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Derek Prince: a biography

Deliverance expert?

DEREK PRINCE: A BIOGRAPHY
A teacher for our time
By Stephen Mansfield
Derek Prince Ministries/Authentic Media. 286 pages. £12.99
ISBN 1 90114 429 1

Many Christians have no idea how influential Derek Prince’s ministry has been worldwide and many who have had little contact with the charismatic movement do not even know his name.

For this reason alone, this book should be required reading for today’s generation of Christians. It also greatly illuminates certain interwar trends among upper class and upper middle-class British men.

The author has tried to be fair, seeking to face up to Prince’s faults, while believing him to have been a great man. He had the advantage of a number of personal interviews shortly before Prince’s death. Because the author had to rely on his subject for much of the information, certain events are seen almost exclusively from Prince’s own perspective.

Self-corrector

During my 36 years as a Christian, I have encountered considerable fall-out from Prince’s deliverance ministry. This tended to prejudice me against appreciating the positive aspects of his ministry. I had a number of tapes by him which I had put off listening to, but reading through this work encouraged me to listen to them to see if they harmonised with the picture presented here. Interestingly I found that there was clear agreement. In his later years, Prince actually revisited some of his earlier excesses and honestly and publicly tried to correct these. For him this was a matter of duty, which testifies to his personal sincerity and genuine desire to help those he ministered to.

Mis-diagnosis

The areas in which my strongest reservations lie concern his deliverance ministry. I do believe that people can be demonised (possessed by evil spirits) today, but I think that Prince attributed a wider spectrum of cases to this phenomenon than was warranted either by Scripture or experience. For instance, there is always the danger of attributing to demons what are no more than bad habits or obsessional tendencies. This parallels the tendency in secular psychotherapy circles to medicalise many conditions which may possibly be explained in social terms. A wide range of behaviours could be caused by demons, but this does not necessarily mean that there is a demonic cause in each case. There is a need for great caution and wisdom in this area.

Furthermore, over-reliance on personal ‘gifts of discernment’ can be problematic and lead to over-dependence on particular ‘deliverance ministries’. There still exists a cult of the ‘deliverance’ expert in charismatic circles; those who minister deliverance on grounds of personal gifts often seem to place themselves beyond accountability to the Body of Christ as a whole.

Despite the author’s best effort, I felt that this book does end up giving too much attention to the man, resulting in insufficient glory going to God. However, because of the great importance and widespread significance of Prince’s ministry, it is vital that Christians acquaint themselves with his ministry — and there is no better place to start than with a copy of this book.

Mike Taylor, London