{"id":26772,"date":"2015-02-09T12:54:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=26772"},"modified":"2015-02-09T12:54:01","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:54:01","slug":"when-fantasy-role-playing-replaces-faith-you-still-need-a-decent-dm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/09\/when-fantasy-role-playing-replaces-faith-you-still-need-a-decent-dm\/","title":{"rendered":"When fantasy role-playing replaces faith you still need a decent DM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Kyle Roberts writes about the latest anti-gay gatekeeping rant from one of the mini-Mohlers: \u201cOwen Strachan and the Guardians of the Evangelical Galaxy<\/a>.\u201d Roberts offers some select quotes from Strachan\u2019s over-the-top attempt at an anti-gay St. Crispin\u2019s Day speech, including this bit, which he notes sounds like an out-take from a supersessionist remake\u00a0of Gladiator<\/em> or Braveheart<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Are there any in the new Israel, the church, who will honor God? Are the pastors of God\u2019s people boys, and not men? Will we defend the righteousness of God when Satan assails it? Or will we fall silent, grow fearful, and drown out our proclamation of the truth in a series of jokes, qualifications, and selective put-downs of David-like Christians?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0But there are many, many, many other churches that will not. They will not bend the knee to Goliath. They will not submit to the yoke of the Philistines. They have fire in their blood, and Spirit-given courage in their hearts. They will defend the honor of God.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We few, we happy few, we band of anti-buggery. Strachan goes on (and on, and on) like that, posing as Henry V at Agincourt \u2014 or maybe as Bill Pullman in Independence Day<\/em>. It\u2019s all so grandiose that it\u2019s easy to lose sight of the fact that he\u2019s not addressing the threat of an army that has his tiny force hopelessly outnumbered \u2014 he\u2019s talking about the danger of a single church in Nashville that has decided it will not bar its doors to LGBT Christians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts thinks this kind of Hollywood half-time speech will go over well with Strachan\u2019s intended audience:<\/p>\n

\n

This is stirring speech \u2013 for those who share Owen\u2019s epistemic certainty and theological convictions. This speech will elicit all manner of \u201cAmens\u201d from them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maybe. Roberts is right to recognize\u00a0the appeal of Strachan\u2019s fawning flattery. He\u2019s addressing an audience of conservative white Christians who love to sing \u201cDare to be a Daniel \/ Dare to stand alone!\u201d This is a white evangelical subculture that replaced faith with fantasy decades ago. For them, discipleship means leveling up in a\u00a0fantasy role-playing game in which they pretend to be heroic warriors battling against Satanic baby-killers, relativists, evolutionists, postmodernists, New Agers, the Gay Lifestyle, and a whole Monster Manual of other imaginary horrors. Strachan invites them to play this game, and they love this game.<\/p>\n

\"Strachan\"<\/a>They love this game way more than they ever used to love whatsisname. Jesus or whoever.<\/p>\n

And some of them love the game enough to realize that Owen Strachan is a lousy DM. His over-the-top rhetoric is too transparently self-congratulatory and self-aggrandizing. It ruins the moment, stretching the usual bargain past its breaking point.<\/p>\n

The way that usual bargain works is this: The culture warrior steps into the podium and tells the audience \u2014 the congregation of gamers \u2014 that they can from now on think of themselves as\u00a0bold, heroic champions of righteousness. All they need to do is to affirm that he<\/em> is such a bold heroic champion, and he, in turn, will say the same thing about them.<\/p>\n

But Strachan may be pushing this too far. The superlative praise he\u2019s seeking, and offering in exchange, is bound to make even the most devoted gamers a bit uncomfortable. Push things that far and it starts to seem a bit silly. The gap between the fantasy and reality becomes too wide to ignore.<\/p>\n

Strachan\u2019s audience may share his fondness for imagining that they\u2019re Superman. But even they have probably noticed that he looks a bit ridiculous running around in his Underoos with a red towel around his neck.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strachan’s fawning flattery is directed at an audience of conservative white Christians who love to sing “Dare to be a Daniel \/ Dare to stand alone!” This is a white evangelical subculture that replaced faith with fantasy decades ago. For them, discipleship means leveling up in a fantasy role-playing game in which they pretend to be heroic warriors battling against Satanic baby-killers, relativists, evolutionists, postmodernists, New Agers, the Gay Lifestyle, and a whole Monster Manual of other imaginary horrors. Strachan invites them to play this game, and they love this game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17,53,52,22,28,29],"class_list":["post-26772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-equality","tag-gay-rights","tag-homosexuality","tag-indignation","tag-religious-right","tag-satanic-baby-killers"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen fantasy role-playing replaces faith you still need a decent DM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Strachan's fawning flattery is directed at an audience of conservative white Christians who love to sing "Dare to be a Daniel \/ Dare to stand alone!" This is a white evangelical subculture that replaced faith with fantasy decades ago. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"When fantasy role-playing replaces faith you still need a decent DM","description":"Strachan's fawning flattery is directed at an audience of conservative white Christians who love to sing \"Dare to be a Daniel \/ Dare to stand alone!\" This is a white evangelical subculture that replaced faith with fantasy decades ago. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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