OK, the recent talk of Chick tracts has brought my own experiences bubbling to the surface like some....big bubbling thing. Have a seat. This one's a long one.

Let's start with one fundamenal (pun intended) truth about me. I am a Christian. I believe in God, Christ as the Messiah, the Holy Spirit, the Bible being the Word of God, Satan, angels, and demons. I am currently not attending a church, for reasons that'll become clear once this blog is done. But I do pray, read my Bible, and do my level best to live as Christ mandated; sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. So, that should establish where this is all coming from.

Back when in 1974 when I was in High School, I was invited to attend this High School age Christian fellowship hosted by a very well known, mainstream, conservative Christian church in Boston. The group was a revelation (pun intended) for me, and it was while attending that group that I made a conscious decision to be a Christian, rather than just going along with what my Baptist dad had been constantly talking about. Call it being "born again", if you will, but I shy away from that phrase because of the combination of baggage it carries these days, and the fact that it's become a cliche.

Now, fast-forward to 1985. My wife at the time and I were attending that very same church, and I was at a point where I decided it'd be good to give something back to the church that had given me so much, in particular, the High School fellowship. Since they badly needed volunteers for staff, I volunteered to become a staff member. Basically, I'd help plan meetings, help run the group, co-ordinate Bible studies, be a good example, be a friend and mentor to the kids, stuff like that.

I took to it nicely, and the kids liked me a lot as well. False modesty aside, I was one of the "cool" staffers, and became friends with a lot of the kids. As time went on, I did what friends usually do with each other, namely share interests and hobbies. Role-playing games was my hobby, so I tried to start some gaming with the kids. Knowing that D&D was kind of controversial among some conservative Christians (and when it's all said and done, I was definitely a conservative Christian), I tap-danced around AD&D and instead launched campaigns of FASA's Star Trek: The RPG, TSR's Top Secret/SI, and Mayfair's DC Heroes. So far so good. No problems, no concerns.

At this time in my life, I actually worked at home as a full-time writer, churning out stuff for TSR, West End Games, FASA, etc. I did the Mr.Mom thing and wrote gaming stuff, and supported half our household with my gaming writing. Some of the parents of the High Schoolers held a sort of "get to know you" mixer at one of their houses. One conversation proved my undoing. The following is a pretty good recreation of it, though certainly not verbatim.

Nosy Parent: John, what do you do for a living?
Me: I'm a stay at home dad and a freelance writer.
Nosy Parent: A writer! That's wonderful! What do you write?
Me: Well, do you know that game Dungeons and Dragons? I write for them and other games like that.
Nosy Parent (pauses, gives that look usually reserved for people who say "Hi I eat babies for fun and profit"): Oh. I.....see. Well then. That's....nice.
(cue the Imperial March from Star Wars Episode IV)

A few weeks later, the Youth Pastor told me that a group of parents had "concerns" about me. While they had no doubts about my faith and sincerity thereof, they were "concerned" about my occupation, seeing how D&D had this bad reputation. The situation quickly escalated. Of the 40 families involved in some way with the High School fellowship, a quarter of them thought I was the greatest thing to happen to Youth Ministry since sliced bread, a quarter of them thought I was (knowingly or unwittingly) leading their kids down the Highway to Hell, and the remaining half had no opinions either way or just plain didn't care.

The negative parents asked if I'd at least be willing to listen to a man who gave lectures about the evils of D&D. Trying at this point to pacify these people, I went along with it. The guy was this earnest fellow who apparently went on tour around the country, preaching the evils of D&D, rock music, and other bad things. I was shown the Chick tracts (oh hey, it's comic relief!). I was shown the pamphlets and yes, even entire books, about the evils of D&D. This man not only told me that D&D was Satanic, so were Christmas trees, Christmas wreaths, and Disney (ok, in light of recent Disney practices over the last decade or so, he may have had something there! BWAH!), among other things. Everything had hidden symbolism and "meant something", and that something was your buddy and mine, Say-tun.

I looked at the pamphlets and saw stuff about fantasy gaming and dealing with stuff like demon summoning, human sacrifice, and sexually-oriented violence. "Hey!", I said. "This isn't even Dungeons and Dragons! It's the Arduin Grimoire!" "It's like Dungeons and Dragons!" was the reply. "No it isn't!," I insisted. "It's a different game, and besides, this pamphlet's actually saying it IS D&D, and that could be considered slander!"

Problem with arguing with a fanatic, is that you just can't win. So, that meeting was a bust. I remained unconvinced that I was damning myself and scores of innocent teenagers. But at least it seemed that we'd reached a stalemate.  We agreed to disagree. I attended their ridiculous meeting, and that was that.

WRONG!

First, I had a meeting with the Senior Pastor of the whole darned church, because these parents weren't dropping the matter. We talked for an hour. Afterwards, he told a group of parents and other staff that he was convinced that I was a "devoted, faithful young man of God who is clearly not being misled or anything of the sort." Clean bill of health, off the hook, right?

WRONG!

See, this church is Congregationalist. Congregationalism is a flavor of Protestantism whose main tenet is "a small organized group of hateful nutjobs can derail things and push through their own agendas, even if 90% of the church and staff disagree with them". OK, so I'm being facetious, but that's pretty close to the mark.

There was a large meeting held about li'l ol' me. Parents and staff were invited. I wasn't invited because, as the Youth Pastor explained, it would probably prove to be embarrassing for me. My response was that I couldn't possibly get more embarrassed about this than I already was! Nevertheless, I wasn't in attendance, and from what I heard, it was basically a shouting match. When the dust settled, neither side budged. The parents who were dissenting said they intended to keep making this an issue until I stepped down. The kids were getting caught in the middle of this, and it was tearing the Youth Fellowship apart. So, since I was so evil and possessed and such, I "did the right thing" and stepped down.

The only thing I didn't yield on was when there was some item written up about my departure, I made them change "resigned the group" to "was forced to quit the group". Hey, when you're not getting any victories, you relish even the tiniest one!

The kids were livid. The kids whose parents were causing this trouble were embarrassed and resentful of them. Ironically, this group of over-protective parents may have done more to drive their kids away than anything else. In an attempt to keep their kids under their thumbs, they accomplished the opposite.

We stayed at the same church for a little while longer, then eventually decided to attend a church closer to home.

The whole affair pretty much shattered my Fundamentalist tendencies. I had been above reproach, done everything by The Book (pun intended, yeah why not), and all it took was ten parents to point their fingers at me and shout "Unclean!", and I was gone. I had been taught for years that the Church was my family and my refuge, and that "the world" was out to get me, and yet the biggest knife in my back came from the very church that was ostensibly here to help me!

It took a few years for me to not only get over this, but to sort out my exact feelings on the matter. I decided that the matter didn't shake my faith in God, but it sure made me suspicious of His people. I still believe, and do consider Christianity to be an excellent way of life, when it's not being contaminated by personal agendas. My flip assessment of the matter has usually been: "Jesus is cool, it's His people that suck!" Yeah, a blanket statement, I know. There ARE decent churches out there, I know this. I don't dismiss the notion of organized religion, and in fact find it to still be a useful tool for worship; a means to an end, not an end in itself. But let's just say I'm wary now. God didn't let me down; some of His people did.

So yeah, I'm between churches, and have seen first-hand how ignorance can ruin lives and cause unnecessary pain and problems. As for Chick, I hope there's a very special place in Hell reserved for people who knowingly lead others astray (hint: D&D isn't the only thing he's slandered).

Tags: Religion Anti-D&D Nutcase Christianity