Despite our best efforts, many of us struggle with the same sins time and again, leaving us feeling hopeless in our search for freedom. Pastor and author Neal Lozano knows this firsthand-and he's laid out a strategy, based on his years of experience, for you to overcome Satan's influence in your life. By focusing on Jesus' work instead of on the intimidating aspects of evil spirits, Lozano will help you discover freedom from sin, understand the biblical model of deliverance, stay free from sin, and guide others to freedom. Balanced and hopeful, Unbound will help you start living the abundant, glorious life God has in mind.

Wow... ok, let's get to work... ( )

I was assigned to read Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance in preparation for quarterly new priest meetings I attend. While we didn't actually discuss the book at the meetings, I'm glad I read it.

Unbound is a book about deliverance ministry, the first half is about being delivered from evil and oppressive spirits and the second half is about helping others to do the same. Neal Lozano is Catholic, but that doesn't figure hugely in the book, I assume because he wants to appeal to a wider audience.

The book was alright. Lozano rightly teaches that the spiritual world influences us and that we can influence the spiritual world. Through the trauma we experience in our lives or the choices we make, we open doorways for the devil to influence us in ways we may not notice for years. But as baptized Christians we really do have power in Jesus's name to ban Satan's influence from our lives.

I had three identifiable issues with the book. Firstly, Lozano hit on the importance of confession in ridding yourself of Satan's influence, but he wouldn't clarify what that meant, whether a sacrament or just telling someone else your sorry for your sins. If Lozano is Catholic, I would appreciate a recognition of the power of the Sacraments.

Secondly, a book that bills itself as a "practical guide" to dealing with supernatural and otherworldly phenomena can cause a person to see demonic influence around every corner. In reality, a lot of things that we might call demonic are psychological illnesses, or just plain old human weakness leading to sin. I heard a talk by a former exorcist several months ago. He told us that whenever he would investigate someone who might benefit from an exorcism, he would always have a psychologist with him who could help distinguish mental illness from true possession. That seems much more balanced than a do-it-yourself guide to deliverance.

And thirdly, I worry that a "practical guide" could discourage people from referring when they need to. True possession almost always requires the involvement of Christ's priests and the communion of saints, most preeminently the Blessed Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel.

Overall, it was an ok book. The first several chapters, not quite the first half, were good, and then it became less helpful. We need to recognize that as baptized Christians we do indeed have influence in the spiritual realm, but always in humility. We don't want to think that a practical guide to deliverance will give us all the answers.

This title of this book can be misleading. Although this book does provide a guide in deliverance ministry it is more a general prayerbook. The book has a good structure that I enjoyed. The books begins with prayers and devotions, the last half of the book is more of the actual guide of the book, giving helpful tips for those who are trying to help those that are tormented by demoniacs in some capacity. It is mentioned in the book several times that there is a difference between deliverance ministry and exorcism in that one (deliverance) is more for time of non-possession and more for demonic torment, while the other (exorcism) is more for those being tormented and possessed in an extreme way by the demons. This book exclusively about deliverance and does not give any rubrics for exorcism. The positive of the book is its structure and helpfulness in giving prayers as well as helpful advice and tips for those trying to help others. The negatives of the book are the size and theology. The size of the book and the amount of prayers I thought could have been expanded. If someone was being tormented by demoniacs they would more than likely need more prayers and a wider variety of them. The theology of the book was mainly Catholic, which should not be any suprise but many times Mr. Lozano seems to go to a very liberal aspect of the Catholic faith, and although he says that one should never see demonic forces in everything negative, seems to do that very thing and reveals this through many of the stories that he tells, I think that this may just be exceptional cases which would be why they are stories in the book, however, even some of the stories seem to be of mundane things. ( )