Playing

Christian Explorations Of Daily Living

James H. Evans Jr., James H. Evans

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780800697266
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451403268
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Playing often connotes frivolity. But James Evans, in this insightful study, offers another view: playing lies at the heart of Christian faith in the triune God. Through a close examination of African-American literature and experience, and a re-examination of basic doctrinal affirmations, Evans recovers play as a subversive and even revolutionary activity, a practice of faith that gives life in the midst of structures and authorities that suffocate. In this study, Jesus becomes the political, cultural and religious player who redeems by changing the game so that it no longer excludes, but instead gives life. God creates us for freedom in a field of play. The Spirit summons us toward God's Reign where the freedom of play never ends. Playing, in this view, is hardly frivolous, but the pulse of life itself. Evans invites us to play as we live and work.

1

the play’s the thing

I’ll have grounds

More relative than this—the play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

Hamlet, act 2

The aim of this book is modest, and its structure is similarly simple. The student of theology will recognize its trinitarian framework. It is comprised of three extended chapters. The next chapter, “Playing in the Dark: God and the Field of Play,” examines the notion of play as a basis for a Christian understanding of God. The third chapter, “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: Jesus as a Player,” explores what it means to say that “Jesus plays the field,” based on the preliminary conclusions reached in chapter 2. The fourth chapter, “The Holy Spirit at Play: Humanity, Church, and the Cosmos,” looks at the spontaneity traditionally thought to be at the heart of Christian pneumatology and the church in light of the notion of play. The postlude, “Playing around the World,” treats in an admittedly cursory manner the notion of play as a global practice. What does the notion of play say about contemporary existence in a world where time and space are no longer insurmountable obstacles to community?

Life must be lived as play.

Plato

Greek philosopher

427–347 BCE

Before moving on to a fuller explication of these issues and questions in the chapters that follow, a conceptual overview of the idea of play as it relates to this project is in order.¹ The epigraph that begins this chapter is uttered by the protagonist in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet, having been visited by a ghostly figure and told that his uncle, King Claudius, murdered his father, writes and presents a play. The purpose of this play is more than entertainment; it is an attempt to elicit the truth about the murder. It is in this context that Hamlet declares, “The play’s the thing.” While play, in this sense, refers to a dramatic literary work, play in the broader sense is connected to the desire to approach and appropriate reality in a distinctive way.

The idea of play is one that has been explored in a wide variety of disciplinary and historical contexts. From philosophy to psychology to sociology to literary theory to cultural studies and beyond, the idea of play has functioned as a central motif or theme. The near universality of play as a human practice makes a simple and definitive summary difficult if not impossible. Therefore, what is presented below is a limited but necessary attempt to provide a basis for conversation about play. Some of the major and exemplary thinkers and ideas related to play are presented as illustrations of a fundamental insight into the nature of play; that is, that play is an avenue to truth. The ideas explored here are presented along two axes; chronological order and thematic continuity. The assumption here is that play is best understood when its synchronic and diachronic dimensions are taken into account.

The Play of Man

At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientific interest in biology, zoology, and the emerging fields of psychology and sociology nudged the concept of play to the forefront of academic inquiry. Karl Goos, an early and influential scholar in the field, initially focused on the play of animals. However, it was when he turned his attention to the notion of play in humans that the full significance of the concept came into view. In his landmark work, The Play of Man, he examines this concept as foundational to two main human impulses.

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

American writer

1803–1882

The first is the impulse to experimentation, and the second is the impulse to imitation. In the transition from the study of animal behavior to the study of human behavior, Groos wrestles with the distinction between “instinct” and “impulse.” Groos notes that when considering human play, “the word instinct, while generally applicable, is not universally so—a difficulty which is much more conspicuous here than in the classification of animal play.… The word instinct does not cover the ground with its commonly accepted definition as inherited association between stimuli and particular bodily reactions.… It is safer, therefore, to speak of such play as the product of ‘natural or hereditary impulse.’ ”² These natural or hereditary impulses support the human need to experiment and to imitate. In experimentation human beings test their physical surroundings, perceptions, and conceptual assumptions. In imitation human beings seek to influence reality as we know it by replaying or recreating the dramas of survival, courtship, and love. Groos concludes that play is at the heart of the physiological, biological, psychological, aesthetic, sociological, and pedagogical dimensions of human existence.

