Itsara

Following up the press release for a new computer game based on the Left Behind series, and my post discussing possible reasons to develop Christian games (and why I can’t wholeheartedly support either of them), I want to talk about another possible reason.

3. To provide a wholesome alternative to the violence and morals present in secular media.
First of all, although this isn’t where I’m going to go with this post, I need to mention the apparent hypocrisy some of you noticed in the press release. As pointed out in various comments, the first bullet point in the press release and the quote by the CEO of Left Behind Games don’t seem to fit. For those of you just tuning in, here they are again.

(A feature listed in the press release for the game)

Conduct physical & spiritual warfare: using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world

(A quote from an interview with the CEO of the game developer)

Left Behind Games was established on the belief that given the choice, people will voluntarily choose games with positive moral elements.

Setting the morality of war aside for the moment, I think a game in which you order your units to kill other people is going to be just the same, morally, as every other game in which you kill other people. Just a thought.

That aside, I’d like to talk about this “wholesome alternative” reason in a more general sense. I believe most of Christian entertainment uses this reason to support its existence, but there is an unspoken assumption behind this. The assumption is that we should be able to take part in consuming entertainment (books, movies, games, etc.), but we can’t take part in most of the things the world produces because they depict language, violence, sex, occult practices, or other affronts to our Christian principles. Actually those are two assumptions; to put it more simply: (1) we should be able to consume entertainment and (2) we can’t because we are Christian.

I’ll start with the second assumption, but it is such a large topic that there’s no way I can deal with it all here. There is an elusive line somewhere. On one side of this line, there are things of the world that we cannot touch. I suspect that this line is in a different place for different people. For myself, movies depicting sex (even mild sex) are on this side of the line. Although I have mostly overcome this addiction, the pull of sexual imagery is still strong on me. It’s even difficult for me to walk through the magazine section of a bookstore - not because I’ll pull something down and flip through it, but because even the covers are assaults on this weakness of mine. On the other hand, I’ve never had a problem with (for example) alcohol. I can walk into and out of a bar with no problem, but someone who has suffered from that addiction in the past might feel the same way towards the bar as I do towards a swimsuit issue.

That’s one side of the line. We should not cross to that side without great protection from God and those we are accountable to. On the other side of the line are things of the world that we can partake in. Jesus went to parties (and drank, I believe), Peter ate with Gentiles, Paul ate food sacrificed to idols. Paul, in particular, spent a lot of time talking about the freedom he had as a follower of Christ. There are a couple of things to notice about all these forays into the world. First, none of these were old addictions for these people. I’m fairly certain that old addictions need to stay on the other side of the line, and those addictions will be different for each person. Second, each of these examples serves a specific purpose. In Paul’s words:

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

Allowing ourselves to step into certain aspects of what the world has to offer, without letting desire for those things displace God, is one way we can be in the world but not of the world, so that by all possible means we might save some. We could (and Christianity has) debated for centuries on what is okay for Christians to take part in. My general belief is that if you are doing something for the Lord, it’s okay. As Paul told Timothy, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

This is already longer than I intended, and I’ve only talked about half of the equation. To conclude this half, there are some products of the world that we can take part in, provided we do so with gratitude and our minds on God. Obviously that doesn’t remove the apparent need for a wholesome alternative to secular entertainment, but there is still another half of the assumption that I have yet to deal with. I’ll do that in another post (and soon).