by Jim Fletcher

The death of a child has rightly been called soul-crushing. Whether a miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of an adult child, the parents are never quite the same. The tragedy usually lingers; it can also negatively impact a marriage. As has been said many times, a parent should never outlive offspring. Our human pattern in this was set with the first death: Abel dead at the hands of his own brother.

Overall, the death of someone close to us is dreadful. The pain is so bad that that person never really leaves our thoughts. My own father has been dead many years. A decade after his passing, my grandmother died. When I went back to settle up my grandmother’s estate, I walked through the dining room and was enveloped with bittersweet memories of the holidays spent there when I was growing up. I stood at the buffet table. Three China cups were set at the back. In one of them, I noticed a curled-up piece of paper. On it was the address and phone number of a medium. I was aghast! My grandmother, a devout believer, had been so consumed by the pain of losing my father that she had actually tried to communicate with him. Later, I discovered other evidence that she had done this many times, even carrying on two-way conversations with who she believed was him.

That memory has stayed with me. I am deeply sorry that her grief led her to necromancy.

In the Bible, necromancy is described as the effort by humans to communicate with deceased loved ones. The practice has been wildly popular from antiquity. During the last few years he lived, Thomas Edison worked on a machine to talk to the dead. The magician Houdini attempted to speak to the dead (though he did with the intention of exposing charlatans trafficking in human pain). This practice gained great popularity in the late 19^th century with the arrival of spiritism from Europe. Suddenly, seances and Ouija boards were all the rage.

God anticipated all this, of course. As part of His set of boundaries for mankind, He forbade necromancy. Why? Because the spirit world (i.e., demons) could use it to gain an unearthly hold on people. Sincere people think they’re speaking to their loved ones, but according to the Bible, in each case it is a “familiar spirit,” one that we should want nothing to do with.

A little-known passage example of contact with a malevolent spirit is found in Job 4. There, a demon appears to one of Job’s friends. The spirit is bitter that God rejected him and chooses instead to dispense grace to humans. A malevolent spirit is never the friend of a human.

Well into the 21^st century, it shouldn’t be a surprise that necromancy has more than a toe-hold in America. Especially, and most pathetic, scores of evangelicals think talking to the dead is legitimate. Foundationally, many of today’s American evangelicals don’t know their Bibles any better than unbelievers know their way around Scripture.

In the summer of 2010, a book titled Have Heart was published by Grace Church in Franklin, Tennessee and written by pastor Steve Berger and his wife Sarah. The book details the parents’ grief after the untimely death of their son, Josiah, who was killed in a car wreck in 2009.

From the Berger’s online description of Have Heart:

“This book is excellent stuff for those who are grieving; we specifically tell our story so we can gain credibility with the hurting.”

That’s the first problem with this book. An attempt to “gain credibility” can also be seen as using emotional manipulation to lead the reader to a preconceived idea. In the case of the Berger’s, that idea is the claim that Josiah appeared after his death and communicated with people. As we will see, Steve Berger has gone to great lengths to convince people that he doesn’t promote necromancy, yet that is exactly the book’s aim. Interestingly, Berger has since moved on from pastoring, which you can read about here and here, and established a new organization (ASI) in Washington D.C., with the goal of influencing our national political leadership. In the context of what he teaches about life after death, this is alarming. Washington is in desperate need of biblical wisdom, not the opposite.

In the years since the book was published, Berger has received pushback from readers concerned about necromancy entering the church. He’s worked hard to disavow such, but just like Washington operatives, he’s learned how to deny what he is in fact doing.

In Have Heart, the Bergers write:

“This visit [from Josiah] proves that our loved ones in Heaven are spiritually active and that they care—they are aware of times that we need special encouragement.”¹

No, they aren’t. Nowhere in Scripture do we see that the deceased are directed by the Lord to offer “special encouragement.”

In a 2020 video from Berger, he states: “We’re surrounded by the saints who have gone before us, and however God chooses to use them to encourage us, you know, we ought to be open to it.”²

No, this is dangerous. Again, from Scripture, God does not encourage the dead to speak to the living. Our standard must be God’s Word, not the words of men. With the latter, we leave ourselves open to terrible deception.

In a September 9, 2024 e-mail reply to my inquiry, Steve Berger denied ever practicing necromancy. To his credit, he did reply—something not many evangelical leaders are ever willing to do when challenged. He repeatedly said the practice is demonic. He referenced passages in Have Heart. But what the Bergers say in their denials is that they have never practiced classic occultic platforms:

“As we said earlier, we’re not talking about mediums or séances. God specifically warned the Israelites in Deuteronomy 18:10–12, There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.³

To some degree, the Bergers are clever with words. But no one is accusing them of holding seances or consulting mediums. The whole of their book, however, makes it clear that they believe their son communicates with the living. In the Deuteronomy passage, we read: “Or one who calls up the dead.” With that in mind, it should be noted that the Bergers relate the story of a worship leader that one evening asked God if “Siah” could “come worship with us tonight?” This on the heels of another story in which a church member clearly describes Josiah as making an appearance; his clothes are described, and he is said to have knelt down next to this person and talked. Again, the descriptions are somewhat ambiguous, taking care to say that Josiah didn’t literally walk into the sanctuary, but that he also went beyond just some sort of hazy “presence.”

