Games - http://maxpages.com/theflame/Pastor_calls_Pokemon

Aug. 14 - COLORADO SPRINGS - A minister used a blowtorch and a
sword during a church service this week to drive home his belief that
Pokemon games and toys are only sugar-coated instruments of the occult
and evil.

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.''

Manufacturers of the hugely popular Pokemon products, including Nintendo
and Hasbro Inc., said they've never heard of Pokemon being associated
with the occult.

And the national Christian Coalition told The Denver Post on Friday that it
will stay out of the fray over Pokemon.

"We won't weigh in on it at all,'' said Chris Freund, a spokesman for the
national Christian Coalition based in Virginia. "It's a church issue and not a
policy issue. We've never heard about it.''

Beth Llewelyn, spokeswoman for the Redmond, Wash.-based Nintendo,
said the company had never heard of anything like this before.

"We've only heard good things, very ... positive things about Pokemon,''
Llewelyn said. "We get volumes and volumes of letters from parents and
kids about how wonderful they think Pokemon is. They say, "My kids are
now reading because they want to read all they can about Pokemon.' It's a
universally positive experience.''

Holly Ingram, a spokeswoman for Hasbro Inc., said Pokemon - one of the
most popular toy crazes this year - has been favorably received by parents
and children.

"For us, it's been a completely positive response from parents and kids.
Everything we've done with Pokemon has been positive. I really can't
imagine how somebody would feel that way about it,'' Ingram said.

Pokemon, (pronounced POH-kaymahn), is short for pocket monsters. The
pop-culture phenomenon began in Japan as a cartridge for Nintendo, Game
Boy and Nintendo 64 and quickly spread to America. Its popularity fueled
the debut of the Pokemon animated television series. Hasbro has a line of
toys and merchandise for kid collectors and a third company, Wizards of
the Coast, based in Seattle, sells Pokemon trading cards. This fall, a
Pokemon movie will hit movie theatres across the country.

"The whole idea behind Pokemon is to become a "master trainer,' '' Ingram
said. "Kids look for different Pokemon characters, find them and use
strategy and tactics to capture them in a very mildmannered way. It's not
very violent at all. They collect them, and when they've collected all of them,
they become a Pokemon master.''

At Grace Fellowship Church, pastors learned of the occult angle after
receiving an e-mail of an Internet essay written by a California woman. The
essay says Pokemon encourages role-playing that elevates children over
God to the position of master and that the games and toys are laced with
dark references.

Mark Cowart, pastor of the 1,500-member, nondenominational church,
said the essay confirmed his suspicions about Pokemon. 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.

"It's got sugar coating on it, but, underneath, it's poison,'' Cowart said.

Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based Christian organization
whose messages reach as many as 5 million people weekly via radio
broadcasts, has not researched Pokemon, said Julie Able, project
coordinator the Youth Culture Department.

Cowart said the church used the sword and blowtorch to get its message
across to kids because "we live in a sight-and-sound generation. A little
church is competing against Hollywood with multibillion budgets.''

He said kids are used to visual messages, and if you give them a linear
message, they'll be bored.

Cowart said the sword was used in the demonstration because the Bible
says that the "way you come down against the powers of darkness is with
the sword of the spirit. We don't do things just for the sake of being
sensational like the World Federation of Wrestling.''

Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Page Updated Sun Oct 3, 1999 9:48pm EDT