:
So, do you remember back in the day how some people, especially religious people, were afraid that if you played Dungeons & Dragons, it would turn you evil? There's a name for that. It's called the Satanic Panic. And Reverend Derek White, also known as the Geek Preacher, has made an excellent documentary about it. Reverend Derek White joins us today to discuss the Satanic Panic on this episode of Board Game Faith, the bi-weekly podcast exploring the intersection of religion, spirituality, and board games. Welcome everybody to Board Game Faith. It's so great to have you here today. My name is Daniel. My name is Kevin. And my name is Derek or the geek preacher. And Derek, we are so grateful to have you here. We've really been looking forward to your joining us on Board Game Faith and welcome, welcome. We're so thankful for your. You're taking part in this in this the silliness today. Thank you very much. Sillyness on a Saturday in May is the only way to live. Oh, that's so good. That's right. I'm with you. I with you. So we are kind of sort of spanning the continent a little bit. Derek, you're in you are in Tennessee. As always, I'm in Missouri and Kevin's in North Carolina. And we are, we're We're distant in miles, but we've got a fair number of things in common. We're all United Methodist clergy, though we try to be—if this is your first time listening to us, we're a very ecumedical program and you don't have to be United Methodist or Christian or any of that. We're just glad you're here. There is a hot tub in heaven that is exclusively Methodist, though. But it's a time machine, too. So if you get in a heaven hot tub time machine— you will go back to Alder's gate and John Wesley will freak out because you know, I mean, you know, three guys that look like us sitting in a hot tub at Alder's gate would be like, Wesley be like, Oh my God, is this what I created? You know, and so this is, this is what it's come to speaker system in the hot tub and it plays in, are we yet a lot? So eventually you will want to leave the hot tub because you're just tired of that hymn. And your fingers turn prunish. And who wants that? Do they play Are We Yet Alive at all your annual conferences? Oh God. Do you stand around with other clergy and go, no, no, we're not. We're not. We are a dry, dead religion just like Wesley said we would be. This is a hymn in the Methodist hymnal that is Charles Wesley, right? And so it's just been a tradition to sing. And I've sang. it enough for the rest of my life. Yeah. Oh well, what can you do? Thank you for filling that in for our non-Methodist listeners. Yeah, Kevin. Yeah. It's a very, very Methodist sort of thing. But, we are here today not to discuss Methodism, but something that is also very interesting and fascinating, and that is this excellent documentary called The Satanic Panic that was produced by the geek preacher, Reverend Derek White. Let's just say here in the front. If you haven't seen this yet listeners, you can see it on Tubi. Is that right? Derek Tubi, T-U-B-I at least here in North America for our North American listeners. Um, and there's an app for Tubi and it's, I think it's free TV except for commercials. Um, so, um, yeah. And I just, I love the documentary. It was really good, Derek. Thank you so much for, well, thank you. And I have to give a shout out to a refuge 31 films that I've worked with on three documents. documentaries. They put this together. My director did an awesome job. We were still in some of the heavy days of the pandemic when we started filming and he was able to get film crews in various places. There's no way I could have done this on my own without they did not tell me how much editing I would have to help out with. But it was it was fun. It was it was a blast and it was perfect timing for me as things began to open up and as you'll see in there you know one of the gaming conventions I went to had to wear a mask and everything at that time and it was just really good to get back out into the world. So it was wonderful filming it me gave me the opportunity to get back out into the broader world. Yeah, it's so professional and interesting and well done because you know, when someone says, Oh, I made a documentary, you think, Oh, cool. You know, it's you're sort of wondering what it's going to be like. And it was I couldn't stop watching. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm not a big D&D gamer, although I did identify with the fear of. The backward masking is what I remember from the 80s and this idea that the rock and roll backwards would somehow Subliminally take over your mind and then you would be corrupted which just makes no sense now But they sure had us church-going folks convinced and scared Yeah, one of the things at the Beatles or somehow agents of Satan or some one of the things and and unfortunately We would we couldn't do this in just one documentary If we could have and we had the funding to do it I would have loved to have talked about the entire Satanic Panic because so many people think that the Satanic Panic is just about Dungeons and Dragons. But there were so many other things going on because in the 70s we saw the rise of horror films that were coming out and people were looking at those. So we dealt with in the 70s and 80s Satanic ritual abuse that we touched lightly on that in the documentary. part of the satanic panic where people thought daycare systems were abusing their children. There was, you know, there were the cattle mutilations that people were so afraid of. Alien abductions were a big thing and in some more charismatic and Pentecostal churches, alien abductions were referred to as demonic activity. So there were so many things that were a part of the cultural zeitgeist. that we were going through at that time. And one of the things I really love that we brought out in that through our work with our professor out in Texas is that this has repercussions for where we're at in today's world with all of the moral panics. And that is the broader term for what we're talking about. It's moral panics that are fueled by political and religious leaders agenda and exude control over a populace and that is that is a problem we face today. I found that to be a really fascinating part of the document early on. I think it was Professor Laycock that… Joseph Laycock. Yeah, he's… Yeah, Joseph Laycock, he spoke about this idea of a, as you just said, a moral panic and then later he talks about kind of moral entrepreneurs and this idea of people and movements that create a sense of threat. that is either based on nothing or based on something very very tiny that's not really threatening and and then using that that moral panic that's created out of that to yeah as you just said to kind of kind of motivate especially religious people and direct them to do this or do that or vote this way or vote that way I'm curious one thing I found watching that was just wondering I'm including myself in this, you know, we're all religious people. Why, why are we religious people so prone to that? Why do we, why, why are we so easily swept