, gosh, I don't think there's another topic talked about so frequently in Scripture,
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particularly the New Testament, and spoken about so infrequently in churches. And that is concerning
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because at the end of the day, Hollywood, and this is sort of remarkable, at the same time churches are
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talking less about this, you've got Hollywood churning out The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2,
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all these demon possession movies, right? Again and again and again. And so Hollywood is actually
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improperly, but they're talking about a topic more so than the churches, and it's actually a church
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topic. So that was sort of the thing that really compelled me into this.
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Yeah. So let's talk about demonic activity and the power that Satan actually has on us. Let's
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start with a specific question so I don't leave it so open-ended. One question that I get a lot is,
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does Satan have control of your mind? Can Satan read your thoughts? Does Satan have control of your
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thoughts? Let's start there and kind of move outwards. Can you answer that question?
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Yeah, it's really interesting. I guess the answer to the question is, how much have you allowed Satan
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into your life, right? And so the thing in talking with so many theologians and pastors, I mean,
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the general premise here is that you go back to Ephesians 6, right? And for me, Ephesians 6 is such a
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fascinating chapter because it tells us everything we need to know about good and evil, and it's
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encapsulated in just a few verses, but it tells us we're in a battle over good and evil, that what
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protects us from that battle, taking up the shield of faith, is being Christians, living a Christian
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lifestyle. It's not just saying, oh, I'm a Christian. It's living that out, having a relationship
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with Christ. And so when people ask that question, generally, I find that people are afraid. They're
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fearful of these things, and they want to understand, you know, can Satan read my mind? Does he know what
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I'm doing? And as Christians, the answer would be no. You're protected if you're living that lifestyle.
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If you are somebody who has, you know, opened yourself up to evil, well, then we're talking
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about a little bit of a different story. And so there's a really wide scale of stories that you
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encounter. And when you look in Scripture, I mean, we see really, really extreme examples of
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possession, right? We see children, we see adults, we see Jesus healing people, and we see some of the
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effects of what possession looks like in Scripture. But we're also given a lot of pieces of advice from
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the Olds and the New Testament about what we should be avoiding, avoiding witchcraft, avoiding psychics,
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avoiding all of these things that pop culture actually praises, and that you, as you mentioned,
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we're seeing increases in all of these things. And I know a lot of people listening, by the way,
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even in the conservative world, they'll hear some of this, and they'll think, oh, this is silly,
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this isn't real. But the reality is, you have a scenario, and I talk about this in Playing With
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Fire, where since the beginning of time, this has been a common experience. The idea that there is
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obviously a spiritual realm, but not just that, the idea that there is evil, and that evil can affect
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you. And I know I'm giving a very long-winded answer here, but it's actually very complicated.
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When you open yourself up to these things, you really are playing with fire. You're potentially
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transforming your life in a very negative way, just like as Christians, when we open ourself up
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to truth and we accept Christ, we are on the opposite end, opening ourselves up to something
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really wonderful, right? So they're polar opposite dynamics, but there are so many credible and also
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incredible healing stories in the mix of all that. We hear about witchcraft a lot as it pertains to
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countries in Africa or even Haiti. When people think about witchcraft, they kind of think about,
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I think, third world countries or the eastern world. They don't think about things that are
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happening or trends that we see here in the West. And when we hear about demonic activity or demonic
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possession, it seems to typically come from cultures like that. So what does demonic possession look like
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today and in our own cultural context? Because I can't believe that it's only happening in certain
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countries and wouldn't be happening here. Yeah, well, you know, it's really interesting about
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that. As I was working on the book and talking with pastors and priests and individuals who are
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dealing with this on a daily basis, believe it or not, there are deliverance pastors and there are
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ministers who deal outside of the Catholic Church in exorcism. And then the Catholic Church has
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obviously the right of exorcism, which we can talk about. But in America, we've had a really
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interesting heritage here, right? We've had this Judeo-Christian underpinning. And even though
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we're moving away from that and we're seeing the effect of that, it's fascinating to look back at
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that history. I think in a lot of ways, because Christianity has been so, even if it's just nominal,
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ingrained in who we are, we often don't see these sorts of things. But it doesn't mean they're not
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happening. And to give you an example, all of these experts told me that they have seen massive
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increases. And actually, the Catholic Church has openly said this in requests for help,
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meaning that there are people, whether or not they're truly dealing with these issues,
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they believe they are. And that is increasing. So as you sort of map out that move away from faith
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in America, which I think is really fascinating, you know this in talking about culture, we see all
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these bizarre things happening in culture. But we also see at the same time that people are
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experiencing more and more spiritual duress as that unfolds. And so we've had a number of stories
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in America. In fact, one is very famous in Gary, Indiana. Back in 2014, there was a major news story.
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And what was so unique about this story was that it made its way into the Indianapolis Star. This is a
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mainstream media outlet that had collected so much data and information on this alleged possession story
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that they were able to publish a really well-sourced article. And that article went international,
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but it was really intriguing to see. And I talk about this particular case in Gary, Indiana, quite a bit
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in the book, to see that one of these things was actually making its way into the mainstream. So the short
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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,
00:35:36.440
you know, professing Christians who are interested in their zodiac signs. They're interested in tarot
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
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
00:39:12.780
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
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.