Battles rage at this church in a strip mall on Franklin Avenue. The minister said he has performed nearly 4,000 exorcisms and people with dreadful problems go there for spiritual cleansing.

Trash baskets sit everywhere because the work of driving out demons is not always tidy. Worshippers sometimes retch and vomit in what they describe as a purging of evil from their bodies.

Ruby Fritze, 48, was there on a recent Friday, sitting on the front row of Spiritual Freedom Church. Words poured from her lips and her eyes filled with tears.

Spiritual Freedom Church is easy to miss but hard to ignore. It is located next to Golden’s Book Exchange and looks more like a classroom than a church.
Duane A. Laverty / Waco Tribune-Herald

She was telling about her life of hell as the sweet sounds of praise music surrounded her.

She stripped for strangers as a teen-ager, later guzzled vodka, used cocaine and endured rapes.

Time and again she tried to escape a life of turmoil, she said, but Satan would lure her back. She had turned to God at times, had made a profession of faith at age 9, but she could not shake her rebellion.

By late last year, Fritze had crawled to her emotional finish line. She could stand no more of what the Old Testament book of Proverbs calls “calamity that comes as a whirlwind.”

Desperate, she said, she fell on her knees and cried out, “Help me.”

Shortly after those words echoed into eternity, everything changed.

“I am free inside, truthfully and spiritually free,” Fritze said, a smile spreading across her tear-stained face. “I don’t even have the same thoughts I used to have. And I give God all the glory.”

At the recent service, Terri Collins was preaching, substituting for the church’s pastor. Some of the 20 or so people there knew Fritze’s story.

After she cried out for help last year, Collins stayed with her for three days as she vomited and prayed in what Fritze believes was an act of cleansing.

“God wants people to repent,” Fritze said, quoting by memory II Chronicles 7:14, which says, in part, “If my people will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive them.”

Spiritual Freedom Church is easy to miss but hard to ignore. It is located next to Golden’s Book Exchange and looks more like a classroom than a church. It has no pews, only metal chairs with soft seats arranged in rows.

The church meets on Sundays, drawing about 25 people, but Fridays bring deliverance and healing services.

Bruce Hines, 51, serves as pastor. He said he dedicated himself to spiritual warfare in 1998 while attending a church service in Fort Worth. He and a handful of others went forward to become part of speaker Bob Larson’s deliverance team. Larson is a controversial author and longtime radio speaker whose ministry includes dealing with demon possession.

As for Hines, when he came forward that evening 13 years ago, “My life changed, and my eyes opened. I’ve never seen a demon, but I can look into someone’s eyes and tell if they are demon-possessed. The Holy Spirit tells me.”

Hines estimated he has performed between 3,500 and 4,000 exorcisms since that day. There is no charge for the exorcisms he performs or his cleansing ministries.

For years he held services in the Dallas suburb of Arlington that he said drew crowds from Central Texas. He said several people who routinely drove up from Waco persuaded him to start a church here, which he did in 2009. He still leads the Arlington church, with services there on Saturday.

He believes that some diseases can trace their roots to demonic influence. He also believes in what he calls generational curses, in which a vice or evil nature is passed down until someone takes a stand to rid the family of it.

During a church service, Hines typically walks around the room naming sins, sometimes honing in on people who appear to have spiritual battles raging in their souls.

He approaches them, pray for them, and they may respond by vomiting — which is why waste baskets abound — or belching, passing gas, having fits of sneezing or coughing or yawning “as if their jaws are going to break,” Hines said.

Those who involve themselves in this cleansing typically have a sense of peace and relief afterward, he said.

Exorcising demons

But for some, the only answer is exorcism. Hines escorts individuals into his office at the church, accompanied by someone to take notes and another to silently pray during the process.

Bruce Hines said he has performed nearly 4,000 exorcisms since he committed himself to fighting demonic spirits in 1998. He serves as pastor of Spiritual Freedom Church in Waco.
Rod Aydelotte / Waco Tribune-Herald

“About 100 percent of these sessions will involve conflict with evil,” Hines said. “The demon actually comes up and takes over the person’s personality. When that happens, you have to deal with the demon and his legal rights and his curses. I will ask the spirit, ‘What are your legal rights to possession?’ And the Lord will make him answer me. I then will ask, ‘What are the curses you hold?’ I hear answers in an audible voice, just as Jesus did in Mark chapter 5.”

In that New Testament book, Jesus and his disciples encounter a demon-possessed man so strong chains could not restrain him.

He spent his days and nights in the mountains and tombs, naked, crying and cutting himself with stones. Jesus approached the man but speaks to the unclean spirit, asking his name. The spirit responds that his name is Legion, “for we are many.”

Jesus casts the demons into a nearby herd of swine that plunges over a cliff.

Hines said he subdues the demon with God’s help, though the demon may react with hissing and cursing. Hines then leads the individual through “repentance, renunciation and curse breaking,” and finally casts out the demon. The whole process can last 15 minutes to two hours, depending on the sin.

He said the person going through the exorcism is not restrained. He or she typically will produce some type of excretion, usually vomit or saliva, within 10 seconds of the demon being cast out, he said.