along in these, in these moral panics that, that seemed to come along, especially around issues like Dungeons and Dragons and. Honestly, I think part of it has to do with education. And I think that. I'll give you a story to help illustrate it. Part of my story is that I grew up in a very southern country redneck family. And growing up in that family, one of the things my mother stressed was reading and education was very powerful. And I did not grow up in church, but when I got into the church as a young adult in my early twenties. would have preachers that maybe only had a high school education, mainly Baptist and Pentecostal churches. And there was a phrase I heard preachers say and I heard people say is you don't need to go to no cemetery, which was their cut on seminary. And I think that anti-intellectualism that many during that period of time really advocated that anti-intellectualism, that lack of education. They're saying all you need to do is feel the spirit move in you, read the Bible. You don't need any other education than that and you'll be fine in your faith because if you go to college and you go to seminary you're going to lose your faith and I was told that and the problem was I was already really geeky you know. I had I did my high school term paper on mythology and its So when fundamentalism starts throwing this anti-intellectualism at you, I took some of that personally. And so I began to, I went to a Christian university. I ended up studying a lot of my own. I came along in a time where there was this new technology called a PDF. And I remember paying $75 to $100 for a PDF of all the early church fathers. read these PDFs from these people from 2000 years ago that had written and so I was beginning to educate myself and that was moving me out of fundamentalism without me even knowing it. But the panics arise because these groups have been indoctrinated to... They've been indoctrinated in such a way that they are told they don't need any education. It's like Pink Floyd was right. We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. And what happens is when you do away with education, you can control the thoughts of the people. which speaks to what's happening in our country right now with book bans going on left and right. I mean, I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. We have to deal with that. People in Florida are dealing with that left and right. I am married to an educator. My wife's an educator. I've taught college myself. My daughter is working on her master's in elementary education and special ed. And so we understand the value of education, but when you start banning books and you start telling people they can and cannot read and you begin taking these things out of the classroom, it makes it much, you keep a populace dumb, they're easy to control. And some of these preachers caught onto that really quick and they use that to manipulate their congregations. And so I think that's why Christians are susceptible to it. Plus, you know, especially in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles, you have also a more of the world. To counterbalance that. Christians have been reading books and thinking since the very beginnings. We got st. Augustine. We've got universities We've got all that is coming, you know philosophy is being thought Greek Greek and pre-christian philosophy are being adapted So we have this whole strand of thinking reading Christians as well as like thinking reading Muslims. They are in Iraq They're they're paying for every book they can get by weight as our friend Ali Carrar to explore the scholars of the South Tigris. So that's the whole story to religion. But yeah, there is certainly that push, I think you're right, the anti-intellectualism. There's also the problem of, I think it's social connection too, is that you've got well-meaning people, and when their neighbor or friend at church tells them that D&D is evil, well, they kinda, you know, it's sort of, these ideas are like a, well, it's like a pandemic. it's like QAnon or a virus and it goes through social connection. And church folks tend to be... you know, not always, but they can be quite kind and forgiving and connected and social networks and all of a sudden these ideas become rampant of, well, you better save your kids because you'll be a bad parent if you don't keep the D&D away. And what parent, if you heard that, you wouldn't think, oh my gosh, I better make sure my kid's safe. Right, right. So of course you'd go right. And one of the things, and we learned this in the 80s because the 80s really saw the back in the day they were all very sensational and sensationalism sells. We see that today if you've got a good YouTube show you've got to have something controversial and sensational to get the clicks. You know real true life good positive stories don't get as much push. If you watch any YouTube there's this creator called Mr. Beast who does a lot of positive you know, he catches a lot of flak because people are saying, oh, look, he's doing all these great things, but he's doing it for views. And so, and what that does is that feeds people to view his site even more because now it's been sensationalized. And so the more you sensationalize something, the more it sells. And I think that's a lot of what happened in the eighties. And honestly, people are there because you let me tell you let me ask you a question which do you think would draw more people come to our church and we're gonna have a sermon series on how to better love your neighbor and serve your community or come to church we're gonna tell you when the world's gonna end Yes, which is going to get more clicks, which is going to get more people, which is going to get more butts in the pews. Come on. We're going to show you how to love people and be inclusive and take care of folks and how we can share the wealth or Hey, you know what? I have a six secret successes to the kingdom on how you too can be rich like me. Yeah. Yeah. In an effort to, uh, capitalizing that sensationalism actually next episode Kevin and I are going to wrestle a Dragon is it gonna be mud wrestling? Oh Man cuz see I would watch it if it was you two mud wrestling a dragon Maybe we maybe maybe maybe maybe we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. But no, you're right the the the sensationalism Cells that was that was something that I thought was an unexpected, at least for me, consequence of the satanic panic of watching your document that I didn't realize before that. the more flack Dungeons and Dragons was getting in the press, the hotter it sold. Yeah, you know, that every time there was this panic about, oh, it's ruining our children, sales skyrocketed, right, from this. And that's so interesting. Think about it. Go back and look at record sales. When they started talking about the satanic messages in records and backmasking, record sales went up. When they started putting Remember that when they would put the explicit warning labels on records of people, those records would sell. I remember buying a record or a