Pilgrimage Ponderings
War and the Gospel
There's a small conversation going on in our annual conference regarding the kinds of activities we offer for youth. It started when the editor of the conference newspaper wrote an editorial about the appropriateness of taking youth groups to play laser tag. Apparently, at least one youth director has responded to the editorial. I look forward to reading that letter to the editor in a future issue of the paper.
As a parent of three boys and a Christian educator, I have thought about this a lot. My boys play sports and video games, and we have conversations about the values inherent in them and the things that Jesus taught were important. Sometimes those two sets of values are in sync, and sometimes they are in tension. As a parent, I believe it is my responsibility to teach my children how to look at and reflect on the culture from a Christ-centered perspective.
To some extent, youth programming can provide the same opportunity. I am sad to say, however, that I seldom see a desire to engage in that sort of reflection in conjunction with a church trip to play laser tag. Too often the focus seems to be on providing an activity that will encourage attendance. The focus is on making the group popular and "successful."
As I was talking about this whole issue with a colleague today, I made a statement that I will be pondering for awhile. What seems to me to be true about our culture's glorification of war and war games is that the prevailing ethic is one of winners and losers. You can't compete, in sports, in video games, in laser tag, or on a real battlefield, without there being at the end a side that wins and a side that loses.
My comment was that my understanding of the Gospel was that it is about "win-win" rather than "win-lose." So being able to reflect on what it means to follow Christ in our culture becomes not only a good exercise, but an essential task if we are to be clear about how we witness to the love of Jesus Christ for the whole world.
The more I think about my off-the-cuff remark, the more it makes sense to me. But I imagine that others have different ideas. What do you think?
Ray Reavis: Hi Kathy, I had mixed emotions when I read the editorial you're referring to in the Advocate. I don't like violent video games in particular, because they have become so graphic and gorey. I used to play a very popular video game years ago when I was in college, but I stopped because it just wasn't right to be happy to "kill" someone. On the other hand, I think good-natured competition is a good and healthy thing. The desire to be the fastest runner, the strongest weightlifter, or the the leading tackler on the football team is a very real part of teens' lives. If we ignore that part, we won't be doing a very good job of meeting them where they're at. That is the core of relational evangelism. I understand the issue with laser tag was the use of the term "kill" to describe when someone was "out" (to borrow a baseball term). But we use the word "kill" in other harmless ways, such as "kill the lights." Maybe an appropriate compromise is to instruct the youth going to play laser tag that they are going to use other terms, such as "out" when they get "hit" by the beam. I guess I agree that we should be concerned, but I hope we also don't over react. It's laser tag, which I imagine is just a high-tech version of dodge ball. (06/17/08)