Sure, sometimes the video game “soundscape” can become tiring, but I’d rather he play video games than watch sports all day or be out doing something dangerous!

You wrote, “While evangelical moralists and culture warriors focus on men playing video games, I wonder if the “adolescence” of much evangelicalism has
been noted? …”

Brother, you get a big amen from me!

First it’s rock music, then it’s Harry Potter,
then it’s NPR, now it’s videogames,
ad infini-stinking-itum. These days when
I hear about the next big thing that’s going
to collapse western civilization,I just tune it out.
Maybe people do some of these things to take
themselves out of the banality of everything,
including most evangelical church services
these days.

We all have our weaknesses. Personally, I like
to practice music to relax. Could I neglect my
family and get wrapped up in it? Yes. Do I? No.

If people spent more time trying to walk
in the spirit with Christ, as is our right
and privilege, and less time trying to judge
where they are in relation to other so-called
believers, maybe the “church” in general would
be healthier.

I’m sorry if I got a little riled up.
This is a bit of a hot button with me.

I have read that mature, adult dogs never bark or yap. A mature dog howls. Humans, by keeping dogs as pets (stroking, patting, feeding them) keep dogs in a permanent adolescence. This is why you dog barks and doesn’t howl like a wild dog.

Could it be that the present tendentcy for young people to ramain in their parents house for longer and longer (and parents happiness to allow this) be leading to much longer adolescence?

Rolemodels are so scarce particularly for young men and it is what is required.

I’ve always loved video games. Even back in the day of the ATARI console. Like anything, it can become an obsession. But for the occasional relaxation away from the stress of the day or life, blowing up enemy planes and tanks feels good! And moving from Super Easy to Easy to Hard to Expert then to Ace validates I have some skill with eye/hand coordination!

That said, my son and daughter can kick my butt on Super Mario brothers or Zelda. Both kids also excel at school work. Both kids are straight A students. Both kids read prodigiously. Both kids understand video games are for entertainment, not a lifestyle. While my parents generation sees it as mind-numbing my kids (and sometimes my) mind is not being numbed but stimulated into every increasingly difficult permutations to problem solving and discovery.

BTW…technology is benign…it’s what you do with it that can be malignant or useful.

My 2 cents…

Eric

I play video games regularly. Often more than I should.

I also hold down a full-time job, love my family, lead two bible studies (meatspace and online), pay my taxes and vote in every election.

Observations:

1. Video games are a hobby. Like any hobby, they can consume all your time. However, this can be said of any hobby.

“Normal” Christians waste a fair amount of time also .. the difference is that they waste it in socially approved ways like TV or watching sports or what not instead of my personal choices of anime, computer games, and science fiction.

I do not believe this is a salvation issue. Isn’t there a verse in Romans along the lines of “who are you to judge another’s servant?” A sports addict has no more right to condemn my video games than I do to condemn his choice in watching football.

1a) Video games are neither an indication of maturity or immaturity.

While there are reflex games (such as Sonic the Hedgehog) that the very young enjoy, other games (such as Civ4) pretty much *demand* a certain level of maturity.

To win at Civilization, one must have a great deal of knowledge at one’s fingertips, one must understand long-range planning, and one must have some idea how to get along with others. Rather than encouraging immaturity, a game such as Civ4 uplifts it’s players.

2. Video games, while less productive than actual outside activity, nonetheless can have merit.

A) Ones such as Civ 4 are very educational and will leave you knowing a lot more about history, political science and technology than you ever wish to know.

B) Video games build self-confidence. I have asthma; I was always terible at sports, and thought of myself as a loser. My earliest successes in life were in playing video games. When I saw I could win at games, I made the jump to realizing that — in God’s strength — I could win at anything.

C) online games can allow loners and people who are afraid to reach out to people in virtual worlds. Again, this is not as good as real people, but it’s a thousand times better than no one at all. I’ll take a person relating to other people only through virtual games over a person who doesn’t relate to *anyone* at all.

D) Video games are a great equalizer. A person in a wheelchair can compete just as vigorously as an athlete. A person who is old can whip the snot out of a twenty-year-old.

For people in rest homes or people who are otherwise handicapped, a trip to the world of everquest, say, allows them to forget for a time the limitations of their real-life bodies and — for just a moment — do things in a virtual world that no man ever did in real life.

E) I contend that video games can only corrupt you by your own choice. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to download a sex game. I don’t own Grand Theft Auto or Doom3. I own “The Hobbit” and “Homeworld” and “Star Wars: X-wing Alliance” and “The Sims” (my wife can’t get enough of that one) and Civ2. With very few exceptions, the violence is PG and the sex nonexistent.

But then, it’s the same with my movies — the movies we own are things like Casablanca and Miyazki’s “Spirited Away” and “The Incredibles”. Movies have not corrupted us (much) because we just don’t like those kinds of movies.

It is possible to be “in, but not of” the world, and to like both movies and videogames. The trick is not to do without them completely. The trick is to be choosey about what you buy, what you play, and (most important) how much time you devote to either.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Myst games have always been about non-violent story telling and interaction however the stories and some images do have some dark elements. Unlike most games where you become the “top dog” of even a “god” the stories and plot of the Myst games teach the dangers of people consumed with pride and your job in the games is to help out the main character set things right by making moral choices.

Ever since I started playing the Myst games I became involved in the online community which discusses the deeper back story of the games plus talking about everyday life. This has given me a chance to interact with many people I would have not meet in real life.

In many ways the games are like interactive parables of which we associate with Christ and his ministry. Even though CyanWorlds isn’t a Christian company I can certainly see God being glorifed as he shines through those who “create” stories that not only are fun and challenging for the mind but teach moral lessons in a sometimes subtle way.

To tie up the theme of the blog post here. The fans of the Myst games (some of whom are also Christians) are some of the most mature people I have encounter both offline and online.

The 5th paragraph from the end is an upper-deck home run.

The problem with this evangelical critique of technology is that it completely fails to understand the essence of technology. They moralize without understanding their own complicity in the technological system.

As an expression of the “culture war,” I think inveighing against immaturity, lack of sobriety, or whatever a class of individuals supposedly lacks today, indicates a weakness in the critics that Nietzsche had his finger on: the spiritualization of hostility. It is all too easy in our resistance to change, becoming and creativity to make them into enemies. We value what does not change, what is static and predictable. We internalize our hostility through virtues like prudence and thoughtfulness, fighting against the torture of uncertainty, and, like you say, Jesus recedes from the picture of our doing, creating, working and willing.