cassette. Actually I remember I didn't have too many vinyl, but I remember buying a cassette, especially because it said explicit lyrics. I was like, Oh yeah. You know? Yeah. And so, yeah, sensationalism sells. Or as I like to say, let's put the sin back in sensational. I define the satanic panic as a movement that began in the 1970s and 80s that was a moral panic surrounding anything that could be seen as evil or demonic that was influencing our children. All right. That's how I define it. It's a moral panic, uh, where Satan is seen around every corner. Anything you might see if you saw somebody wearing a pentagram. Uh, I remember people freaking out over stars of day that people would wear. Uh, so it becomes a moral panic where people are afraid that something is influencing their children in an evil way, and it is spearheaded by the devil or Satan. And why does the devil want to use the imagination? Why is it so effective for the devil? According to these people. According to this pandemonium. We're all sinful and corrupt. So your imagination's sinful and corrupt. And since your imagination's sinful and corrupt, Satan's going to come in and just twist it even worse. You know, it comes from this Christian doctrine of total depravity. Everything is depraved. There is nothing, none are righteous. No, not one. Your good works are like filthy rags, brothers and sisters. It comes from this idea that humanity has been so corrupted that we cannot even trust our imaginations. And so Satan wants to come in and warp and twist your imaginations even more to drive you. down that dark path. But it still seems interesting that they would go after imagination. It's not about politics or even education or schools. I mean, those things can be targets, but the imagination is one that's really scary. What is it? Because it's more powerful. Is it because it's, you know, outside the box? You can't control my imagination. You can't control it. Yeah. You know, if I'm sitting there in charge and you're preaching a story, Battle of Jericho, right? And I'm a 10-year-old kid and I'm sitting there and I'm letting my imagination play with that story. And then you go into Sunday school after that where you're talking with your friends after church about it and your imagination is playing with that biblical story. Because that's what we do as preachers. We play with these stories. But when you're 10 years old and you're playing with that story and you're interacting with that story, that scares the because they cannot control your imaginings. You can't control someone's imagination. You can influence it, but you have no direct thought, no direct line of communication with someone's inner life. And you can't put a doctrine to that. You can't itemize it. There was a line in the documentary that says something to the effect of you know, our imagination, the assertion of the imagination is this radical act of freedom, right? That it's this, it's just what you're saying, Derek. I mean, that it's no one can touch it. No one can control it. It's where we exert our autonomy and our freedom. And then, you know, it also and that that's threatening to people, right? Because for that very reason, right? Because it can't be controlled and it can have consequences. is something I think Laycock talked about and then quoting Huizinga, we've talked about Huizinga on this podcast before too, just saying that our imagination, if that's the exercise of what we might call play, imagining a different reality, imagining a different set of rules, that at a certain point... that imagined alternate reality, if we believe it enough, can become reality, you know, and it changes reality and it can become religious ritual, it can become political ideology, it can become, you know. And so yeah, I thought... the documentary lifting up that the ability of imagination to make us radically free in a way that's threatening to others, to the powers that be was a very eye opening. I opening revelation. That was appreciated the documentaries take on that and coming from within our tradition, our Methodist tradition. One of the powerful things is, is that imagination plays a role in our faith. I mean, it's John Wesley's imagination that influenced him to have his strangely heartwarming experience at Aldersgate. That is a result of imagination. And this is the fight you have, which personally I think originated in 19th century fundamentalism, is this fight between you have these German scholars over here who are doing higher criticism the things in the Bible and you have fundamentalists who are coming along and they're fighting against that. And both groups are opposing imagination because the German higher critics are saying, let's get to what is really said. Let's get to the core of this. Let's strip this out, which that higher critical work has a place, but it's all very much. It's very intellectual. And so the response on fundamentalism is also very intellectual. They want to give you facts and reasons for believing it. And so both groups fighting, if you can see my hands here, imagination's in the middle here. And they're grinding away at the imagination. So one of the things we see, those of us who place ourselves in progressive Christianity, we saw in the 60s in the death of God movement. imagination be ground away. But we also saw fundamentalists doing the same thing, grinding away at imagination. And I give the Pentecostals and some of our Wesleyan churches credit for because they tried to stay in touch with the supernatural, bringing imagination back into the faith. And I think that's why we saw the rise of the charismatic movement in the sixties. It's a response to all this high intellectualism and also look at what happened in the sixties. What became one of the bestselling books in the 1960s? The Lord of the Rings. You see that. And so you see the world around it. Christians on both the right and the left are grinding away at imagination. And the rest of the world is saying, we want imagination. And I think I made this point in the documentary, where do we get the word imagination from? Imago. Imago, the image, and for those of us in theological circles, Imago Dei becomes the imagination of God, the image of God. And so I believe that's where God is found in our imaginings and in our stories. And I see that movement has been happening in the last 15, 20 years is where people are beginning to try and find where the divine is in their stories, no matter what their faith tradition is. Let's find the divine in our stories. Let's find the divine in a Marvel movie. of redemption and hope and resurrection in our fantasy movies. Let's find those imaginings again. I would add to that the 60s and 70s had the Jesus movement with the hippies and that was a huge act of imagination. I mean Godspell is just a startling piece of work to think of Jesus as this harlequin figure through an empty Manhattan. Yeah and the Jesus movement comes out of the Charismatic movement. Yeah it comes out of the Charismatic movement with the... hippies and college kids and others starting to see a different