Welcome to the podcast Think Vivically, Conversations on Faith and Culture.

I'm your host Sean McDowell, Professor of Apologetics at Taub School Theology

Biola University.

And I'm your co-host, Scott Ray, dean of faculty, and professor of Christian ethics,

also at Talbot School of Theology here at Biola University.

We're here with Billy Howellwell, who's written a fascinating new book called

Playing with Fire, a modern investigation into demons, exorcism, and ghosts.

And Billy, you probably recognize his name,

but he's written for the Washington Post Fox News.com and works with

pureflix as the director of communications and content. Billy thanks so much for coming on.

Hey, thanks for having me.

So you are formally trained in journalism.

Can you tell me first, I want to get into what unique approach you bring as a journalist to the investigation into kind of

these supernatural realms but if you're a journalist you've written on a range of

topics why on earth would you write a book on demons exorc exorcisms, and ghosts.

I feel like, you know, it's so funny because I feel like God has such a good sense of humor

because if you told me two years ago, even a year and a half ago,

oh, this is going to be your next book, I probably would have laughed at you.

And, you know, because, I mean, as a Christian, I've been captivated by this topic.

And I think even in my early years, probably captivated in the wrong way. I think it's so easy to sort of be obsessed with the topic but as I got older and went into journalism I you know God sort of put me in this arena of covering faith and that's always been amazing but these strange stories of

possession started to kind of pop up and I would encounter them when I was at the blaze and when I was

at Faith Wire and they'd be really credible fascinating stories and I kept,

...