Mark de Boer
One of the funniest April jokes of last Thursday was the Special Edition of Joel News with the following stories:
- TYPICALLY GOD: Church Extreme in New Zealand
- PRAYER: Bush gets $100 million for spiritual warfare
- NEWS: Microsoft bids to acquire Catholic Church
- RESOURCE: Scroll reveals Proverbs 32 woman was lazy
Marc van der Woude writes on his weblog:
Perhaps this edition was a little revanche for the thousands of hoaxes we’ve received from friends and readers over the past seven years. And believe me: most of this stuff is forwarded by charismatics and people in the prayer movement. You would expect a greater gift of discernment in these segments of the Church, but the opposite is true. Perhaps praying too much can limit the ability to relativate?
A Pentecostal brother mailed me: “If this is an April 1 joke, you should do some self-intercession and self-exorcism.” I replied: “Thanks for the suggestion. I followed your advice, and guess what – a demon of seriousness and lack of relativism came out.” 
He could handle it and even apologized for his ‘conservatism’.
