Some of the best parts of tabletop role-playing are the creative ways players solve or avoid (or outright ignore) the problems and troubles the DM/GM/Storyteller sends their way.
One of the other best parts is coming up with those surprises to stump your players.
This afternoon, I sat down with the wife and kids to continue our D&D campaign. They’ve been steered (mostly by their characters’ needs and not by railroad tracks) toward tracking down a manipulative vampire clan. Members of the clan operate behind the scenes all over the realm, and it’s the heroes’ job to root these villains out.
They’re starting to travel all around the region, which gives me the chance to use a variety of settings.
Tabletop version of plug-and-play.
I was going to use my copy of Dungeon Delve, with its pre-made adventures. But that would require getting tiles together, and I was looking for something with less prep required.
Good thing I had an unopened pack of GameMastery map tiles: Mines.
It’s 18 tiles that are made to mix and match, so that you can create a variety of tunnels to explore.
Events in the game led the wife’s and kids’ characters to a nearby mine overrun by goblins somehow connected to the clan. There are surviving miners… probably. Rescue is the main goal… as far as they know.
The intrepid heroes are ready to move in, and since it’s a dark mine, I lay out one Mines map tile at a time as they advance through the mine. I fanned out the tiles, blank backs up, and let the kids and Jami pick which one would be next. Then I came up with a brief answer for why that section of tunnel mattered. Sometimes it was tracks in the dungeon. Sometimes it was signs of battle to hint at what they might soon face. Once it was a vein of gleaming ore.
But even before all of that, right off the bat, their creative juices are flowing. I start off with a Dungeoneering check, as Beastly Tiger notices something amiss in the entrance of the tunnel. The goblins have prepared a rock-fall trap for unwanted guests. The kids discuss how best to deal with this, when I tell them their characters hear goblins chatting ahead in the tunnel.
The children gave me a pleasant surprise by remembering the idea of “holding action.” Basically, that means a character is ready to do a certain action if something specific happens. “I hold my axe up, ready to chop at the first goblin that walks through the door,” for example.
Deborah decides Beastly Tiger would make some noise to get the goblins’ attention, then she prepares to chuck a rock at the cords that will trigger the trap. Justin likes this plan, and declares that Clayface has his crossbow ready to shoot the cords at the other side of the tunnel, once the goblins are in position. Jonathan finishes up by “holding” a magic missile to hit any of the goblins who survive the rock-fall trap.
Needless to say, the battle went poorly for the goblins. It also went poorly for Jami’s new monk character, Lily-Ann, a halfling who is unfortunately about goblin sized. That explains why Beastly Tiger may have accidentally swung his hammer to smash Lily-Ann in the side of the head:
Deborah rolled a 1. We picked a fumble card, and it said “You attack your ally instead. This attack is a critical threat.” So Deborah rolled for her attack against Lily-Ann, and the die went off the table. She tried again, and rolled a 20. Murphy’s Law, I guess.
Even so, the heroes had little difficulty dealing with the goblins and some creepy-crawlies in the tunnels.
I needed a good hook to end with, and as we took a quick break, it came to me.
So maybe I took mix-and-match too far…
I’d been removing the old map tiles behind their characters in the mine, partly to save space, but more importantly, to set up the surprise.
They hit an intersection, determined a direction, and quickly came to a dead end with the section that has ore. They fought more beasties, then turned around to back-track…
And eventually they found themselves right back at the ore, even though they’d gone the opposite direction.
Deborah and Jonathan look at me funny. Jami asks, “Wait, what?” And then it starts to dawn on their faces…
Time and space are being shifted around in the mine. The path they took is now completely different. There is a monstrous creature in the cavern whose powerful twisted magic creates this effect, and they must find it and slay it in order to find their way out.
Jonathan’s eyes go wide, and he declares, “I like where this is going.”
Removing the tiles saved space and created a fun challenge.
The kids took off to play outside, since there was only a couple hours before sunset. But they made sure to ask, “Can we keep playing once we come back inside?”
I’m usually a pretty calm person, especially when it comes to dealing with other people. It takes a lot for someone to really get under my skin.
I do have my moments. Technology that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, for example, is like turning on a flamethrower in my chest. (I’m looking at you, Microsoft products, with all the ways you try to ‘help’ me by complicating the simplest tasks.)
My dog peeing everywhere, just brazen and unashamed. Yeah, that gets me ‘perturbed.’
But mostly, I keep calm and drink my coffee.
One thing that does get on my nerves is when people spew venom in the name of Christ.
I really hate it when they use children as their excuse.
I really, really hate it when they look right past their own faults to point at the faults of others.
You can’t expect mercy for your sins while proclaiming judgment on everyone else’s.
(I probably hate that because I’m often guilty of that myself.)
So… at some point or other I got signed up for a “defend marriage as one man and one woman” page on Facebook. I only recently noticed some of the stuff they post in pursuit of their cause.
