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Brian's "final response"
#1 · January 27, 2007, 2:08 pm
Posted by: pastordan <pastordan@...>
Brian, I want to thank you for being willing to continue in a healthy
debate over this subject. As I read your "final response" on this issue, I not only have a greater understanding of where you are coming from, but a deeper understanding for why you are at the position you stated. And though I come from a different perspective, maybe one driven more by literary creativity in the fantastic, I share your end conclusion. If non-human PC's are included in DR, then there must be clear understanding and communication to their purpose and position in the DR universe.
Though this was your last response to this subject, I hope you join in
the ongoing DR conversation no matter the subject.
Thanks again for a stretching and good conversation.
Blessings,
Dan Knight (a fellow youth pastor)
-------- Original Message --------
From: "Michelle and Brian Gross" <mbgross@netzero.com>
Date: Sat, January 27, 2007 10:45 am
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I am sitting in my living room chuckling to myself a little about all
this discussion that has been generated. So let me, like Dan, give form to my thoughts and try to communicate what I was originally trying to say. I also want to stay away from the “what-ifs” and stick to what we know from scripture and from our experience with the true and living God. I believe that if our communication is filled with what-ifs but fail to see the what-ares we will continue to spin our wheels on the topic. If we teach more or less than scripture, we are in danger of changing the message of scripture.
So let me start by stating my DR premise (my understanding of the game),
then list my concerns as clearly as I can, and then propose a solution that I am considering for personal play if I choose to allow for non-human PC’s.
MY DR PREMISE
For the record let me state that I do not have problem nor concern of
the use of mythical creatures in the play of DragonRaid. I actually would find it more “enjoyable” to play an elf or dwarf than a human. Nor am I looking for a strict allegory that applies to every aspect of the Scripture. However, I am trying to keep the allegory of the game accurate to our own experience of God and the Bible in KEY areas which is essential for a tool for discipleship. While it has been pointed out that DR is a game, everything I have ever seen in print and discussed emphasizes that it is more than just a game—that it is PRIMARILY a discipleship tool. I think this is key to remember because if DR is just a game, why create and try to support a RPG when there are so many more out there I could play with more students/people because they are more familiar with them and many gamers find them easier to play and more “entertaining”. However, I continue to use DR because I have never walked away from one of those other games and had players develop a deeper appreciation for and understanding of God and his Word. That is the strength of DR.
CONCERNS WITH THE PRESENT STATE OF NON-HUMAN PC’S:
My biggest concern is how we speak about these other “races”, how I have seen others perceive them in gaming, and how those two translate to our understanding of God and our relationship to him. Let me explain as succinctly as I can.
Whenever we talk about races we say things like “races of men,
race of dwarves, race of elves, etc” or “dwarves, elves, and humans.” However, if one “race” is human or men, it makes it distinct from other races—by definition then they are not men, they are not human—they are not a race of people. That is not to say they have no value to the creator but they are not humanity that Christ died for. It may just be that we are using poor language. However, we must be careful because language is our means of communication and forms our ideas. Webster’s defines race as: “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” The assumption in the definition is clearly that they are all human (of humankind), part of humankind. Once we start talking about non-human races, we are talking about non-humans. God does not distinguish between Jew nor Greek because he does not see race—he sees humanity for which his Son died. But non-human races are not human.
Most gamers I know do not see other races as a type or allegory of
humanity. They see a human as human, an elf as an elf, and a dwarf as a dwarf. These “races” are their own super-category. Just as a Klingon is not a human in Star Trek nor is Q, elves, dwarves, etc are viewed as something other than part of humanity. While this may not be true in the World of Lewis or even Tolkein, the world in which we now minister does not have a Tolkein or Lewis viewpoint in my experience. Therefore, if we want to live in a Tolkein or Lewis world, we must carefully and explicitly explain the differences if their may be an underlying danger in our communication to the world. I mean when we are sharing with unbelievers or young Christians do we use words like regeneration, propitiation, Soteriology, hypostatic union, etc without carefully explaining what they mean?
These two factors coupled with what Aaron has been saying about Wicca,
Otherkin, etc is a concern for me. This may be because I know people who would fall into these categories of belief and they are not a small group of people. I mean, is it any shock that since the image of God that is so tarnished in us, some people no longer desire to be human at all? The question has been asked whether we should change game play for a small group of people like this. I would say ABSOLUTELY. If we are putting our preference in a game above the needs of others to be biblically informed and may by nature be encouraging them down a false path they are already on, we should give up our preference especially if there are solutions that easily solve the problem. This is especially true if we want to call DR a discipleship tool. In addition, Jesus is consistently more concerned about the few and those who are clearly deceived than he is about his own comfort or enjoyment.
