How My Complex Relationships with The Church and Dota 2 are Eerily Similiar

The other night I was talking to my wife about the recent Rachel Held Evans blog post "How evangelicals won a culture war and lost a generation" and as I have so many times before I tried to explain my complex feelings towards the faith I have grown up in, loved deeply, and am now employed by. I was having a very difficult time trying to communicate my emotions (sometimes I am a stereotypical man) and so I turned, like I so often do, to video games.

Specifically, I turned to the aggravating free-to-play MOBA Dota 2. "You know how I feel about Dota?" I said, "That's a lot like how I feel about Christianity." I've given it quite a bit of thought and I've come to realize that my feelings for Dota and Christianity are similar in more ways than I would have thought.

1. They're not welcoming to noobs.

There is a welcoming phrase that players of Dota 2 joking use with new players. "Welcome to Dota, you suck." In fact, that's the name of probably the most famous guide to Dota. If you are new to the game you will be made to feel stupid and you will be told you suck. A lot. In fact, amongst the massive amounts of positive reviews of Dota the recurring complaint is always the difficulty of the learning curve and a community of players just unwilling to be understanding or helpful to those trying to learn.

In the church we're no quite so explicit in our lack of welcome, but it's definitely there. In the Dota community you are only welcome at a certain skill level, and in the church we seem to only welcome you at a certain sanctification level. "Welcome to church, heathen. Come back as soon as you have no sin or struggle in your life." In trying to guide people into becoming new creations we often make them feel as if they themselves are not welcome.

2. You have to learn a whole new language and culture just to function.

My first time playing Dota my teammate said he was being ganked. I had no idea what that meant. It sounded kind of profane. Was there something I'm supposed to do about it? Is there some anti-ganking potion I'm supposed to run over to him? I was so confused.

Now imagine someone with no experience with the church. The guy up front just said please stand for the doxology. What's a doxology? Was I supposed to bring my own or is it provided? Should I be pulling out my wallet again? Now what's this song everyone's singing? I'm so confused. It's not wrong to have our own language and culture, but it is a problem when that becomes a barrier that keeps people from feeling comfortable.

3. The community is judgmental and downright mean.

I lost terribly at my first few matches of Dota 2. Like, really really badly. In almost every match where I didn't play well my team tore me apart. There was name calling and threats. It was worse than anything I've experienced in any other game. That's mean and hurtful, but on some level I was willing to accept it because I knew I hadn't played well. But then even once I was playing better my teammates were judging my item purchase choices and yelling at me for every little thing I did differently than how they liked it. It wasn't that I was wrong, it was that I disagreed with them that made them attack me. What most astounded me about this is these people took their focus off of their own playing and stopped controlling their character so they could type out a mean and judgmental message to me. If they would just focus on their own game rather than trying to micromanage mine they would do a lot better and hurt my feelings a lot less.

Whether it's protests of gay marriage and birth control or just a subtle sense of judgement Christians give off a terrible aura of judgement. Honestly, no one knows this better than Christians themselves. A life in the church is a life of judgement, full of people afraid of their sins being exposed. Rather than eating with sinners like Jesus did, we leave the unsaved feeling as if we deem them unworthy to sit in our presence. What most kills me about this is that my faith is supposed to be between me and God and I should be too busy focusing on my own sanctification process to try to micromanage everyone else's. To take the time out of your day to focus on someone else and your judgement of them is hurting both of you.

4. There is no room for compromise.

When it comes to video games I would say I am definitely not a casual player. I play a LOT and I play pretty well. But I definitely wouldn't go so far as to call myself hardcore or pro or anything like that. The problem with Dota 2 is that to be accepted either you're hardcore and fit into the proper play styles or you're not welcome at all. If you don't play the character exactly as the wiki says you should people will hate you for it. God forbid Lion go jungle for a little bit or you make a move with any level of risk. You play the way other people tell you to play or they want you off the team.

Evangelical Christianity in the United States is largely politically conservative and ridiculously militant about it. The same problem that we see in Washington we are seeing in the church. The church will do whatever it takes to make a statement and make sure they get their way. The recent shameful example was the scandal with World Vision, an organization that does charitable child sponsorships. World Vision had changed their policy allowing for employees who were married to members of the same sex. Ten thousand dropped child sponsorships later and World Vision has reversed their decision. Ten thousand children are now without aid because Evangelicals wanted to make a political statement.

