The Christian Geek

     I'm a Christian first and foremost, that's who I am beyond any other distinction, but that one title is not the only moniker that applies to me. I am also a son, a brother, a husband, a writer, an artist, and a 'geek'. I mean that of course in the modern cultural definition. Webster's dictionary defines a geek as “a person who is very interested in and knows a lot about a particular field or activity”. That's delightfully vague isn't it?

Oddly enough I've been asked this question countless times: “How can you be a geek and a Christian?” So many people think there is some kind of disparity there or some insurmountable wall that should bar me from entrance into either one camp or the other, but in reality the two parts of myself co-exist quite well. You see the first part of the answer is what I started this post with, I am a Christian first. That means I am a Christian geek not a geek who is a Christian. My faith informs my geekiness and defines the parameters of those interests. When it comes to my love of fantasy in either movies, video games or books; my faith has led me to create a set of criteria that I use to decide which things I will enjoy.

<>If the world of the story contains magic it must meet the

 following:

-the world must not set itself up as existing in this current, existing, reality.

-The magic contained in said story cannot be of the 'real world' kind, ex: sacrifices and intricate spells that contact demons and what-not.

<>Regardless of the world/story the actions of the main characters,

those presented as the 'good guys' must be in fact good. I will not partake of a world where the good guys aren't at least mostly 'good' at heart.

-The setting and storyline must also be 'worth' whatever result we are headed toward. I have started reading books in the past that have asked you to go through far too much filth for far too little reward at the end.

The point is that I cannot enjoy in a fantasy what would be wrong in reality; and as I've said, the same rules apply to video games, books, movies, TV shows, etc. Notice that my rules tend to lean heavily on what the heroes are doing and little on the villains. I personally give the villains some lee-way because, well, they're villains! Their actions aren't being lauded, their being denounced.

     People often accuse the world of fantasy literature and gaming to be “practice in the occult” or even of just being sneaky means for occult people and groups to seduce us into their world. In response to that I love the following quote from “The Christian Gamers Guild” FAQ page, speaking of the critics of RPG's and tabletop games specifically. This particular quote isn't talking about playing 'evil' characters, something I think we should avoid, but it makes an excellent general point about “magic” in games.

“... a critical point that is missed, or worse, intentionally ignored even by those who have browsed through them (the game manuals) is that there is a constant distinction between the players and their characters. If C. S. Lewis creates in one of his books a senior devil named Screwtape writing advice to a junior tempter named Wormwood, no one for a moment believes that Lewis is confusing himself with the actions of that demon. Nor do we accuse him of summoning demons because some of his characters in Perelandra and That Hideous Strength do so. Likewise, no one feels that the church members who play Pontius Pilate, Judas Iscariot, and Caiaphas in the church passion play are at any risk of condemnation for doing so. There is distance between the player and the character. When it says that the character must swallow a bit of bitumen and a live spider to do the spider climb spell, there isn't any bitumen or spiders anywhere near the player. He doesn't actually do anything--he just says that his character is going to swallow the spider and the bitumen (or more usually, he just says that the character is going to cast the Spider Climb spell, and if there's any question about whether he has the materials they look them up to see what he needs to do it--in the same way that if a novice chess player were to announce that he is going to take his opponent's pawn by en passant we might need to pull out the rules to determine how that works and whether it can be done in this circumstance). Even in LARP (Live Action Role Play) there is always this distance, with the bulk of the action still in the imagination. Critics have confused the player with the character.”

-For more on this topic and a great treatment of Christians as gamers/geeks head over to-

http://christian-gamers-guild.org/faq.html

     Essentially being a geek is no more than any other hobby. No different than your father's bowling night, your mother's scrap-booking nights, your brother's obsession with football or anything else that we do in our free time to relax. The traditional spheres of 'geekness' are the things which draw me and so many others to not only enjoy but to create. It drives me to write, to draw, to imagine whole other worlds and the many adventures that happen there.

     One last thought. As a Christian, I believe in a number of amazing things: that there is an all powerful being who cannot be seen but controls all of reality, that there are spirits that inhabit a whole other world essentially parallel to our own, or that in certain instances the whole of natural reality has been circumvented. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that being a geek makes me more able to believe in these things. A man who has never ridden the back of a dragon or watched the hero cast down his enemy with a bolt of lightning may just find it more difficult to believe that God brought down a torrent of flame to consume a water-logged alter when Elija prayed, or that the Red sea once split down the middle, or that a Man once walked on water.