This is Faith in Play #79: Mind, for June 2024.
I often receive questions from readers in comments or by e-mail, on a wide range of subjects. Recently a girl (woman?) wrote about a concern she has related to role playing games: should we be filling our minds with these thoughts and images? Or, as her male counterpart thinks, are these just harmless thoughts?
She’s right. What we think determines who we are, who we become. Paul states this very clearly in Romans 12:2, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, but he touches on it many times, including in Philippians giving a list of positive thoughts and saying let your mind dwell on these things. I have elsewhere written my Parable of the Boiler (also reprinted in What Does God Expect? A Gospel-based Approach to Christian Conduct), that what we think and believe controls what we actually do. Filling our minds with negative images and ideas is a bad choice, detrimental to Christian growth.
On the other hand, he is also right. Long ago we observed that we display the image of God in ourselves most when we are creating worlds. The exercise of our imagination might be the single greatest expression of the divine within us. Role playing games encourage that at least as well as any other creative medium.
Yet how can they both be right? How can thought be both good and bad?
The answer lies not in the substance but in the perspective. G. K. Chesterton wrote (and this is apparently the original of a quote that has been mangled by several prominent writers), “The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.” Therein lies the answer: It’s not whether we think about dragons, but how we think about them, that is significant. As we mentioned in Faith and Gaming: Bad Things, for some people imaginary evil settings highlight just how great God is, while others have difficulty seeing His glory against the lesser real evils of this world. It is less that which occupies our thoughts and more that which we think about them.
There might be people who shouldn’t play role playing games, just as there are certainly people who should not view horror movies or read romance novels. The issue is whether these activities guide your thoughts in directions they should not go, or whether you guide your thoughts into recognizing the greater glory of God.
And thus my answer here remains yes and no–yes, the exercise of imagination in role playing games is perfectly safe and even good as a way to glorify God and direct our minds into that which is good, and no, if for you they lead you to think about that which is bad for you, you should not involve yourself in such thoughts. Find a more uplifting activity. Perhaps read a hymnal and write a psalm. No activity is safe or good for everyone. They all depend on how you approach them.
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