A Critique of "Dark Dungeons"

I was floating around the internet recently and found the original 'Chick Tract' against Dungeons and Dragons entitled "Dark Dungeons." Published by 'Chick Publications' in 1984 this tract was created to spread the word of the evils of D&D and that faith in Jesus will set you free from the resulting demonic hold on your life. I'm not sure that a critique is even necessary, the tract speaks for itself.

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP

Everything about this tract is exaggerated and off the mark to the point where it should be a satire of the hyper conservative roots that spawned it but it's not; it was created and published and is still upheld with the utmost seriousness and reverence.

Fallacy #1: D&D is a cover for training young people in the arts of witchcraft

"The intense occult training through D&D prepared Debbie to accept the invitation to enter a witch's coven."

All of the D&D books ever created are available online for you or me or anyone to download and look at. While the publishers of Chick and Straight Talk have maintained that D&D manuals are actually satanic training texts empirical evidence stands against them. Countless individuals have read these manuals searching for the incriminating evidence and have found nothing but game stats. In today's Postmodern age where alternative spirituality is openly encouraged you would think that the game's 'true occult nature' would finally come out of hiding now that it is popular and has no need to hide from society. The reality of the matter is that D&D has never had anything to do with secretly training anyone in anything at all even vaguely related to witchcraft.

Fallacy #2: Young people are incredibly stupid and incredibly vulnerable

There is a prevailing assumption that young people will simply become or follow whatever is presented to them. Debbie is either knowingly playing 'train to be a witch' with coven members or all of the people around the table just passively accept that their game leader is heavily into the witchcraft and now Debbie will be too. The facial expressions are also deliberate and telling, Debbie's sneer when she is happily recounting being able to cast a real spell communicates that she has officially flipped the switch and has become evil. Debbie's prayer that she wants "Jesus to be in charge of everything, not that lousy DnD manual," shows what level of control the author thinks this game can have on a person. Now I'll be the first to admit frustration at how foolish and short sighted teenagers can be, but come on! Kids aren't brainless morons or empty cups that anyone can just pour information / habits / worldviews into, becoming whatever happens to be in front them at the time. Even the really stupid kids who make poor decisions don't live their life according to a DnD game manual.

Fallacy #3: Character Death puts players at risk of Suicide

Marcie's obsession with her character to the point of suicide is the embodiment of a common fear in that era of hyper conservative thought. It stems from the suicide of Irving Pulling who's mother, Patricia, claimed was on account of playing Dungeons and Dragons. Formal investigation into the suicide could not find any link between the game and the unfortunate death, but Mrs. Pulling publicized that DnD had killed her son and conservative Christianity, sensing a demonic threat, adopted the story as truth. Even Mr. Whitaker in Adventures in Odessey made a point of needing to confront some young people who were playing the game 'Castles and Cauldrons' and decided to secretly steal and burn the material because it put young folk at risk.

Once again though empirical evidence is against this claim. Young People don't just 'become' their character unless they are mentally unstable to begin with. If a young person's life is so desperate that they can't separate fiction from reality then what the heck are their parents doing?

Questionable Theology

I find the idea that God gives us the power and authority to 'bind demonic forces' questionable and possibly problematic. The image that this invokes is that God 'gives power' independent of his presence. I think the Scriptures point more to a sacramental type of interaction where the Holy Spirit works through the believer and the believer aligns him or her self with the Holy Spirit to participate in the work that God is already doing. Instead of me binding the demonic forces, God is doing it and I simply participate by becoming the avenue of his will. The difference might seem subtle, but I think it is important. I also don't understand the language of 'binding'. Scripturally the language of 'binding the devil' occurs only once in Revelation 20:2 and it is speaking of an eschatological future, not something that Christians will do. I think this language leads to an over-realized spirituality that trends toward seeing demons where none exist and doing spiritual warfare where God never intended it to be done.

The scene where Debbie burns all of her DnD material is also problematic to me. I understand the importance of ridding yourself of spiritual bondage and distractions. This is a very consistent theme throughout all of Scripture. The problem I have is that the pastor standing in front of the massive bonfire and the guy behind it with his arms outstretched looks creepy, like occult type creepy. I understand that the bonfire was kind of like a spiritual symbol in this brand of North American Christianity but today that picture just creeps me out.

The Kernel of Truth

For as much as I disagree with and shake my head at how this tract was put together I must also confess the kernel of truth that it is attempting to communicate. The Word of God commands us not to participate in the occult or to use magic but to rely on Yahweh for all that we need. The demonic references in the tract are real and their effects in the lives of people can be equally as fatal as displayed there. The pastor's words are true, that only Jesus can set us free from the dark dungeon of demonic hold on a life. While such cases of this might seem uncommon in the peaceful world of middle class North America it still happens even here. That is the only redeeming quality I can think of.


Conclusion

This was an unnecessary fear mongering smear tract borne out of fear and ignorance to spread fear and ignorance. For the maybe 0.05% of the gaming community that took the fantasy game too far this tract might have a relevant message. For the other 99.95% though it's simply a false witness to Christ and his kingdom. God gave us imaginations and the freedom to use them and the attempt made by this Christian movement to suppress and control that freedom is misguided at best.