Homo Ludens

Johan Huizinga’s seminal and controversial work on play continues to serve as a touchstone in the field of play studies. Huizinga was a Dutch historian who died in occupied Holland in 1945. He was born into a Mennonite family of doctors and other professionals. He, however, observed that he was descended from “Baptist preachers and provincial farmers.” In his major work, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, he argues that play is a fundamental feature of human identity and destiny. Previous thinkers had established the categories of Homo sapiens (man the knower) and Homo faber (man the maker). For Huizinga, the human being as cognitive agent was insufficient and the human being as worker was a distortion. He notes that “play only becomes possible, thinkable, and understandable when an influx of mind breaks down the absolute determinism of the cosmos.”³ For Huizinga play is “a special form of activity … a well defined quality of action which is different from ordinary life.”⁴

Here as in almost all scholarly treatments of play, the concept defies exact definition. Instead, Huizinga must content himself with a partial list of the characteristics of play. Play is voluntary, not ordinary or real life; play is secluded or limited; play creates or is order; play tends to surround itself with secrecy. While acknowledging that play has certain psychological and physiological dimensions, Huizinga focuses on the sociological and cultural functions of play. Sociologically speaking, play establishes and legitimates social order. It regulates the relations between social groups and classes and it allows individuals to negotiate the sociological playing field to their advantage. Culturally, play creates and transforms cultural ideas and artifacts. Through play the collective memory of the group is preserved and transmitted. Play permits the inherent conflicts within the group to be conducted and resolved without destroying the social fabric. Play also keeps the aims and goals of the group in view. Play reveals what is important to any given society. Huizinga observes:

In our play we reveal what kind of people we are.

Ovid

Roman poet

43 BCE–17CE

It has not been difficult to show that a certain play-factor was extremely active all through the cultural process and that it produces many of the fundamental forms of social life. The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all cultural life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play. Wisdom and philosophy found expression in words and forms derived from religious contests. The rules of warfare, the conventions of noble living were built up on play-patterns. We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest stages, played. It does not come from play like a babe detaching itself from the womb; it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.⁵

Huizinga, then, argues that play is more than what we occasionally do. It is essentially who we are.

Humans, Play, and Games

Roger Callois was at once an admirer and a critic of Huizinga’s notion of play. Callois, a French sociologist, affirmed Huizinga’s basic understanding of play as a free activity. However, his critique of Huizinga’s understanding of play is that it is idealistic. That is, it deemphasized the political context of play. Contributing to this critique was an underlying suspicion that Huizinga did not examine the revolutionary potential of play while living under Nazi occupation. Callois argues that all play occurs in specific spatial and temporal contexts in which that freedom is exercised. Thus, Callois offers the following definition of play:

Free: in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion; Separate: circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance; Uncertain: the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative; Unproductive: creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game; Governed by rules: under conventions that suspend ordinary laws, and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts; Make-believe: accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality or of a free unreality, as against real life.⁶

In essence, Callois argues that one can understand play only within the context of a game. The game provides the formal necessities for play to occur. Games provide rules, time, and space for play.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

Heraclitus

Greek philosopher

535–475 BCE

Callois divides play into four distinct categories; agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry (simulation), and ilinx (vertigo). Put another way, there are competitive games (most sports), games of chance...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1. The Play’s the Thing
• 2. Playing in the Dark: God and the Field of Play
• 3. Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: Jesus as a Player
• 4. The Spirit at Play: Humanity, Church, and Cosmos
• Postlude: Playing Around the World
• Notes
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Reader’s Guide