ISDM recognizes that responsible deliverance ministers operate across a fairly wide spectrum of beliefs, convictions, techniques, methodologies, points of view, reservations, and opinions. In order to create an environment which ISDM members perceive as safe and comfortable, and in which they can openly relate to peers, it has been deemed advisable to set forth, in writing, a list of ISDM fundamental positions.
By doing this, ISDM in no way is attempting to set itself up as an authoritative guardian of legitimate deliverance truth. ISDM is fully aware that God is using other brothers and sisters in Christ to set captives free who may not agree with these fundamental positions of ISDM. We bless them and pray that God’s power will continue to work through them, even though we recognize that they would not be comfortable as ISDM members. These fundamental positions simply constitute the glue which holds ISDM together.
ISDM agrees that: there are such things as demons; demons are created beings with distinct personalities; demons are active throughout the human population; the ultimate intention of demons is evil; demons are organized under a hierarchy of leaders with Satan as the head; the legal or positional authority of demons has been nullified by Jesus’ blood on the cross; demons have supernatural power to attempt to execute their wicked desires; while demons have been defeated by the cross, they have not been destroyed and they will remain active throughout this present age; demons are vulnerable to confrontation empowered by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus; Christian believers can be demonized and thus in need of personal deliverance ministry; deliverance can involve truth encounter, power encounter, allegiance encounter or all three; demons may manifest during deliverance; demons can speak in the vernacular, often through the mouths of their victims; some deliverance may occur through events such as conversion, filling of the Holy Spirit, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
Because of the recently-acquired visibility of the Theophostic approach to counseling and inner healing, and because of questions that it has raised in the minds of ISDM members and other deliverance ministers, ISDM Founders Circle has felt it wise to include a statement of its position:
While recognizing that the system called Theophostic Ministry contains some positive elements and that some individuals find help through it, ISDM, while not rejecting Theophostic Ministry outright, does not recommend it nor endorse the totality of its theology, practices or claims. Since they do not cast out demons, they are not regarded as a deliverance ministry per se.
