Saintly Saturday: St. Cyril of Alexandria Revisited

Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria. I have been writing this blog long enough that I am having to go back and check if I have already written stuff about various saints. And I have written about St. Cyril before. To quote myself:

Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria. Born into a Christian family of means, he grew up studying science, philosophy and Holy Scripture. In his youth, he became a monk and was later chosen to be Patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 412.

St. Cyril looms large in the politics and Christological controversies of the 5th century. For anyone who is interested in history, this is a fascinating chapter in life of the Church. Heresy (most notably Nestorianism), political rivalries, rivalries between bishops, Ecumenical Councils, the Robber Council, violence and exile all swirl around the life of St. Cyril. He was the primary advocate of the orthodox position against Nestorius at the Third Ecumenical Council and though he died in A.D. 444, his theology played a large role at the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in A.D. 451. Ironically, both those who accepted and rejected the Council of Chalcedon hold up St. Cyril as their champion.

There is a very rich history here, both historically and theologically that can be mined for all kinds of things; however, I want to return to St. Cyril because of something that is happening outside our hobby.

I take great interest in apologetics and one of the more interesting Christian apologists on Youtube is a fellow named David Wood. I initially took interest in him because, like me, he comes to Christianity from an atheist background; however, his main interest is Islam. His best friend and roommate in college was Muslim and the two (both being on the debate team) took great interest in trying to convince the other that their religion is incorrect. In the end, David’s friend became a Christian.

Currently, there is a series of videos being released on Wood’s channel called Islamize Me. The series is inspired by the movie Super Size Me where a documentarian decided to see what would happen to his health after eating only fast-food for a month. Wood and some of his friends pretend to become Muslim to see what the effects would be after a month. Given all of the various oddities one can find in Islamic sources, this series comes across as comedy with a sizable dose of biting satire.

Other Christian apologists have been questioning and even condemning Wood’s approach, claiming that Christians just don’t do that sort of thing. To which I respond with this quote from St. Cyril of Alexandria:

This is nothing but foolishness and stupidity, the frenzy of a crazed mind. – On the Unity of Christ

When one bothers to read the apologetic works of the Church Fathers, one will frequently find insults like this one. It is all part of the rhetorical style of their era, when debate was as much entertainment as it was serious and purposeful.

I mention this because for so long we Christians have been told that we have no place in this hobby from both fellow Christians and people within the hobby. One of the main reasons I started this blog was to thumb my nose at this notion, inspired by the likes of St. Cyril.

If a saint can defend the nature of Christ and the Gospel by declaring that the ideas of his theological opponent are the foolish frenzy of a crazed mind, surely I can play RPGs from a Christian point of view and create gaming material that speaks to that world view.

Not surprisingly, I have had a lot of fun along the way, produced more stuff than I ever thought possible and have been able to meet a plethora of good folks out there in the hobby who I’d gladly spend an evening rolling some dice with.

In the end, it goes to show that God gave us everything we have and that with Him is it possible to give Him glory using everything that He gave us, including RPGs, humor, satire and even the odd insult.

On 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' and the OSR

Jeff Rients over at Jeff's Gameblog mentioned that today is 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.' He has chosen to decline to participate citing that:

I'm pretty confident the violent fundamentalist Muslim nutjobs don't speak for all of Islam in the same way that the Westboro Baptist Church doesn't represent the mainstream of Christian thought.

In response to a comment I made in response to Jeff's post, JB of B/X Blackrazor stated:

Personally, I'm more in favor of converting Christian extremists to Islam. Islam already teaches that Jesus was the Messiah; what more are they going to get from Christians?

I'd like to take some time with this topic because not only is it important, but I believe it is relevant to the OSR. Many (if not all) of us have spent hours pouring over older editions of all sorts of RPGs. We have done so for a variety of reasons from creating retro-clones, to creating new RPGs based on older rule sets, to actually playing these older games, to using them as an inspiration for playing newer games. There are plenty of examples of OSR bloggers who have deconstructed the evolution of rules in an attempt to figure out which incarnation works best for them (see my current attempt to mess around with OD&D magic, for example).

The key here, is that without a close examination of these original documents, the OSR would not exist. The statements above by both Jeff and JB run counter to this fundamental truth about how we do our hobby. I have long read, enjoyed and respected both Jeff and JB so what I am trying to say is not meant to insult, diminish or dismiss either of these two. In fact, my respect for them is the very reason I am writing this post.

Statements like those made above demonstrate that those who have made them have not gone to the source material and spent time to understand them. I'm sure everyone of us can find examples of statements made by our fellow gamers about any edition of D&D which demonstrates that they have not taken the time to understand why people like to play different editions or even to read the rules of those editions. Even I am guilty of making assumptions about 4th edition without ever having sat down to read those rules.

In light of this, I'd like to invite both Jeff and JB (as well as all of us) to take some time to deal with the original source material for both Christianity and Islam. To give us a start, let me give you a short, comparative list of things Islamic texts say about Mohammed and what Christian texts say about Christ:

1. Mohammed condones lying in three instances: war, reconciling people and husband to wife.
2. Mohammed was involved in slavery and slave trade. He would use his profits to purchase warhorses and weaponry in order to wage war.
3. Mohammed coercively forced conversion and prayer.

1. Christ is both God and Man, of one essence with both the Father and the Spirit.
2. Christ asked us to love one another — even our enemies.
3. Christ sacrificed Himself for our salvation.

If we accept that Mohammed and Christ are the prime examples of what it means to be human and what our behavior as human beings ought to be to their respective followers, than it should be relatively obvious that warfare and the mistreatment of human beings (especially women) are legitimate expressions of Islam. Whereas they are foreign to a proper expression of Christianity.

To answer Jeff's comment, what we have deemed as "radical" in Islam is actually able to stand on very firm theological ground. Whereas there are peace-loving Muslims, there is no such thing as a peaceful version of Islam.

To answer JB's comment, Islam understands Jesus to be a prophet, but denies the crucifixion, the resurrection and His divinity. Whereas Islam insists that Allah is a distant transcendental being who is completely separate from his creation, Christianity insists that God Himself loves us so much that He took on our humanity, died with it, resurrected it and ascended with it into heaven so that we might be able to share in His very being and His eternity. What does someone gain from converting to Christianity? God Himself.