I’ve gotten into it with the faceless individual(s) behind the page. Every now and then, someone says something completely asinine, and I feel compelled to share a reasonable voice with a logical counterpoint to the ignorance. It would be one thing if people were having thoughtful discussions and clarifying how their beliefs intersect with government and freedom and tolerance and all that. Most everyone I know is willing to admit we may not all agree, but we can disagree in a civil manner and hopefully all learn something from the debate.
Not everyone seems so inclined.
This little tragedy of grammar and graphics got posted on my wall today:
I’m not posting this because I agree with the image. First off, I can’t agree with incorrect word choice and terrible cut-and-paste graphics…
I don’t know why, but I happened to read the ten comments on the picture.
It was like a religious frat party, with people giving each other textual fist bumps by reminding everyone about God’s original plan for marriage and how sad it would be when the child eventually says, “I wish I had a father.” Someone ridiculed the smiling faces, conveying the tragic nature of this hypothetical union and its dangerous impact on the child’s development. Someone simply responded with, “Oh, barf!!!!!”
I’ll leave aside the fact that there are children being raised by gay couples around the world and not all of them are collapsing under the burden of self-loathing or grief. Both sides will point to various “experts” with studies that “prove” that gay couples raising children is “no harm done” OR there is irreparable damage. Whatever. Let’s just agree that there are a lot of kids out there who are going to grow up with two mommies or daddies (yes, this is a proper time to use the plural ‘daddies’).
And they’ll be just fine.
There was one voice of reason, who made the outrageous and satanic comment that “Making fun of gays is not going to help. This is a serious issue and a heated debate which deserves a thoughtful response. Insulting people is only going to burn bridges.”
One voice out of ten.
You can’t hear my sigh, but trust me, it’s a long one. (My wife can attest to this.)
The response from the page?
“We don’t believe putting adult lusts above the needs of children deserves consideration.”
Those dirty gays, sacrificing the souls of impressionable young kids on the altar of desire! /sarcasm
Full disclosure: I’m Christian, if you didn’t get that yet. I believe what the Bible says, though I understand a lot of it comes down to interpretation and theological debate. And the Bible seems to clearly identify homosexual activity as a sin.
But that’s not all it addresses.
What do I mean by that? I’ll let my response on Facebook to that picture speak for itself:
“Putting adult lusts above the needs of children is terrible, but people do it all the time. It’s just their sins are heterosexual. Or perhaps just gluttony, or alcoholism. Maybe it’s simple neglect. Maybe even it’s how some parents worship their work or ministry by devoting all their time and attention to those things while forsaking their responsibilities to their children.
“Maybe it’s the arrogance of adult Christians who forget that they’re looking down on the needs of some children out there, children who think they’re gay, who know they’re different from most everyone else, who absolutely know without any doubt that the Church is the very last place they’ll find love or acceptance (and I don’t mean acceptance of sin, but acceptance of them as a human being worthy of Christ’s sacrificial love expressed through us).
“Maybe our need to communicate how disgusting homosexuality is gets in the way of God’s desire to communicate to THEM how incredibly powerful and merciful and life-changing His love is, and maybe it gets in the way of His desire to communicate to us that in His holy sight all our sin is just as repulsive and ‘barf-worthy’ as theirs. ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’ doesn’t mean much if we don’t do it.”
I don’t want to abuse God’s mercy or call sin ‘righteous.’ That’s not within my purview.
I haven’t torn out any passages in my Bible that claim homosexuality is a sin.
The difference is that I’m paying attention to the rest of the passages too.
Military jet fighters carry a type of air-to-air missile nicknamed “Fire and Forget.” Older missiles required continuous guidance from the pilot, who would need to keep a target locked on until the missile got close. But these missiles use active radar to find their targets, and the pilot is free to do other things (like focus on survival and avoiding enemy missiles). The pilot can “forget” the missile and let it do its job.
Politicians and reporters are now equipped with fire-and-forget missiles.
I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve seen a rash of outlandish statements, jumps to desired conclusions, opinion pieces disguised as facts, and blatant lies spread as truth.
I’m not talking about Weekly World News, whose cover stories I read with delight as a child. “UFO Base Found in New Mexico!” “Bat-Boy to be Wed! Pics of Sasquatch Bride on page 6!”
And I’m not talking about the Rush Limbaughs and Bill Mahers of the newstertainment industry, whose job it is to say whatever ridiculous thing gets them a riled-up audience.
I’m talking people who should know better, people whose job descriptions are all about communicating clearly and truthfully with the American public and the world at large.
Say what you want, you can retract it later… if anyone bothers to prove you wrong.
I know this has been going on for a long time. Propaganda and “spin” and yellow journalism and so on are nothing new. You probably already have a particular news agency in mind. For some of you, it’s the Devil, Fox News. For others, it’s the real Devil, MSNBC or CNN or ABC or whoever last said something glowing about President Obama.
Let’s run down a few stories.
James Holmes shoots up a crowd at the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, CO. This is a horrific tragedy, and not surprisingly inspires lots of conversations about how we can possibly avoid or prevent future tragedies on this scale. It also inspired ABC’s Brian Ross to point out,
“There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo.”