A PROPOSED SOLUTION
Therefore, I do believe these other non-human PC could and probably
should be introduced for game play. However, if we use them, it needs to be explicit in our instruction or in the new material that they are human not their own super-category. There are many ways we could do this. As has been suggested, a Babel
like occurrence would be a possible way to do it but obviously not the
only way.
THANK YOU
I do want to thank you all for entertaining this discussion so much and
stretching me in my thinking some in this area. It may be that I will choose to use these other PC types but I will be careful to explain that in some facet they are human, maybe just another race of humanity—after all it is a mythical world.
I will not be weighing in on this subject anymore because I feel as
though I have talked more than some want to hear. So, I will just read your posts and think about them unless you have specific questions that for some reason you want to ask me.
Thanks again for the dialogue and stretch.
In His service together,
Brian
Brian Gross, Th.M.
Youth Pastor
Trinity Bible Church
From:
pastordan@coglandisville.org [mailto:pastordan@coglandisville.org]
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 10:18 AM
To: DragonRaid
Subject: [DragonRaid] What if...allegory and "fantasyland"
Okay, maybe I'm the one that is stuggling with this issue of strict
lines for the allegorical aspects of DR. We are debating the right/wrong-ness of using other "races" (ie. dwarves, elves and halflings) as PC's. Allow me to try and get some of this straight and at the same time give my thoughts some form.
Some are saying that we should not use them because they come from the
fantasy-style of literature. And because some people have used them as negative, ungodly and anti-Jesus types, we should not allow them to be used as pc's. We also shouldn't use them because they are ficticious, therefore not being created in the image of God.
Here is my problem with that. First of all, we are talking about a
race of people. Yes, I know it is a ficticious race, but a race regardless. We cannot assume that in a ficticious setting, such as EdenAgain, that God only created the human race. First of all, we only know so much about this undiscovered world. Dick Wulf and friends only gave us so much info at the beginning. Part of our journey (yes, it is a discipleship tool, but it is also a game) is exploring this world and learning about it, ourselves, and God's design for us. It would be wrong to say elves and dwarves and halflings exist, but say that they are not people (created in the image of God). We dont' know that, one way or the other.
Of course we cannot have a Jesus-type character playing a drug dealer or
a pimp. But that is an action, a job description, a matter of the heart. It has nothing to do with race. But when we say that race determines someone's elegibility in salvation, we take God's place as judge and discriminate, not based on the heart (as God judges) but on outward, external factors.
There is a big difference between talking animals, celestial beings,
demonics beings and races of people. But what difference is there in the fictional lands of Middle-Earth, Narnia and EdenAgain between the races of man, dwarves, elves and halflings? I only see outward differences in appearance, custom and history.
In Tolkein's realm as in Lewis' Narnia, the races were on the same plain
as highly intellegent creatures (as Earth's humans). For did we not see Edmund, Lucy and their sibblings living with, working with and worshipping with fauns and other mythical creatures? Did that cause a breakdown in Christian theology?
Like I said, maybe it's just me. But I see it as splitting hairs
where hairs do not need to be split.
Arthur then brings up a question relating to Earth and EdenAgain being
in the same universe. If that is so, and we see the same scriptures used, then we do have other problems at this time with the history and nature of EdenAgain and the DragonRaid universe. DR does employ some fantasy devices. If you want a strict adherence to allegory then there will need to be some wholesale changes to DR, which will take away from the nature of the game and the system.
Dan Knight
I'm only basing my conclusions on what Paul tells us in Romans
8.19-22
"For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will
reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."
It talks over and over again about "all creation," and the same phrase
is even used a few verses later while Paul is exploring if anything can keep us from God's love. Apparently, everything that God created was brought down in the fall of Adam and Eve. So wouldn't it be logical to state that if God made species B on a world on the other end of the universe, simply by the basis of these verses, then species B is just as fallen as humanity? Even if they aren't
related to Adam - all we'd need to do is a DNA test really - they'd
still be part of the creation looking on with eager hope at Humanity's redemption. If you knew your well being was based on the rescue of another person, you'd certainly be interested in the whole rescuing process.
As hypothetical as this discussion is, it does provide at least the
start of a framework for better explaining how/why we have those "other" friendly forest creatures on EdenAgain.