In 2 Samuel 12, we read the tragic story of King David’s sin regarding Bathsheba. His actions resulted in the death of her husband, Uriah, and a child was conceived between the king and Bathsheba. Nathan, the king’s advisor, confronted David about what happened and told him that his son was going to die (and the child did die). Crucially, David accepted the circumstances caused by his sin. He even expressed quite clearly that the dead do not return to the living in any way.

“And he said, ‘While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” (v.v. 22-23; emphasis added)

This is clear as a bell.

While Berger now somewhat distances himself from the controversy of his book, he is still promoted within evangelical circles, and his book is still a consistently good seller on Amazon.

In August, I attended a Promise Keepers event in Tulsa, and Steve Berger was on the speaker list (at that point he had been a PK board member for a few years). Berger appeared with fellow pastor Corey Russell during a panel discussion. While Berger didn’t speak at length specifically about Josiah, the discussion overall was presented as two men who had a shared tragedy; Russell and his wife lost a son to SIDS.

Russell’s son’s name? Josiah.

I thought that was an extremely odd coincidence. And it does appear to be just that, a coincidence. But the exchange proves that Berger is still promoting his overall premise from Have Heart. He repeated his contention that, to paraphrase, “if God is doing it, we should be open to it.” Berger said from the stage, “If God is allowing this to happen, we need to look at it through His perspective.”

Purporting to speak for God is also dangerous and reckless.

After that comment, Berger also said, “Did you know there’s times that God needs to trust you.”

No, he doesn’t. We are not on God’s level.

(Ironically, during a “Biblical Masculinity” panel, outgoing Promise Keepers chairman Ken Harrison said, “We gotta help the church stop compromising.” This in the context of the discussion, but still, shouldn’t the statement apply to also platforming someone who promotes necromancy?)

In an e-mail reply on August 29, 2024, Harrison stated:

“I’m glad you got to go to the event, Jim. As you probably saw, that was my final event. Both Steve [Berger] and I stepped off the board just after in order to turn it over to new and younger leadership. This thing with Steve has received a lot of attention the past year and I’ve spoken to numerous people about it. Steve denies any assertion that he believes in speaking to the dead. I find Steve to be a bold man of God, who is doctrinally sound and not afraid to take on any issue in the cause for Christ. I’ve moved on and don’t want to do any more interviews on the topic. You’re free to use any of the quotes here. I do hope you’ll be sensitive to the fact that you’re dealing with a book that is more than a decade old, which was written by two people who had gone through the worst emotional trauma a person can experience.” 

Several things to unpack here. First, people deny things all the time. A denial is often not legitimate. Read Have Heart and do your own research. The Bergers have stated that their son either appeared at a church service, or has otherwise communicated with the living. In Have Heart, Sarah Berger also referred to “our meetings with Josiah” (p. 101). No, someone that does this is not doctrinally sound.

Third, the book could be 100 years old, and it wouldn’t matter. There is no statute of limitations on theological malpractice.

Finally, while all of us have been touched by death, and any morally sound person would lament the death of young Josiah Berger, “emotional trauma” is no cover and no excuse for false teaching. There seems to be a lot of such covering up going on among evangelical leaders these days. In the instance of Steve Berger and his long-standing connection with Promise Keepers, numerous people and ministries had tried communicating their concerns to Ken Harrison over the past year about the open door to necromancy that Have Heart and Berger were providing. In the end, rather than properly and biblically dealing with the issue, Ken Harrison and Steve Berger quietly step down from their roles in Promise Keepers without dealing with the issue at hand or addressing it publicly, even though countless numbers of people have and continue to read (and be affected by) Berger’s book.

The fact is, well-known leaders cover for each other. Marketing and cross-promotion of books, seminar slots, and other resources appears to be a top priority so there is very rarely breaking of the ranks. It’s how Rick Warren and many others have escaped real scrutiny. They’re too powerful, while masquerading as selfless servants for Christ.

It would never occur to me to contact the dead. If I encountered such a spirit, I would know it wasn’t my dead loved one. Why would I know this? One reason. The Bible tells me that the living do not communicate with the dead. That’s it.

NOTES:

1. Berger, Steve; Berger, Sarah. Have Heart: Bridging the Gulf Between Heaven & Earth (p. 100). Grace Chapel Inc.. Kindle Edition.
2. Video titled, “Heaven: What’s Going on up There?” (August 16, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4HN18vYiNY), mm. 2:19-3:24.
3. Berger, Steve; Berger, Sarah. Have Heart: Bridging the Gulf Between Heaven & Earth (pp. 101-102). Grace Chapel Inc.. Kindle Edition.