The Games People Play

The title of this editorial is taken from a book by Eric Berne, MD. In it he offers the following definition of “game”.  A game is a series of complementary transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome.  Descriptively it is a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or “gimmick”….  Every game is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting, quality.”

The book lists the whole series of games that people play: life games, marital games, party games, sexual games, under world games, consulting room games, and finally what he calls good games.  After reading a book I know for certain what I have suspected for most of my life: I'm not a good game player.  My friends know that I am naïve, tend to accept at face value what people tell me, and I try to communicate what I think and feel in a straightforward way. One illustration of this personality characteristic follows.



I was 16, parked on the Hill overlooking the city of Glendale making out with my girlfriend, Nancy.  When we came up for air after a long kiss, she asked me if I loved her.  Needless to say I was torn.  I wasn't sure where a "yes" would lead, and the prospect was both terrifying and exciting.  Upon reflection, however, I told the truth.  I said "no".

When I came to Chico State, I tried to play the game of university professor. I assumed that university classes should be hard and reasonably unpleasant if students were to learn what was required of them.  I was unsympathetic when students complained about the length of my assignments and a specificity of the questions on my tests.  Both I and my students were miserable, but I assumed that I would get used to our mutual discomfort so long as I achieved tenure.  That game ended when one of my best students told me to stop playing games and just be myself.

I have always loved participating and observing what Berne identifies as “pastimes”. Pastimes, by his definition are “candid; may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but not dramatic”.  I take that to mean that pastimes have agreed-upon rules that willing participants or observers understand and agree to.  Pastimes can and often are exciting with unpredictable outcomes, but winning is accomplished within an agreed-upon set of rules.

I can remember playing Rook on Saturday night with my parents and friends when my hands were so small that I had to go into the kitchen to arrange the cards in my hand.  I played games of the Monopoly that could last for days.  I played Battleship with my friend Gary in a tent that could only be reached by negotiating a steep cliff.  My friend Roland from across the street taught me to play poker.  Ken taught me how to play Booray. I played computer games with Jim far into the night, and tested my friendship with family and friends playing Sorry.

I listened to Dodger games far into the night on my kit-built radio, and the Los Angeles Rams circa Roman Gabriel and Fearsome Foursome were my team.  Over the years I developed an interest in golf.  Arnold Palmer was my hero.  I watched Mohammed Ali fight and the UCLA Bruins play basketball.

As a kid I played basketball, baseball, and flag football, but because I was two years younger than my classmates at Glendale Academy and was a late developing boy, I was never close to being a star player.  I went on ski trips with my class, but I didn't have the money to take lessons, and I never learned how to turn on steep slopes.  I could, however, win consistently at horseshoes.  I played tennis and ping-pong in college. My play was mediocre at best.  I was a little better at golf, but my time and funds were limited. Today, I am an in-line hockey fan, I watch golf when Tiger is playing, and NFL football.  I fish with my brother and play golf with my friends.  I would love to play poker on a regular basis, but my university playing partners have either died or moved away.

Why is it that pastimes have been and are an important part of my life?  What do they do for me that other experiences don't?  What needs do they satisfy?

First, they are a distraction.  When I am involved with pastimes, the cares of my busy and often chaotic world disappear.  Second, pastimes have rules, and when these rules are broken an agreed-upon penalty is assessed. Third, the best player or team usually wins. Finally, pastimes can be played over and over again. In golf, if I don't break 90 one week, I can try again the next.  If my team doesn't win the World Series or the Super Bowl, there is always next year. In short, when I am involved with sports I am living in or imagining myself in a kind of utopia where virtue is rewarded, fairness is insisted upon, reasonable penalties are assessed for infractions of the rules, and hope need not be extinguished if I or my team do not live up to my expectations.