That was enough info for some people to run on. Even though it was later shown to be a different Jim Holmes and Ross later apologized, the damage was done. For some, the important association of Tea Party with the shooting had been proven.
This seemed familiar in an eerie way. I’d heard something like this before.
Perhaps you recall Jared Lee Loughner, the individual who shot U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and several other people in Arizona. Immediately there was talk of “inflammatory rhetoric” and suggestions that this must be the work of extremists “like the Tea Party.” But no such connection ever materialized.
Oddly enough, when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire in the Fort Hood incident, there were warnings to avoid a “rush to judgment” about his motivations.
Shouldn’t caution and restraint and thorough investigation be the default policy in cases like this?
Lest you think, dear reader, that I am a staunch Tea Party / Right Wing defender, allow me to turn the tables on my conservative friends’ lunacies.
I’ve seen posts and Facebook-shared articles warning of President Obama’s devious plan to stage an assassination attempt against himself in order to declare martial law and prevent the 2012 elections from taking place. This reportedly got started with a blogger in Florida and grew in assured Truthiness (thanks, Colbert!) to the point that a Tennessee Republican sent a letter to his constituents to warn them of the possibility.
“The more we talk about [it]… the stronger is our defense against it actually occurring.” – Joe Angione, conservative blogger.
Hence all the discussion of the impending zombie apocalypse.
Again, the government official apologized, and most people realize it’s a tinfoil-hat conspiracy. But I still found the story being shared on Facebook. I’m not completely certain it was being shared in order to “clear up the confusion.”
Fox three! Fire and forget!
(“Fox three” is NATO brevity terminology for launching an active radar missile. That it might be mistaken as referring to a news agency related to this subject is mere delicious irony.)
Before Facebook became our go-to news source for everything that agrees with our existing point of view, I used to get e-mails forwarded from conservatives that detailed all manner of overblown Left Wing conspiracies and Obama Administration evildoing. Usually, these could be refuted with a quick facts check, but judging by the list of addresses in the forward chain, that probably never took place.
In almost every case, I’d hop on Snopes and have an answer–or at least a clarification–in seconds.
If you’re being told a story that proves exactly all the terrible things you’ve always believed about the “other side,” you’re probably not getting a fair and objective account of all the facts – regardless of the news organization’s slogan or stated objectives.
This Chick-fil-A business is no different, sadly. Did you know that Chick-fil-A dollars went into lobbying Congress to stop the U.S. Government from condemning a hate-filled bill in Uganda which would authorize life imprisonment and even death as punishment for the crime of homosexuality?
Yeah, neither did I until I saw it posted on Facebook.
Well, that would explain why people would be so up-in-arms about Chick-fil-A, I guess.
Except it’s not true.
Chick-fil-A’s profits supposedly go to a non-profit “charity” they run called WinShape Foundation. They donate to a variety of Christian groups, including the Family Research Council (FRC). A lot of these groups have, as part of their platform of political views, the idea that marriage is about one man and one woman. I totally get why people might object to that in and of itself.
But that’s not good enough for some, who want to paint a picture of Christians as filled with hate and murderous intent for anyone different from them. A picture made it to my Facebook wall that declared how Chick-fil-A was supporting the FRC who in turn used $25,000 to lobby Congress. The FRC’s goal, according to the picture? Stop Congress from condemning the Ugandan bill mentioned above.
It took about two minutes to find this article from CBS news where the FRC is allowed to clarify their position. Kind of in line with everything else they say and do, they’re not okay with wholesale murder of homosexuals. They’re also not keen on the U.S. Government declaring homosexuals a protected segment of the populace like how we protect people based on race, gender, religion, and so on. Again, I get why people don’t agree with or particularly like the FRC, based on that position. But at least make sure the position you’re angry with them about is the one they actually hold.
Still, the message is out there. FRC wants the Ugandan death bill to be passed. Chick-fil-A supports the FRC. Deep down, all those people who lined up at Chick-fil-A want nothing more than dead homosexuals. Obviously.
Why check facts when we already have an explanation for a given story?
Fire and forget. That missile will do it’s job. Actually, in this case, it’s more “fire and remember,” because the intended audience gets the message and makes the desired connection between the accused and whatever political agenda is being targeted. Sure, there may be retractions and apologies later, when no one cares.
And that’s if we’re lucky. It’s practically shameless.
MSNBC actually defended the edited video saying, “MSNBC did not edit anything out of order or out of sequence and at no time did we intend to deceive our viewers.” The video is worth watching as an example of what I’m talking about; there’s no way to conclude that the edited version was meant to accurately portray Governor Romney’s actual comments.
Maybe this is why people turn to Jon Stewart for a refreshing take on news stories. This site from ‘the Inquisitr’ is just what popped up on my Facebook wall and got me thinking more on this subject. At a guess, I imagine they’re probably just as bad as all the other sites and organizations out there. The two videos in the story are worth watching, though.