type of religious life. So that's really cool. Yeah and we see the rise of Richard Rohr during that period too if you're familiar with Richard Rohr, Roman Catholic. I love Richard Rohr. He's a Roman Catholic priest who was in that charismatic movement and if you read his writings you see some great imaginings going on in his writings. So there is always a countercultural movement within the life of the movements always start from the margins. They never start in the places of power. And now you'll get me preaching about power dynamics in the life of the church. But God always, God's always on the margins. God's never in the centers of power. God's always on the margins. Right, right. Now that's, yeah, that's a real biblical theme. You can't, I don't think that's contestable if you read your Bible. I would add to that too, this is Alan Moore, the comic book writer and novelist and various things. Odd dude. His criticism of Star Wars is that it's sort of sci-fi fundamentalism, because all of a sudden now you have sci-fi, which is supposed to be problematizing and dreaming of the future, speaking of this kind of, well, there's good and there's bad and you can be a good Jedi. It's a very simple message of light versus dark. love Star Wars his criticism does kind of haunt me that it is kind of like a sci-fi is almost adapting fundamentalist tropes well that means you need to go and watch my documentary which is also available on TV TV called the science fiction makers see that plug see how I did that that was good because I agree with I agree with more to a point and I think early Star Wars has evolved that if you're watching the Mandalorian, Mandalorian is a very religious show. And the Mandalorian makes I could do a deep dive into the whole Mandalorian series about how religion is. It's an argument about fundamentalism and progressive religion. You see within that series. It but early Star Wars was somewhat like that. But, you know, you also have to look at the fact that George Lucas was friends with Joseph Campbell. So part of what George Lucas is trying to do is do the hero's journey So and he was methodist. Yes. Yeah method Buddhist. I think is how it method Buddhist There are a lot of other Buddhist ones. Hi The next best thing to methodist is me. Yeah. Hey, hey, I actually might be an upgrade Well, I will tell you okay, so so now you're gonna get me going down a rabbit trail I have echinosis tattooed on my wrist, which is from Philippians 2, where it says, Jesus emptied himself of all power and authority. He emptied himself of all power and divine authority. And I got this tattooed on my wrist before my ordination. So I code ordination with this fairly fresh tattoo. And I remember later on someone saying to me, oh, that means servant leadership. And I said, no, we define it that way in the Methodist Church, But what it means is putting aside all power and authority and emptying yourself of all privilege that you might serve It's not just serving others is emptying yourself of your privilege to serve others Which is a very Buddhist concept as well Interesting because the idea behind Buddhism is that you are to do away with all attachment Which is there in Star Wars now? I don't fully hold to that view because I'm attached to all this geeky stuff you see you're on the walls. But the idea is to put yourself in this place even if you have authority to empty yourself of authority and that's what Jesus does in the gospels. He empties himself of authority by elevating voices again from the margins. I'm all for ridding myself of attachments except for board games and chocolate and pizza and steak. And And that's really good. That's really good. Yeah, that's really, you know, not to go down the Star Wars rabbit hole too much. But yeah, Kevin, that's my own journey with Star Wars has kind of followed that trajectory as well. You know, Star Wars was such a a influential force in my life. But thank you. Thank you. This is the way this is the way that was that was like it. But but it was. point I felt as it kind of came to see the gray areas of life more I kind of I kind of feel like Star Wars betrayed me a little bit you know that this that the sense of you know it's not all just good versus bad you know it's like we're all we're all a little Sith and we're all wait are you saying we're living gray and a world of black and white maybe so maybe but but But then the spirit of George Lucas, who I know is still alive, came back to remind me that the end of Return of the Jedi is all about the story of redemption and muddying the waters. Spoilers, spoilers, if you haven't seen it. Who hasn't seen it? But, you know, it's all about the... Dude, dude, come on, it's almost 30 years since Return of the Jedi, okay? arch the arch evil character mudding the waters right and and having something that's good in him too so so maybe maybe Daniel that's right yeah yeah it's so maybe there are themes of Universal Redemption in Star Wars okay can even the Emperor read be redeemed can even Palpatine have to wait we have to wait for episode 12 to find out But fans, now here's the cool thing, and this gets back to our conversation about imagination and control. One of the things Disney and Lucas both tried to do is control the narrative of Star Wars. They want to control the narrative of Star Wars, right? Because that helps them have their Star Wars Bible and they can explore their stories and keep them in canon. I love the fact that they use the word canon and they use the word Bible. So their Star Wars Bible is canon. But what do fans do with canon? Fans say screw the canon. This is why one of the big fan things out there for a long time was great Jedi and you had you had Lucas And you have Disney now. There are no great Jedi Fans say screw you we know the world is more complex. So while Alan Moore is correct the fans Help tweak the narrative And so while Lucas may have been trying to look at things and start black and white contrast, fans tweak the narrative in our fan sites on Reddit, on Discord, and Star Wars conversations on YouTube. We all tweak the narrative and that's where imagination comes into play because George Lucas cannot screw with my head cannon, Disney cannot screw with my head cannon, and I can still play with that story in my mind. and let my imagination run wild. And that's why as I've grown older one of my favorite characters in Star Wars has become Han Solo. When I was seven years old I loved Luke Skywalker but seeing the growth and what they did with Han Solo's narrative through the series to make the side laughable character actually somewhat heroic you find that Han Solo is much more the reluctant hero Luke Skywalker is and that Han Solo's heroism is not based on any high ideals of light and dark. Han Solo's heroism is based on this is my friend. These are the people I love and I care about. And while I have my issues with that last trilogy, that's one of the things they did with Han. They showed how loving and compassionate Han was. and how much he cared for his son and that is character growth so you see one of