http://lloydletta.blogspot.com/2009/04/rick-scherber-from-mn-teen-challenge.html

Maia Szalavitz from Huffington Post asks some good followup questions:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/drug-czar-pick-earmarks-c_b_149614.html

“Here is a quote from Minnesota Teen Challenge’s own newsletter [pdf] from 2001, “On October 3, 84 Minnesota Teen Challenge students were baptized, publicly confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal savior. They were bound by sin, but each one has been transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.”

That same issue contains an interview with a Teen Challenge participant who says he was previously a member of a Satanic cult. Here are a few excerpts:

Q: Which Halloween experience was the scariest?

A: “Different moons require different sacrifices. One Halloween, we received a letter from the head church in San Diego with blood and a crow’s foot on it. This meant that there had to be a human sacrifice. The leader of our group walked over to an older, unimportant man and handed him a knife, saying:’You know what you need to do.’ The man took the knife and split his stomach open, letting his intestines spill out on the ground. He screamed in agony, and as he fell to his knees he
cried out, ‘Satan, take me home!’

An editorial in the same issue says:

This Teen Challenge student’s testimony of involvement in the occult is not an isolated incident…One of the goals of the Satanic church is to make evil cute and cuddly. They are accomplishing this goal through games such as Pokemon, Dungeons and Dragons, Majick, and Ouija boards…Much of what our society reads, watches, and listens to is demonically influenced. Teen Challenge combats these lies in the Name of Jesus.

Many national organizations have regional variations. But these excerpts suggest that Minnesota Teen Challenge participants are not exactly being given mainstream drug education and that their counselors and newsletter editors may have some difficulty distinguishing between truth and teen exaggeration.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/drug-czar-pick-earmarks-c_b_149614.

It would be nice to see Minnesota Independent follow up by interviewing Keith Ellison and Amy Klobuchar to find out why they supported Minnesota Teen Challenge. The real question is whether Ramstad, Klobuchar and Ellison were aware of the extremist and fringe nature of Teen Challenge when they supported an earmark.

Szalavitz from Huffpo asks a good question: “If Minnesota Teen Challenge is as different from the national organization in philosophy and practices as it claims to be, why on earth would it use the same name?” Why indeed? I hope MNIndy follows up.