Jonathan's Corner
(Search & Sitemap)
> The Minstrel's Song >
Further Notes
Previous
1
2
Next
Printer-Friendly Version
A note on magic...
Most people reading this have probably noticed the absence of anything magic.
This absence is quite intentional, and of it I would like to say a couple of things.
First of all, magic is sin. It's that simple.
But, you may say, playing a character who uses magic does not mean that the player is tracing runes in the air, drawing chalk circles, and so on.
If you mean in the hands, granted. But there is something more to say.
One of the themes in the Sermon on the Mount is that purity belongs not only in the hands, but is to penetrate to the heart. Listen to how this precept is applied to sexual purity: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
That is to say, sin does not begin with the full act of sexual intercourse (outside of marriage); it is sinful to use the imagination to commit adultery in the heart -- and a man who so much as casts one glance in lust has already done so.
The application to magic means that sin does not begin with chanting the words in a spellbook; it is wrong to use the imagination to use magic in the heart... and, just as lust does not begin after spending several minutes imagining every last instant and detail of foreplay and intercourse, pretending to use magic does not begin after imagining every last detail of casting a spell.
Role playing games provide a way to pretend, to use the imagination to become the great explorer who voyages into the unknown, the romantic bard whose tales spin beauty and wonder. Nobody wants to play a scullery maid or a cobbler who makes shoes day in and day out; a character who is played for enjoyment is someone whom it would be enjoyable to be. To play is to pretend; to have fun by playing a magical character is to have fun by committing the sin of sorcery in the heart. (The same also goes for violence, deceit, theievery, etc.)
The second thing to say is this: God creates. Satan only mocks. forming counterfeit substitutes.
Lust is not a wonderful creative flair which Satan came up with. Marriage, including sex, is God's good creation; it is sacred, so much so that the Song of Songs (a Hebrew superlative meaning the greatest and most beautiful of songs) is devoted to eroticism. Lust is a cheap substitute, a cold prickly where God intends warm fuzzies. It can only be appealing because of the goodness of sex.
If the analogy is extended to magic, several useful things can be drawn from the analysis.
The question, "Why do people derive pleasure from pretending to use magic?" has two answers which I can immediately see.
The first is "Power." Magical powers enable characters to do amazing things.
Power is certainly not innately evil -- God is all-powerful, and the believer who walks in the Spirit grows in power -- but Satan often twists it to do what it was never meant to; function as a substitute for love. Totalitarian dictators and despots are rarely described by psychologists as having spent childhood surrounded by warm and compassionate friends; they are rather described as having been picked on and bullied. Power has a place in life, but role play is not enhanced by making characters into demigods. The terms 'munchkin' and 'Monty Haul' do not describe a solid campaign. Perhaps a character is less powerful in some ways if he does not have a cloak which turns him invisible, but that does not make him a boring and pointless character.
The second, and in my estimation far more informative, answer to the question is, "Wonder."
In common speech and in literature, words such as 'magical' and 'enchanted' are used to describe things that are spectacular, awe inspiring, breathtaking.
God created people to be filled with wonder. Wonder fills pious living, and one of the many evils of looking to magic is that it has a grievous potential to blind people to the wonder God wants to fill them with.
There is wonder in little things that often go unnoticed; in the dance of a candle's flame and the feel of a gentle breeze. The created order -- from the deep majesty of the starry vault, to the height of the mountains, to the depth of the oceans -- is, as the human body, fearfully and wonderfully made.
There is also wonder in music, in art, in dance, in the form of ideas. It lies in personality, in the beauty of the human spirit. Finally, above and beyond these and many other things, is a source of wonder greater still.
The final and greatest source of wonder is God himself.
It is the motion of the Spirit which animates worship; indeed, Spirit-filled worship is probably the most wondrous element of human experience. It is the motion of the Spirit which enables men to speak in the tongues of men and angels; it is the motion of the Spirit which transported Philip from the Ethiopian eunuch to Azoth.