the biggest character arcs of growth and redemption and change in the character of Han Solo. Well, I could talk about Star Wars all day, but I want to bring this back a little bit to games and to role playing games and Dungeons and Dragons. Kevin, you had some interesting questions in the show notes about, you know, what makes for a good D&D group? What makes and you played some more you played more D&D than I have. And were there some. Areas that you were kind of wanting to explore with Derek about about being a game master or playing D&D. Yeah. Well, even before that, let's hold that one for I think our last movement in this opus to do this. I don't know. Do you think, Derek, are there limits to the imagination? Okay, is there places maybe the imagination is not helpful? One of the examples I thought is Quentin Tarantino. He's famous for very violent movies. And he's even said he loves the violence in cinema and he would make them more violent if he thought it wouldn't just send people running away. Now he himself is not condoning any type of violence. He's not a violent guy. He's not, so in his mind, it's a work of imagination violence. Do you think there's any, there is a problem where maybe imagination can impact the real world in ways? Maybe we are shaped or prodded by things that... their imaginations do have a dark side that's illogical. Well, I mean, we talk about that in the documentary, where QAnon, QAnon is concerned. We touched briefly on it. That is a corrupted imagination, of course. You know, coming from within the Christian tradition, while I may not be in that total depravity world, I still believe in sin. But my view of sin is much more... Eastern Orthodox now than it was 10 years ago. And by that, it means that we all have this brokenness within us, or we all have this thing in us that strives for power and strives for control. And QAnon and Pizzagate and all of that is a perfect example of corrupt imagination because that's what a conspiracy theory is. The conspiracy theory is imagination. Someone like Quentin Tarantino, I've liked some of his movies. I loved Kill Bill. Kill Bill series was just, it was highly violent. I loved the John Wick movies. And that is a struggle with me as someone who leans heavily toward nonviolent traditions. I struggle with that because I do see that desire for revenge. That desire to get the money. bad guy in my own life. And so yeah, imagination, just like anything else, can be corrupted. You know, this is, you know, one of the ancient theological and ethical issues has always been virtue. The Greeks and the Romans talked heavily about virtue, fortitude, prudence, justice, things of that nature, temperance. But within the Roman Catholic tradition, they balance those out with vices. So you can tell a story of courage, but there's the vice called cowardice. You can tell a story of redemption, but the reverse of redemption is revenge. And so yeah, you can corrupt any good thing. And so yeah, someone like Tarantino can, can really shove that violent narrative, which harmful at times. So how do you know when an imagination has been corrupted? How would you know? How would I know if it if it harms another person? That would be my thing. Of course, Jesus says the greatest commandment is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. He defines neighbor as pretty much everybody in the world. And so when we are harming others, when our imagination brings harm to another human being, that makes me say something's wrong there. Something's wrong there. those lines Tarantino's imagination isn't corrupted because he really isn't well he's got pretend people that he's causing harm to but they're not but see I would even say my own imagination at times is corrupted it's acknowledging I think part of the journey is acknowledging that I'm not right about everything you know a preacher saying they're not right about something oh my god oh I had a church I had church leaders yell at me when I said you know I was wrong in that message I preached two weeks ago. I had this wrong, I had that wrong, I've looked into it more. So I'm preaching a corrective message and I'm correcting myself because I think I got it wrong. And so part of it is not having the arrogance to say, you know, my imagination is wholly pure 100% of the time. My imagination is far from wholly pure. And someone like Tarantino needs to acknowledge sometimes that, you know, maybe his imagination's a little off. His imagination is a little rough, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't see or listen to those stories because I do love Quentin Tarantino. I love those stories. The fun part for me is in a story that Tarantino tells, I might see some things that are corrupting, but I also might see some things that are very powerful and very redemptive as well. What are the characters in pulp fiction? That is really seeking redemption. I don't remember the character's name, but he's played by Bruce Willis It that is a character who yeah some really bad things are happening to him some really rough things are happening to him But here's a character seeking a new lease on life a new start of life And what is a new lease on life a new beginning its redemption So even in Bruce Willis's character in pulp fiction I can see a story of redemption even though pulp fiction is a very violent movie. Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction, when Honey Baby, is that what he called her, is up there trying to hold up the restaurant, and the other character is there, and Samuel L. Jackson is like, look, I'm gonna give you an opportunity. You'd know. He and John Travolta's characters could have taken those folks out. It wouldn't have been a problem. They could have just wiped them clean. But what Samuel L. Jackson is trying to do there is say, I'm gonna give you a chance not to end up like I did. I'm gonna give you this stuff and you go and that is a slight theme of redemption in a highly mood So, you know and that that's where redemption plays a role in the midst of our corruption Goodness and light can be found but also and now I'm sounding kind of Buddhist here But even in the midst of our goodness It can have corruption because some of our great Preachers and teachers over the years have been wonderful progressive allies, we find out things about them that are not good. You know, people, I've seen some great theologians, I'm not going to name names, but you could probably place some names in there, who were very good about inclusion and about power from the margins, and you find out in their personal lives they treated women badly. Does that mean that what they were saying about believed that they believe they should elevate female voices but in their personal lives they were a*shol**. You know because we are at this this muddy thing we talked about Terry Pratchett before the show and one of the things Terry Pratchett said in one of his books is that humanity is where the rising ape meets the falling angel. And that is who we are. We are still that primate that wants to kill and destroy. But we're