Does our material really connect? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I recently started reading Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s Mere Christian Hermeneutics. This is actually the first time I have ever read a book by him and I did not know what to expect. As I started going through, I found myself quite enjoying what I was reading.
There seems to be a hidden assumption among academics that their writings must be as dry and boring as possible. Yes. There is a tendency to think “Just the Facts” in Joe Friday style, but the prophets used vibrant language at times and the life of Jesus was put into the form of a story.
Consider these quotes from Vanhoozer:
“There are more things in discourse and text than are dreamed of in critical theory.” (p. 4)
An avid reader will recognize an allusion to Shakespeare immediately. Vanhoozer makes the point about how lacking critical theory is to the reading of Scripture, but does so in a way that sticks with the reader. The reader sees that and with a bit of bemusement goes on, but remembering the point.
Also on that same page:
“Consequently, we need not only to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) but also to test the hermeneutics. We need to conduct an experiment in criticism.”
Readers will here note a reference to Scripture, but others will note a reference to a work by C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, in a book that is also itself a reference to Lewis in title, a take-off on Mere Christianity.
Things like this show up regularly in the work. The point is the reader feels engaged with then. If the reader is engaged in the material, they are more likely to remember the material and apply it.
About a year or so ago, I had Switch Online at the time on my Nintendo Switch and sat down and went through the first and second quests of the original The Legend of Zelda and then went through A Link to the Past. I could still do everything and find everything. Had I ever taken a test on these games? No. Was it even a necessity to find everything? No. You can finish the games without doing so. Had I been regularly reading material on those games to make sure I remembered where everything was? No.
I just engaged with the material and I learned it.
Quick. Try to think of two words that can be used to describe a long and boring talk. Two that I can easily think of and the ones you might have are sermon and lecture. If you go to a church on Sunday, what is the message often called? A sermon. If you go to your college or seminary classroom what do you get? A lecture. Quiz time. How much do you learn from those? If you’re like me, not much. Most of us the next day can’t remember what the pastor preached on yesterday. Some people can’t even remember a few hours later.
I watch a lot of gaming news and I am particularly interested in how my culture is responding to DEI. One such channel is the Kilted Cajun. I am going to use a slogan of his in talking about making good games and that is “Make it fun first.” I am modifying that a bit to say “Make it engaging first.”
We often have made this mistake in Christian media. How many of you have ever got together with non-Christian friends to go see something like a superhero movie? Sure. Most everyone wants to see those. How many of you have ever got together with some non-Christian friends to go see a Christian movie? Right. When was the last time you had people excited about a new Christian movie coming out?
The only one I can think of is something from The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis was a master of this. Lewis was engaging. In Christianity, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all like to read Lewis. Atheists enjoy reading Lewis. I recall the account of one atheist who was stunned years later when she realized that Aslan was meant to picture Jesus. How many times had she been reading those books and unbeknownst to her, she was learning Christianity at the same time?
In the gaming field, this is the big mistake that the DEI crowd is making. They are forcing DEI into everything so that it’s artificial. To refer to another YouTuber, they are all about doing whatever they can to get in “The Message.”
Consider the case of Concord. This was a game that Sony spent at least $100 million on. Some places say as much as $400 million. It was at least eight years in the making. It was hoped to produce a major franchise.
Most FPS franchises nowadays are free to play and buy with the money coming from in-game purchases. That was the first strike against Concord. The major problem seems to be that the game was incredibly woke pushing things like pronouns.
DEI is so bad that there has even been a website set up to warn people about games that have DEI in them. I used to play Pokemon Go regularly, until they had a developer come in who remade the avatars and pretty much erased male and female from them. All the bodies had to look exactly the same.
There was recently a remake released of Dragon Quest III. I loved the original game, but I am not getting the remake. Why? Woke is in it. Instead of male and female for your character, you have type A and type B. Nothing uplifts women like referring to their bodies as Type B.
Why is this ruining games? Same reason. The material is not engaging. The message comes first and then they try to strap a narrative or a game on top of that. No one wants it. It would be interesting for a company like Square Enix to release another version of the Dragon Quest III Remake and have it be one without the woke stuff in it and see if it sells better. Prediction. It would.
In all of this, I am not at all suggesting that we lower the importance of facts and data. I am saying we need to consider how the material is coming across. We can have the best material in the world, but if no one wants to engage with the material, no one will get it. No one will learn it.
A teacher can have the best information, but if his students aren’t engaged when he teaches, then they won’t remember it long-term. They can study and learn it for a test, but they will forget it after. A preacher can work hard on a sermon, but if the audience does not feel engaged, they will not recall it or practice it. How this is done is up to the speaker and producer of whatever material is there, but it needs to be done.
We have a long history of bad media being made because we focused on message instead of the packaging. Now the woke are making the same material and we can see what we were doing for years. Let’s learn from our mistakes and their mistakes.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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