Churches and computer games
June 9th, 2007 ~ Pop goes the culture(via Drudge) The Church of England is condemning Sony for a computer game in which Manchester Cathedral is the location for a big shoot-’em-up.
The Church of England accused Sony Corp. (SNE) on Saturday of using an English cathedral as the backdrop to a violent computer game and said it should be withdrawn from shop shelves.
The church said Sony did not ask for permission to use Manchester cathedral and demanded an apology.
The popular new PlayStation 3 game, “Resistance: Fall of Man,” shows a virtual shootout between rival gunmen with hundreds of people killed inside the cathedral. Church officials described Sony’s alleged use of the building as “sick” and sacrilegious.
Well, good for them, I guess. But good luck trying to get that message heard correctly. They’re bound to come off as making a big stink over nothing. When pop culture lowers dignified or elevated things down to its gutter, it invariably defends itself by saying that it’s all just a bit of fun and the keepers of these higher values shouldn’t be so uptight about it. It’s an unfair argument, of course, but it throws everyone off long enough for them to continue getting away with exploiting the few sacred things left in our culture for cheap laughs or thrills.
In this case, I’m a little surprised that the Church of England is taking such a hard stance. “Sick and sacrilegious”? Well, no doubt, but when’s the last time they used those words to refer to anything? Gay laity — no problem. Gay priests — no problem. Gay bishops — no problem.
They’ve been steadily eroding what it is that the word “church” stands for and why a cathedral isn’t just a library or museum. And they’re going to suddenly rear up and say that it has a meaning that should exempt it from being portrayed as a virtual location in an adolescent time-waster of a game? They sound to me like people who have been stealing the silverware for years but then get furious when someone TP’s the yard.
Well, whatever. Their self-respect may be late in coming, but if there’s some sense of the dignity of cathedrals behind it and not just wounded pride, then maybe it will lead to some small increase of integrity.
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June 10th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Its just the antichrist paving he way for mass martyrdom. When people are shut up inside said Cathedral and it is burned to the ground, they will blame it on the video game. See they were desensitized poor sods.
Crike, as they say!
Perhaps if they had whined about museums being important, and not just as backdrops for mayhem, then just maybe more people would like them for what they are; repositories of our past. Cathedrals and Churches are too important and need respect– but this anarchist world has no respect for anything, not even and especially for life.
The games, time-wasters, you call them? Just so, are nothing but how to practice death and destruction. The demons rejoice.
Good points, great post, too bad it is all just a tad too late for the Anglicans, they have lost their authority…
Christ is in our midst!
the handmaid,
Mary-Leah
June 10th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I would think with the Church of England being the way they are, I am tempted to think that this is a digital expression of a spiritual reality of what is happening to the souls of those who dare to set foot in their houses of worship.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Mary-Leah:
You’re probably right about the darker nature of these games. I think the most troubling aspect of them is that it is turning out generations of young people who think that because they have a fast trigger finger and know some cheat codes they need fear neither man, God nor evil spirits.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Robert:
I feel like all my info is pretty light on the C of E situation, but what I know looks very bad. And those who do have personal experience seem to see no hope for things improving. That’s really too bad. I wonder what C. S. Lewis would’ve said.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Grace —
The saving grace (so to speak) of the cheat code mentality is that it also makes people think they can always restore a saved game if they get killed. It’s one way to get them out of the gene pool, I suppose …
June 11th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
WM:
All right, that’s just cracking me up. You deal with these little rugrats more than I do. Any chance they’re thinking that risky behavior isn’t a problem because you can just restore your last saved game?
June 12th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Don’t know that I qualify as an expert in the realm of violent first-person shooters — most of the interactions I have are with 10-year-olds playing the Nancy Drew games (for which I write hints, for those who don’t know), which aren’t known for explosions in cathedrals. I will say that they seem to have a fascination with computerized death, though; after the first one, I started including a section in each game on how many ways there are to get killed and/or booted out of the game.
And then there’s their grammar/spelling, of course. I had one tell me that my hints were “horibal,” which didn’t bother me since the next one said they were “the BESAT.”
June 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
On a more serious note, the worst part of that protest from the C of E is that is looks as if their real objection is that they aren’t getting any money from the game — if Sony had paid them a fee, it wouldn’t have been a problem.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Death in games: That’s kind of frightening, though my little Oblivion addiction leaves me in no state to judge how weird others get after long infusions of these alternate realities. I do think that that state of mind has something to do with the way that young kids commit serial murders, but I don’t think the answer is to ban the games. The answer is to give the kids a life that they don’t have contempt for. Kind of a Church thing, really. (But maybe that’s just me making sure I’m not off-topic for too long.)
C of E: (sigh) I think I had wondered about that as well. I really don’t know how things are in that branch of Christendom — the news you hear is awful, of course. And so you wonder whether their outrage is fueled by some vestigial sense that there are some things that shouldn’t be tolerated, or just that — as you say — they’re hostile that they didn’t get a share of the action.