also that angel coming down from heaven, a little corrupted, but still full of heaven's goodness. And that's where humanity collides. And we are a mix of this good, holy, beautiful, redemptive thing and it's cruel killing, destroying thing. Changing topics a little but what are the secrets to a great D&D game master and I would add great D&D Well, if I knew the answer to that, I might be on one of these actual plays that's online all the time. It's funny you asked this question because I did a screening, an online screening of my documentary for a church in Seattle. After the documentary, I thought I'd get a lot of documentary questions and one of the guys was like, hey, give me advice for my D&D group. So I spent like 10 minutes doing that. But the secrets to a great game master. Yeah. Well, you're really good in it. GM in that you are really good. Well, thank you. I would say my main secret is player agency Don't take away player agency greatest thing I always loved about D&D was that you could do anything. And so when video games really started taking off and when massive multi online role playing games MMORPGs started really hitting people got into that and then they would get into D&D. And so they would ask me they'd say Derek what's the difference you know I'd have these this is back in the early 2000s I'd have they'd ever played was like World of Warcraft or something like that. They'd say, hey, I want to try out D&D. How is D&D different than a video game? I said, do you ever hit a point in World of Warcraft where there's a wall and you can't go through it? They say, yeah. You ever find a place in World of Warcraft that says you're not high enough level, you can't enter that area? They'd say, yeah. Judges of Dragons doesn't work that way. You go wherever you want to go. Now I might have a plan. I might have an idea, but I'm not going to to totally stick to that. It's also integrating your players' ideas into the story. So I ran some clergy cohorts, teaching clergy how to use role-playing games to build community. And one of the things I did was I asked them about their player characters. And one player said, well, you know, I really loved Final Fantasy and I wanna bring my character over from my Final Fantasy game and put them in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. how are you gonna handle that because I want some things about my character. And so I said, we're gonna work together as much as we can on developing that story and integrating that into the game and helping you have that. So I want my point, so I think a good DM. Just a bullet point, just a bullet point, allows for great player agency, is a co-creator with the players in the narrative. Yeah. And a good DM is also inclusive and wants to have a diverse gaming group. And so that goes into your next question, what makes for a good gaming group, diversity of voices. It's so wonderful. for my daughter and some friends and I had a bunch of young diverse voices. I had a lot of female voices. I had voices of color and I had people coming from various perspectives. I had atheists and agnostics in my games and that really really made the game so much more fun having all of those different voices at Why? Because it's more interesting? Yeah, because they're out of the box. It's out of the box, but it's stories that I don't know. I do not know the story of a 27-year-old trans woman of color. And I've run games for trans women of color. And I don't know their stories. I don't know their journey. So it allows me to take part in that. And it allows me to hear their stories. and it allows me to learn and get thrown for a loop. Whereas if everybody in the game looks like me and has same similar world experiences to a 50 something year old white guy, especially if they're Southern, I know what you're gonna do in this situation. We're all gonna end up talking about Star Wars. These are what we're gonna be talking about. Actually, most of them in a D&D game, what will end up happening is they will, up just wanting to kill everything and take its loot. I love your insights, Derek, about what makes for a good... Game Master and D&D Group and especially your reflections on agency. And it reminds me of a couple things. One, as you know, we talk a little bit more about kind of the tabletop board gaming world in this podcast, but all games and all players are welcome. But that is one of the principles of modern hobby board game design that's really come to the fore in the last couple generations. is a lot more fun if you give people more agency. You know, like the reason that Candyland isn't super fun is you have no agency. You roll the dice and you go where the dice tells you to. But if you can introduce these elements in a game that says, you know, oh, well, if this happens, then you can mitigate it this way, or you can do this way, or you can do that. You know, that gives people more freedom. There's that freedom concept again, which makes things just a lot more fun and a lot more enjoyable. And it reminds you of something we've discussed earlier on the show as well, Kevin. that, you know, one of the most loving things you can do with another human being, one of the greatest postures of love you can take toward another human being is to trust the inner teacher, right? Trust the Holy Spirit within that person. In other words, like, honor their agency, right? I mean, that's how you love someone else, you know, to honor their agency. Um, so yeah, that's those are great great insights. I love it. I love it Um now I want to play Dungeons and Dragons I actually do cohorts for United Methodist clergy. Yes, nice, nice. That's what I did last fall. I was working with the East Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church and I ran two online D&D cohorts for them. They were trying to do something fun for their clergy, but they also wanted it to be continuing ed. So we were talking about how to use tabletop role-playing games. to build community as well as how to share virtue ethics with young people. Nice, nice. Kevin, were you saying something? I was saying is there any connection, Derek, with being a great game master and being a pastor? Oh yeah, oh yeah man. I figured this was a soft ball. That's a soft, well you saw it in the, you saw it in the documentary. I mean. Yeah. One, I think being a good game master is also being a good preacher. Could I sorry, could I pause for just a second for our listeners who may not be familiar with Dungeons and Dragons terminology? Would you mind just saying first what exactly is a game master? Sure, a game master is the person who facilitates the game. The game master is also kind of the referee. So, you know, if you're disagreeing over the rules or something like that, the game master is the one who should be the final arbiter of the rules, just so that the game flows smoothly. not about control, though some game masters do that, just like some preachers do that. It's all about control. A good game master is about facilitating the game. It's about making sure that it runs smoothly and it goes smoothly. That