Project H Graphic Novel - SUPERCOP’S FATHER USED TO BE SUPER PASTOR

SUPERCOP’S FATHER USED TO BE SUPER PASTOR.

GERALDINE WILLIAMSON
Staff Reporter

PENSIVE: Pastor Dennis Hart ponders a future without God.

Every Sunday his church used to be packed to the rafters with worshippers hanging on to his every word. Today, Pastor Dennis Hart can’t even pay people to fill his empty pews.

Project H came along and cleaned house, reducing his life to near redundancy. And he’s not one bit happy about it.

“What I’m vexed about is that Project H shattered the good, honest and decent Christian values and morals that have shaped nations, shaped people into exceptional citizens and role models.

Thousands of years of honest to goodness wisdom purged in five years. Where does he (Jasper King) get off, hey?”

Apparently at Gravy Station, making Jasper King one of the richest (if not the richest) men in the country and making Pastor Dennis Hart, well, not so rich.

Pastor Dennis Hart is of course the father of renowned police Inspector Sam Hart, who has severed all ties with his father following the much publicised conflict between father and son about the death of Sam’s mother.

“My son accused me of being responsible for his mother’s death because I chose to reside in an unsavoury neighbourhood. I didn’t choose it. God willed it for my life, to help a downtrodden community out of its plight.”

Pastor Dennis Hart’s wife, Grace Hart, was shot to death several years ago after visiting a store in an area rife with gang-related crime.

Inspector Sam Hart, who was seventeen at the time and also a devout Christian, witnessed the incident and has publicly stated that this was the reason he abandoned his faith.

Pastor Hart on the receiving end of his son's wrath.

He couldn’t reconcile how someone as caring and compassionate as his mother, a woman he believed deserved a better life, was forced to live in a dangerous neighbourhood because his father had a vision to eradicate poverty and crime from the ghettos.

“God had a purpose for my life, and not even my family’s safety concerns could stop me from fulfilling it. Even though I could have resided in a safer neighbourhood, that wasn’t what God wanted for me.”

If Pastor Dennis Hart comes across as stodgy, stoic and painfully pious, he most certainly is, and more!

He doesn’t believe in microwave ovens, cell phones and DVD players. Neither does he own a computer

“We managed superbly without those things. I still do!”

And his stoicism is another bone of contention between Pastor Hart and his son. The pastor was never one to lavish young Sam with physical affection, not even as much as a pat on the back.

“That’s how I was reared and I matured into a healthy adult. Boys don’t need that kind of affection. His mother gave him too much of it anyway.”

It reminds one of a song by the Black Eyed Peas - ‘Where is the love?’

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He seems like a thoroughly sour individual, not someone I'd like to be anywhere near let alone related to. I feel sorry for Sam and the way he was brought up. Kinda makes you understand why Sam is the way he is.

Posted by:
2Moon_junkshin (20-Mar)

Seems like he's just the sad consequence of a staunch upbringing. My father was much like him, very impenetrable, hard to open up. On his deathbed he finally opened up and told my siblings and I how he regretted the way he treated us but he just didn't know any other way. He didn't know how to break that shell that his own father helped construct around him by way of his excessive discipline and lack of love. Sad really.

Posted by:
severe_crystal (20-Mar)

Say what you want about him and his faults, but the man's got his principles and values superglued on, and I think at the end of the day that's the kind of guy you want in your corner, someone who's morals doesn't waver in spite of wahtever goes on around him. His consistent, unfickle and loyal to the end. Pity about his fatherly skills :(

Posted by:
9&1/2 Weeks (20-Mar)

Or in other words someone completely stranded in the dark ages while life passes him by, unable to learn, improve, grow into a better person based on your mistakes and life experience. That kind of inflexibility is what has cause friction with his son and is why we have this radical eyesore on the streets. Except, the good Pastor is too proud and conceited to live on the street.

Posted by:
Sherilyn Fenn (20-Mar)

Conceited? He doesn't seem to strike me as someone who is vain or anything.

Posted by:
Zalman Eszterhas (20-Mar)

Sorry Zalman, I guess I couldn't find the right word. I meant he's too worried about the conditions of living on the street and how it would start to make him look, scruffy, smelly, etc. A good appearence strikes me as something he's not willing to give up ... whatever the word for that is, hah! :)

Posted by:
Sherilyn Fenn (20-Mar)

Joe, that's why many of us believers will stay in society but still maintain our beliefs and support their cause. Not everyone who believes is necessarily a radical. I appreciate that Pastor Dennis is still keeping his church and allowing it to be open for the few of us who still want to attend church in an actual church.

Posted by:
Wilde Awkward (20-Mar)