A good deal of my thinking gets done in the car. I suppose that driving is an expression of freedom, in which I direct the car whichever way I will it to go. The environment out the windows changes drastically as the Broncito takes me from Nebraska's plains to mountains, rivers, and coastlines of the great American landmass. However, the car also forms in itself an exact, almost unchanging environment. It supplies its own white noise with the road and engine, creating a set background of sound to the conversations I have with myself or my wife. Perhaps it is because of this constancy amidst diversity that we seem always to return to the same few topics of conversation. These are:
- Kvetching about relationship stresses
- Baby topics
- Rehashing old hobbies and happenings
- Video Games, their use, abuse, and place in society and our own lives (mostly my life)
As we drove along NE-2 East of Broken Bow, recently, Amelia and I got onto that topic of video games, once more. I think it is because I grew up playing games like Commander Keen and Jetfighter 2 on our old 486. Though I never became a very intense gamer, due primarily to the fact that I did not get a real job until I was finished with Bible school, I always enjoyed various types of virtual entertainment.
Now I am married, and my wife Amelia is not at all a gamer. She grew up reading a lot, and doing crafty things, and generally taking care of everyone around her and being a productive individual. This, it seems, was antithetical to the acquiring and playing of video games. Thus we discuss the history and evolution of games on consoles and pcs, and my personal experiences with various games, and at times even find spiritual significance in some of the parallels which games make to real life. On this particular afternoon, we reached the topic during a discussion of guilty pleasures.
Guilty pleasures are those activities which, while not bad of themselves, make us feel guilty when we enjoy them. Video games have often played this role in my life, softening the cry of my heart for closeness with God and my fellow man by keeping my brain occupied for a few hours. However, the annoying thing about this guilt I felt was that I really could enjoy video games in what I thought to be a perfectly righteous way. I could enjoy relationships with fellow humans, exercise my mind (and occasionally a muscle or two), and delve into a deep and involving story, all while enjoying the art and craftsmanship of an industry filled with energy and talent. So, how could we redeem the use of these pleasures from their guilt?
The key, we felt, was in exercising our minds to prevent the wrongful use of video games. The principles of this were pretty similar to those by which we can enjoy any other media, whether it is attending live theater, strolling through a gallery, listening to music, or watching television. Essentially, we exercise our minds and attempt to understand what the artist is trying to convey (not only cerebrally, but what he wants me to feel or do, to), then we compare that with what Scripture says about reality, and we evaluate what we've seen. More often than not, in today's world, we will usually find the message of a film, game, or canvas to be very far off from the Message of the Scriptures, but we can still see glimmers of God's image in the artist's attempt to make his worldview correlate with what he knows ought to be true. This engagement with the art and the artist will be beneficial to the Christian and to society, Lord willing.
So, as we continued to discuss things, Amelia and I hashed out a few major points, which I decided would be worth posting on for a little bit. Perhaps this will provide the sort of mission I can keep writing about. We thought about writing reviews of some of the games coming down the pike, so hopefully in the future I can do that and exemplify some of this interaction with games that I would like to promote. The following points will serve as an outline for our introduction to the topic, after which I will try to tackle some of the biggest games around nowadays, and perhaps explore the different uses of games in the various genres of gaming.
- Typical Responses of Christians to the Idea of Video Games
- The Danger of Guilty Pleasures
- Reasons to Play a Video Game or Two
- A Christian's Unique Perspective on Gaming... and Everything Else
And with that, I will sign off for now.