I know I’m not saying anything new here. This problem is known. Solutions for it aren’t easy, because ultimately, the public is clicking those links and hitting the “Like” and “Share” buttons on whatever news stories support their preexisting views. So these news sites keep firing off more junk and opinion-disguised as fact.
My wife saw the title to this post and came up with a good possible solution for reporters and politicians willing to speak in haste.
“Fire and forget? Oh, you mean, like, fire that guy, and forget about him?”
Real life has been hectic and complicated, forcing me to adjust priorities and pay time and attention to some important things…
…Like family game night!
(Not really, but we did make time Monday night to get our game on for a bit.)
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I discussed her character. Jami likes the idea of Bethrynivere the military leader, but the character bores her. Likewise, Deborah loves Beastly Tiger, the dim-witted wall of muscle. But she doesn’t care so much about the panther companion that comes with a beastmaster ranger.
He’s crying because Beastly Tiger doesn’t want him tagging along anymore.
We looked into some other options while leveling up the kids’ characters.
Deborah selected a marauder ranger, which basically means combining various actions in order to capture a sense of “You’re the fastest character out there, rushing around the battlefield, charging into your enemies.” She plays to Beastly Tiger’s strengths (namely, his Strength stat) by chucking throwing hammers and then running up to smash faces with her larger war hammer.
We finished the character, and I couldn’t help but hear, “Stop! Hammer time!”
Meanwhile, Jami is trying to choose a class and race for a new character. She doesn’t want to duplicate any of the roles in the party, so a magic user is out. A rogue is out. A burly up-close fighter is out, because that’s basically what Beastly Tiger is no matter what the class says. On top of that, the party has no healer. Jami is convinced she should make a healer just because they need one, but that’s not what she wants to do.
I assure her not to worry about healing. I have a plan for an NPC of sorts, an angelic being that grants healing to the characters (in a limited fashion) when they get their butts handed to them in combat.
I don’t know how exactly I’d explain its presence yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something! I just don’t want Jami feeling forced to play something she’s not interested in. So she ignores the healing classes and looks at a few options.
And maybe it was excitement about the upcoming Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria… or maybe it was inspiration from Gollum’s total rage assault on Frodo at the end of Return of the King… or maybe none of the above. But Jami settled on the idea of a Monk, and she decided her monk had to be a Halfling.
Yeah. You heard of Frodo, now meet his cousin Judo.
One does not simply walk into Mordor… But you can Soaring Crane Kick your way in.
I kid, I kid. The monk’s name is Lily-Ann. The heroes met her in a session a while back where they fought that Dire Bear.
Once the bear was vanquished, the team gathered all available clues and figured that the thieving merchant they needed to find was probably holed up in the abandoned cathedral near the town. They set off to chase him down, and encountered an assassin who also sought him for reasons known only to her.
There was a brief tense moment–Beastly Tiger threatened to eat the assassin for dinner, and she responded coolly, “I think you’ll find my meat too tough for your tastes.” (I was proud of my off-the-cuff cheesy retort!)
Then the heroes realized the assassin shared the same short-term goal–stop the merchant, recover the gem–so they agreed to work together. They stepped into the cathedral and found the merchant holding the gemstone, protected by a large bubble of energy. Goblins surrounded the bubble, clawing and scraping to no effect. The merchant raised the gem, revealed his true demonic form, and exerted control over the goblins, turning them against the heroes.
That’s where we left off about two weeks ago.
While plotting the big fight, I thought about incorporating vampires into the plot line. I liked the idea of this merchant-devil guy gaining power from the blood that is drawn on the pre-made map. (Eevil Paizo, including little hooks and plot ideas in your simple map drawing!) But then he’d have to be a merchant-devil-vampire guy.
Devil vampires? Yessss…
Come to think of it, I had a campaign that was headed toward an arc about toppling a vampire clan. We had to stop due to various military deployments and such, and we never got to realize that portion of the story. Maybe these devil vampires could be a similar arc for family game night.
And the need to stop their evil would certainly explain the angelic being’s presence and interest in the heroes. Bonus!
So, with all this in mind, I set up the fight. I throw in a heap of goblin minions. In game terms, they’re the cannon fodder, the scrawny little losers that die as soon as they take damage. Minions give the players a sense that their characters are really powerful heroes, crushing all opposition.
They serve my purpose as well; the devil vampire has a healing buff that grows with the blood of each goblin slain.
On top of that, Lily-Ann and the assassin NPC both take bleed damage early in the fight. Bleeding sounds like something else that might give the devil vampire strength, so I describe the power he gains. Now they really want him to die.
Of course, with all the bleeding, they need a healer. So I tell them there is a flash of radiance at the back of the sanctuary, and an angelic being appears, hovering above the ground. She starts shooting beams of warm light at the heroes, and their wounds are healed. They want to know what her deal is, why she’s there, but they’re content to let that wait until after the fight.
