Modern Exorcism: Trading Autonomy for Demonology

— Joseph Laycock

Last month, a feature in the online magazine Details told the story of
Kevin Robinson, a gay teenager from Connecticut. Brought up in a
Pentecostal household, Kevin first came out to his family when he was
sixteen. His mother, refusing to accept homosexuality as a natural sexual
orientation, convinced Kevin to undergo a series of exorcisms to expunge the
demons that church members believed were causing his homosexual desire. After
the tenth exorcism  ¢â‚¬“ which was particularly brutal and degrading  ¢â‚¬“ Kevin and
his mother finally came to accept his sexual orientation. Now twenty, Kevin
still expresses difficulty reconciling his faith with his gay identity.

Numerous modern  ¢â‚¬Å“deliverance ministries ¢â‚¬  perform rituals to cast demons out
of homosexuals. Last June, a shocking youtube video of such an exorcism by
Manifested Glory Ministries attracted national news. In the video,
charismatic prophetess Patricia McKinney discerns that a teenager has  ¢â‚¬Å“a
homosexual demon. ¢â‚¬  What ensues is a frantic twenty-minute ordeal during
which the teen writhes on the floor in a near seizure. Church members
eventually induce vomiting by squeezing the boy ¢â‚¬â„¢s abdomen. Vomiting,
interpreted as evil leaving the body, has become the *sine qua non* in the
cultural  ¢â‚¬Å“script ¢â‚¬  of modern exorcism  ¢â‚¬“ a practice that is, needless to say,
highly controversial. Even Christian ministries who preach that
homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and a sin have censured these exorcisms,
arguing that they are dangerous. And the majority of gays who undergo these
rites are minors, leading some to suggest that this is a form of child
abuse.

But exorcism is actually on the rise and may be more common in America than
ever before. In 2008 the Pew Research Center found that seventy percent of
respondents believe that demons are active in the world. Similar findings
have been reported by Gallup and the Baylor Religion Survey. However, this
resurgence of demonology raises serious questions about where demonic
influence ends and individual autonomy begins.

As evidenced in the Gospels, the casting out of demons was an important
feature of the early church. In fact, pagans sometimes sought out
Christians from whom they could receive exorcisms. By the early modern
period, Catholic Europe had a rich culture of local exorcists. The Ritual
Romanum, written in 1614 under Pope Paul V, consolidated popular forms of
exorcism into a formal rite. This brought exorcism under the direct control
of the church hierarchy and in the modern era the rite increasingly became a
relic. However, in the 1970s, there was a resurgence of exorcism and
quasi-exorcism among evangelical Protestants and charismatic Catholics. These
modern practices, often called  ¢â‚¬Å“deliverance ministries ¢â‚¬  rather than
exorcism, usually occur outside of ecclesiastic authority.

Modern deliverance ministries espouse a form of demonology entirely
different from that found in ancient times. Until the twentieth century,
the quintessential case of possession was the Gerasenes demoniac, with an
alternate personality, a total lack of socialization, and supernatural
abilities. But the demons cast out by deliverance ministries are rarely
alternate personalities like *The Exorcist ¢â‚¬â„¢s *Pazuzu. Instead, they are
usually aspects of the person ¢â‚¬â„¢s normal personality that are deemed demonic.
McKinney explained,  ¢â‚¬Å“You have the alcohol spirit. You have the crack
cocaine spirit. You have the adulterous spirit. Everything carries a
spirit. ¢â‚¬  David Frankfurter describes demonology as  ¢â‚¬Å“the mapping of
misfortune onto the environment. ¢â‚¬  Any trait or behavior including
homosexuality, eating disorders, and infidelity can now be attributed to
demons rather than natural proclivities or rational choice. Indeed, this
seems to be the most appealing aspect of deliverance ministries: When all
behavior is ascribed to the influence of demons, there is no one who cannot
be exonerated.

* * * *

Pigs in the Parlor (1973), a seminal text for the movement, offers an
elaborate taxonomy of possessing demons. Here, demons of homosexuality
appear as part of a larger family of demons responsible for sexual impurity.
Other families include the demons of rebellion (where resides  ¢â‚¬Å“the demon of
self-will ¢â‚¬ ) and the demons of false religion (including the demons of Islam,
Buddhism, and other world religions). While researching his book American
Exorcism, Michael Cuneo encountered women whose husbands had diagnosed them
as having  ¢â‚¬Å“a demon of willfulness. ¢â‚¬  He was even diagnosed as harboring
demons himself. Within this system, humans seem to lose all autonomy;
instead, individuality is entirely the product of the various demons
possessing us.

Ministries that exorcise gay teens are quick to argue that the teens come to
them. Modern demonology effectively allows individuals to alienate any part
of themselves that they are uncomfortable with. This is no doubt appealing
to a variety of people who are conflicted over their desires  ¢â‚¬“ whether they
are gay teens, guilt-ridden adulterers, or people who cheat on their diets.
But  ¢â‚¬Å“outsourcing ¢â‚¬  our inner struggles to exorcists comes with a cost. By
forfeiting responsibility for our behavior, we also forfeit our right to
define ourselves as individuals, and we become vulnerable to the abuse doled
out by Kevin ¢â‚¬â„¢s last exorcist. Perhaps this exchange, in which both
responsibility and autonomy are forfeited, is the true  ¢â‚¬Å“deal with devil. ¢â‚¬ 

References

Matt Mcalester,  ¢â‚¬Å“Deliverance: The True Story of a Gay Exorcism, ¢â‚¬ 
Details.com, June 2010. Available online at: < http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201006/gay-exorcism>

Michael Cuneo, American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty,
(Broadway Books, 2001).

David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic
Abuse in History, (Princeton University Press, 2006).

Pew Research Center, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: June 2008, (Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008).

Joseph Laycock is is a PhD student in religion and society at Boston
University, and the author of Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern
Vampires (Praeger Publishers, 2009).

Sightings 7/8/10

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty
Centerat the University of
Chicago Divinity School.

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Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author
of the column, Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
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