Christology, Munchkin and the God-World Relationship

by Kyle Baughman 

“Oh, my God.”

-the doxology of Kyle Baughman whilst playing board games with OPT editor Sebastian Faust

This post is about Christology, Munchkin and why I can’t play games with Sebastian Faust anymore.

[First, a quick primer on the game of Munchkin. It was created by Steve Jackson as a comedic and satirical take on role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and his own creations, Melee and The Fantasy Trip. The result is a tongue-in-cheek dungeon game in which you do everything in your power to screw over all of your fellow dungeoneers (I said it first) and progress to level 10, thereby winning the game. It’s beautifully selfish, terribly greedy and ultimately destructive to any relationships you hold dear (screw off Oxford Comma!)]

“Oh, my God,” I exclaim. The move was so clear; if he’d chosen to go forward he would have won the game. And yet, despite all the petitioning and all the confusion, he refused to make the move that would secure victory. Instead, even when chastised, he insisted he simply didn’t want the game to end yet.

How frustrating it is to watch Sebastian Faust play Munchkin!

In a game premised upon destroying your neighbor and traversing the dungeon before anyone else can, where second place means nothing, it is inconceivable, it is humiliating for another person to sacrifice his turn, for him to desire the game to continue with the chances all but certain that someone else will win. Somewhere, high atop a mountain, Steve Jackson is now tossing sleeplessly on his bed made of literal clouds after hearing of someone incapable of playing a game that aligns so perfectly with our American ethos – a form that demands both a winner and a loser. That one would sacrifice his turn for the exaltation of play is nothing but foolishness, nay, a very insult. I hate these types of players; I despise playing with them. Whenever they arise on the field of play, I find myself wanting to quit before they ruin it, or barring that, to use all my wiles and cunning to crush them completely.

I must stop for a moment; my neurosis is clearly on display when it comes to board games.

I’m a purist. There are proper ways to play the game; they were handed down to us by our ancestors. We did not break from a tyrannical Monarchy all those years ago just to have Sebastian decide he didn’t want to win.

When given the chance, always choose to win! The point of winning is to prove your power, to dominate your foes; and to gloat, always gloat. By divine fiat, we, as a community, had established what it meant to play Munchkin in a way that would honor Sir Steve Jackson (knighthood pending). But here, Sebastian had the nerve, no, the audacity to come into my home and play the game the wrong way.

We decided to crucify Sebastian that day, and rightly so. We channeled our outrage against the one who played by different rules. Our righteous indignation said much about the law we love, and the blasphemer who fell under the weight of that love.

In a culture that demands a winner and a loser, Sebastian found himself caught in the crosshairs of ideology and pragmatism. But by rejecting our form of play, he revealed the motivation behind the form. And what did it reveal about my motivation?

Sure, here I could wax on about capitalism and political ideology at play, but that would be side-stepping the truth; the truth is simply this: I am selfish. My assumption in board games is that everybody is out for blood. My appeal was to my own pride, to prove myself the grand warrior half-elf I knew myself to be. But Sebastian, that lowly, lowly dwarf-wizard, was set ablaze that night as a sign to all others at the table that his form of play shall not be tolerated. I was indeed out for blood, but it wasn’t until I saw somebody play who had no intention of blood-letting that my manner of play was exposed, not in the instant, but only after I had crucified him.

And seeing him hanging there, dead in the balance of my indignation, I felt rebuked. He allowed himself to be crucified, and for what? One more turn.

This is the reason I get so mad at Jesus.

I enjoy hanging out with Jesus; I just can’t play board games with him.

And if it were only Munchkin with Jesus that was problematic, I would be ok. But I look through the stacks of board games we own, and I must admit it’s all of them, even Clue. Even Chutes and Ladders.

I hate playing games with Jesus because playing games with Jesus exposes the way I play the game.