is the game master's job. They are also the one, you know, and a lot of this comes back, goes back to what I would call my Pentecostal roots. mainline preachers like us, United Methodists, Lutheran, Presbyterian, could do in our preaching is we could learn from Pentecostals in that early Pentecostals interacted with their congregations in their preaching. So to give you an example, what a Pentecostal preacher would be preaching, you might have somebody in the congregation who would interact with that and they'd go, me more preacher tell me more you ever heard heard or seen anything like that and so and then the preachers like okay I will and they'll tell you more so it's interacting with your for want of a better word it's interacting with your audience a good game master is a facilitator as we talked about he interacts with the players and so when the players go down a rabbit trail your job is to make that rabbit trail fun A good preacher is all about taking a those things that their congregation are saying, you know, pastor, these are things that speak into our lives and we really want you to address this. So for example, during the height of the Black Lives Matters movement, during the pandemic, I was pastoring a multiracial congregation and we were having to pre-record a lot of our services. I'm sure you guys remember that. You're pre-recording right before George Floyd was murdered, we had pre-recorded our Pentecost Sunday sermon, right? So I couldn't address George Floyd on the Sunday after that happened. And I had, I went to a barbecue about three weeks later and at a person of color's home who was one of the leaders in our church. And he said, you know, pastor, I was worried you weren't going to address that issue. But my wife explained that the service was pre-recorded because the Sunday after the pre-recorded sermon, I addressed it. I addressed the issue of George Floyd. Cause I was living in a multiracial neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, where things could get rough and where racial tensions could be high. Well, I was in Madison, Tennessee. And so I addressed it. He said, I appreciate you addressing that. Well, I knew I wanted to address it because of what had happened, but his wife had come to me and said, I told my husband not to worry. I know you're going to address this, but just in case you're not, you know, I want to share it with you where I'm at. So that was me interacting with what was real and happening in her life from the pulpit. A good game master interacts. with and works with the story of the player. That's the preaching aspect. Now let's get to the pastoring aspect. A good game master to be a good pastor needs to make sure there's food and snacks there, whether somebody else is bringing them or whether you're providing them. Because you need to make sure that people are fed and people are having a good time and people are enjoying themselves. And a good pastor tries to do the same thing for their congregation. You want to have those events in your congregation where you sit around, you eat a meal, you talk, you chat, and you just enjoy one another's company. sense a good DM or a good GM, Dejit Master or Game Master, a good Game Master wants to make sure that people feel welcome at the table. They want to make sure that they're having a good time and they're enjoying themselves. So that's the pastoral aspect. And for some of your listeners, preachers, you could be a good preacher, you can be a great preacher and be a horrible pastor. You could be a great pastor but a horrible preacher. And believe me, I would rather have a great pastor over a great pastor who's a mediocre preacher over a great preacher who's a mediocre pastor. And unfortunately, sometimes I feel like I'm a better preacher than I am a pastor at times, but I strive to be a better pastor to people. Does that kind of answer your question? Yeah, no, that's excellent. I especially love the idea of making people feel comfortable. Church should be a rewarding experience on some level. Now, reward is a, I mean that in a complicated sense. It's not just being happy or winning prizes or whatever, but it should... there should be some kind of spiritual profit. Yeah. Right? Yeah. There's a growth there on some level. I mean... there's some weeks are just gonna be a dud. Like everybody knows it's a dud. You didn't wanna be there. I mean, I did a pulpit supply one time Sunday after Christmas and it was raining and you could just tell the 20 people there, including myself, none of us wanted to be there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We got there as soon as we could. But in general, yeah, you should, yeah, like a DM, you want people full safe, you want them to be involved, included, and also that they are having a good time whether that's spiritual or within a gang. And their responsiveness to the congregation, that's really well said too. Yeah, and it's hard in a more... white culture, Anglo culture service, because that's, well, there's a way around that in terms of there's a way to do that. Tell me, tell me how that works. Seriously put together a box and say, Hey, we're, we're going to go off lectionary if you're lectionary preachers, for those who don't know, lectionary or suggested biblical texts to preach through throughout the Christian ear, but what are Bible passages you want me to preach on? What would you like? would you like to hear about? That's a great idea. What, is there some theological things that you'd like me to address from the pulpit? Another thing to do, do you feel like preaching and sharing your story? You know, offer, offer as a pastor, if you've been, or a preacher, as a preacher, offer to say, hey, would you like me to help you work on a sermon? Because you might not, they might not have experience putting together a sermon. Is there a sermon you want to preach? That's a great idea. help you put that together so it'll flow easy. I'm not going to change your story or anything. I'm just going to help you with the flow of the story. You know, that's and that has worked well for me in white churches because they're like they don't feel put upon to interact directly with the sermon, but they feel like they've had input into the sermon. Another thing that because of the work I do. I'm not pastoring congregation. I wanna give them a plug because it's a wonderful open and affirming church in Nashville, Tennessee. By open and affirming, I mean, everybody's welcome. Y'all means all. We have people of all backgrounds from the LGBTQIA community there. And our pastor just started something recently where she said, you know, after the sermon, we have adults, we have Sunday school. the sermon and now we talk about the text that the pastor preached from and everybody in that adult class and we had like 20 people there last Sunday sitting in there and that and I'm doing I'm preaching for her not this Sunday but next Sunday and she and so she wanted my text and everything so that After church, we're going to talk about what I'm preaching on, which I've always wanted to do, but no