Richard Beck - Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted

In a world where its awkward to talk about spiritual warfare, Richard Beck reminds us why its still necessary, and he gives us words, images, and stories to start the conversation. Let him (re)introduce you to the devil!

Sara Barton
Chaplain at Pepperdine University and author of A Woman Called

Im grateful to Richard Beck for helping us reclaim that which was clearly important to Jesus: casting out demons and contending with evil. While Im not sure if I believe in spiritual warfare, Im certain Ive experienced it, and Reviving Old Scratch allowed me to come several steps closer to reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable statements. Beck manages to take demons, the devil, and spiritual warfare and pull them into the reality we live in today and for that I am grateful.

Nadia Bolz-Weber
Author of Pastrix and Accidental Saints and
pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints

In our secular age, most western Christians instinctively dismiss the devil and demons as antiquated mythical notions of our superstitious past. Yet, as Richard Beck argues, this dismissal adversely affects both the coherence and the vibrancy of the Christian faith. In this insightful and highly important masterpiece, Beck helps Christians understand that they need not suspend their doubts about Old Scratch to discern his reality in the dark dehumanizing forces that are all around us. Whether youre convinced or doubtful of Satans existence, this book will inspire you to enter into the age-long spiritual battle that has always been at the center of the Christian faith.

Gregory A. Boyd
Author of God at War and Satan and the Problem of Evil

Richard Beck is one of the most important and fascinating minds in contemporary Christianity, and this exploration on the devil and demons is his best work yet. Lively, engaging, and profoundly relevant, Reviving Old Scratch manages to both tickle and challenge, inform and delight. Beck forges a fresh way forward that avoids the conservative tendency to overspiritualize the devil and demons on the one hand and the progressive tendency to reduce these powerful forces to social issues on the other. A must-read for skeptics and thinkers, Reviving Old Scratch surprises in all the right ways. I couldnt put it down!

Rachel Held Evans
Author of Searching for Sunday and A Year of Biblical Womanhood

Richard Becks Reviving Old Scratch will first put your theory of Satan and demons and the powers to death, then it will make you wonder if there isnt more than social justice and activism and believing in real, personal demons and angels, and then it will put a real Old Scratch with a mask onto what you thought was dead, and then you will be armed for the deeper battles of life and justice and love. Becks prison ministry with people who suffer at the hands of Old Scratch evokes authentic spirituality in a way no other book about the powers has done. #thinkagain

Scot McKnight
Northern Seminary

Profound and compelling. Follow Richard Beck as he narrates the interconnection between spiritual warfare and social justice through the powers and principalities. I highly recommend it!

Kyle Strobel
Professor of spiritual theology at Biola University
and co-author of The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb:
Searching for Jesus Path of Power in a Church that has Abandoned It

For the Men in White and the saints at Freedom Fellowship

On Monday nights youll find me in prison.

From 6:30 to 8:30 every Monday evening, my friend Herb Patterson and I lead a Bible study for about fifty inmates at the maximum-security French-Robertson Unit, just north of Abilene, Texas. After greeting the Men in White (inmates in Texas prisons wear all white) with hugs and small talk, during which I get to practice rudimentary Spanish greetings with the Hispanic men, we start the study with a prayer. Herb usually leads it.

A few years ago in the middle of his prayer Herb made a petition.

And Lord, protect us from Old Scratch...

This caught my attention. Old Scratch? Who was Old Scratch? What was Herb talking about?

As soon as the prayer ended and we all lifted our heads, I asked aloud, Herb, who is Old Scratch?

Herb was incredulous. How was it possible that I didnt know who Old Scratch was? But looking around the room, none of the men in the study seemed to know who Old Scratch was either. We were all in the dark.

So Herb explained, Old Scratch is the Devil. I later learned that Old Scratch, as a colloquialism for the Devil, was a nickname that originated in England and was common in the last century in New England and the Southern United States. Herb is a generation older than I am, and he grew up in the South, so during his childhood he regularly heard the Devil called Old Scratch. Some think that the name Old Scratch originated from the Old Norse word skratte referring to a wizard or goblin. Attentive readers of literature might recall encountering Old Scratch in Mark Twains The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Aunt Polly describes Tom Sawyer as being full of the Old Scratch because of Toms rebellious and mischievous ways. And in Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol, during the visions of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge overhears a conversation describing his death: Old Scratch has got his own at last.

This is a book about Old Scratch. More specifically, this is a book about what some Christians call spiritual warfare, about what it might mean to do battle with the Devil. As we know, the Bible is full of admonitions about how to deal with Old Scratch:

Get behind me, Satan!

Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.

Watch out! Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.