by G.D Sandeen

The Game

“Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.  Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.” - Romans 14:16-20.

Hiding behind a sandbag in an abandoned church, I hear the footsteps of the enemy all around me. I'm the last alive from my squad against a team of four terrorists who've planted a bomb primed to destroy a weapon's cache. The situation is desperate. I've only a pistol, a bomb-diffuse kit, and a smoke grenade, going up against an arsenal of rifles, SMGs, and grenades. The bomb is ticking.

It's time to make my move.

I peek out from behind cover just in time to see the back of one enemy as he's running away from the impending explosion. He doesn't detect me. My heart is pounding as I turn towards the location of the bomb. It's now or never. I deploy a smoke grenade in front of me for cover and work to disarm it. Doing this makes a sound that will alarm nearby enemies, but I'm committed to the objective. Enemy footsteps race towards me in the realization of their error and open fire on the smoke.

"Bomb has been diffused!"

My "dead" teammates begin laughing hysterically. I've clutched the round against four enemies without firing a bullet. The congratulations start pouring through my headphones and the enemy team fumes as everyone re-spawns at their respective sides of the map to begin the upcoming round.

Welcome to Reality

Scenarios like this play out hundreds of thousands of times a day, with millions of players, across a score of different video game genres and titles. We live in an age where everyone and everything is connected online, and people are choosing to connect by playing competitive online games. Here are the stats:

• 211 million people in the U.S. (or 67%) play video games.

• According to SteamCharts, over 844 million hours have been spent playing CS: GO, DOTA2, and PUBG (all competitive games).

• On average, 8 Million people play League of Legends every day.

• Between May and June of 2018, 125 million people spent 2.7 Billion hours (or 300,000 years) playing Fortnite.

Video games, once relegated to a fringe area of the culture, known as "nerd culture," are now firmly entrenched in the mainstream. That attention has brought a mountain of scrutiny from across the social and political spectrum. If it's not the content inside the games (namely: violence) generating attention, it's about how much time young people spend playing them.

Concerns about developing forms of art, media, and leisure are nothing new. Whether it's the "appropriateness" of the latest dance trend, the genre and lyrics of music, or the content and packaging of the games we play: The question of, "Is this a good thing?" inevitably enters the public discourse. This is to be expected when a new generation picks up an activity that others never experienced for themselves.

So how do we know, as a faith community, if something is good? To varying degrees, we rely on the Holy Spirit, the biblical text, and experience. Depending on our biases, we as communities and individuals will prefer one or two of those measures while demeaning the ones we don’t. What I’d like to suggest, however, is the commonality that exists between all three: Participation.

Outreach or Participation?

There are overt ways in which we express that faith through things like prayer, communion, and worship. But what about everything else? How do we participate in the faith through things like work, play, or art? And how much time can/should we spend doing those things?

Faith, as it turns out, is not mere belief; it’s an expression of belief. There is no way to express our faith without actively engaging in our relationship with God and people. How we choose to do this varies wildly.

In my experience, most evangelical leaders encourage the faithful to be “effective.” We don’t accuse people who work 8-10 hours a day of being unfaithful or “bad Christians” because we both culturally accept the practice, and being able to provide shelter and food for your family is generally considered a positive thing. 

Playing video games 8-10 hours a day? Meh. Not so much. Unless, of course, that’s your job. 

Leisure and art are often seen as supplementary to work; this is true both in the Christian and secular contexts. We primarily play and rest only to prevent burnout. After all, what’s wrong with maximizing your energy to build bigger and better things? 

Why are we playing video games instead of trying to be more and do more for Jesus?

Because Jesus has not asked us to be better versions of ourselves. Jesus didn’t command us to work harder; he’s called us into relationship with the Father. Calls and prayers to build the Kingdom of God, like in Matthew 6:9-13, are actually calls for the Spirit to work in and through us (Luke 17:21). We call Him the Lord of all, and He doesn’t work through us less when we play games.

I can’t stop counting the ways God has built me up and used me to speak to others, through competitive video games. I’ve learned how to manage my emotions when I go through long stretches of performing poorly; what patience looks like when I pick up an entirely new game and it looks like I’ll never get any better at it; and how winning, while a good feeling, isn’t something you can rely on to make you happy. He’s revealed that being a good leader usually looks like being a good teammate; that an apology for well-meaning mistakes I make is only as good as your willingness to make things right; and how to shield others from the verbal abuse of teammates when someone else is having a rough game.

Remember the story of my “heroic,” round saving antics? About thirty seconds prior, one of my teammates had died because I allowed the enemy team to push on his position. This isn’t a problem if you explain your plan and get their approval before the round starts. I hadn’t done this though; opting to do my own thing instead. Needless to say, he was less than pleased with me and let me hear about it.

When I won the round, I could’ve easily told him to calm down, relax, and just let me do my thing. He seemed relieved that everything worked out; and he certainly didn’t seem upset anymore. I still felt it was important to make things right considering I had been the reason he was eliminated from the round. To make amends, I apologized for leaving him out to dry, promised to communicate more clearly, and dropped him a weapon to use for the next round.

These lessons are things that are learned, taught, and reinforced every day while playing video games. Through work and play, we are invited to participate with God, in the Kingdom of God, as he builds us up.

People play video games for a multitude of reasons. Some love the competition; some enjoy escaping the pressure of daily life; and others just enjoy seeing the skill ranking the game gives you telling you how far you’ve come from when you first started. Most of us are a combination of the three. And with the help of the Church community, we can continue to explore our faith through the games we play.

This is not a call for the Church™ to play more video games. This isn’t even a call for us to work less and play more. This is a call for us to treat play as a worthy form of expression to God.

Let video games be good for the kids and adults to play, and may God participate with us as we do.

Resources

We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.

The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.

And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.

Read. Engage. Enjoy!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Depending on how a gem is held, light refracts differently. At B+PC we engage in Pop Culture topics to see ideas from a new angle, to bring us to a deeper understanding. And like Pastor Shane Willard notes, we want “…Jesus to get bigger, the cross to get clearer, the Resurrection to be central…” Instead of approaching a topic from “I don’t want to be wrong,“ we strive for the alternative “I want to expand my perspective.” 

So, we invite you to engage with us here. What piqued your curiosity to dig deeper? What line inspired you to action? What idea made you ask, “Hmmm?” Let’s join with our community to wrestle with our thoughts in love in the Comment Section! See you there!