I Don’t Play Games to be Preached At

There are many people out there who consider the very concept of an explicitly Christian computer game to be fatally flawed. “Surely,” they say, “the whole reason I play games is to relax and have fun, not to learn, and certainly not to be preached at.” But to say that learning and having fun are mutually exclusive is simplistic in the extreme. Anyone who’s ever played LucasArts’ classic adventure game “Day of the Tentacle” will remember the scene where one of your characters, Hoagie, gets stuck in a hotel 200 years in the past with America’s founding fathers.

They’re all busy drafting the Constitution, and by talking with them you can learn all sorts of useless trivia. For instance, I learnt about George Washington’s penchant for chopping down cherry trees, about his wooden teeth, and about John Hancock writing his signature extraordinarily large in order to impress the ladies. Okay, so maybe it’s not all true, and teaching history probably wasn’t forefront in the minds of the designers, but the truth is that I did learn. What’s more, far from making me groan as though I was back in the schoolroom, it was tremendous fun and instilled an interest in that period that’s still with me to this day. I’m sure that we learn a massive amount by subconsciously soaking in information in this way from games and television and what have you, not to mention their cultural values. A Christian computer game that does this well could have a wide-reaching influence on a large number of people, with them genuinely enjoying playing it and without them feeling preached at.

Morality is Boring

An overreaction to the first problem, however, has lead some games designers to put less emphasis on Bible-teaching, worrying that it will feel preachy, and focus instead on promoting Christian values and morality. On the one hand, I don’t have a major problem with games like this, so long as they’re well made. After all, it’s probably better that our young people are playing something based on a Christian worldview than something that reinforces our culture’s distorted value system. On the other hand, they make me a little uneasy, since they just seem to be perpetuating one of the most pervasive fallacies about the Christian faith: that it’s first and foremost about rules and regulations, and being a “nice” person – and ultimately that’s pretty boring. The Bible, on the other hand, is clear that no amount of Christian morality will save you if it doesn’t flow out of a relationship with Jesus Christ. In the book of
Colossians, for instance, Paul reminds his readers of the pre-eminence of Christ, the one in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). He shows how his ministry is shaped by seeking first and foremost to proclaim Christ (1:28), toiling and struggling to make sure that people are mature in their relationship with him. He goes on to warn of any alternative teachings based on “philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition…and not according to Christ” (2:8), and berates those who insist on asceticism and the worship of angels, but without holding fast to Jesus, the Head (2:18-19).

So you see, the goal of all authentic ministry is way more exciting than encouraging people to be more like Ned Flanders – it’s about introducing people to the person of Jesus Christ, and helping them get to know him better and better. A game that focuses on the awesome character of God is automatically going to be more engaging than one which just tells them how to behave.

Are You Worthy?

One of the main obstacles that stands in the way of people growing to know Jesus better, of course, is the sense that they have no need of knowing him better. Only people who know they can’t earn their own way into God’s good books are going to truly cry out for a saviour. My relationship with Jesus is constantly blighted by a sense that I don’t really need him – absurd as this is. It seems to me that this is one of the biggest danger areas in making a Christian computer game, since typically the aim of most games is precisely to earn your way to the finish line, proving your worthiness for all to see. That’s what the glamour of the High Score Table is all about, and it’s in direct conflict with the Christian message we’re wanting to promote. One Christian game even made it their official tagline: “Are you worthy?” It’s clear that a good deal of thought is going to have to be put into the game mechanics to make sure that our dependence on grace is not undermined, as well as other Biblical doctrines such as God’s sovereign control over the outcome of events.

Point & Click Bible Games

You may have guessed from my earlier reference to “Day of the Tentacle”, but I actually believe pretty strongly that a genre with great potential for solving some of these issues is the Point and Click Adventure Game. If you don’t have a clue what I mean by that, a good place to start would be the Monkey Island fansite The International House of Mojo, or the ScummVM project. These intensely story-driven games give the writers plenty of scope to teach in a more subtle way, as well as making it possible to feature a less-than-perfect lead character. LucasArts has a long tradition of rather weedy protagonists, like Guybrush Threepwood, Bernard Bernoulli, and (if your memory stretches that far back) the somewhat second-rate reporter Zak McKracken. Such down-to-earth characters allow you to easily convey the fact that there’s nothing remotely worthy about them, and to keep the spotlight firmly on God.

I’ll confess that I may be biased by the fact that I just really love adventure games, but I can see enough reasons to at least give it a try, and pray that God can use the results to bring glory to his name as people come to know his son more deeply.

Intro: A Broken Union

When I was an undergrad, our Christian Union had a thing called a Doctrinal Basis: eleven core truths that we shared with one another – essentially a way of clarifying what we meant by the word “Christian”, so that we could get on with doing the “Union” bit. Sadly, however, despite this we were greatly distracted by a disagreement between two groups within the CU. On the surface, the dispute revolved around the third article of the D.B.:

“The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behaviour.”

