David E. Stevens notes that many scholars take the Prince of Persia to be an earthly political authority, such as Cambyses II. Stevens personally accepts the angelic interpretation, but argues that the "influence exerted by these angelic princes is personal and sociopolitical in nature and not territorial." Stevens notes that in Daniel 12:1, Michael the Archangel, is described as "the great prince who protects your people" (NIV), which "emphasizes the protective role of Michael in relation to the people of God rather than with respect to a given territory. Michael remained the guardian angel of the people of God, whether Israel was in the Promised Land or was dispersed in exile among the nations." Criticism Melvin Tinker argues that the literary use of territorial spirits is a misnomer, since spirits referred to in various Biblical passages "are to be more associated with political and religious power and ideologies." Scholars such as Robert Priest, Paul Hiebert and A. Scott Moreau detect animist ideas in the arguments of supporters of the theory of territorial spirits. Robert Guelich of Fuller Theological Seminary does not find the concept of territorial spirits within the Gospels, and has analyzed this problem in a critical review of Frank E. Peretti's novel This Present Darkness. Peter Wagner promotes "Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare" (SLSW) which involves the practice of learning the names and assignments of demonic spirits as the first step to effective spiritual warfare. Opponents of this theological construct, and associated beliefs in "spiritual warfare", point out that while the Bible may describe some form of demonic control over geography, it does not prescribe many of the behaviors and teachings that proponents advocate in response. There is no mention in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament of believers banding together and praying a form of "spiritual warfare" against particular territorial demons. The battles occurring in the spiritual realms (as described in Daniel 10) have no Biblically identified link to the actions and prayers of God's people in the physical world. See also Genius loci Tutelary deity References Footnotes Bibliography Gross, Edward N. Miracles, Demons and Spiritual Warfare: An Urgent Call for Discernment (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990). Hiebert, Paul G. "Biblical Perspectives on Spiritual Warfare," in Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), pp. 203–215. Moreau, A Scott. "Religious Borrowing as a Two-Way Street: An introduction to animistic tendencies in the Euro-North American context," in Christianity