The heroes smash their way through many goblins, while the assassin tries to distract the devilish merchant. The kids and Jami focus exclusively on the goblins, but the devil vampire remains completely protected behind a powerful shield. I set about 13 black token stones in an arc inside the cathedral, marking the boundary of the shield.
Deborah describes the various ways she wants Beastly Tiger to attack goblins… usually something like playing Leap Frog over a friend and then landing a crushing shot with the hammer. At some point, Jonathan decides that his not-sneaky-at-all Dragonborn Wizard is going to try to slip around the goblins by creeping through the shadows behind the pillars of the cathedral sanctuary. I can’t believe he wants to do this, but that’s the beauty of the game.
They can do whatever they want, or at least try.
As the kids and Jami beat up the goblins, Justin misses his attack by a very narrow margin. I describe how his crossbow bolt flies through a goblin wizard’s robe instead of hitting the goblin. And I think, “Well, if it flies through his robe, it’ll hit whatever is behind it… namely the shield.”
I describe the impact on the shield, and I replace a black token with a red one. This piques Jonathan’s interest.
On his next turn, he abandons his sneaking plan and decides to start attacking the shield directly. I end up replacing another token or two with red, and I explain how the shield flickers or wavers with each hit.
Suddenly no one cares about the goblins.
Like, not at all.
All of them are focused on the shield, to the extent that they’re ignoring the attacks of little goblins standing right next to them.
Justin has Clayface firing one crossbow bolt after another into the shield, trying to bring it down. The heroes are close to breaking through. One of the little pesky goblins runs up to harass or attack Clayface, and rolls a 1. I pick a card from the Critical Fumble deck.
The goblin ends up with something like, “Return to Sender.” It means the attack failed so bad that the opponent grabs and keeps the weapon the attacker just used. The goblin essentially runs up and hands Clayface his knife in the middle of the fight, while Clayface remains focused on the shield.
This is essentially what I picture and describe Clayface doing… no look, no distraction, just reaching up and blocking, grabbing the knife out of the goblin’s hand. (I also need to watch The Matrix again sometime soon.)
The goblins didn’t last long. And once the shield was brought down, the heroes were quick to pile on the devil vampire. Jami’s monk has a powerful move she can do once per fight, called Open the Gates of Battle. It does extra damage when you attack a target that has full health. Throughout the fight, we were discussing when she could or should use “Open the Gates.” She really really wanted to use it on the big devil vampire, and the moment finally arrived.
She says, “I wanna OPEN THE GATES!” Deborah and Jonathan cheer with her, “Yeah! Open the Gates! Open the Gates!”
Justin yells, “AND THEN CLOSE IT ON HIM!”
The heroes surround the devil vampire and beat on him with everything they’ve got. My assassin NPC manages to snatch the gemstone from the monster’s hands, and jumps away. (I’ve been trying to get her to grab it the whole time, but unfortunately I’ve been rolling a string of 3s and 4s.)
He responds by spraying acid and bile all around him a la Exorcist, pushing the heroes back. Then he rushes at the assassin and tries to get the gemstone back.
With everyone unloading their best attacks, the devil vampire is in a bad way. I get my turn, and he takes the gemstone back, raising it up into the air triumphantly, calling on its power to aid him and cackling in a mustache-twirling villain sort of way.
Justin declares, “I want to shoot him IN THE FACE!” and attacks with a crossbow shot that I know will kill the vampire. And it’s really late at this point, and we need to finish.
Always finish with a hook, if you can get away with it.
The devil vampire’s grin turns to open-mouthed confusion and he looks from the gem to the assassin at his feet. Something has gone wrong. “NOOOOO!” He screams at her. “WHAT HAVE YOU DO–”
I tell Jami and the kids, “The crossbow bolt flies into the creature’s mouth, killing him and triggering the explosive power of Clayface’s weapon. The devil vampire explodes, sending the assassin sliding across the ground. The goblins under the vampire’s control fall dead. Aaaaaand… we’re done. Time to get ready for bed.”
Deborah and Jonathan shout, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
I smile.
And the next day, Jonathan is already asking, “Can we play more tonight?”
They can’t wait to see what happens. Thinking of the silliness they come up with, I can’t wait to see what happens either.
“Your values aren’t our values. We know about your plans to open doors in our city, and we want you to know you’re not welcome here.”
Sound familiar?
Maybe… but I’m not talking about Chick-Fil-A and Boston (or Chicago… or probably a list of cities that will want to jump on this bandwagon to show how progressive and tolerant they are…)
The “threat” to America
I’m talking about Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and the unremarkable but apparently controversial mosque being built there.
Based on the estimate in the July 19th news story in the link, the worshipers might have already had their grand opening. I sure hope so. I hope they’re having the best Ramadan ever.
And I hope their opponents are choking on bile as they see it happening.
There’s a thing called the First Amendment in the Constitution. It goes something like this:
These apply to everyone, Not just people we like.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In this case, no one’s worried about Congress. The Federal government is (to my knowledge) not involved at all. But what the folks in Tennessee seem to be forgetting is that the amendment that lets us freely step into our churches on Sunday wherever we’d like is the same amendment that permits Muslims to build a place for worship wherever they’d like.