one's ever taken me up on it. Well, they've taken me up on it. And here's another way to do it. Offer to have lunch with somebody during the week and talk about it if they want to talk about the sermon or the text. You know, those are wonderful things because now as they connect with it and they don't feel it's just a preacher's story, it becomes our story. And one of the things that is when I found out that Matthew didn't write Matthew, the Mathian community wrote it. Scripture was written in community. The Gospels weren't written just by one person. They were put together by a community. And so our stories come out of community. And so that's the great part is then your community gets to interact with that text with you in the context of shared life. Hmm. Which is something that we hear again and again about board games. That's what people love. Board games. Yes. They like being with people. What? And you know, what are you going to do? What? We like being, we were built for community. Humanity was built to be a community, communion with one another. You're crazy, Kevin. That's insane. Crazy. That's insane. Are you, as one parishioner said to me, are you telling me we need to make new friends? Because I'm in my 60s pastor Derek and I don't need to make no new friends. I Hear I hear I our bishop here in Missouri recently. I've been quoting him a lot. He he gave a really good message and he said And I, it's kind of in my rallying cry. He said, he said, maybe the most important thing we can do right now, all of us, whoever we are is just make new friends. He said, just, just make new friends. And I can't get it. Can I come to it's been haunting me. Can I come to Missouri? God, yes. God, yes. That's what I've been preaching for, for, for most of my life is I always want me, I want new friends, man. I always want more friends. Uh, what, and as you said, one of my practices, this was a spirit practice I used to do when I was pastoring. I always wanted to make friends in every decade younger than me and older than me. That's good. Because the younger generations give me the wisdom of the current age, meaning technology, what's going on in social media. It's one of the reasons I try and maintain a wonderful close relationship with my 24 year old daughter because she gives me such beautiful insight into the world. But then the older generations also give you the wisdom of older generations. But one of the cool things about getting to know older people is, you know, you, I'm gonna get bad here for a moment. One of the things I my mother-in-law and I argue about a lot and I love my Mother-in-law, she's one of my biggest supporters one of my biggest fans But she and I will argue about this she talks about how the world is has gotten so much more corrupt Yeah, I've heard that I'm sure you know and so my mother-in-law's like, you know, the world's gotten so much more corrupted I was like really you want me to tell you my the stories of my dad from the 1950s and the crazy stuff he was doing That was some pretty immoral stuff, you know, going, you know, going and doing it. I mean, you know, so the older generation, when you get to make friends with them, they become much more honest about how things really were back in the day. And you're like, Oh, you guys were just as big as***hol** as we were. Go back and watch another George Lucas film, American Graffiti. and see how the world really was in the 1960s. It was, you know, these 1950s and 60s, we weren't always as proper as we thought. So having transgenerational connections means that we learn from each other. And so I love to have friends younger than me. I love to have friends older than me. I love that. I love that. Speaking of making friends, I think we've made some good friends. this hour, at least a friendship I'd like to take it to to continue. I, I would love to keep talking about it. I think we've probably passed our time limit. You're good. You care. What do you, what do you think, Kevin? I have to have a second conversation. Can we have you back anytime? I want to tell you this. I want to tell you this. It's only in the past three years have I been finding more United Methodist clergy in these spaces, which does my heart good. Now, What I said, I'm just saying United Methodist clergy. I've met a lot of Presbyterians, a lot of Lutherans who are in these spaces. I've met a lot of Episcopalians. But I will say up until just about two or three years ago, I didn't see as many United Methodists in these geeky gaming spaces. And so meeting both of you just, it strangely warmed my heart. Uh, us too, Derek. And especially meeting progressive clergy in these spaces. Because for a long time I had to weave my way around a lot of evangelicals and really conservative Christians in gaming spaces. So we could have that conversation and we could stir up a whole can of worms. We would love to have you back. It's been a joy. Same here. How can people find you? You can find me online just by googling the geek preacher. You can find me on TikTok, the geek preacher, Instagram, the geek preacher, Twitter, geek preacher. I have a page on Facebook called the geek preacher. And I'm also a gaming chaplain. I'm a chaplain for, I'm a volunteer chaplain for gaming conventions. So you will find me at Gary con in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, held every March. I will be doing a worship service in Ohio at Origins Game Fair in June. It is an ecumenical inter-denominational worship service that I hold on Sunday at Origins. I will be there this June. It's toward the end of June this year. And if you appreciate the work I can do, I do. You can support that at patreon.com forward slash the geek preacher. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Kevin. Yes. Yes, and listeners, you can find us at boardgamefaith.com and we are on Instagram and other places and there's a newsletter. This is bi-weekly, Pastor Derek. So on the off weeks, we give them a newsletter. Oh, nice. So that every week they get a little bit of us. Yeah, yeah. It's a good thing. Love to have you sign up. Yeah. To our listeners. Well, you can sign me up too. You guys have my email. So sign me up. Great, great. Awesome. I didn't mean to. I love to promote and support other people out there in the same space, especially those that are as wonderful as you guys are. Thank you. That means so much. He's talking about us. He's talking about us. Oh my gosh. And next week, next week is. Yes. It's so exciting. Yes, next week we are going to be on the next podcast. We're going to be welcoming Mandy Hutchinson from the Salt and Sass Games Podcast. She's going to be talking about games that teach part two. Our first Games that Teach episode was one of our most popular episodes. Mandy, in addition to being a board game reviewer, is a teacher. wonderful perspective on using board games to teach and we're really looking forward to welcoming her next hour next week awesome yep two weeks two weeks ten years ten years a long time ago in a galaxy far away yes that's right that's right goodbye friends see y'all bye bye