Territorial Spirits
(The following is an edited email correspondence.)
Is the Charismatic teaching about territorial spirits incorrect?
This is the false teaching that certain evil spirits are especially associated with a geographical area ("greed," "lust," "pride," "the occult," and so on; sometimes it might have a name, such as "dragon"), and they put up such stubborn resistance against the gospel that Christians find it difficult to evangelize or to achieve any great spiritual progress in their ministries.
Thus what Christians should do is to "discern" the evil spirits (probably by extra-biblical revelation) that are "ruling" over the area (located in the sky above the area), and pray against them (by exercising spiritual authority over them) so that they would depart.
Once they have departed, there will be a sudden change in the spiritual "atmosphere" in the area; evangelism and other Christian work will become more effective from that point forward.
C. Peter Wagner is one of the chief proponents of this teaching.
The doctrine has no real biblical support, but it is affirmed based on misapplications of Daniel 10, Jesus' teaching about the "strongman," and scriptural references to demonic "strongholds."
The Bible mostly relates the effects of evil spirits with the minds of people, who may in turn carry out evil actions. For example, a city that is especially bound by sexual sins, more so than other cities, may have become a strategic location for demonic influences of this sort. The East Coast, and very much so in the Boston area, is filled with intellectual pride, having so many top universities.
But these demonic influences work out themselves not in the air, but through the minds of people. By various means, they induce people to think in certain ways, and to adopt certain worldviews. The problem is intellectual in nature, and not an indefinable something "in the air."
Likewise, the "strongholds" in Scripture are not little castles in the sky, but they refer to the stubborn evil mindsets and dispositions installed in the minds of men. The Bible teaches that they consist of "pretensions," "arguments," and "thoughts."
Thus it is also unbiblical to pray that God will reveal to you what kind of spirits are dominant over a given geographical area. And it is futile to combat demonic "strongholds" by screaming at the sky, calling the evil spirits by name, and commanding them to depart.
The implication for both evangelistic and pastoral ministries is that, instead of naming the spirits and commanding them to leave the sky above you, we simply preach the whole counsel of God. If we find that a particular mindset or worldview is strongly held by people in a certain area, then we can study up on the subject so as to be better prepared to handle the resistance. Jesus dealt with the "strongman" by (1) preaching — thus counteracting false ideas in the mind, and (2) casting out demons from people (not from the sky).
The Charismatic teaching of "territorial spirits" has no support from the Bible, nor does the Bible tell us that we must discern the particularities of certain people groups. However, if you happen to discern relevant particularities of a people group (see Acts 17:22; Titus 1:12–13), and know how to respond to it by applying biblical teachings, then by all means adjust your presentation to best impact the people.
The following is a relevant passage taken from my Commentary on Ephesians:
Daniel 10 relates what happened in the spiritual world as a result of his prayer to God. It does not teach that we are to pray directly against demons or to angels for anything. Rather, we must pray directly to God, and trust him to do what needs to be done. We then participate in spiritual conflict and wage war against Satan primarily by engaging in intellectual preaching and argumentation against demonic ideas in other people. And since our divine weapons are founded on spiritual wisdom, we are not referring to arguing against non-Christian ideas with non-Christian wisdom. The nature of spiritual conflict does not consist of arguing against, for example, secular science with better secular science; rather, by divine wisdom and power, we declare and demonstrate the superiority of divine wisdom over the entire spectrum of secular ideas. We are referring to the triumph of Christian theology over all non-Christian ideas, whether the debate has to do with science, history, politics, ethics, or any other subject. In short, our strategy is a wise application of biblical revelation, made effective by divine power.
Recommended:
Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians