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Pokebuster By Christopher http://hometown.aol.com/Pokebuster7 |
No Tolerance for Truth ~ Pokebuster ~ Power of Pagan Books
My Pokémon war began when, about two years ago, I visited a friend who is 15, like myself. He had just gotten a new Playstation and was showing me the games he had. (I didn't play them because when I was little I was so addicted to video games that I vowed never to play them again.) He showed me some cool games like Nascar racing and NFL Football, but he also had games like Tomb Raider 2 and Final Fantasy VI. I didn't understand Final Fantasy, except that there was a lot of “magic potions” and other satanic garbage in it. Twice curses were put into word bubbles.
I asked Jimmy what was up with the seemingly unlimited magical powers the main bad guy had, and he said he didn't believe in that stuff, he just liked the game.
A few weeks later I saw the PC version of Final Fantasy VI in a store. Across the front was “America’s most popular PC role-playing game.” I knew about role-playing games, and that they were evil. I knew that Dungeons and Dragons was a role-playing game, and that many people lost their lives to it. I knew for sure that there was more evil in Final Fantasy than the violence and the spells.
There was a reason why my friend, a Christian,
would want to play it. He didn't believe that playing games like that
was wrong. I didn’t bother him any more about it, because I didn't know
how to talk with him about it at the time. If I had, my website would probably
be about Final Fantasy, not Pokémon. God had a reason for that discovery, but
I didn't know what it was until after about half a year later.
By then, Pokémon had begun to sneak into our church. After church one day, I saw a 13 year old boy from our youth group sitting in his car playing a Game Boy. He had a blue cartridge in it with what looked like a picture of a turtle on it. I asked him what he was playing and he told me he was playing Pokémon Blue. I had no idea what that was, but I remembered seeing an article in “God's World News” about how a television episode of Pokémon caused kids to get seizures. I asked him if it was the same thing. His response was “yeah, I guess.”
I looked over his shoulder at the screen and saw a little boy walking through what may have been woods. The scene reminded me of screen shots I had seen of early versions of Zelda. Then a little girl came up to him and the view changed. Now I saw the back of the boy's head and the front of the girl. At this view it seemed more like these kids were teenagers. A rectangle at the bottom of the screen said “THE MISTY WANTS TO FIGHT!” I immediately recognized the setup of the screen. It was exactly the same as Final Fantasy!
I asked him what was going on and
who the Misty was.
He said, “Oh she’s my girlfriend! I have a million of them!!” I
asked him “Why would you fight
your girlfriend?” “Because I hate her!” was his reply.
It was obvious that he wasn’t telling the truth, but I tried one last
question, “Is that a role-playing game?” He was busy selecting
Jigglypuff, and launching a SING attack. When he was done, he said “OOOH
NOOO!!! I would never play a role-playing game!” He was being very
sarcastic, so I asked, another, much more polite, boy at our church, about Pokémon.
He liked Pokémon, but he did tell me that Pokémon was a role-playing game,
and there is fighting in it.
By this time, Pokémon had taken over the kids at our church. Pokémon card and video game battles were going on before and after church. I help with children’s church, so every time it’s my turn to be teacher’s aid I spend the service with the kids. The kids treat me more like a friend than a teacher, so I heard them discuss their rare cards and rumors of a Pikablu. I told the kids about role-playing games, but for the first time, they shrugged off what I told them.
I prayed for God to open their eyes, and
to show them that Pokémon was evil, but week after week I saw no change. I
heard things like, Casey, a little girl who goes to nursery, yelling, “Pika-Pika-Pika-chu!”
It broke my heart to hear the kids yelling Pokémon attacks at each other, and
to see fights break out over unfair games. My job includes breaking up fights
like that. But no matter what happened, I had no proof as to what it was about
this game that was evil in it. I was only a teen with a story about kids
in Japan getting seizures in 1997. I never stopped praying, but seeing no
change was discouraging.
Then, exactly a year after
seeing that boy playing Pokémon, I read an article that tore Pokémon limb from limb! I now
had the info I needed. I began to tell the kids why Pokémon was wrong and what to do about it.
Eleven year old Brian and
his little sister Casey (yes, the same Casey who said “Pika-Pika-Pika-chu!)
were so zealous to get rid of Pokémon! Brian ripped off the head of his
toy Mew, the rarest Pokémon, then ripping up his card collection! I still am
in tears when I think about it. Brian is now the most dedicated Christian kid
you’ll ever meet, and everyone who has met him agrees! He is listed first in
my credits on my web site because he is the kid who has supported me most
since that day. He is dedicated to winning souls to Christ and is not ashamed
of the Gospel. Even though he has received much persecution from schoolmates
about turning his back on Pokémon, he is constantly witnessing and hungers
for more of the Word!
Not all of the kids were
instant converts, though. One boy asked me new questions every week, always
defending Pokémon. He would yell things like “Psy-Psy-duck-Psy-Psy!” and
other things. He defended evolution and Psychic power. He was in the Magic:
The Gathering league. It was difficult to use scripture because he only
believed in the Old Testament, being that he was Jewish. He was very sincere
in his questions, but he hesitated too long. He was a foster child, and got
moved to a different family. I never saw him again, and to this day I don’t
know his decision.
The most difficult kid
was a boy I’ll refer to as Nathan (a fictitious name), he would argue with
me on every point. He refused to believe that Pokémon was anything more than
a kid’s game. I searched the web for hours to find more and more proof, but
nothing seemed to convince him. What finally did it was a scripture. My Mom
has The Word, a Bible containing 26 English translations. I used it to find a
scripture that seemed to be speaking directly about Pokémon. It is:
“Take care that nobody captures you by the idle fancies of his so called philosophy† on lines of human tradition, corresponding to the elemental spirits of the world and not to Christ.*” Col. 2:8
For a while Nathan was “on
fire” for God and wanted to change drastically and learn all he could, to
change. But then as time went on,
he became more and more like his “old” self.
I found out that he was into Digimon, a game much the same as Pokémon.
I tried to talk with him, but only received hostility from him and much verbal
abuse. I even received threats from him. Currently he is trying to turn the
other kids against me and trying to convince them that Pokémon is fine to
play. Needless to say, he is in my prayers continually and I look for a way to
bring him back to God always.
I made my web site in order to
reach people all over the globe. Pokémon
is as bad as a curse word in our church now, but kids all over the world still
think Pokémon is harmless. I am trying to reach them. So far I have received
little feedback, the only negative response being a very sarcastic, “JESUS
IS LORD!!! HALLELUJAH!!! I want people like that to get saved. I know that Pokémon
can’t survive much longer while Brian lives.
The war is long and hard, but I know who the WINNER is!
Visit Chris'great website at