The Christian video game, the 'real' Bible, and a hijacked imagination

What the heck is this title talking about, right? Well, three specific points in our class book, Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps. I introduced the book in my writings yesterday, but today we have the chance to talk about some of the more interesting points in the book so far. And they are:

The Christian Video Game- reaching out to a new generation
A short reflection on the writers of the Bible
Agreeing with the statement- the movie is never as good as the book

The first point: The Christian video game
This comes from the beginning of Chapter 2, The Magic Eye. I would have liked to have written on the actual magic eye pictures he placed throughout the chapter, but try as I might staring at those pictures over Christmas break much to my fiancee's chagrin I'm sure, I could not unlock the picture. So I was forced to glance a couple of pages ahead and secret the answer from Hipps himself... I still can't see the planet Saturn or the words in either picture.

In any case, what this topic is referring to is a person that Hipps was talking to who said he had developed a Christian-themed video game quoting, "We're just trying to give a new generation a chance to connect with Jesus" and, "It's not that the truth and content change, but the mediums have to change" (24).

Now what immediately flashed through my head was the Noah's Ark video game from way back in the day of the Nintendo and Super Nintendo. If I remember right, one was a side-scroller and one was a 3-d Doom-esque version and both were very disturbing. It consisted of smacking animals, usually with a staff or slingshot to capture them before the rains started. While my memory may be completely off, both of these memories and the idea of a Christian video game run headlong into the message of, "the medium is the message".

Don't get me wrong, I love video games and I attribute my love of reading and my fundamental math abilities directly to the video games I enjoyed playing growing up. But in this day and age, the games I have played for years are fading out, giving way to games that baffle the imagination and tantalize the senses. While I felt those feelings for 8- and 16-bit graphics, youth and adults now are seeing what resemble actual humans and what looks to be real environments. It's amazing.

But to place the term 'Christian' alongside a video game to me is the wrong first step. What kind of Christian? What is the theology behind the game, what is the salvation theory? What practice will this engender in the person playing, will it be a loving response to the grace of God in our lives? Or will the person playing move through a virtual environment practicing conversations and conversion combos (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, b, a, select, start!) to win the game?

Video games can be wonderful releases for those people who love to play a sport and cannot. Turn the game on, and bam, you are Alex the Great 8 soaring down the ice to score on Ryan Miller in the first period (Go Caps!). But video games themselves project a message of virtuality, isolation, and pseudo-community. I quote from my advisor's recent blog, "embodied community beats the pants off of virtual community--every time, every day". Thanks Dr. Largen, I completely agree, and that is where video games and Christianity (as I see it) usually part ways. To be a Christian is to seek out community and to engage humanity in love and respect as Children of God! Sitting at home playing a game by yourself may be a great release but there are many people in this world desperate for a companionship that is based on respect, trust, admiration, and love.

Next time you feel like picking up a video game, think about going to someone's house and playing with them- it can be a wonderful community builder to team up against the 'computer' sometimes. Or you can engage in what I did- my most recent online game, World of Warcraft, was a fantastic outreach tool for meeting people where they were (virtually) and discussing issues of theology, 'christendom', the 'problems with the church', and the broken world in general. These avenues can also be channels not only for relaxation but for outreach and evangelizing in a different type of community.


A *Short* reflection on the Bible

I say this because my first part is really long and I always try to advise against walls of text! The reason I write this section is because as I was browsing Amazon.com over the break looking for cool books I came across a book written by Bart D. Ehrman. Now, I was given one of his books many moons ago for Christmas, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why... but I was struck by the other books that he has written and sought them out as well. They almost all have catchy titles, and end with something usually along the lines of "(and why we don't know about them)". I find it fascinating that one of his books talks about the contradictions in the Bible and in particular mentions how the four gospels in the Bible cannot even agree on simple ideas about on which actual day the crucifixion happened or what Jesus actually did, etc. I turn to Hipps:

"The fact that our subjective experience colors the way we read Scripture isn't a surprise to God. That's part of the beauty and mystery of Scripture. The stories of the Bible are remarkably adept at speaking to people in wildly divergent contexts. We must remember that the Bible is not merely--or even primarily--a collection of objective propositions. It is a grand story told through hundreds of different perspectives and diverse social settings. The message is multilayered, textured, expansive, and complex.
The mere fact that the Bible includes four versions of the life of Jesus shows us that the subjective experience of each author offers something unique and important to our faith. This subjectivity helps paint a more colorful picture."

Hipps stands directly against Ehrman- As a Lutheran Christian, I stand along the road with Hipps: our Scripture is a reflection of God's ongoing relationship with humanity, and humanity's endeavor to interpret that relationship as it happens. There are authors of the Bible, because the Bible is made up of so many different documents, genres, and periods of history. God is the author of life itself and has revealed Godself through Scripture and the Word made flesh who dwelt among us and God's Spirit who lives in us now. Contradictions and why 'they' hide it from 'we' aside, I see little meaning in Ehrman's books other than trying to sell copies by engendering some sort of hidden quality to the Scriptures that is not there. What is there is the authorship spanning the relationship of God with God's people, interpreted by different people in different contexts in different times.


The final part: the movie is never as good as the book

It's just completely true, isn't it? I have yet to encounter a movie that was as good as the book, let alone a movie that surpassed the book. Modern CGI stuff aside, there is no match for the human capacity of imagination. Granted, there are parts of movies that I find much cooler than books (Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for example... both of the movies created off of the book have unique and interesting parts that are not in the book! Everyone do the Oompah Loompah dance!) but books stimulate the imagination in a way that movies cannot. Hipps is correct in my opinion, when he compares a statement "the boy is sad" to a picture of a hungry child in a third-world setting:

"when you read the statement "The boy is sad," your mind could create any image it desired for that statement. The number of possibilities was only limited by the amount of time spent thinking about them. But when you saw the picture of the sad boy, the image fed you every last detail. There was only one specific possibility, so your imagination was no longer required. These differences make it impossible for the finite choices of a movie director to match the infinite choices of a book's readers."

I think this is a little heavy-handed- the picture still gave me many questions- why is the boy hungry, is the boy alone, what is the background of the picture, why is the boy crying? But the image certainly limited the total number of possibilities.

It is here where I like to flip Hipps a bit... an image can portray a select few possibilities in a given imaginative situation. The situation then, gives rise to a nearly infinite number of options for images! The statement "the boy is sad" might one day be an entire art studio full of pictures, poems, interpretations, songs, etc. all around the understanding of children, poverty, violence, grief or so many other options. Images can be truly inspiring in their own right, calling us to use our imaginations in response to viewing the images and creating our own, and I think that Hipps is a little severe when he says "image culture is eroding and undermining imaginative creativity". I don't think it is as limited as he might think. I think it may just be moving from one medium to another- which of course... would change the inherent message.

I wonder what that next message might be for us?