Intolerance and fear are clearly a part of the issue. One resident talked about the Buddhist place of worship in town and how no one seems to pay those guys any mind.
“Well, with 9/11 and the whole terrorism thing, people are just a bit nervous about having a mosque in town.”
That’s a paraphrase, but you can read the sentiment in the article for yourself.
To that I’d say,
“With the vandalism and arson on private property, and the open hostility, maybe the Muslims are a bit more frightened of you than you are of them.”
I’d say that, but I’m afraid that (were they ever to read my pointless rant in this corner of the Web) the perpetrators of this fear-mongering would feel proud at the thought. “Look at how we stood up to those Muslims! We sure let them know they’re not wanted here.”
Yeah, good job. Way to go against one of the key reasons America was founded. Way to stand up against one of the freedoms men and women have fought and died to protect for the last 226 years. Take that, religious expression!
Regrettably, our freedom of speech (see First Amendment quote above) doesn’t create any hindrance or safeguard concerning spewing ignorance. Anyone can say pretty much whatever they want.
I approve that. I applaud that. I don’t want the government telling us what is approved speech and what is not. And I know the vast majority of Americans feel the same.
But that allows for voices of thinly-veiled hatred to speak terribly insensitive and frightening thoughts.
Horrible thoughts like the North Carolina preacher a few months back with his “I got an idea… we build an electric fence, and we take all the gays an’ put ’em behind it.”
Horrible thoughts like the mindless venom pouring out of the mouths of Westboro Baptist Church members. I won’t even quote their signs. You’ve seen them on the news, or you can google them and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Horrible thoughts like that of one of the leading opponents of the Murfreesboro mosque. “I know we weren’t going to win the legal battle… I just wanted to show ’em they’re not welcome here. And I plan to keep up the fight.”
What fight? Once the mosque is built, as is permitted by local, state, and federal government, and by our fundamental freedoms inAmerica, what fight is there?
I have several friends and coworkers who are gay. Some have made the point that they have come out in public because they don’t want to give anyone the impression that they will sit quietly while people malign or threaten them. They’re all sensible, thoughtful people who would love to leave that part of their lives off the radar. It’s such a minor thing to them, and it’s so not anyone else’s business. But oftentimes the terrible treatment they receive from others necessitates a harsh response, so they stand up and are counted. They stand up and say, “This mistreatment will not stand,” because they know there’s probably someone else sitting in quiet fear, too afraid to speak out in their own defense.
To my fellow Christians, I’ll say, how long are we going to sit in peace and quiet, shaking our heads, muttering a little tsk-tsk in shame, looking at stories like Murfreesboro or Westboro or the electric fence guy? I’ve often heard people ask, “Where are all the moderate Muslims to denounce what the radicals are doing?”
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Maybe we think it goes without saying. “Everybody knows” that Westboro Baptist Church is a bunch of nutjobs that have nothing to do with Christianity. “Everybody knows” that what that NC preacher is saying is horrific and wrong. “Everybody knows” that the First Amendment protects the rights of these Muslims in Tennessee.
Apparently everybody doesn’t know.
Welcome to America. Check your hate at the door.
It’s time we stand up and be counted. Make sure that those who would wrap themselves in the American flag while clutching a Bible to their chest properly understand the significance of both of those symbols.
Make sure we speak out to those who would spread hate and fear in the name of Christ, and let them clearly understand:
“Your values aren’t our values. We want you to know you’re not welcome here.”
I had an interesting discussion on Facebook yesterday.
A page about “defending marriage” posted a link to a story saying the UN was working to legalize prostitution. The comment on the link being shared was:
“We need to take back control in the world…”
I assumed the “we” is Christians, given the audience of the page. This made me wonder.
When did we have control?
Were we supposed to have control?
How did religion having control go for the world?
What did Jesus suggest (err… command) that we do in the world?
Did He not know that one day we might have a chance at establishing a Christian nation? Did the possibility slip His mind?
Does He come across as someone who is not very careful with words?
So maybe He said what He meant and vice versa.
Religions holding political power have a history of working out poorly. That’s part of why the first colonists came to America.
There was every opportunity for the Founding Fathers to make America out to be an absolute Christian nation, but they chose not to.
There was every opportunity for Jesus to command His followers to establish a kingdom, but He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He could very well have explained theocracy and suggested it as a plan, but we don’t have any indication of that. Governance clearly wasn’t on his personal agenda.
The Bible – particularly the New Testament – portrays the world as fallen, corrupt, and under the spiritual authority of the Devil. For example, Jesus was tempted by the Devil, who offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if He would simply bow down and worship the Devil. Jesus didn’t dispute whether Satan had such power to make such an offer. Likewise, Paul wrote about the spiritual darkness in the world, saying it did not belong to God but to our adversary.
We’re living in occupied territory. We’re living behind enemy lines.