It’s very easy for me to use Jesus to rebuke the systems and powers of ideology that hurt children in Palestine, that allow villages in Asia to become subservient to American enterprises or that promote the exploitation of West Virginian land, where the benefits of their loss never return to the state. But, it is not so easy when I am sitting across a game board from Jesus, and the same Jesus I wield as a sword against my opponents has shown himself to be the double-edged one.

There’s no new Christology here. Jesus has long been the challenge that Paul faced when he said “I am crucified with Christ.” The moment I am most confident to live and call myself a Christian, there is Jesus…sitting across from me. And he plays by a different rule set. He says:

“Do not resist the one who is evil,” and “give to the one who begs from you” and “love your enemies.”

These are less troubling when sitting in a pew. I can generalize these statements, hold them as tenets that the church should embody. And thus, when the church falls short and acts contrary to what it professes, I can denounce the church and repudiate it. But it’s much more difficult when Jesus is sitting across the table from me.

For, much as Sebastian’s joy was in delaying the end, for the sake of the game, for one more turn, so I see in Christ a willingness that the game not be decided by the present paradigm, and the willing of time, the willing of new opportunity.

I do not know what The Eschaton will look like, or when, or if, those things Jesus talked about will occur. But, what I do know from Jesus’ life is that he plays the game with a willingness that time be made for people to change. And here I see Paul’s note that, in God’s forbearance, God left past transgressions unpunished so that now he could demonstrate a righteous form of play. And here I also see that there was so much potential, so much more that could have been done in that game with Sebastian. So much opportunity for us to share joy, and Sebastian gave us the time by playing as he did.

God hasn’t come in trumpet blasts and with angels descending. I’m not here to argue time or dates, mythology and eschatology, or any of the rest. But perhaps in the silence, the non-return, is the answer to where God is. God desires one more turn. Maybe endless turns. Who knows?

What I do know is that I am alive today. And there is still time for yet one more round of play. 

Kyle Baughman is a human. He studied theology at Fuller Seminary and enjoys the attention he receives from flirting with several different theo-camps. He hits things with sticks as the drummer for Coyotes in Boxes. You can find him on Twitter @truekyleb.

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Einstein: A Tale of Cats and Eschatology

by JaneAnn Kenney

Now, I’m not one of those Left Behind sort of eschatology nuts, although not having read the books or watched any movies (are those movies out yet, Nic Cage?), I don’t suppose I can say for certain. I am pretty certain though. In any case, I’m not a Chicken Little or anything. What I can say about eschatology is that sometimes in the now we get glimpses of the not-yet. These glimpses fascinate me and fill me with hope, and often with tears. One such glimpse was given to me by a very old man and a cat.

Whether consciously or not, I have avoided writing about cats. I do not think I’m a crazy cat lady in the making, but I admit that my sister and I have a plan for our widowed days. This plan alternatively involves hiding neighborhood baseballs found in our yard in the dark recesses of our old house and forbidding their young owners into our yard, or else inviting the ball players onto the porch for freshly-baked cookies. The non-negotiable in either scenario is the cats. We both adore them—for entertainment value, for snuggle value (when they so decide), for not having to walk them or take them outside in a manner akin to the Postal Service’s sun, rain, or snow policy value.

I’ve avoided writing about them for what I think are now obvious reasons. It gets a little intense. Since I was born, there has not been a time when my family did not own at least one kitty, and most of the time we’ve had at least two around. Needless to say, we have all kinds of stories about the critters. However, I’ll only tell one, and then I’ll give you my pithy proverb, and then I’ll be through, at which point you can decide whether I am a crazy cat lady (but not before, please).

Our cat Einstein was the proverbial scaredy cat. Mom always said he was born near a big, mean dog under a porch, but now that I’m older and wiser, I suspect he was born inside a meth house (this was West Virginia, after all; Go ‘Eers!). In any case, he spent most of his life afraid. I think that my energetic nature was terrifying to him, being rather reminiscent of his chaotic kittenhood, which is why instead of being my kitty, he adopted my brother, Scott, as his human.