The problem with a more
stringent allegory is that we'd have to chuck many aspects of the
current system. If we make the allegory stricter, we lose the amount of creative license we can apply to it. Why? Because in an allegory, concepts that are largely intangible in the real world become embodied in the allegory. Not only do the symbols in an allegory have to properly represent the reality (ie you'd not have an allegorical Jesus portrayed as a drug dealer) but it has to properly relate to other symbols. As allegorical as Pilgrim's Progress was, it wasn't very creative strictly speaking.
One example that just came off the top of my head, if we wanted to
tighten up the allegory, we'd need to redefine the combat system, so that there's no real difference between physical battle and the spiritual conflict (where most of the teaching resides anyway). The Bible only talks about the sword of the Spirit as an offensive weapon, so in a tighter allegory the range of weapons available to characters would naturally be reduced to only the sword as symbolically speaking there isn't any wiggle room for variety in that case. But maybe I'm just completely off base with that particular assessment.
It's going to take a lot of corporate creativity and Spirit-led
imagination to construct a world that is colorful and descriptive, and yet focused and forceful enough to serve God's purposes.
And a final random question that actually does relate to the topic at
hand: Are we still keeping EdenAgain in the same "universe" as Earth? I'd think so, given that the TwiceBorn are using "Earth's" Scriptures, but I don't think I've seen it clarified anywhere.
--Arthur
Michelle and Brian Gross wrote:
Arthur and Friends,
You are assuming that those creatures are part of the creation of earth
and function within that economy. God has created other beings at times other than creation--like angels and the heavenly creatures spoken about in prophetic books and apocalyptic books like Daniel and Revelation. However, it is also clear that Christ’s death and resurrection has no benefit for them except to reveal to them more about who he is when he interacts with humanity (there is that troublesome word again). In addition, we still have the problem of how that does not apply to the rest of creation in the animal world since by your own admission you believe we have trouble quantifying and understanding what exactly the “image of God” is. Since they are not “created in the image of God” in the same way we would have no idea if these other races were created in the image of God, how can we simply say “some miracle of God”?
I think all this discussion demonstrates the point I was making. If we
are having trouble working through the issues as the leaders of groups, how much more difficult will it be for those we are discipling. Also, you had stated in an earlier email, we have to decide how strict of an allegory the DR world should be. I would agree with that statement and would think two things in that regard:
If the purpose of DR is discipleship, I would think a more stringent
allegory with a high level of creativity would be most beneficial in spiritually forming students/people.
The allegory must be as true to the Biblical story as possible in key
areas. The gospel is THE key area. The gospel is impossible without incarnation. In incarnation, Christ unites himself with those he came to save—humanity—by becoming one of us. Only someone who is human could pay the penalty levied against humanity. Therefore, I see this discussion as key to the gospel. In fact, it is probably the biggest reason I weighed in on the discussion.
Again, thanks for listening to my musings and for engaging in
conversation about the topic. I didn’t think the post would generate this much discussion. LOL.
Grace and Peace,
Brian
From: Arthur Vinson [mailto:jude@chez-vrolet.net]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 3:14 PM
To: dragonraid@welovegod.org
Subject: Re: [DragonRaid] What if...
You also have to bring into consideration that when Adam and Eve fell,
the entire creation fell with them. Any intelligent creatures we may find living apart from Earth would either be Adam descendants by some miracle of God, thereby being fallen in their own right or they'd be caught up in our Fall, like the animals, plants, the physical world around us and even angels to an extent. Any creatures outside of Humanity look toward Jesus Christ only through our own redemption. So yes, in the hypothetical situation where there were volitional creatures who weren't "human," they'd need to have a similar faith in Christ as we do - they'd have to trust that His death and resurrection secured human redemption, and their own redemption by proxy.
It would
explain why Earth is such a sought after commodity in all those sci-fi
movies.
Michelle and Brian Gross wrote:
Dan,
Absolutely. God could create another race on another planet.
However, we would also probably assume that God deals with them in a different economy than us. I mean, who knows if they have ever sinned and obviously they would not have inherited the sin nature from Adam and Eve. Therefore God would likely deal differently with them (as he does with angels). I mean, if we found out there was another “species” of highly intelligent beings, could we tell them that Jesus died for them? If so, we would be going beyond what scripture teaches. Christ did not unite himself with their nature (as he did in incarnation for humanity) to die on the cross for their sins.
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