Charm and Harm
The World's Wonderful Plan for Your Life
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The words just rolled off my pen. I had no intention of producing anything original or innovative. But the words just came.
When I pray for others, I often write the prayers as I pray them. I keep a journal for that purpose. It contains thoughts and ideas that cross my mind; it includes reflections about my life and circumstances. But the greatest amount of white space is reserved for prayer.
It was during such a time of prayer that I gave thought to the church where I’ve had the privilege of serving in a variety of ways. This is a community I would not trade for any other; yet I know that it can be pulled and swayed by the world in which we live. So I prayed that these people would be swept away by the waves which presently sway Western culture: Comfort. Security. Control. Autonomy. Affluence. These are, in many ways, normal conditions of life in our time. They are not evil in and of themselves.
What makes them a danger for the Christian individual and community is that they possess an appeal which resonates with us. They are portrayed as attractive, and even essential. And the word which rolled off my pen to describe this was Charm. Charm is actually one prong of a campaign by which the world seeks to acquire our conformity to its values and purposes. It is these things, governed by this purpose that I found myself “praying against.”
The idea behind Charm is not new. It’s the carrot held out before the donkey in order to make it do its master’s bidding. But in modern times, there is a new and shiny face replacing the carrot. In his article which appeared online at the UK news and opinion website Unherd, author Gurwinder Bhogal begins his essay with an unflinching claim:
For years, some of the world’s sharpest thinkers have been quietly turning your life into a series of games. Not merely to amuse you, but because they realized that the way to make you do what they want is to make it fun.
This phenomenon has come to be called “gamification”. And Bhogal outlines its history especially in the 20th century, The most significant figure in Bhogal’s estimation is the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner. Skinner formally tested stimulus-response behavior in pigeons, and was able to shape their behavior ( in this case, to peck and ring a bell) by manipulating the reward system of their food. From his experimentation, Skinner drew some important conclusions concerning the behavioral influence and effect of rewards:
Immediate rewards work better than delayed rewards
Unpredictable rewards work better than fixed rewards
Conditional rewards work better than primary rewards
What ultimately concerned Skinner and those who followed him was the application of these principles to human behavior - Why did people work harder at games they pay to play (e.g. gambling) than at the work they are paid to do?
For others, especially more recently, businesses have been flooded with information on how to leverage fun to shape behavior - to buy more things, for example. But there was still an unexplored horizon: If gamification could make people buy more stuff and work more hours, what else could it be used to make people do? And this exploratory question has led to sweeping conclusions: If we could only make the right game, we could make humanity fitter, greener, kinder, and smarter. We could repopulate forests and even cure cancer by making it fun.
Such is Gurwinder Bhogal’s tour-de-force through the world of gamification.
But as I indicated above, Charm (in the form of gamification) is only one prong of the world’s campaign to conform us to its values and purposes. Charm was the carrot leading the donkey. But for the donkey, there was always a backup: the stick. This “stick”mechanism I would call “Harm.'“
Harm possesses a gaudy resume in human history. The 20th century alone exhibited large-scale campaigns of coercion, violence, and death in pursuit of a conforming people to the will of the state. This was Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
Christians have been a conspicuous target for Harm in many places in the world: Iran, North Korea, Indonesia, North Africa, China, and Albania, to name just a few. Here there is no good-natured Smiley Face seeking to put people at ease; there is only the hammer. Sickle optional.
Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss
It’s a long-recognized point in biblical scholarship that what meets us in the book of Revelation - a beast from the sea, and a beast from the land (Revelation 13) - is precisely the same forces at work at the end of the 1st century AD. The beast from the sea is a dragon, fierce and menacing. The beast from the land, however, gets his wardrobe from Lamb’s End. He is the picture of safety and security. To Christians who would shop at Babylon’s department store, there were treasures and rewards available, all for the asking. “Come join the party,” they smiled. “You don’t have to give up your religion; just add it to ours!”
But likewise, Rome, at the end of the 1st century carried a big stick to enforce the invitations which came from the lamb-faced creature. The party to which all were invited was lit up by the burning bodies of Christians - a grim reminder that if Charm failed, Harm was waiting.
The reality of Harm is evident throughout human history, but have become conspicuous in the 20th and 21st centuries. The 20th century alone witnessed more Christians martyred for their faith than the previous nineteen centuries combined. At the beginning of the 21st century, there is no imminent sign of let-up. Likewise, our present moment in Western culture offers Charm without end. Play the game, get stuff! You don’t have to give up your religion; just sync our party calendar with your own. A wonderful time will be had by all.
For this reason, then, I pray for myself. I pray for my church. I pray for Christians living in hard places. I pray that we all may resist the Charm, and stand firm in the face of Harm; that we may beware geeks bringing games, no matter how many points we’re promised. For the Game is coming for you.