An extended review of a 2025 book by Harold Ristau
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Baker Books, 2025. 208 pages, $28 (ebook $20, audio $20)
Is demonic activity on the rise? Harold Ristau, former Canadian military chaplain and active Lutheran clergy, says yes. With decades of deliverance and exorcism ministry experience, he now wants to equip Christian ministers – and laypeople – to confront Satan and his minions. This is the premise of his new book.
Ristau writes from a confessional Lutheran perspective as a minister in the Lutheran Church-Canada, a group which originated from the conservative American group known as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This is a different stream than the mainline liberal denomination called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
As such, Ristau holds to a sacramental view of the ordinances and to baptismal regeneration, two views which may surprise evangelical readers. While I have no problem with the author asserting his views, it would be helpful to non-Lutheran readers to be given a brief explanation of each.
The book opens with some harrowing narratives of Ristau’s exorcisms. There’s no denying these extraordinary encounters elicit great interest in the reader, which makes these chapters hard to put down. We read of Frank’s exorcism, during which, when the name of Jesus was mentioned, “items in the room began to shake. Pictures dropped off the wall and lights began to flicker.”
Not everything unusual is demonic, of course. Ristau, like all wise exorcists, advocates for a careful process of discernment which gradually eliminates all merely medical or psychological explanations. But for those tempted to ignore this uncomfortable topic, Ristau issues a challenge. “How can we be of loving service to our neighbors if, when demonic activity manifests itself in their lives and homes, we render unbiblical explanations and secularized excuses for such menacing spiritual phenomena?” It is his view that, for some ministers, dealing with the demonic is just part of being faithful. The only question is whether they are well prepared or not.
There is something bracing about this topic, the result of the undeniable contrast between good and evil, the inescapable need for genuine repentance, and the seriousness of the stakes. Even just reading about encounters with dark spiritual forces can serve like smelling salts, waking us up from the sleepy complacency we all too easily slip into. Ristau consistently points the demonically afflicted and the reader to consider Christ – His cross, resurrection, boundless grace. These recurring themes help make the book edifying to read.
Ristau assumes as matter of fact something which will be surprising and controversial to many Christians: that believers can be experience significant demonic affliction, even to the point of losing bodily control – symptoms of what is usually considered possession. For many Evangelicals, this is a notion not to be entertained.
The popular belief stems from the simple idea that the Spirit and demons cannot inhabit the same space within the child of God. It is a comforting idea, but it does not easily survive contact with the consistent experience of those who exercise this kind of ministry. Part of the problem is linguistic: oppression and possession are not biblical categories but rather labels we use to describe varying degrees of what the New Testament calls demonization.
The book assumes that while a child of God is possessed only by God in terms of belonging to Him, that does not mean he or she cannot open up doors through which demonic influence can gain a foothold.
Regardless, Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance is more practitioner’s guide than thorough biblical or theological treatment. Those looking for careful distinctions and definitions will need to look elsewhere.
The book is not without weaknesses. The blunt and forthright tone means that at times it lacks important nuances. For example, the author conflates cultures and religions when he writes that “God made different ethnicities but not cultures,” adding that cultures “were largely the result of humanity’s sinful rebellion at Babel.”
At other times the author deploys tired clichés which are ready for retirement, such as “God will never give you more than you can handle.” And lastly, Ristau says it's a grave mistake to converse with demons and to seek to learn about their nature or about hell from them because they are so deceptive. But then only 30 pages later, he does exactly that, providing a quoted description of hell that is purported to come from a demon.
Whatever the shortcomings of this book, it gets the big things right by being gospel-centred and edifying, exhorting the reader towards a humble, sober-minded approach to deliverance ministry.
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