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Exorcism a Routine Event at Colorado Republican's Addiction-Recovery Clinic, Says Director
Over the last summer in Colorado, as covered in the Columbine Courier News and the Colorado Independent a controversy broke out concerning Colorado-area Teen Challenge addiction recovery centers overseen by Colorado State Representative and Assemblies of God pastor Ken Summers, when Columbine Courier news reporter Emile Hallez Williams reported that Summer's centers practice "reparative therapy," an evangelical euphemism for attempts to "cure" people of homosexuality.
Running for reelection this year, Ken Summers denied that his centers practiced "reparative therapy" but Williams stuck by his story. That raises questions concerning the methods that Summers' centers might use to "get the gay out." Over the last few months I've been doing a good deal of research on the growing trend of exorcism on the evangelical right. That research led me to a May 1, 2010 podcast, in which the Assistant Director of one of Summers' Teen Challenge centers, Matt Lane, recounts an exorcism at the 180 Men's Teen Challenge Denver center and states that demon possession is a "very common" problem they deal with at his center.
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A May 1, 2010 blog post on Daniel Petruska's "Director's Blog" reads,
"Life at Teen Challenge is far from what most of us know as normal. In this podcast the Teen Challenge staff talks about what a normal day is like around the center. Listen in and get a sneak peek of everything from routine schedules, teaching topics, mentoring moments and deliverance from demon possession as the staff takes you on a six-minute tour of a day in the life of Teen Challenge."
As stated in the podcast attached to the May 1 bog post, featuring an interview with the 180 Men's Teen Challenge Center "leadership team" including Director Daniel Petruska and Assistant Director Matt Lane, Lane states,
[Lane] "The craziest day [at the center] must have been when I'd been working there for about a year, and we had a student come into Daniel's office and just really start to flip out. We began to lay hands on him and pray for him, and things just kind of got worse there for a couple of minutes.
He just started spitting up on the floor and growling, and just saying some of the craziest stuff that you've ever heard. And after several minutes of prayer he just became very calm and started to speak clearly again, and all the staff just looked at each other and knew that God had removed a demon from him."
Interviewer: "I would imagine that demon possession is a common issue with life-controlling problems like you guys deal with, isn't it?"
Matt Lane: "Very common." |
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