Jesus never told us to set up a nation here. We’re not establishing a base or negotiating a treaty. To be clear, our “enemy” is not those people who disagree. We’re not fighting against flesh and blood… or at least that’s what the Bible tells us. Fighting flesh and blood means collateral damage.
Maybe some of us forgot that.
I expressed my concerns about what the post implied. I was told something like, “Our representative government isn’t representing all of us, its people. We have to fight in the political arena to ensure that the representative government actually represents us.”
That sword cuts both ways. That argument can be made by either side.
It basically boils down to “majority rules,” since there are two groups with opposed goals that both seek representation. Majority rules is a system that hasn’t always done well for us either. In the Sixties, the local, vocal majority would have voted to keep segregation going in some parts. That doesn’t make it acceptable or right.
Likewise, from the biblical perspective, we were never told to follow the majority. In fact, Jesus said that’s the road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:14).
We were meant to be the minority. We were meant to be different.
But we look just like everyone else.
The divorce rate in the church matches that of the world. Western Christianity looks just as self-centered and greedy as the culture it is supposedly working to save. Instead of going and making disciples, we’re going and making new recruits for our political parties. And our young people are leaving the church in droves.
What if Abraham Lincoln was really a vampire hunter?
Oh, they’ve done that, have they?
A “What If?” comic
One of my favorite comic series growing up was “What If?” comics by Marvel.
They’d take key story lines from their most popular characters’ series, and then change one decision, one action, one coincidence. The rest of the book would tell you what would happen if, say, the popular jock got bit by the radioactive spider instead of nerdy Peter Parker… or if Wolverine’s girlfriend(s) never died… or if Victor Von Doom was part of the Fantastic Four instead of being the villain.
Sci-fi shows like Star Trek often use time travel to create a “What if?” of their own. There are series of novels exploring what-ifs. What if World War II was interrupted by an alien invasion, and the various powers of the world had to come together to fight back?
If all of that is too geek-chic for your tastes, a perfect example is It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey explores the question, “What if I was never born?”
Maybe it’s all the Chick-Fil-A and Jim Henson Company pics on Facebook…
But I have been thinking about a “What If?” for a while now.
What if it is scientifically proven that homosexuality is a genetic trait?
Now, I know many of those who might read this are probably convinced that it is genetic, or at least, not a choice.
I also know many people who are convinced it is a choice – at least on some important level.
Individuals being the strange and unique creatures that they are, I doubt that there will ever be conclusive universal proof one way or another. Our internal motivations are a whole mix of genetics, environment, outside influences, and past experiences.
But my point is, even though there’s no “conclusive” evidence on the subject yet, the consensus is forming quickly that in many cases, sexual orientation isn’t something we up and choose.
What does the church do with that?
I think we have a few options.
If I don’t believe it, it’ll go away.
1) Go full ostrich. This, I fear, is our default position. “Science is a conspiracy of well-meaning but misguided atheists who were trained in liberal colleges to reject God and accept whatever the Leftists tell them.”
But you’re reading this on a computer or perhaps a cellular phone, accessing my published rants across streams of information being transmitted over fiber optic cable or simply through the air from your 4G network… all brought to you by the advances of, yes, science.
“That science is ok. The science that appears to disagree with the Bible is bad.”
It should go without saying that ignoring reality is a poor plan. But I’ll use a biblical example to make a point about healthy faith instead. Look at Abraham: he knew what God said about him having a child was nigh impossible. He considered his aged body and that of his wife. But he also knew that God promised, so he trusted what God said. (See Romans 4:17-21 or so… or read in Genesis from chapters 12 through 22 for the full story.)
Abraham didn’t ignore reality or “faith” it all away. Neither should we.
2) Abandon our position. We could always edit our Bibles, stop preaching about homosexuality, and give up political causes concerning “defending” traditional marriage. I’m sure some would appreciate this greatly. If we’re not vilified for “hate speech,” we’re mocked for backwards, ignorant, Bronze-Age religious standards. Forty years from now, the church’s crusade against homosexuality today may look like how we now view those who railed against interracial marriage in the sixties.
That said, our calling is not to adjust ourselves to whatever the majority believes. We’re not to be conformed to the world, but transformed by God so that we can show His love to the world.
3) Examine our position. There are several theological arguments concerning translation and context for verses that, on the surface, condemn homosexuality. It can’t hurt to double-check our sources and see if maybe we’ve missed something along the way. We may claim that God’s Word is perfect, but we also proclaim that we are not. As we learn more about the world around us, it makes sense to consider how that might affect what we have always “known.”
Religion is notoriously difficult (as in impossible) to prove. Much as we’d all desire it, God hasn’t shown up on CNN and Fox to announce His presence and put all the debate to rest.
For the Christian, we’ll say, “The Word of God and the incarnation of Christ is all the proof people need.”
But it’s not.
It’s more than enough for some, and rational arguments can be made. But God isn’t known for cooperating in scientific experiments or providing empirical proof, and that is what some people genuinely expect.