It’s the doctrine of the Authority of Scripture. One group – let’s call them Team Blue for convenience – accused the other – Team Red – of not living out the implications of this truth, whereas the Reds fervently denied any such thing. Both claimed to uphold the Bible as God’s definitive word. The
issue was never really settled, and in my view the main reason it dragged on so long and caused so much heartache was an unacknowledged twelfth article of faith – a doctrine which the Blues held as fundamental, and which the Reds weren’t committed to at all. It all boiled down to the Centrality of Bible-Teaching.

How God Works

At its heart, it’s a doctrine about how God works in the world. What is the agent by which people become Christians and Christians mature in godliness? Just as it’s critical to know whether your car runs on diesel or unleaded fuel, it’s an issue that has profound implications for the way that we do ministry, and how we expend our energy – I wouldn’t want the engine of my Christian computer games project, for instance, to grind to a halt because I’d filled it with the wrong type of fuel and wasted my time! So how does God work? Team Red acknowledged that the Bible was God’s word, and that Christians should listen to what it says. Team Blue, however, went a step further – they believed that it is the
Bible itself that is God’s agent for gospel growth. The Centrality of Bible-Teaching says that it’s as the Bible is opened, explained and applied that people are saved and that Christians grow in their faith. To the Blues, the Bible isn’t just a handy manual for life that they can fall back on when they get stuck, it’s the spiritual food that they gobble up day by day to grow and sustain them.

Since both groups claim to trust in the authority of the scriptures, it’s instructive to take a look firsthand at what the Bible says about itself. One passage that we could turn to is 1 Peter
1:23ff. Peter reminds his readers of how they became Christians, that “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God”. It was through hearing the word of God explained that these people were converted. He then exhorts them with the following words:

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual (lit. “wordy”) milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation” (1 Peter 2:2)

The picture of a newborn baby and its craving for milk is a wonderfully graphic one – one that’s all too familiar to many sleep-deprived parents! A malnourished baby without its milk would be severely stunted in its growth, and Peter is saying that Christians are equally dependent on the wordy
milk of the scriptures if they’re to grow up to salvation. James says the same thing in his letter – (1:18 – “Of his own will he brought us forth through the word of truth”) as does Paul, e.g. in 1 Thessalonians 2:13:

“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you
received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the
word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (emphasis mine)

It’s not just the New Testament, either. Isaiah 55:10-11 speaks of God’s word accomplishing his purposes like the rain watering the Earth, and Genesis 1 shows that even God’s work of creating the universe was carried out through his spoken word. So you see, within the Bible, the word of
God isn’t an optional feature in people’s conversion and subsequent growth – it is the primary agent through which God works in his world. It may seem somewhat pitiful and weak, but the method
he has chosen is the simple proclamation of his truth, whether that be through preaching from the pulpit, friends opening up the Bible together over coffee, a group getting together to discuss a passage of scripture, or any other way you can think of for getting the word of God into people.

Expository Preaching

It’s this conviction, that Christian conversion and growth comes about through the teaching of God’s word, the Bible, that leads to what’s known as “expository preaching“. At its simplest, expository preaching means starting with the text of the Bible and seeking to understand and explain what
the original author of a particular passage was trying to get at – “to think God’s thoughts after him”. It usually means systematically working through a particular book of the Bible bit by bit over several weeks, so that everyone can follow the author’s train of thought, although thematic talks can still be
done in an expository way. The main distinctive of expository preaching is that the Bible is not merely used as a repository of good sermon illustrations, or to lend weight to the preachers preconceived theories, but that it is allowed to govern the content and application of the teaching. The preacher’s job is
not to come up with novel concepts to inspire his congregation, but simply to uncover the message God has already left for us in the Bible.

For some of you, the very word “preaching” probably conjures up all sorts of negative connotations of a droning voice sending you to sleep in the pews. But a belief that God works through his word can’t be used to excuse boring presentation. For the expository preacher, the priority will
always be to get people to listen to and engage with what God’s saying in the Bible – Team Blue doesn’t treat Bible teaching like the incantation of some magic spell, as though the mere saying of the words is all that’s required to produce the desired results, totally bypassing the minds of the listener. No –
we want to get people thinking about what they’re hearing, meditating on things, chewing over what they don’t agree with, trying to get to grips with how the logic works and how the author achieves his purpose. This leads to potential for all sorts of exciting and innovative ways to get people listening to God’s word.

Expository Coding

One such way is what I’ve dubbed “Expository Coding“. In my last article I explained my conviction that the very best use for my gifts as a games developer would be to make games that share the gospel of Christ with people. Combine that with a commitment to expository preaching, and you end up making Bible-teaching computer games. For sure, it’s a challenge to make them genuinely fun and engaging, and for sure, it’s a challenge to faithfully teach the Bible on its own terms – but what a glorious work to be involved in, as day by day God builds his kingdom through the teaching of his word.