He became a big, beautiful cat, all dark stripes with white accents at his feet, the tip of his tail, and belly. Though never fat, he was a solid cat. Unlike fluffy cats who sometimes look quite heavy, Einstein looked deceptively light. He was built. As a result, it was ironic that everything terrified him. Any natural predators to be found would have to think twice about such a heavy beast, and—let’s be honest—we weren’t in the wild parts of West Virginia, i.e., no bear spottings for days on end.

Life was sometimes hard for Einstein. He didn’t much like other cats and got into the habit of spraying pee inside the house whenever new cats arrived, marking his territory. This made him an outdoor cat. Following a family move, he hid underneath our new clawfoot tub for three days. (We both miss that tub…) When his human went away to college, no one was willing to sit with him calmly for hours and deal with his slobber and claws.

Then my family made another move, this time to Indianapolis. For months my parents lived in a rental apartment and couldn’t keep any of the cats with them. So they got farmed out to family. Einstein went immediately to live with my grandparents in Columbus, Ohio.

Now my grandparents in Columbus are—unsurprisingly—also cat people. They used to have exclusively Siamese cats but became more equal-opportunity with the years. Einstein entered the house as the third cat and was meant to stay until my parents found a permanent house. When they found it, however, he did not leave promptly.

For the last years of his life, my grandfather suffered a lot and in many ways. He had emphysema from years of smoking. He had dementia, which eventually robbed him of his independence. He couldn’t remember how to drive home from his usual haunts around town, and he relived painful war memories he’d spent years avoiding. Once quick-witted, he would now repeat the same questions over and over, circling back to what had already been said. He even began watching football. And enjoying it. All those years in Buckeye country and he didn’t care about football till 2011.

You think I’m kidding. I am not kidding.

It progressed to the point that Grandpa would leave the house for doctor visits and not much else. It was at this time that Einstein came to be fostered in his house. My brother and I were nervous; the cat didn’t like new situations and definitely didn’t like new cats (the spraying bit again).

I think Einstein lived in Columbus for about a year and a half. In that time, he and my grandpa became inseparable. They were old men together. Grandpa would lie in bed watching TV or sleeping while Einstein lay beside him, being constantly and carefully petted, purring, and leaving only for the litter box or food.

My grandpa died last October. We had expected it for a long time, and he’d been predicting it for maybe my whole life. I held myself together pretty well for a little while, talking on the phone to my mom and my grandma. It wasn’t until I heard about Einstein that I lost my cool. It was my grandma who told me.

That cat lay by my grandpa’s side to his dying day. Einstein stayed by his side even after Grandpa had stopped breathing. He was the warm spot when Grandma found Grandpa in the morning. With Grandpa’s bed empty, Einstein wandered the house looking for his person. He cried. He was lost.

I’m not saying that we adopted Einstein eighteen years ago so that he could go comfort my grandfather in his twilight. I’m not even saying God orchestrated a move for my parents so that the cat would have to go live with my dying grandfather. What I am saying is that when my grandfather’s body and mind betrayed him, the cat gave him comfort, day in and day out. I know it’s not a lion and a lamb story, but for me the tale of Einstein and my grandfather is an echo from eternity, whispering about what will be.

Now I take care of Einstein. When he’s stinky, or he tracks cat litter through the house and leaves dirty paw prints all over from sneaking into my brother’s bathtub, I remember the happiness Einstein brought to my grandpa, and I go pet that old cat. I deal with the slobber and the claws, because he did a good thing for a man who needed him.

You can ask JaneAnn about: Nashville, theology, cats. Baseball. Glacial rivers. Her stance on the color purple, and then again the existence of the word "purple." General frivolity and terrible music (for the DANCING!!). Old Stephen King novels, time zones, and toll roads in Oklahoma. She will not, however, answer any questions about that thing living in her fridge. You can follow her on Twitter @JAKof3Ts.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
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The Championship Myth

by Ben Howard

Even though I grew up in central Ohio about an hour outside of Columbus, I've had a circuitous root to my Ohio State Buckeyes fandom. When I was little (read: until college), I was defiantly anti-Ohio State. I mean, everybody at school was a fan of the Buckeyes. Everybody at church was a fan of the Buckeyes. Everybody in my family was a fan of the Buckeyes. I had to be an individual. So I told people I rooted for Michigan, but I actually just rooted against Ohio State.

