The Art of Spiritual Warfare
I certainly have my issues with the Bible. I don’t believe it is the untainted Word of God. To the contrary, over the years it has almost certainly become a document that contains both subtle and overt forms of spiritual mis- and dis-information. But to write off the entirety of the Bible thanks to its subtle to glaring red flags is to play right into the hands of those who have tried to undermine it.
There is a reason why so many people today still rely on it with such fervour and devotion for their spiritual guidance. It is not because they are gullible sheep (not that these don’t exist, unfortunately): it is because they have, for the most part, come to understand the pure spiritual wisdom that lies within it.
And I don’t think there is a better place to understand the seriousness of the situation that is at play on Earth at the moment than Ephesians 6.
As I discussed previously, Ephesians 6 establishes a paradigm of ‘spiritual warfare’ that many Christians (and/or Bible-influenced conspiracy theorists) operate and fight within.
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6: 11-12).
The Bible is not alone here. The Qurʾān has the vexed concept of jihād, whose conventional reading is more of a struggle for what is right opposed to that is wrong, but which is often interpreted in the literal sense as a holy war.
Extremes of both the Christian and Muslim camps have done severe damage to the public standing of spiritual warfare, but it has never been more relevant than right now. In fact, I believe that adopting this paradigm is essential for understanding the forces shaping the world and how we can best engage with them.
That is: there is a war going on. A Biblical view would be to call this a battle between good and evil. And in the strictest sense, when you start to get an idea of some of the depraved things that have been happening in the world, this seems appropriate.
There are other ways to look at it. We are in a battle between unity and division. Between service to others and service to self. Between being awake and being asleep. Between ascension and stagnation, integration and disintegration. Between light and dark.
Choose your dichotomy, the one that resonates with your spiritual outlook the most. But know there is a war going on between dualities.
War does not mean violence, and this is important to establish for those who might have dedicated their lives to an anti-war stance. War can be more helpfully interpreted as a battle between two opposing forces, or wills.
We have a misconstrued idea of war as one determined by engagement within a physical battlefield. This can probably be put down as one of the many symptoms of our materialistic society.
But if we raise our eyes and our mind, we can see other forms of warfare occurring all around us, everyday. Wars over ideas. Wars over politics. Wars over identity. Adopting a spiritual war footing can inform how we see almost every social issue. Most if not all of us are engaged in wars in these domains, often without realising it. Every individual is involved in their own spiritual war in their own chosen, or predefined, battlefield.
Ephesians 6 goes on to give more details of the terms by which we engage in these battles. The passage gives a series of different forms of armour we can wear: essentially each being different virtues, as is befitting a spiritual rather than a material battle.
Attributes of the Armour of God from Ephesians 6 (Source)
As simple and un-sexy as it may sound, this is the heart of the spiritual war we are all engaged in: the practice of virtues. This is a worldview derived from my experiences with the Bahá'í Faith, which takes this battle to the home front of the local grassroots level, where it is fought with everyday conversations and interactions.
When placed in this context, spiritual warfare is a cause that everyone can rally behind.
What are the implications of seeing the world through a lens of spiritual warfare?
As a personal example, I used to subscribe to the viewpoint that institutions such as politics were fundamentally corrupted. I had essentially written off every politician — if by that stage they had chosen to remain within the system — as fundamentally corrupt by extension. This is not an uncommon view, but it’s not one I hold now: I’m now sure there are good politicians on every side, doing their best to save a broken institution. Even previously maligned people who, despite their past controversies and mistakes, had now chosen to align themselves with the right side of the spiritual war they had found themselves in. And were prepared to wear any of the spiritual damage that such a choice would bring about.
To pick another topical example, this is why I don’t support ‘defunding’ police or saying all cops are bastards, even if I accept that police as an institution might be systematically racist and biased towards violence. Because, just like every institution, every workplace, every social setting on Earth, the police is playing out as its own spiritual battleground. In it there are good, selfless, light-bearing individuals, fighting against the opposing forces that have come to control it. Do you win this war by every good cop walking away from the fight as soon as they become uncomfortable? Or is it won by good people fighting within the system to change it, to take control of it and evolve it into the positive archetypal role that such an institution has in a peaceful and harmonious society?
Perhaps we can also take the example of social media, where we see digital warfare playing out before us everyday. I used to think it was unhelpful to engage in discourse on Facebook and other similar platforms, and that the distanced and faceless nature of it was not conducive to positive interactions and outcomes. But then I realised: whether I engage with it or not, this warfare will continue. The negative forces that currently appear to be in control of this discourse — the forces that lead to increased division, that lead to reinforcing one’s own ego — are only going to further dominate if positive forces decide to sit it out.
And so I choose to engage: not on those terms that currently exist, where victory is seen as the ability to intellectually dismantle and destroy the views of the other person, but on spiritual terms. I engage with the aim of establishing a greater understanding of and compassion for opposing views, of finding a place of common ground, of not needing to be right.
Do you wonder why you feel exhausted right now? Maybe it is because you, and all of us, are currently engaged in our own personal spiritual wars, and we are constantly having to deal with the inevitable battle scars that come with this engagement.
We know it would be easier to not take a side. To just be quiet and focus on looking after ourselves. To remove ourselves completely from social situations that we feel are a threat to our wellbeing and leave us outside of our comfort zone.
But we decided that there existed a negative force that we could not accept as being left unopposed. And so we stood up and fought. Ideally, we do it with others, side by side in serried lines, and the fight becomes a whole lot easier.
That doesn’t mean every time we engage in one of these battles it is righteous: it is all too easy to become involved for selfish reasons. And that is why it is so important to armour up — to have our virtues front and centre at all times.
Humility is my go to: a constant reminder to myself that the more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know. Compassion for those who views I believe are mistaken, and understanding for how they have come to be mistaken. Discernment to sort the good information, from the misinformation, from the disinformation. Faith that good will always overcome evil; that a divine force is always present, even in the most dark of places.
But even with this armour on, we can’t be mistaken for thinking we are immortal. This may not be war as we know it, but it is still war: and all war is brutal. It means that we shouldn’t overlook the significance of such righteous engagement, when we do it consciously with the right intention and motives, and we are forced to encounter the inevitable blowback in whatever form it might take.
And so we need to understand the significance of what we are doing. Know when you have reached your limits… unless you really are hell-bent on becoming a martyr.
And perhaps most importantly, be unapologetic in your right to step back, unwind and reward yourself in any way you choose for choosing to accept the spiritual wounds that come with engaging in the most important battle — perhaps the only real battle — that exists on Earth.