Play

Christians know they are to work (Genesis 1:28; John 9:4; Col. 3:23-24; 2 Thes. 3:10-13). They are not so sure they should play. As workers, Christians are God’s coworkers involved in redeeming the creation. This preoccupation with work is reinforced by our Western culture. As Wayne Oates humorously, but pointedly, summarized over two decades ago, “The workaholic’s way of life is considered in America to be at one and the same time a religious virtue, a form of patriotism, the way to win friends and influence people and the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise” (p. 12).

The Problem of Play

Given this “blessing” from both church and culture, it is not surprising that North Americans are continuing to work longer hours and that their culture is leisure oriented. Since World War II there has been an increase in purchasing power, paid vacations, life expectancy and recreational activity. Nevertheless, upwards of two-thirds of workers express discontentment and dissatisfaction with their working lives and continue to work long hours and to define their meaning primarily in terms of the workplace.

In the United States since 1980 the percentage of those working more than 50 hours a week has consistently increased, and the number of leisure hours for adults has continued to drop (from 26.2 hours in 1973 to 16.6 hours in 1987). Americans are both playing and enjoying their work less. This problem with play is compounded by four factors: (1) the difficulty for those in poverty to have the freedom of spirit to play, (2) the trend of women working both in the workplace and disproportionately to men in the home, (3) the effect of consumerism in producing hectic and frenetic lives and (4) a twisted understanding of play as escapism, passivity, hedonism or narcissism. No wonder Christians especially struggle with play. Yet when humans play authentically, they immediately sense its value.

When Is “Play” Play?

As with love or art, the definition of play is elusive. It is, however, possible to describe some of the central features of play. Johan Huizinga does this well. He says play is

a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious,” but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings. (Huizinga, p. 13)

Child psychologist Jean Piaget adds helpfully that play is always done “for the pleasure of the activity” (pp. 92-93). We can best understand the essence of play by looking at four pairs of descriptors.

Playtimes and playgrounds. Play always carries with it a new time and a new space that function as “parentheses” in the life of the participant. Everyday life comes to a standstill for the duration of the experience (for example, the ballgame, the concert, the solitaire game), and the boundaries of one’s world are forged anew (for example, one does not ask if the movie The Lion King is true or good, or to the degree that one does, he or she is no longer playing).

Individual freedom and loving community. People voluntarily choose to play; it cannot be coerced. Yet players also sense that they have been invited into play by a potential coplayer and/or a play object. Thus, while at play they must treat other players and “playthings” as personal, creating with them a community (compare the child talking to the baseball as it is thrown against the concrete building or the lovers who participate in a mutual process of give and take). It has been said, “Freedom does not die in love; it is born there” (Sadler, p. 243).

Spontaneity and design. Regardless of prior preparation, which is often quite rigorous (compare the dancer or the concert pianist), there is spontaneity at the heart of play. As we jump, sing or skip, our spirits soar. But such abandon is never at the expense of play’s orderliness. Every game of cricket is an occasion for new possibility, but without the rules “it’s not cricket.” Music is the occasion for the spirit to wonder, but only through the strict appropriation of certain rules of tone, harmony and timing.

Nonutilitarian, yet productive. Play cannot be entered into with continuing outside interest if it is to become play. Although the insurance agent might play golf with a client to get a contract, it is only when business can be suspended that the game of golf ceases to be a form of work. Yet although play can have no ulterior motive or material interest (compare worshiping God as an act of play), it is not without fruitful consequence. In play one is able to do four things: (1) to create strong bonds with others and the world, (2) to emancipate one’s spirit, (3) to rediscover life in its entirety as the player becomes involved in the wholeness of her or his being and (4) to experience joy and delight that lingers. In these ways the player finds perspective for reengagement in the workaday world.

There are, of course, many examples of the trivialization of play. One need only think of the strikes in professional baseball and hockey when the game has become sheer business at the expense of the fans. It is possible for play to be exploitive, as the goose-stepping parades of Nazi Germany remind us. One of my favorite quotations comes from Eric Gill who said, “It is a sin to eat inferior ice cream” (quoted in Kerr, p. 277). Such a statement has nothing to do with calories or with human perversity but with the recognition that to eat ice cream that tastes bad is to act in a self-contradictory manner.

Although play can be corrupted, all of us have experienced its fullness and value. Why is it that I care about what happens to the Chicago Bears or that I look forward to next year’s ballet season? Because I have a longing for play.

Biblical Paradigms and Models

Throughout its pages the Bible recognizes the importance of play, though we have failed to see it. Ecclesiastes advises us to enjoy our food and drink and the person we love. The Song of Songs is devoted exclusively to the playfulness of human sexuality. The sabbath has as its most basic definition a time of “nonwork.” Throughout the Old Testament we encounter the festivals and dances of God’s people. The practice of hospitality was an occasion for work to stop and a wholeness in life to be regained. Similarly in the New Testament Jesus’ own life exhibited a healthy rhythm of work and play. His times alone and his friendship with those like Mary, Martha and Lazarus show us that play was important to him.