You must be saying to yourself, “I can't believe it! I've never known Ben to be calculatingly opposed to something just because it's popular. I've never known him to be stubbornly iconoclastic! This must all be balderdash!” It's a surprise, I know, but it's true.

I didn't really start rooting FOR the Buckeyes until I went to college. Somehow through a combination of reactionary state pride (Oklahomans and Texans are crazy annoying about college sports) and trying to find a reason to hang out with a girl from Ohio who happened to be an Ohio State fan (I have done many stupider things for a pretty girl's attention), I became a real true Ohio State fan.

I'm glad I became a fan, because this season Ohio State has made me realize something that's fundamentally true about sports. Championships don't matter. At least, they don't matter as much as you think they do or as much as you're told they do.

You see, this season due to a scandal involving players exchanging memorabilia for tattoos (a NCAA no-no) and a respected head coach then lying to cover it up (a major NCAA no-no), the Buckeyes find themselves banned from the postseason. However, I still find myself finding a way to watch the game every Saturday and I'm still enjoying watching my favorite team go undefeated to this point in the season. According to what I've always been taught by sports writers, announcers and the like, I'm supposed to care less because my team can't win a title.

But it's just not true. I care the same amount.

In fact, I assume most people who watch sports really only care about the one game they're watching. They want their team to win that game. They want to be entertained and happy about that one game. For instance, the Premier League is huge in England. 44 teams compete in the two highest levels of English soccer. 20 of those teams compete in the highest level, which is one of the most popular and lucrative sports leagues in the world. Of those 20 teams, 6 have won a championship in the past 20 years and maybe only 3 or 4 teams are legitimate threats to actually win the title on a year to year basis.

If the myth of the championship holds true, then the fans of all those other teams shouldn't care at all because they can't win the league. They can only achieve different levels of mediocre.

But that's not why fans watch the game. They watch to see their city, state or alma mater represented. They watch because they enjoy the style, the strategy and the athleticism of the game. In the same way that you don't read a novel or watch a movie because it has a good ending, you don't root for a sports team because they win a title. You enjoy the story, the thing itself.

The Christian story falls victim to this myth of the championship, this myth of victory. It's not just the conservatives or the liberals, it's everybody. Whether the “championship” in question is saving the lost, getting to heaven, eliminating poverty or maybe destroying some disease that causes suffering all over the globe, the church has become obsessed with winning. We have to achieve the “big goal” at the end of the road.

Here's the problem: that understanding of Christian achievement, of winning, fundamentally misunderstands the reason for faith and the reason for the church.

Faith isn't about winning. It's about the process of belief and doubt, the ebbs and flows wherein we encounter God and then find ourselves at a distance. It's about the dynamic relationship with the God who created us, whether it's good, bad, or confusing.

You see, there's another flaw to the championship myth. It ends. And as St. Benedict so beautifully said, “Always we begin again.” There is always another season and another champion.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't aim for these lofty goals, but I am saying they do not define our faith. We are simply called to do our best in the next play, the next game, the next season. We are called to encounter the task set before us. If we win, we learn and if we fail, we learn as well. The process is not about being perfect, though it is something we hope to achieve and something we aspire to, even if only for a moment.

So dream your dreams and aspire to your goals, but if you find that you cannot reach them, do not fear. Your live is not measured in your championships, it is measured in your quests.

Peace,

Ben

You can follow Ben on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page.

The Election Chronicles: Love Drives Out Fear

by Ben Howard

One of my tasks at work includes responding to emails that come in to our general inbox. I've only been in this particular job for about two months, so I only began responding to these emails about a month ago. This inbox has become one of the highlights of my day and it's not because of the conversations with customers.

Apparently, someone, once upon a time, signed our general work email account up for Tea Party email blasts and they are AMAZING!

