Last Updated on March 20, 2018
Pokemon is the new thing in our home, and to be honest, I have tried to stay away from it for a long time, mainly because I was not really sure how I felt about all the characters and the powers they have.
But this year at school, boys have been bringing Pokemon cards and giving them to my eldest son. I was a little upset because the kids are not supposed to bring toys, etc., to school. Apparently, all of the parents do not follow the rules as strictly as I do.
Anyway, for the past few weeks all I seem to hear about is Pokemon! Ugh!!
So I finally began looking into it to see what I thought about it from a Christian perspective. I was surprised to find out that there was nothing about it that caused me to say no to Pokemon (except that there should be parental guidance with the show).
Then the other day my eldest son said to my middle son regarding the Pokemon card he had, “This one has no weakness and never dies.”
To which I responded, “Hold up. Let’s talk about that. Who really has no weakness and never dies?”
“God,” they both answered.
“Right!”
Then I go on to ask if Pokemon is real or fantasy and they both say fantasy.
I was beyond proud. For years I have been teaching them to be able to watch a show or read a book and be able to determine what is right and what is wrong, and to understand the difference between reality and fantasy. They can watch a show like Disney’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and shout out (without me asking them) “they just told a lie!”
I think it’s important to teach our kids to observe the world through the lens of Scripture. And Pokemon gave me a great opportunity to do that. What a blessing!
If you can hold up the bible and your kids say fantasy you've done a good job parenting.
We were in the pokemon stage when we lived in Okinawa.. and hello kitty 🙂 Now, we are in Naruto. We used to vehemently say NO you can't have those but we've learned to use them for life lessons. It makes all the difference in the world..
God bless,
Sallie
I just wanted to respond to the first person's comment. Obviously I don't have time to give a full "apologetic" to your Bible being fantasy remark. But I do think that if you just look at the sheer facts that the Bible was written over a 1500 year time span by about 40 different authors, all pointing to one great theme, has been the best selling book of all time, and continues to change millions of lives over the last two millennia that should at least make you pause and investigate. Voltaire, the "great" skeptic boasted that by the end of his life the Bible would be obsolete and ineffective. Not long after he died his house was put up for auction. Who won it? The Geneva Bible Society! They used his house to print Bible's! I don't think that's just a strange coincidence!
Hope you do some more digging.
It does make my heart sad to hear someone think of God's word as fantasy. But the reality is we are not all believers of God's word. I only hope and pray that you might one day give the Bible a chance to speak for itself. And if you have had bad interactions with Christians I am so sorry but please understand that all Christians are human and we make mistakes. Blessings to you Paul.
I had similar issues when it came to "celebrating" Halloween. Here's my solution:
HALLUEEN! Yes, I spelled it correctly. I changed Halloween to Hallueen as in Hallelujah. Here's the story: I have never decorated really for Halloween. I wasn't trying to be all "sanctimonious" or anything, but when my boys were little, a lot of my friends and others were talking a lot about honoring Satan by celebrating Halloween. I never thought of it that way, but I didn't want to offend anyone or take the chance that Satan was getting some kind of glee from it so I didn't do it. I decorated for Fall, but not specifically Halloween.
It was never a problem until my daughter got to the age where she noticed that we didn't have witches, jac-o-laterns, black cats, etc and all of her friends did. I told her that we decorate for fall, not Halloween. But every year, she would ask, "Can't we just have a cat of something?"
Finally when she was about 13 (I'm a little slow) I was inspired with an idea. The pastor was preaching and he quoted the verse from Ezekiel 37, "oh dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord." It was literally like a light bulb went off. I can get some skeletons and put that verse with them. So for the first time in probably 20 years, I bought halloween decorations. I cut some pumpkins (with smiley faces) and put verses with them: So let your light shine before men.
I got a lot of positive feedback from people so the next year I did it again. Last year I added music and made the skeletons dance to the Mary Mary song "Take the Shackles off my feet so I can dance" and I handed out the pumpkin story (I'll print it here so you can copy it if you want. I printed 300 copies and handed out almost all 300. (we have a very Halloween happy neighborhood). Only one girl handed it back saying she was Jewish. I appreciated that and certainly did not force it on her.
This year my new verse is "The grass withers, the flower fades but the Word of God stands forever." Is 40:8 I plan to put some brown flowers and dried grass in a pot on my porch with that verse beneath it. I will still have the dancing skeletons and lighted pumpkins as well. I'm taking back Halloween! Yeah!
Here's the pumpkin analogy:
What’s it like to be a Christian? It’s like being a pumpkin. God picks you up from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He gives you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.
Matthew 5:16 &
II Corinthians 4:6