“If that does not happen, either the person or the demon did not tell me everything. Someone may have been embarrassed to say they had been involved in an unclean lifestyle, and didn’t confess it,” Hines said. “. . . Quite often we go through the process again.”

He said a large percentage of those who need exorcism exhibit multiple personalities or suffer from severe mood swings or personality disorders. Many grew up as victims of physical or sexual abuse. He said even professing Christians can be plagued by unclean spirits that make their lives miserable.

Religion and medicine

Hines does not minimize the importance of physicians in the treatment of illness, but he said problems that confound doctors or a family minister might require a different approach: exorcism.

He said he never tells anyone to quit taking their medication, though some who have been taking anti-depressants often feel well enough to reduce their dosage in a matter of months. To those who approach him with suicidal thoughts, he said he first suggests clinical help. He believes spiritual problems can manifest themselves as illness.

A worshipper stands in silhouette during a song service at Spiritual Freedom Church. Services include praying for people possessed by demonic spirits.
Duane A. Laverty / Waco Tribune-Herald

David E. Garland, dean of Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, said he would not cast stones at Hines or his work. He does have reservations.

“The problem I see with some deliverance ministries is that they tend to be theatrical,” Garland said. “Jesus did not do anything to ‘wow’ an audience. He never made use of any rituals or special prayers.”

When he wanted to send demonic spirits packing, “he just said, ‘Be gone.’ ”

Garland said there is no denying that demonic powers exist in the world, or that Jesus and his followers cast out what was identified as demons or unclean spirits, but the practice of exorcism is not a part of mainstream religion today.

Casting out evil spirits would not occur during an altar call at most churches, he said.

“I’m not going to rule out exorcism,” Garland said, “but I’m not going to teach it at seminary.”

Joel Gregory, a professor at Truett Seminary, said there are two schools of thought on demonic possession.

“Some say spiritual possession in the first century, during biblical times, would be the mental illnesses of today,” Gregory said. “Others would say this was a reality of possession by evil spirits.”

Then the question arises as to what Jesus believed: Was he curing mental illness or casting out demons?

“One needs to take great care in saying what God may or may not be doing when dealing with evil,” Gregory said. “I’ve been preaching four decades, and I learned a long time ago I’m not qualified to answer that question.”

Ronnie Holmes, who serves as pastor of Church of the Open Door, said he has met Hines and is somewhat familiar with his ministry. He has not attended a service at Spiritual Freedom Church, he said, but would welcome the chance.

He said in Mark 16 of the New Testament, Jesus gives his followers authority to cast out devils in his name and to lay hands on the sick. He said he does not believe that authority has been withdrawn.

Dr. Michael Attas, a Waco physician, medical humanities professor and an Episcopal priest, said, “My general feeling is that I’m an agnostic about things like this,” when told about the ministries at Spiritual Freedom Church.

“If he and his congregation feel these services are helpful, more power to them,” Attas said. “If people believe they were demon-possessed, and get better, then they were demon-possessed. It is not my position to believe or not to believe in it. It is their belief system, and if it makes their lives more authentic, that’s fine.”

Attas said he does not believe the stories of Jesus casting out demons should be taken literally; rather, they are images of the struggles we face as human beings.

The potential danger Attas sees is avoiding medical treatment because of religious beliefs, especially if an adult’s belief system interferes with treatment for a minor.

“We have constitutional guarantees to practice religion,” he said. “We do not have the right to kill people.”

Dr. Lance Oberg, a Christian and practicing psychiatrist in Waco, said he believes there are beings that live in another dimension, and these can be “malevolent demons or good angels.”

“In my own experience of more than 30 years, I would say 95 percent of the things I have seen are very explainable medically. But the other 5 percent, that’s where I don’t know,” Oberg said.

But there is a place for what Spiritual Freedom Church is doing, he said.

“I don’t cure everyone I work with. If they heal someone, that’s fine by me. I have my hands full with schizophrenia and other illnesses.”

‘I want to be cleansed’

At that recent Friday evening service, some congregants were chatting. Others sat silently, appearing to prepare for a time of worship. As the music began, several lifted their hands in praise. An aura of peace and contentment filled the room.

But the atmosphere became charged when Terri Collins began preaching.

She prayed: “Lord, open our ears to hear, make our hearts receptive and let your Holy Spirit have his way with us.”

Her message flowed from topic to topic. She stressed the importance of love and said Christians should not be conformed to this world but should serve as light for those in darkness

“I’m thankful for medicine. I’m glad there is Vicodin when I have a root canal. But don’t forget the healer, don’t forget his healing stripes,” she said, referring to the lashing Jesus received before his crucifixion.

“If we have faith to move mountains, as the Bible says, we have faith to cast out demons,” Collins said.

As the service neared an end, Fritze walked up to Collins, and they quietly spoke with each other.

Then Collins patted Fritze on the back and with a stern voice commanded any evil influence to leave her. Others came forward, some sobbing as they asked to have anger issues removed or requested prayer for physical ailments.

“I don’t ever miss an altar call, because I want to be cleansed,” Fritze said. “I cry unto the Lord, and he cleanses me. (Evil) things might try to hold on, but they can’t if we’re continuously cleansed.”

mcopeland@wacotrib.com

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