Not only have they taught me about Barack Obama's numerous secret identities (did you know he was born in Kenya?!?), I also learned that he's a card carrying member of the Communist party!!! I didn't even know they made cards for that anymore!

But let me save the best for last, apparently, if Barack HUSSEIN Obama doesn't win this election, he's planning a military coup to overthrow the government!!! Granted, if you have the ability to mount a military coup then I'm not sure why you'd go through the grueling process of a campaign, but....exclamation points!!!

Clearly, I'm being entirely facetious. At least I hope it was clear because most of that was taken verbatim from the emails I'm referencing.

I've never been a fan of conspiracy theories. I think we landed on the moon. I think the JFK assassination was weird, but there was only one gunman. I'm confident 9/11 was not an inside job. I would say that banks did not commit fraud during the financial collapse of 2008, but they certainly committed stupidity. And yes, I'm convinced that Barack Obama was born in the United States, assuming convinced is the correct word for something I never questioned for a moment.


It's really hard to lie that big without people finding out. Ask Richard Nixon.

So why do these stories persist? Easy. We don't trust each other. At all. In fact, you can probably say that we're terrified of each other.


A couple weeks ago Peter Enns wrote a great article entitled "Dear Christian: If the Thought of Either Romney or Obama Getting Elected Make You Fearful, Angry, or Depressed, You Have What We Call a Theological Problem."

He goes on to talk about how politics have become a rival eschatology to Christianity and how hope in politics has replaced hope in an authentic salvation that politicians and governments can never fully supply.

I think he's right, but I also think we need to remember the call to love our neighbor and remember that "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear."

This is what I was getting at yesterday when I said that I want to know what you're for, and not what you're against. I want to know what you love, and I want that love, that hope, that anticipation for something better to drive out the fear that infects us all so deeply.

Will a person be able to provide this? No. Will an election take us closer to the world as it was intended to be? I can't say that it's likely. But we can still hope. We can still try.

We are not called by God to recreate and redeem his world on our own, we are called to work alongside him as he reclaims and redeems his creation.

Maybe politics can help in this redemption, and maybe it can't, but either way let us remember that the person on the other side of the aisle is just as much God's creation as we are. They are our neighbors. 

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are our neighbors. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are our neighbors. The members of the Tea Party are our neighbors. The Occupy Movement are our neighbors. So are the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the English, the French, the Germans and anybody and everybody else across this planet. They are all God's creation and let us remember that we love them, no matter what.

Peace,
Ben

You can follow Ben on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page.

Heaven and How I Met Your Mother

by Ben Howard

Last night my friend and I ended up watching the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother on CBS. If you’re unfamiliar, How I Met Your Mother, or HIMYM, is a sitcom entering it’s eighth season. The narrative catch of the show is that the protagonist, Ted Mosby is telling his future children the story of how he met their mother. The story is set in the present, but the narrator and his kids are set in the future about 20 years.

Different reviewers and critics have termed it a love story in reverse, or a love story wrapped in a mystery. I simply find it entertaining…or infuriating. It really depends on where the story goes.

You see the problem with a show based around a mysterious identity is that it can only tease out that mysterious identity for so long until that tease just becomes annoying. HIMYM has been carrying out that tease for seven years plus one episode at this point and its been pretty annoying since about season three.

However, I almost always enjoy the show when it focuses on its five main characters and their lives. Whether it’s how they interact, or how they deal with the problems of transitioning from twenty-something dreamers to a life with families and careers, I enjoy it. On some level the show connects to the reality of the my situation as a twenty-something who is a little apprehensive about the idea of families and careers and growing up.

As a single man, the frustration over not finding “that mysterious someone” connects to me as well. However, much like the show, I find that when I become overly focused on this kind of end goal, when I believe that the idea of finding “the one” will somehow be the pinnacle of my existence, things aren’t nearly as enjoyable or fulfilling.

I don’t think this just parallels my life or the lives of others in my generation, I think it also parallels the different focuses of the church and it affects people's faith.

