1. Excellent article. I appreciated your research and documentation, and I especially appreciated your adherence to the Bible. Thank you.

  2. HG Ferguson says:

    Stephen, as I am sure you are most aware, none of this is new. I was constrained to address some of these same concerns you raise at the church we were attending when Pokemon first appeared. The blatant LIES told about them by “Christians” left me more than a little cold. I’ll never forget a tract by someone called “preacher4truth” which cast Bulbasaur (my favorite one of them BTW) as some kind of bloodthirsty monster when, TRUTH be told, Bulbasaur was actually a kindly but powerful protector of wounded and hurt Pokemon in the wild when he was first introduced. It was a total LIE. In the name of TRUTH. In my no small experience, the vast majority of Christian people who decry the fantastical at some point lie either out of ignorance of what they are talking about or because they hate the fantastical so much they cease to care. These things disgust me, totally disgust me, when people who claim to speak for the God of all TRUTH misrepresent and LIE. And yes, caps for both emphasis and yelling. Someone has to. I may or may not share all of your conclusions, but many of them I do, and I thank you for standing up and speaking out.

  3. Notleia says:

    Pfft, yeah, the Japanese are super totes Wiccan.
    I translate all these as being variations on “I don’t understand this new thing and I’m afraid of it.” Lord help me have patience with these who think the sky is falling.

    • notleia says:

      And I feel like I have to elaborate on the level of ignorance here because it’s bordering on willful ignorance, and it is ridiculous. It’s okay to not be interested in Pokemon, but the stuff in this article is like fearing cat memes because cats used to be considered witches’ familiars.
      Also, the dude who invented Pokemon is named Satoshi Tajiri, and he was probably raised some flavor of Buddhist like the vast majority of Japan, so what is even with this urban legend of anti-Christian origins???

  4. Kirsty says:

    The bit about people walking into things made me think of Jonny-head-in-the-air in the cautionary tale fom from Struwelpetter. Of course, he wasn’t lokking at Pokemon in the 19th century, but clouds, the swallows and the sun. But he still nearly drowned and lost his writing book. In other words, human stupidity is not a result of technology or fantasy:-)

  5. John says:

    What if you are wrong and as a result of what you share people feel empowered to get involved or remain involved in stuff that God (Who is really the only One who matters in the end) has decided is wrong? Is ignorance exonerated? (Matt 7:21-27 or Matt 25:1-13) Are you covered by the “grace” you claim? (Rom 8:1-13: really think about that, since you can’t follow the Spirit unless you are a Christian and yet, he says, that if you walk in the flesh, you will die–more than once–in that passage alone) There is a whole lot in the New Testament alone that would question whether you are covered by the grace you claim when you support the wrong things in the world. But, no need to worry, right?–you can just go to your friends in your local “church” and they’ll tell you that “once saved always saved” and other lies to help you feel that you’re covered regardless of choices you make and how you teach others. Unfortunately, those lies aren’t backed by what Jesus said or taught and there is no safety in numbers when you are going against God. I would have rather been found on Noah’s side than on world’s side (maybe you don’t believe in the flood either, though) and Jesus compares the time of His return to the time of Noah. While it isn’t specific to this topic, Luke 16:19-31 does relate: In Luke 16 Jesus is sharing a conversation between Abraham (in a place of non-torment) and the rich guy (in a place of torment) where the now miserable rich guy says, in gist: “send Lazarus back, so my brothers won’t have to come here to this terrible place.” Abraham’s response is “Let them hear the prophets.” But, the tormented guy is adamant and says: “No, father Abraham, but if one went back from the dead, they will repent.” And, Abraham says: “if they won’t hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” And, then I read your words discounting someone who practiced witchcraft and was now claiming that the pokemon stuff is demonic. Whether or not it is genuine or money-motivated, why wouldn’t it be better to steer clear and teach others to steer clear, if there is any shadow of a doubt? Should it matter that the designer was rebelling against his parents’ Christian beliefs–even if it isn’t card-for-card demonic.

What do you think?