Setting Your Church Free--Neil T. Anderson - Book Report/Review Example

In Setting Your Church Free: A Biblical Plan to Help Your Church, Neil T. Anderson lays out a clear, thorough plan to engage an entire church in spiritual warfare and free the church itself from demonic bondage. The solution he lays out starts with a vigorous and engaged pastor, but emphasizes that demonic influences cannot truly be purged until the entire congregation fights together. In spiritual warfare as in worldly warfare, the “troops” must stick together, and must have a leader willing to do what is necessary.

The first thing Anderson does in Setting Your Church Free is dispense with the idea that there can be any truly solid foundation for a church other than Christ. Further, he warns us that without such a foundation, the church will be vulnerable to the spiritual enemies that invariably assail those who seek to do God’s work on earth. Many ministries, Anderson points out, seem to think that it is sufficient simply to repeat the plain truths of Christ to their congregation and admonish them to be good Christians.

Were the work of the church simply to change human hearts and minds, that might be sufficient, but, as Anderson reminds us, the work of the church is to defeat the demonic forces that seek to keep Christians in spiritual bondage. The key structural concepts of the plan to oppose Satanic bondage that Anderson lays out are the necessity of engagement by the entire congregation, and the importance of strong leadership by the pastor. It is necessary for the entire church to participate in the renunciations of Satan and whatever curses or bondage he may have laid on the church, but it is first necessary that the pastor have the courage and will to tell them to do it.

Someone must teach the congregation the right things to say, lead them in saying them, and overcome any reservations or demon-inspired objections that some congregants may raise, especially those still in bondage. Spiritual bondage is no joke, Anderson emphasizes. So much of the commonplace rebelliousness, backsliding, and resistance to the Word that pastors take for granted is, in fact, rooted in demonic influence. Taking these things for granted as merely “human nature” is surrendering before the battle even begins, as the roots of these behaviors are neither human nor natural.

Anderson devotes a portion of the book to engaging with the common objections to the doctrine of spiritual warfare, the contentions that churches don’t hold generational memories or that demons don’t influence Christians. Many cling to these beliefs despite seeing the same churchgoer respond to multiple altar calls, seeking to be saved again and again, as though their relationship with Christ could be damaged by simple inattention, rather than spiritual warfare against them. In short, Anderson’s book is a call to arms.

He reminds us that Christ did battle with demons on more than one occasion, and if they were willing to attack Him, it is sheerest arrogance to imagine that they would not attack His servants. All the members of the congregation must pray together to free a church from spiritual bondage, but a pastor of will and conviction is required to organize that prayer plan and take the fight to the demons. Without leadership, the congregants are lost, and without congregants, the pastor is alone. Anderson makes this theme clear throughout his book, clearly backed up with firm Biblical principles.