The first thing to know about Victor Marx — a Republican candidate for governor in Colorado, a black belt martial artist, and a former Marine — is that he claims to hold the world record in speed for disarming someone holding a gun to his head. The second thing to know is that he regards himself as an exorcist who rids people of demons.
I first heard of Marx when he took a September 14 memorial service for his friend, Charlie Kirk, at BRAVE Church as an opportunity to promote his book “Dangerous Gentlemen” (for which Kirk wrote the foreword) and to soft-launch his campaign for governor.
At the service, Marx said the devil killed Kirk. Referring to the founding of new chapters of Kirk’s organization Turning Point USA, Marx said, “That’s why Charlie Kirk was killed, because the enemy of our soul hates it when we go after young people, whether we’re rescuing them physically [Marx say’s he’s a “high-risk humanitarian” who leads rescue missions], whether we’re helping them emotionally, or building them spiritually, that’s what the devil cannot stand.”
Marx closed his memorial speech, “I’m telling you, come October first, I’m going to let all y’all know if in fact God is calling me to run and win for governor.”
Marx formally announced his candidacy on October 1 at an event in Colorado Springs. Marx launched with the support of several well-known Republican leaders. Heidi Ganahl, the 2022 Republican candidate for governor, posted from the event, “Packed house, 1000 strong, to support my friend and future Governor of CO @victormarx.” Among those who introduced Marx was MAGA favorite Rep. Lauren Boebert, who declared that Marx is “fully dressed in the armor of God,” Colorado Politics reported.
In a July 22 podcast episode with Kyle Thompson of “Undaunted Life: A Man’s Podcast,” Marx described his role in the “unseen war” with demons (12:55 minute marker):
I call myself the reluctant exorcist. We just started getting put in places for the last, gosh, three-plus decades, of what I would call evil being manifested right in front of us. … Just like fighting or combat, you had better address the issue, or you’re going to get your butt kicked. I had like three levels of understanding spiritual warfare. One, that it was real. It’s like, okay, it’s really real, it’s undeniable. Two, how do you handle it? And I’ve seen two sides. One is really extreme. They’re just wanting manifestations, and people looking for it, I’m like that ain’t me. The other extreme is people, you know, they act like it doesn’t exist. But then you watch their life, or their church, and it’s, like, wow. And then the third phase which we hit was both, started just personally, where we had to take authority. I had to learn my authority, I had to learn the rules of engagement, against demonic forces, demons, or, you know, forces of darkness. And once I learned that, wow. We just don’t lose.
Thompson conceded that the topic of demonic exorcism is for many churches and pastors “too icky, or too weird, or too strange, to reckon with, to talk about openly.”
The conversation alludes to Marx’s feature-length documentary, “The Unseen War,” available for $9.99 via Marx’s web site. In a trailer for the film, Kevin Sorbo, who narrates, says, “Satan wants nothing more than to subvert the mission God has given you.” Another participant in the film, Neil T. Anderson, warns that “people will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceiving spirits.”
In answering Thompson, Marx said:
I really had to assess that. Why are people so, like, “I don’t want to hear about it.” When I speak in churches, I can talk about anything. The moment I start talking about the demonic, spiritual warfare, the devil, you can hear a pin drop. And I’m like, there’s only one reason why people get quiet, or pushed back, or passive: They’re afraid.
Marx said that, in the past, one ministry “got carried away, where people wanted someone to manifest demons, and it was a lot of sensationalism. It was real, but they wanted that to happen so that when a person got delivered, they could say, ‘Yeah, I’m super spiritual, look what I did.’ Which was horrible.”
Marx took a different approach, which he likened to his approach to disarming people with firearms:
So God taught us a new way, an effective way. It’s almost like my gun disarmament. You know, I mean it’s been practiced since firearms how to disarm a person. But yet, why do I hold the world record in it? Why did I drill it down to, I think, 0.4 tenths of a second? Although today is my son’s birthday, he’s turning 20, and he’s going to attempt to beat my record for his birthday. … So I think our approach … we call it the retooling prayer, you literally can see a person set free from any, I would say, assignments against their mind. Oppression. We never use the word “possessed.” You think of “possessed,” you think of the “Exorcist” [film] and all these things. … Our approach to prayer, man it’s beautiful, because within five to ten minutes, I can find out if a person has assignments against them, when they came, what’s the purpose, what lies they’ve been telling the individual, and then what the truth is. And the most important thing is, what God really wants a person to know, that he’s been trying to communicate to their heart. … You get tempted all the time. If you’ve had thoughts that, you’re like, “ich,” that’s demonic.
What I have not been able to discern from Marx’s public comments or his campaign web site is anything like a set of concrete policy proposals. His web site says vaguely that he wants to protect family, faith, freedom, and nature. That Kirk wrote the foreword to Marx’s book tells us something about Marx’s orientation; in his opening sentence Kirk takes a swipe at transgender people. Obviously Marx is deep in the conservative evangelical movement, and he has spoken against abortion.
“I’m not here to make campaign promises,” Marx assured his supporters during his announcement speech; “I’m not even here to talk much about the problem.” He was there to be a leader called by God.
We should not be terribly surprised that policy is an afterthought to a man tasked by God with the far weightier mission of casting demons out of people. As for those who wonder how this skill will help during tricky budget negotiations, perhaps they just don’t have enough faith.
As Marx told his supporters: “This is not normal.”
