Christians and Gamers

Its rough, at times, being a Christian in the gaming community. The bulk of the reasons behind this lie in misconceptions and mis-steps on both sides of the aisle. I'll be trying to, in this post at least, help to build a bridge between the two groups that will help us understand each other.

Misconception about Christians the first: "Christians want to force their beliefs onto everyone and make them believe as they do."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, we Christians DO want people to come to the knowledge of Christ and accept Him as Saviour, and witnessing to people and evangelizing are part of what we do. That being said, however, we don't want to force people into it. People are free to choose one way or the other; if they were forced into accepting Christ as Saviour then it wouldn't mean anything. Redemption must be chosen and while we do favour one choice over the other we know that, in the end, the choice must be a willing one. One made with a person's whole heart, mind and soul.

Misconceptions about Gamers the first: "Gamers are a bunch of kids."

Like the above this is a misconception that is more than a little incorrect. The average gamer's age is somewhere between 18-33. I wouldn't exactly call that a kid, would you? The idea that gamers are kids comes from the notion that videogames are only for children. This hasn't been true for a very long time. Even in the days of the Atari 2600 there were some decidedly adult titles out there if you knew where to look. You might be surprised at some of the adults who play videogames, especially things like World of Warcraft or games like Madden '08.

Misconception about Christians the second: "Christians are a bunch of killjoys and want to ruin everyone's fun."

Again this really isn't true, at least from my perspective. It IS true that there are a number of things that Christians believe that you shouldn't do because they believe those actions to be immoral. We don't believe that people are truly happy or can be truly happy living lives filled with immoral activity. Things like premarital sex, drug use, and the like are all things that we feel to be wrong. We do speak out against them, but as with the first point, we also say that, ultimately the choice is up to the individual. Whether they choose for good or for ill, the choice is theirs and we pray that they choose the better path; because we love people and want them to be able to live happy and joy filled lives.

Misconception about gamers the second: "Gamers are just one game away from going out and killing a bunch of people."

This little misconception I'm sure you're all very much aware of. Gamers are often portrayed as evil, game obsessed mad youths out to kill people because they think "life is like a videogame". I, for one, and more than a little bit tired of seeing this false portrayal used so often. It doesn't help matters much that there are certain lawyers who use tragedies as a means to push their own social agendas. They try to excuse violent behaviour in people by saying that its not their fault they killed someone, nope, it was those evil videogames that made them do it. It gets worse when these self proclaimed "champions" use their faith as an excuse for mean, and sometimes down right spiteful, behaviour. We're not a bunch of psychopaths, ready to go off at a moment's notice. Most of us are average everyday citizens, just looking for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Get to know some of us, who knows, maybe you'll find some of the most loyal friends you've evern known.

Those are just a few of the misconceptions that exist about each other. Its long past time that we stopped insulting each other and came together to reason with one another. After all Christ Himself supported that kind of thing.

That's all for now all.
To quote the movie: "End of line."