If we’re convinced we know it all, to the extent that we don’t ever need to question or reconsider any subject, then we’ve missed some of the mystery and majesty of the God we claim to serve. Check the “Love chapter” in 1st Corinthians 13. We only know in part. We haven’t achieved perfection, and we don’t know God the way He knows us. So if you have been led to believe that “the perfect” in that chapter is the Bible, well… look around. We’re not there yet.
Hey bud, God’s against gluttony too. So… three fingers pointing back at you, I guess.
4) Adjust our priorities. Maybe this issue could stop being the focus of so much political or cultural effort. We don’t picket against fat people, even though gluttony is a sin. (For many of us, myself included, the hypocrisy would be too obvious.) We don’t picket against nonbelievers, be they atheists or adherents of some other religion. We don’t hold rallies against arrogance or greed (two sins that probably deserve a lot more hellfire-n-brimstone preaching in the West).
Perhaps we could stop caring about whether someone is gay, and start caring about that someone.
“But they have to know what the Bible says about their sin!”
First, it’s not a secret. Second, I know a lot of proud people, and selfish people, and angry people. I know rude people and promiscuous people. I know people who steal and people who lie and people who just don’t care about anyone else. That doesn’t mean I rage against them. I’m supposed to love them regardless, and I try to do so.
Third, and most important, the Lord knows I still struggle with a bunch of my own sins, and I do know what the Bible says.
I find I benefit more by learning about the grace and mercy of a holy God that reaches out to me in spite of my sin. That inspires me to live better.
I assume the same is true of others. It’s that whole Golden Rule thing.
Hey, I thought of another “What if?”
What if we cared more about people than about what those people do?
Sometimes you know exactly what you want to say, but you can’t quite find the words.
(Usually they come to you ten minutes after the conversation in which you wanted to use them.)
Add in a language barrier, and you’re in trouble!
In 14 years living in Japan, I utterly failed at learning to speak Japanese. I say this to my shame. It would have made for so many better interactions with the Okinawan and Japanese people I and my family encountered during our time there.
The one thing I learned to do was to sing songs in church in Japanese. We had a number of songs that had been translated, and we were given the “rumaji” — Japanese words in romanized alphabet, like this:
Shuyo ten wo hiraki ima chiwo yusabiri
I studied Vietnamese (and later Chinese), so I understood the importance of getting the pronunciation right. I learned to hold the ‘n’ the length of an additional syllable, like “te-n” in the example above. I tried really hard to imitate the “r” that sounds more like a soft “d” or “l” (hence the racial stereotypes about eating flied lice and such).
At first, I was nervous. How am I going to sing and not understand what I’m saying? Won’t everyone tell immediately what a pretender I am?
But the chance for our Okinawan and Japanese members to sing in their own language brought them so much joy that I quickly overcame my fears. Maybe I sounded like “Engrish” to them, but they welcomed my attempts and we worshiped together.
My wife and I played a special set of songs for a Women’s Conference, and the first two songs were strictly English. The Okinawans seemed to enjoy it; they clapped, they smiled, they lifted hands, and so on. But when we started singing Matt Redman’s Blessed Be Your Name, I had a Japanese copy prepared. We got to the pre-chorus, and I sang out, “…When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say…”
Shu no mina o homeyo…
There was a visible and near tangible wave of emotional reaction. The ladies’ faces lit up with joy and gratitude at the chance to sing their words, and not the words of another.
I want to create moments like that as often as possible.
At one point, I wrote a song that was popular in our church, but we wanted to make it available to others on the mainland. I was able to find a translator–oddly enough a tall Scandanavian girl named Naomi who spoke fluent Japanese–and we worked together to find the right phrases.
That word… I don’t think it means What you think it means.
A lot of songs get translated, but the words don’t always match up to the original, or in the effort to make a perfect translation, too much gets shoved into the timing of the music.
Naomi talked about how a lot of translated songs bothered her, because the two sets of lyrics really didn’t communicate the same message.
Ours did.
It wasn’t possible to get a word-for-word translation, but I had Okinawans tell me, “I was really happy to hear that the English and Japanese matched up so well.”
When I studied Chinese Mandarin, I had an idea for a song, and again I aimed to get it right. I love singing in another language, providing people the opportunity to worship in the familiar, in what they understand.
This is our Savior and King, the righteous Lamb of God slain for us.
This is our God, who calls us to Himself and makes our relationship possible.
This is a message I want to get right in any language.
我的神 / Wo de Shen (Link to SoundCloud where you can listen to the song)
你是我的神
在你的面前
因你的伟大
我只好跪下
你不但是神
也是我的王
你让我过来
因此我崇拜
耶稣 哦 耶稣
神的公议羔羊
耶稣 我的救主
你是我爱的王
Lord, You are my God Here before Your face I can only kneel
Because You are so great
Not only are You God,
You also are my King
It’s You that I revere,
for You’ve called me to draw near
Jesus, oh Jesus Righteous Lamb of God Jesus, my Savior You are the King I love
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
