Timothy George on "A Tale of Two Demons"

Timothy George, in his A Tale of Two Demons article in First Things, provides a fascinating contrast between the recent actions of Pope Francis in praying for a demon-possessed man in Mexico and the recent (heretical) sermon preached in Venezuela about a demon-possessed girl by Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. In concluding, he states:

There is a wider angle to this tale of two demons. It is worth noting that Pope Francis came from the global South to the heart of Europe to confront demons, whereas Bishop Schori traveled from North America to Venezuela to cast the demons from the text—without the benefit of an exorcism. There is some irony in this: a prominent representative of the rarified, Enlightenment-based religion of the North peddling a domesticated version of the Gospel in the global South. As we know, the Christianity thriving there is increasingly Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Pope Franciscan-Catholic. Like the robust faith of the New Testament, this kind of affective Christianity embraces the charismatic, the visionary, and the apocalyptic. These are all held in deep suspicion by those who still find spiritual warmth in the dying embers of rationalist religion. As Kenya’s Musimbi Kanyoro wrote, “Those cultures which are far removed from biblical culture risk reading the Bible as fiction.”

The entire article is worth reading.