One need only read the story of Elijah and the prophets of Ba'al to catch a little of this. Elijah summoned the four hundred and fifty prophets of Ba'al, and asked the people of Israel, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, worship him, but if Ba'al is God, worship him." He proposed a contest: each would have a bull to offer in sacrifice; the hundreds of prophets of Ba'al would ask Ba'al to send fire to their sacrifice, and Elijah would ask Yahweh to send fire to his sacrifice, and the one who answers with fire -- he is God.
The prophets of Ba'al went about for hours dancing and gashing themselves, taunted by Elijah: "Surely Ba'al is god! Why don't you cry a little louder? He could be asleep, or traveling. Who knows? Maybe he's sitting on his porcelain throne."
After a while, it was Elijah's turn. He told the people, "I don't want to bore Yahweh. This is too easy." So, after preparing the sacrifice, he made the people thoroughly drench it in water, and drench it again, and then drench it again. Then he prayed, and fire came down from Heaven, consuming the bull, the wood, and all of the water.
It is not in magic, but in the Spirit -- always faithful and never predictable -- that the believer finds wonder.
One more note on magic:
There are certain elements of magic which seem to recurrently appear in Christian-designed fantasy role playing games.
I am referring in particular to magic in which the Bible or some book of liturgy becomes a spellbook, and verses/prayers/quotations become runes, incantations, etc.
If I may provide an analogy...
Creating a pornographic film is wrong.
Creating a pornographic film which has as its characters the characters of the Gospel (ergo, where it is Jesus, his disciples, Mary Magdala, the prostitutes and tax collectors whom Jesus said were entering the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of the Pharisees and so on who have an orgy, instead of random 20th century people having an orgy), is still wrong.
What is wrong with the latter mentioned pornographic film is not that it contains characters from the Gospel. What is wrong is that it is a pornographic film. Using Gospel characters within the context of a pornographic film does not make everything OK. The context of a pornographic film is wrong, even if the characters who appear in it are perfectly fine.
Now, to extend the analogy to gaming...
It is wrong to play a character who spends time studying dusty spellbooks, from which he learns a magical incantation which, once per day, will cause a fireball to explode in the midst of the enemy, or enable him to fly, or create a magical shield about him.
That stated, let me quote the LightRaider Net fanzine, for the Christian DragonRaid game, (c) 1996 Jill Oviatt (oviattws@alaska.net) and Charlie Banders (charlie@mat.net).
An important WordRune that I think goes hand in hand with #55 Purge Evil WordRune (covered in issue #5) is #49, No Sweat WordRune.NIV Romans 8:31b "If God is for us, who can be against us?"
This simple and easily memorized scripture (especially if you know the D+K song) is good by itself, but also a good balance to #55. Whereas #55 helps with the offensive strategy of the LightRaider, #49 helps with the defensive side of a battle. The No Sweat WordRune will allow you to raise your LightRaiders 'Shield of Faith rating by 3 for the duration of one encounter'. This Wordrune may only be used once per day so use it wisely.
Even in an allegorical situation... This is still magical. It does not involve prayer which rests on faith and which God grants, but memorization, recitation, words which bear power in and of themselves, and in terms of description and game mechanical effects is indistinguishable from a wizard's spell in Dungeons and Dragons.
Prayer is powerful, and memorization of Scripture is good. But the essence of prayer does not stem from the words in which it is spoken: when Jesus gave a model prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, he chastened people who babble because they believe they will be heard for the many words, and reminded his disciples that their Heavenly Father knew what they needed before they began to ask. When the Samaritan woman asked Jesus which place was the true place to worship, on this mountain or on that mountain, Jesus answered that the true place to worship was in Spirit and in truth. Does one do justice to these teachings of Jesus by saying that specific words spoken in prayer have a power in and of themselves, residing the words, that would not be found in any other words? No. The New Testament teaching is that the power resides in the prayer and in the faith of the believer, to which God responds as a loving father, which is anything but governed by mechanistic rules as given in such games.
This kind of thing is, just like taking characters from the Gospel and incorporating them into a pornographic film, taking words from Scripture and incorporating them into a system of magic.
This is not how God works and answers prayer.
Jonathan's Corner
(Search & Sitemap)
> The Minstrel's Song >
Further Notes
Previous
1
2
Next
Printer-Friendly Version