It's not your ordinary Sunday service.
In a small church just outside Buffalo, N.Y., people are retching and coughing up into paper bags. A few are incessantly, forcefully, weirdly yawning. An 8-year-old boy is tackled and pinned to the ground as he yells out, "Get off of me!" Someone gets hit in the back of the head by a large man erupting around the room in a screaming fit. There is much fervent praying and quiet weeping.
There is something else going on here, too. In the belief of these Christians at the Agape Bible Fellowship in East Aurora, N.Y., a "deliverance ministry," there is a triumph unfolding before our cameras -- a triumph over Satan.
"When we begin to cast that spirit out, there is manifestation," said Pastor John Goguen, a graduate of the Dallas Theological Seminary who founded Agape 22 years ago. "People have to humble themselves, and some people can't get beyond what to them looks like play acting -- it looks foolish. But there's a verse in the Bible where Paul the apostle says that God uses the foolish things of the world, things that look foolish, to confound the wise."
Satan has fallen out of fashion for many Americans, even for many Christians. Belief in the existence of the devil as an actual living spirit wanes in this country with each passing year. To many people, Satan is, at most, a symbol or metaphor for the malignancy that stalks human history, a way of thinking about our species' seemingly boundless capacity for cruelty. For a lot of other people, the devil is merely a fantasy of deluded minds. A tired Hollywood joke.
Believers like to quote the old line that the devil's greatest trick was convincing people that he does not exist. But every culture in human history has believed in evil spirits. For better or worse, this belief, and the figure of Satan himself, is part of the human story, a story that continues today, in our own time, in our own country.
In our program, "Beyond Belief: Battle with the Devil," we set out to discover how the battle against Satan is being carried out in America, for those who believe that the Prince of Darkness and Author of All Lies is a real presence in the world, a real threat in their lives.
From the Agape church in New York to an exorcism conducted in California, from a Christian ministry attempting to rescue women from the sex trade in Las Vegas to a training class for exorcists in Rome, from Times Square in New York to the "Amityville Horror" house -- we met people who sincerely believe they are locked in combat with the devil. It has been an astonishing journey.
We don't set out to prove or disprove the existence of Satan; we simply want to respect the authenticity of the beliefs of the people we met. What we hope we've done is shine a light into a world of spiritual warfare that goes on all around us, and report the amazing experiences of people who are convinced they have struggled not just with the moral reality of evil in their lives, but with a powerful and terrifying supernatural being who promotes and generates that evil: The devil.
And that they have triumphed over him with the most powerful spiritual force of all: Love.
We hope you'll watch.
WATCH:
Tune into "Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief's" special, "Battle With the Devil," airing Wednesday, July 20 at 10 p.m. ET
Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief Episode Guide 2011 Season 1 ...
Battle With the Devil: What Deliverance Looks Like | Video - ABC News
Casting Out Demons: Expelling Demons Through Mucus, Saliva at N.Y. ...
I met a girl many years ago who believed plant life was speaking to her. She actually checked herself into a mental hospital because these voices (which she only heard when actually around plant life, only house plants and trees) were frightening. Fortunately she had periods of sound mind to check herself into a hospital knowing that plants weren't actually speaking to her.
But she'd say that when plants were speaking to her she'd fully believe they were, and would speak back to them. In her periods of sound mind she'd what scared her more than hearing the voices, was the fact that she fully believed they were.
Anyway, it illustrated how powerful the brain really is, and how belief can really shape our perceived realities. It's gotta be pretty frightening to believe that you are being possessed by a demon.
These poor people have a serious mental illness, and this show is milking the ignorance of religious people for ratings. You can't respect the authenticity of their experience when their experience is not authentic devil possession.
Frankly, I think my angel and demon are both serious slackers.
Eph 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
F&F!
"I got my bell
I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get Ya SATAN GET YA"
Their song "Highway to Hell" they sing:
"Ain't nothing I would rather do
GOIN' DOWN, PARTY TIME
My friends are gonna be there too . . .
Hey Satan, paid my dues . . .
I'm on the way to the promised land
I'm on the HIGHWAY TO HELL."
Is this truely taught or is it part of our nature?
Why are they not ridiculed for that ridiculousness just as much as these Agape people?
The difference is ..... what?
I'm not saying there's no such thing as a bad spirit, but if you're doing all that stuff to someone, look closer to *what you're actually doing yourself, first?*
Gods, what do we need, a best practices board or something?
Fact is, I dont see how you could call yourself a christian if you dont believe in Devils, and dont believe that said devils can and do possess people.
So to any GnuChristians who look down on these guys, think about....after all your Jesus was doing exorcisms everytime he turned around