Obviously, the board game, Life, is not life.  Human beings do not live in a virtual world.  Anyone, guru or preacher,  that uses words that imply life is a pastime is a fool at best or a charlatan at worst.  Life is simply life.  Sadly, religious people and institutions have found it beneficial to attempt to convince us that this isn't so.  They assume the role of sports analysts.  They explain why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to bad people. They assume that wise sayings or authoritative quotes are laws of existence.  They choose to ignore the fact that a penny saved is not always a penny earned.  A stitch in time does not always save nine.  Bread cast on waters can fail to return or show up too soggy to eat.  A friend in need is not always a friend indeed.

These religious sports analysts assume that biblical quotes always reflect reality when in reality the prayers of the righteous do not always avail much.  Faith does not move real mountains.  Compassionate words do not always melt a hard heart.  10,000 don’t always fall at your right hand, and it does sometimes “come neigh thee”. In this world the righteous folks seem to be treated just about the same as the unrighteous.

What concerns me here are the consequences of choosing to regard life as a pastime.  When bad things happen to good people, then there has to be a reason.  Tsunamis and hurricanes are sent to punish the wicked.  Young people die in automobile accidents because parents or church congregations need to be shaken into a spiritual revival.  The death of a teenage son is fortuitous because, should he have lived, he would have engaged in behavior as an adult that would have jeopardized his salvation.  Children die as punishment for the sins of their parents.

If religious belief also includes the notion that God will eventually punish the “wicked” by fire, rational thought must be discarded.  The premise that someone that loves you will torture you in fire is nonsensical  If one believes that this torture lasts forever, and is supervised by the devil and his angels, supposedly the most evil beings in the universe, justice is a figment of the imagination. Ironically in this scenario, Satan is not an adversary of God but an employee.

If Christians cannot rely upon experience and reason to explain the rules of religion as “pastime”, they must make a decision.  The notion of hellfire might simply be rejected, or one might conclude that Christianity is just a game i.e. basically dishonest bunk, or that they themselves are not intelligent enough or spiritual enough to understand how god operates in the world. It is the latter that may conclude that to continue as Christians, they must rely on people of superior intellect or mystical knowledge to guide their Christian experience i.e. people or institutions that have authoritative explanations for everything that happens in the world.

It's not surprising, then, that blind faith is so highly valued in many Christian ministries. However, blind faith alone cannot be relied upon to support individual or institutional Christian ministries.  Even in North Korea, a state controls virtually every channel of information from the outside world, blind faith must be accompanied by the brutal and pervasive punishment of critical thinking, as Kim Jon-il’s numerous prison camps attest.  Consequently, fear, overt or hinted at, must be engendered by Christian leaders whose leadership depends on the blind faith of their believers.

The pastor of a mega-church in Texas lost virtually all his parishioners when he declared that he no longer believed in hell. It is easy for me to understand why mega-churches meet in huge athletic stadiums.  The buildings themselves support the notion that what is happening is a pastime rather than a game.  Huge crowds can dispel critical thought and quiet the fear that always lurks when blind faith is a motivating force: 15 thousand Christians can’t be wrong.

It's really the same old story, isn't it?  Job discovered much to his surprise and sorrow that life isn't a pastime.  When he made that discovery, the four men who attempted to comfort him were no comfort at all.  He discovered that the religion of his day was a game, "a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or 'gimmick'…. basically dishonest."

An important reason why I'm a member of Grace Connection is that we operate our fellowship as a "pastime" rather then a "game".  Our discussions are candid and may involve contest but not conflict or fear of being “wrong.”  Our Mission statement makes it clear that we are determined to love everyone who walks in the door, and the God we worship is a friend.  We are "a loving community; a place that is safe to learn, grow and innovate; a place where people find God, get to know him, and learn to share him with others; a place where leaders are servants and everyone has a say". An authority on church planting once advised us not to advertise Grace Connection as "a place where leaders are servants and everyone has a say".  He said sentiments like that would inhibit church growth.  I'm sure he was right. Perhaps that is why Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Christ’s death helped me to understand how a religious game motivated by fear and blind faith can murder compassion and torture the innocent.