Yet, we have systematically ignored or misinterpreted these texts. Christians have wondered how Ecclesiastes ever made it into the canon and have misinterpreted the author as writing only about life “under the sun” (that is, secular existence; Eccles. 1:14). For centuries the church has attempted to reinterpret the Song of Songs as an allegory about God’s love for them. Many of us grew up in a context that interpreted the sabbath ordinance as applying primarily to our worship. We have failed to understand that Old Testament practices concerning hospitality have aesthetic as well as ethical dimensions—they were occasions for a party. Were the instances of friendship in the life of Jesus simply another way of proclaiming his messiahship, or were they also expressions of his own humanity? In ways such as these, Christians have failed to let Scripture teach us concerning a God-intended rhythm of work and play, play and work. Like our wider culture, we have adopted an undialectical commitment to work as our basic ideology.

Basic to a biblical understanding of play is a recognition that Scripture’s concerns include creation as well as redemption. There are multiple theological emphases within its chapters. In Genesis 1-2, for example, God is portrayed as working and resting. His rest included enjoyment of creation and fellowship with humankind. Here is the basic paradigm for us: created in the image of God, we are to be creatures who both work and play.

This creational perspective is picked up in the call for a fundamental rhythm within human existence, the sabbath (for example, Exodus 34:21-22). For the Hebrew the sabbath was not chiefly a time for worship but an occasion for relativizing one’s work (compare Exodus 16:22-30). It was not by the efforts of those who gathered up manna, but only through the gracious provision of God, that the Israelites found life and safety. Although the restatement of the Ten Commandments in Deut. 5 justifies the sabbath practice in terms of being God’s coworkers, in the prior account in Exodus 20 the rationale for the sabbath is referenced to God alone. Through the sabbath we are invited to “remember” that life is a gift as well as a task.

This creational perspective is continued in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament as well as in those books such as the Song of Songs and Psalms in which theological argument is based on God’s acts in creation. The Song of Songs opens a window into the beauty and wholeness of human love, which can instruct us as to our own sexual relationships. Psalm 23 sings a song of trust in the Lord by using two analogies that include work and play—shepherding and hospitality. Psalm 104 celebrates the fact that as God’s creatures we are to cultivate the earth both to provide bread for our needs, wine to make our heart glad and oil to make our faces shine (Psalm 104:14-15). Ecclesiastes mounts a frontal assault on workaholism, which would foolishly try to find meaning in life independent of the God who has created us, and instead finds in Genesis 1-11 sufficient insight to portray our lot in life as enjoying our work and our play (Eccles. 9:7-10).

The Christian at Play

The evidence for play in the Bible is extensive, particularly in those discussions that are rooted in creation theology. But even in the books of the Law and the Prophets, as in the New Testament, we find culturally specific examples of Israel at play. In festival and feast, in dance and friendship, play’s strong motifs surface. A God-intended human lifestyle of work and play finds its basis in creation and its full possibility in Jesus’ re-creation (compare Hebrews 4).

Films such as Chariots of Fire and The Shawshank Redemption portray the importance of play within human existence. So, too, have writers as diverse as C. S. Lewis, Peter Berger and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In Surprised by Joy Lewis describes those moments of play—reading Beatrix Potter or George MacDonald, smelling a currant bush or listening to Wagner—when he felt himself ushered into a reality that was illuminating for all existence. In his book A Rumor of Angels Peter Berger finds “signals of transcendence” when our living toward death is bracketed and we experience “eternity” in play (p. 52). And in Letters and Papers from Prison (p. 193) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing out of his cell as he faced death because of his opposition to Hitler during World War II, commented on the general shape of human life:

I wonder whether it is possible . . . to regain the idea of the Church as providing an understanding of the area of freedom (art, education, friendship, play). . . . Who is there, for instance, in our times, who can devote himself with an easy mind to music, friendship, games, or happiness? Surely not the “ethical” man, but only the Christian (January 23, 1944).

» See also: Art

» See also: Boredom

» See also: Drivenness

» See also: Leisure

» See also: Recreation

» See also: Sabbath

» See also: Sports

» See also: Vacations

» See also: Work

» See also: Work Ethic, Protestant

References and Resources

P. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday/Anchor, 1970); D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. E. Bethge, rev. ed., (New York: Macmillan, 1967); P. Heintzman, G. Van Andel and T. Visker, Christianity and Leisure (Sioux City, Iowa: Dordt College Press, 1994); J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); R. K. Johnston, The Christian at Play (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983); W. Kerr, The Decline of Pleasure (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962); C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World/Harvest Books, 1955); Wayne Oates, Confessions of a Workaholic (New York: World, 1971); J. Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood, trans. C. Gattegno and F.M. Hodgson (New York: Norton, 1962); W. Sadler Jr., “Play: A Basic Human Structure Involving Love and Freedom,” Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry 6 (Fall 1966) 237-45..

—Robert K. Johnston