A lot of churches focus on the goal of heaven, or if they aren’t so polite about it, they focus on hell. I understand why you would want to focus on that. Happily ever after sounds terrific, especially on the really hard days when nothing makes sense and everything feels hopeless. I understand wanting to jump to the end of the story, but on the other hand I think it misses so much.

The best parts of HIMYM have not been the parts associated with Ted’s search for his future wife. The best parts have been the bizarre moments of life together in community in the present. The best parts have included watching Marshall and Lily get married, or watching Barney develop into a nearly passable human being, or learning about Robin’s past as a Canadian pop singer.

Some of those moments in community have been painful, some have been ridiculous, but they have all been together, in community, in the here and now. The show's very premise is that these moments are part of the story of how Ted met the mother of his children, part of how he became who he needed to be.

In the same way, these moments of community that we experience in the present are part of the story of how we come to embrace heaven and resurrection and redemption. Real life is not a waiting room, it is an essential part of the journey filled with growth and love and pain and laughter.

If we only focus on the end of the story, then the present becomes little more than a frustrating reminder of what has not yet come. However, if we focus on the present, then the future can emerge in its full beauty without the weight of our exasperation and expectation.

Do I hope for resurrection, redemption, and the coming Kingdom of God? Of course! But until it comes, I will love my friends and family and enjoy growing into the person I will be in that hoped for future.

Peace,

Ben

When he isn’t writing about the value of not focusing on the mother in HIMYM, Ben is really really hoping that they’ll just reveal the mother already. It’s been 8 years! I need more than a yellow umbrella! You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page.

Expectations and Subverting the Olympic Narrative

by Ben Howard

My two favorite stories at the Olympics so far are Aly Raisman and Michael Phelps. Don't worry, this isn't going to be an ode to "America's Underdog Gymnast" and "The Greatest Olympian Ever." I'll leave those articles to people who cover sports for a living. Raisman and Phelps are my favorite stories because they undermined the corporately approved narrative of the Olympics. I love me some subversion.

Every time the Olympics come around, we the viewing public get a new batch of corporately approved stars. Almost every commercial during the Games is based around some athlete who was expected to win, expected to become a star, expected to become the love of the entire United States population.

However, much to the dismay of BP and Proctor & Gamble and other corporate sponsors, the Olympics are comprised of actual sports which don't necessarily go according to plans. These expectations drive the narrative of the Olympics.

That's why I love Raisman and Phelps. Raisman was an afterthought. The 3rd member of Team USA. And Phelps? Phelps was boring and played out. His story was old. Ryan Lochte and his diamond-studded grill were far more interesting than Phelps and his brooding greatness.

Then the events happened. Raisman went from afterthought to a 2-time gold medalist, who just missed a bronze in the all-around finals. After a rough start in the 400 IM, Phelps made it his personal mission to make Ryan Lochte into a footnote on the way to becoming the most decorated Olympian in history (Zeus excepted).

Expectations are a powerful thing and they can drastically affect the way we respond to the world. It's not simply limited to the emotional aspect of sports either. Historically, the Jewish people expected a Messiah who would be a physical conqueror and king. When they received a different interpretation of the conqueror and king, they crucified him.

This extends to the modern church as well. If you expect that the world ends in a fiery inferno, then you'll act with that goal in mind and God's creation becomes a sinking ship we need to escape. If you expect God to embrace everyone no matter what, then you'll find that there's a thin line between acceptance and apathy.

I'm not saying which one is right or wrong. I certainly have my opinions and expectations. Everyone does. I want to see how things play out and I'm going to assume we're all wrong to one degree or another. That's the way predicting the future works. (Though I'm still holding out hope for that Chicago-Miami World Series in 2015, you promised Back to the Future II).

It'll all make sense. Just be patient. And have faith that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

Peace,
Ben


When Ben isn't gleefully rooting for subversive athletes, he likes to wax rhapsodic about James Harden's pharaoh beard. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.