Targeting cities with 'spiritual mapping,' prayer

Cause of controversy

While all evangelicals believe in the existence of demons, a great many are uncomfortable with the emphasis placed on them in spiritual warfare and mapping. "When you move into the area of why things occur in a city, some will say it's just social or economic or cultural trends," says Derrick Trimble, of the World Prayer Center. "Others will say that it has to do with demonic influences over an area."

"The church is coming to a level of spiritual understanding in the area of warfare that is more mature than ... in perhaps several centuries," insists Glenn Sheppard, of International Prayer Ministries, Conyers, Ga.

Yet Phyllis Tickle, contributing editor at Publishers Weekly, who is familiar with the world of Christian publishing, says, "Within the evangelical Christian community, there is a good deal of looking askance when somebody says 'spiritual warfare,' though there is much lip service to it. There certainly is a hard core who ... think that way, but the bulk do not."

Russell Spittler, provost at Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, Calif., suggests that the practices flourish most among Pentecostals. "Pentecostals approach Scripture literally, so they see the world populated with demons. It is not a far step to start naming them, assigning them territories, devising prayer strategies. For Pentecostals, 'spiritual warfare' is not a metaphor - it's reality."

Outside the evangelical community, the discomfort rises quickly when prayer targets other religious groups with the apparent aim of eliminating their influence and converting members. Otis has written in Pray!, "We are not asking God to 'make' people Christians.... Such requests violate human free will.... What we are appealing for is a level playing field, a temporary lifting of the spiritual blindness that prevents [people] from processing truth...."

Yet just two weeks ago, the Anti-Defamation League was outraged at the Southern Baptist Convention's promotion of a prayer guide urging members to pray for the conversion of Jews worldwide during the High Holy Days (see page 12).

"We are deeply offended," says Abraham Foxman, ADL national director, "that it's done on the eve of the most holy period on the Jewish calendar - and then to track and identify Jews by name! That means you target somebody by research."

The impulse to convert is natural to people of faith, says Martin Marty, of the Public Religion Project. "The offense comes in what looks like the breaking of the rules of the game when you begin to target.... It's when you name a proper name of someone devoted to God in a different way or even, you might say, to a different god, that people get their backs up. In a sense, you're saying, 'We're not really at home with American pluralism' - that sense that if we don't want holy wars, we do well to be respectful of each other."

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society

Page: 1 | 2 | 3