“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!

It has become a dwelling place of demons,

a haunt of every foul spirit,

a haunt of every foul bird,

a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.” Revelation 18:2

America is bereft with demons. Suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism deaths (together categorized as deaths of despair) have increased so much that the American life expectancy has declined for the first time in one hundred years. Many people attribute these epidemics to problems that can be readily understood and, hypothetically, solved: a problem with mental healthcare, or a corrupt pharmaceutical industry. While those problems are definitely real, I believe they are rooted in something darker: the powers of death inherent in capitalism and the American state.



I work a block away from the intersection Kensington and Allegheny in Philadelphia, which is a center of the opioid epidemic. Last summer, over 700 homeless people were counted in Kensington, almost all of whom were addicted to opioids. I have lived and worked in some rough neighborhoods. What I experience walking around parts of Kensington is unlike anything I have felt anywhere else. From certain vantage points you can see a handful of people injecting drugs and dozens slowly falling down from their high. The abject suffering is so concentrated and great in number that I can feel it tangibly. The darkness weighs over me like a dark fog. I can only describe it as demonic.

I believe in demons. Most Christians don’t like to talk about demons anymore, or if they do, they domesticate them by brushing them off as another way of describing mental illness. They say that when Jesus released demons from people, really he was curing them of diseases like epilepsy and schizophrenia. First century Jews didn’t understand those diseases, but we modern people do, they say.



As someone who’s experienced evil far more intimately than I’d like, I think the writers of the Gospels understood demons just fine.



Demons as principalities

I believe that demons are malignant forces of evil in this world. William Stringfellow connected demons to institutions, or as referred to often in the bible, principalities. Stringfellow wrote that principalities, no less than humans or animals or vegetation, are creatures of God subjected to God–but they reject this subjection. In doing so they become demonic agents of death with the goal of stripping humans of our lives and our freedom. According to Stringfellow, in addition to institutions, principalities could be ideologies, traditions, routines, nations, idols, and churches. It’s not just that a principality or demon is a religious word for “racism”, for example, but that the ideology of racism is a malignant, evil creature of its own.



In more colloquial terms, a principality or demon is something that lives for itself, rejects God, and seeks the subjugation and death of humans. A stark example could be the Roman Catholic Church allowing children to be sacrifices to the institution–that is a principality. College and professional football damaging the brains of mostly black men to make money for a sport–that is a principality. Board members giving excess profits to the shareholders rather than to the underpaid people who keep their business running–that is a principality.



Demons as trauma

Often mental illness is discussed as if it’s merely the result of fate and brain chemistry. While I think many mental illnesses are caused or exacerbated by oppressive social structures, post traumatic stress disorder is interesting because, by definition, it originates with an encounter with evil. While PTSD can (rarely) occur after an event that many wouldn’t characterize as “evil”, it is most likely to occur after rape, domestic violence, or war. PTSD is an illness that can and should be treated medically, but it is no mere medical condition. The evil the traumatized person is haunted by must be recognized.

Demons and the deaths of despair

Humans are meant to learn, to cultivate talents, and to use their talents in the service of God and community. Under capitalism, in America, these things are impossible for most of people. Capitalism does not encourage the growth of talents, and nor does it reward talents. If we’re lucky, we work ungratifying jobs that pay enough to stay afloat, but that expect our entire lives in return. If we’re unlucky, we work 3 different low-wage jobs, none of which offer benefits. We’re worked to death–metaphorically in the case of losing opportunities for community, pleasure, and worship, and literally in the case of stress-induced deaths. Others of us don’t work at all. Meanwhile, interpersonal connection has been replaced by digital communication via for-profit companies that is easily monitored and interspersed with advertising and trolls.



People are miserable. Is it a surprise that we’re numbing ourselves?



That this all is the result of demons is significant. What’s happening on the streets of America–death, decay, suffering–is not just an unfortunate side effect of capitalism. It is the natural end of an institution that demands our consciences, morals, worship, and very lives.

Hope in a land of despair



I believe it is the obligation of Christians of goodwill to name the evil that we see, and to also share the truth–that God wins, life wins, and those abused by the principalities and haunted by demons will experience restoration in the resurrection.



Doing the work of resisting the principalities is essential. But I think it’s just as essential that Christians name the supernatural forces at work–the evil forces that oppress us, and eternal life through Christ that saves us. There are already movements against racism, capitalism, sexism, etc. What makes the Christian life different from a movement? As someone who has experienced evil, both in a societal way and in an terribly personal way, a Christianity that is afraid to talk about evil does not help me. Nor does a Christianity afraid to talk about the resurrection.



Years ago, I met a woman who had been in and out of the homeless shelter system for twenty years. She said she liked the Bible, so I asked what was her favorite book in the Bible. She said Revelation, which surprised me. Like many Christians tend to do, I had a paternalistic attitude toward an oppressed person; I assumed she’d like something “softer” and “easier” than Revelation. When I asked her why she liked Revelation, she said: “Because it’s not always going to be this way. I’m not always going to be suffering.”



May we all have that faith. May we all remember that there is hope, and share the good news of this hope, even for those who never escape their demons in this life.

Then one of the elders said to me,

“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;

they have washed their robes

and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.



“For this reason they stand before God’s throne

and worship him day and night in his temple.

The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.

They will not hunger or thirst anymore,

nor will the sun or any heat strike them.

For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne

will shepherd them

and lead them to springs of life-giving water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:14-17



