Over to the latest news about former Pastor Ted Haggard, from the Los Angeles Times:
Haggard, 50, has turned himself over to a team of counselors who are “assessing his spiritual, emotional and mental condition,” said the Rev. H.B. London, who is helping to guide Haggard through the process.
…”Ted is not in touch with reality,” said the Rev. Mark Cowart, a friend. The mentors can confront Haggard or rebuke him forcefully; they may also ask him to submit to a polygraph test.
Cowart, by contrast, is completely in touch with reality; and he knows a thing or two about rebuking forcefully. Let’s go back to 1999, when Cowart discovered that Pokemon was an occult conspiracy:
…While driving with his kids, he heard them in the back seat talking about “Abra” and “Cadabra,” and “my antenna went up,” Cowart said.
Cowart said one of his concerns is that one of the Pokeman characters sprouts horns. Another concern, he said, is that children exploring a Pokemon Web site can click to other games, including “Magic: the Gathering,” a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons.
Cowart delegated his church’s children’s pastor to get medieval on the Japanese toys:
At a church service Wednesday at Grace Fellowship Church, children’s pastor Mark Juvera told 85 children ages 6 through 12 that Pokemon is evil.
To make his point, Juvera burned Pokemon trading cards with a blowtorch and struck a plastic Pokemon action figure with a 30-inch sword. Juvera’s 9-year-old son then tore the limbs and head off a Pokemon doll.
During the demonstration, the children chanted: “Burn it. Burn it,” and “Chop it up. Chop it up.”
(Based on a post I wrote a while back for Talk to Action)
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Not to justify Ted Haggard or anything but I feel and pray for him and his congregation. As far as the Pokemon issue, I don’t know yea, or neh, but I do know that as Christians we can over mystify or over spiritualize things. We try to read way too much into simple things. I remember when the little blue guys were demonized.
Richard, this is brilliantly funny.
[…] “Ted is not in touch with reality”. Cowart, by contrast, had previously battled Satan by ordering the graphic mutilation and destruction of Pokemon toys in a church service for children. Haggard […]
[…] Mark Cowart, meanwhile, has featured on this blog previously, when he was named as one of Ted Haggard’s post-scandal counselors. I noted that back in 1999 […]