Video Games and Virtue

One of the beautiful things about being a youth pastor is that playing video games with students (in the name of forming deeper connections) can be considered an aspect of my job. Since the creation of Pong, video games have steadily become a major part of our culture, especially youth. While I get to play video games with students, I also have had numerous conversations with parents about how to navigate video games in light of who God is and what he is doing in the world.  Thus, for the next few posts, I want to explore how Christians ought to engage video games.  My hope is that my following thoughts will be a beginning place for further discussion between parents and students.

            When talking about video games, I think it’s more important to explore what they do to us than what they are about. This places the conversation about video games in the realm of formation rather than information. Or to put it another way, what kind of character might video games be forming within us? While it is very true that many video games include graphic depictions of violence and gore that can brand themselves within one’s mind, I haven’t heard many conversations about how video games might be teaching people how to live. Therefore, just because a game is rated E doesn’t necessarily mean it is good to play. And on the other hand, just because a game is rated M doesn’t mean it should automatically be avoided. What does the game do to us?

            N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar, in his book After You Believe talks about the importance of pursuing virtue within the Christian life.  He defines virtue as “the conscious performance of certain practices, namely ones that are positive, that eventually develop into automatic habits.” For him, when you repeatedly perform an action that carries meaning, over time, that action will seep into your being such that it will progressively become easier to carry it out.  For instance, the more I practice being generous with my money, the more naturally it will come, such to the point that it becomes second nature- a habit.

            Now before we too quickly throw video games out the window for propagating violence, there are games that force players to make challenging, ethical or virtuous decisions.  Games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Fable, are games that force players to think through ethically challenging dilemmas. Players can choose for their character to make positive or negative choices that can have consequences within the game. Some games even have multiple endings to account for the choices made in the game.  Thus, one’s decisions are not necessarily meaningless, but are important. And the more one wrestles with tough situations and makes positive decisions within games, the more likely one might be to make those decisions in real life. Thus, video games can help someone to become more virtuous.

            But what about violent content within video games?  How are families to navigate this realm?  Stay tuned for a future post!