5. Getting comfortable is extremely difficult.

So you've gotten past your first few matches of Dota, learned the lingo, grown a thick skin, and decided how you're going to play. Are you comfortable? Probably not. It's not a bad thing necessarily, but this game is deeply complex. You have dozens of items and heroes still to learn as well as different strategies and counters and it's all just very overwhelming. Getting comfortable with something this complex takes time and patience, and not everyone is willing to invest that much.

So you've decided this Jesus guy is definitely worth being here for despite all the negatives. Now, what theology are you comfortable with? Which denomination will you be a part of? How exactly do you think baptism is supposed to be done? How old do you think the Earth is? Do you think any of this matters? Christianity is a grab bag of conflicting ideologies and convictions and finding exactly where you fit is a massive feat.

6. The purpose gets lost in the practice.

The purpose of Dota 2 is fun. It's a game. Seriously if you are playing a game and never having fun you are really wasting your time. So yes, Dota 2 should be about fun, but when people focus so much on being competitive they can suck the fun right out of the game and kind of defeat the purpose. People have jobs and bills and real life for stress. If your game is just another source of stress why would you keep playing it?

The purpose of the church is to love the world and share the salvation that comes through Christ. But when you focus so much on politics and "winning the culture war" you lose the love aspect. People don't see that we are a place for salvation, they see us as a place of judgement. If people want to be judged there are tons of places they can get that. But a place for unconditional love and spiritual healing, that is something special we could and should be offering. If your church doesn't make you feel loved why would you keep going?

7. Both make me want to rage quit.

For those who don't know, to "rage quit" is to leave a game in anger or frustration. Fun fact, Dota 2 is the only game in my life I have ever rage quit. I was new to the game and making a few costly mistakes and my teammates would not stop harassing me. They could have offered helpful advice or at least focused on their own game rather than making me feel so bad and being so insulting, but instead they just made me feel terrible. I don't like feeling terrible so I just left in the middle of the match. I've only done it the once, but the rudeness of my fellow players often just makes me so frustrated and angry that I want to leave the game for good, uninstall it from my computer, and never play it again.

I want to leave the church. That's just a fact. I want to never go back on a Sunday morning, never go to another Bible study, never speak to another Christian again. I'm done. I get so angry at the bigotry of my fellow believers and the terrible things they do and say in God's name. I'm tired of polarization and political dogmatism and ecumenical distrust. I'm exhausted by theological witch hunts and the constant feeling of impending judgement by the people I'm supposed to call brothers and sisters. I want to rage quit Christianity.

8. I still end up sticking with them despite it all. 

I've just given you seven reasons why Dota 2 is often not an enjoyable experience for me. But before I wrote this post I played 2 matches. The first one I lost and two of the guys on my team were mean about it. The second game I won (I'm actually pretty proud of how well I did) and the other team whined and were sore losers about it. I have no idea why I'm still playing Dota. I think on some level I enjoy the challenge and the gameplay is fun so I'm willing to put up with everything else. Also, I make an effort to be nice to other players and commend others who are kind. If no nice people are ever willing to play Dota then of course it will only be full of terrible people. But just because a lot of my fellow players are jerks doesn't mean I have to be or let them get to me. I can just stay for the fun.

This morning I planned my Sunday School and Jr. Church lessons for the week. In Jr. Church I will be teaching about when Jesus was arrested leading up to his death for us. I'm going to focus especially on how Jesus healed the ear of the servant Peter attacked with a sword because I want to drive home that our God is a God of love. That's why I'm willing to stay. By and large Christians are judgmental and bigoted, alienating and hurtful, and just plain hard to put up with. But I didn't come to the church for the Christians. I came for the Christ. Also, I love the church and I want to see it be better. I hope that I can display a different kind of Christianity, represent Christ rather than the people in the church. Things can only change if people who are willing to work at it stay. In my heart I know I need to be here, because if I don't try to make things better who will?