Twenty-five years ago, I sat in my living room as a junior in high school watching the Columbine shooting unfold. Seeing students my age filing out of the school, I had no idea how that moment would impact me or shape the narrative about violence in society for at least the next quarter century.
With Y2K approaching and white evangelicals fearing either the Tribulation or another four years of the Democrats controlling the White House, conspiracy theories began spreading about the hypothetical persecution of Christians. Youth pastors everywhere told the story of Cassie Bernall, the Columbine high school student who reportedly answered “Yes” when asked by the shooters if she believed in God prior to being murdered. And evangelical teenagers everywhere daydreamed of being shot and killed for God.
“It was a test we could all hope to pass, but none of us would want to take,” Michael W. Smith sang in his popular song “This Is Your Time,” inspired by Cassie’s answer. “Faced with the choice to deny God and live. For her there was one choice to make.”
With nightmares of martyrdom swirling through our minds, one question we all began to consider was who could commit such atrocities. And as we learned more about the Columbine shooters, people began blaming the shooting on violent video games since the Columbine shooters played “Doom.”
Rhonda Grindle places crosses with the names of the victims of the Columbine High School shooting next to the Columbine Memorial on April 20, 2021, in Littleton, Colorado. Twelve students and a teacher were killed in the mass shooting 22 years ago, which at the time was the deadliest school shooting in US history. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
The politics and psychology of blaming violent video games
One month after the Columbine shooting, Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich claimed “Hollywood and computerized games have undermined the core values of civility.” In the years ahead, Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama all called for further research to discover whether a reduction in violent video games could lead to a reduction in violent crimes.
While politicians have united across party lines in opposition to violent video games, health care professionals have been divided. The American Psychological Association wrote in 2015 that there is a link “between violent video game use and both increases in aggressive behavior … and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and moral engagement.”
Additionally, the American Academy of Pediatrics admitted in 2016 that they are “concerned about children’s exposure to virtual violence and the effect it has on their overall health and well-being.”
Whitney DeCamp
But Whitney DeCamp, a sociology professor and an expert on criminology at Western Michigan University, suggests based on data gathered from more than 6,000 eight graders that the link between violent video games and violent behavior depends on whether the child lives in a safe or violent home.
“People who have close positive relationships with their parents are a lot less likely to engage in violence — regardless of whether they play video games or not,” DeCamp argues.
Also, a 2019 study in The Royal Society found: “There was no evidence for a critical tipping point relating violent game engagement to aggressive behavior.” According to their report, organizations such as the American Psychological Association that link violent video games to violent behavior are motivated by the “precautionary principle,” which they define as “an approach to mitigating societal harm that puts protections in place when there is a plausible risk.” Thus, they argue that the APA and others “err on the side of caution and warn to limit youngsters’ time spent playing video games.”
An American problem with a racial twist
According to the Small Arms Survey of 2017, “there are more than 1 billion firearms in the world, the vast majority of which are in civilian hands.” For every 100 U.S. citizens, there are approximately 120.5 firearms. The next closest country is Yemen, which has 52.8 firearms for every 100 citizens. For every 100 citizens of other nations such as Indonesia, Japan and Malawi, there is just one firearm.
With the United States having such a large percentage of firearms, it also has 18 times the number of gun-related deaths than the average rate of other countries, including 22 times more than the European Union rate and 23 times more that the Australian rate.
Given what DeCamp discovered regarding the effect that having positive relationships has on violence, it is no wonder that a country shaped by hierarchies of sex and race would include a racial component to its coverage of these stories.
“The media are far more likely to blame violent crimes of white people on video games than they are to blame violent crimes of Black people on video games.”
According to research led by psychological and brain sciences professor Patrick Markey and associate professor Erica Slotter of Villanova University, the media are far more likely to blame violent crimes of white people on video games than they are to blame violent crimes of Black people on video games.
In one of their studies that analyzed more than 200,000 news articles about mass shootings from 1978 to 2018, Markey and Slotter found U.S. media mentioned video games in stories about white shooters 8.5 times more than in stories about Black shooters.
“Because video games are disproportionately blamed as a culprit for mass shootings committed by white perpetrators, video game ‘blaming’ can be viewed as flagging a racial issue,” Markey explained. “This is because there is a stereotypical association between racial minorities and violent crime.”
In other words, according to media coverage, white people supposedly commit violence because of video games, while Black people are simply violent people.
Markey concluded: “Unfortunately, this disparity may have dire consequences, affecting not only perceptions of video games’ effects, but also reflecting disparities in the culpability we assign to criminals depending on their race.”
Antonio Basco (R) holds the cross of his common-law wife Margie Reckard who died in the shooting as he walks to a makeshift memorial after the shooting that left 22 people dead at the Cielo Vista Mall WalMart in El Paso, Texas, on August 5, 2019. (Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
Glorifying violence and dehumanization
After the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, President Donald Trump argued: “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace.”
The former speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy agreed: “The idea of these video games to dehumanize individuals, to have a game of shooting individuals and others — I’ve always felt that it’s a problem for future generations.”
While these claims are pretty rich coming from Trump and McCarthy, and while their assumptions about video games may be overplayed, many of us would agree we shouldn’t glorify violence and dehumanization.
This is an opportunity for the church either to amplify our culture’s glorification of violence and dehumanization or to offer better news of close, positive relationships that promote civility.
A Christian alternative?
“Are you tired of your kids playing violent video games?” asks Tina Griffin, host of the Counter Culture Mom podcast. The answer, she believes, is a company called TruPlay Games.
The app-based video and gaming program appears to provide a high-quality experience for kids that is free of ads or in-app purchases. It also doesn’t contain a chat feature, which is meant to protect kids from predators.
According to promotional videos, the game has been played by more than 7 million kids worldwide and has led to more than 25,000 professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
Promoted by Christian nationalists
Many of the concerns mentioned throughout the promotional materials are about providing a safe and fun gaming experience for kids. But if you pay attention to who is talking, you’ll begin to notice that what’s really going on is a promotion of Christian nationalism and patriarchal gender roles.
One of the biggest sponsors is Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s movement that has been shaping what it means to be an evangelical man for the past 34 years. The Promise Keepers event this fall will feature the likes of Charlie Kirk, who is the Christian nationalist calling for Trump’s political opponents to be decapitated in a Coca Cola-sponsored live television event and for kids to watch. Kirk also claims the U.S. Constitution is based on the book of Deuteronomy.
TruPlay also is sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is now under the leadership of Franklin Graham, who is a Christian nationalist who supports Vladimir Putin.
Another TruPlay sponsor is the actor Kevin Sorbo, who live tweeted the January 6 insurrection by saying, “It’s happening,” and “History is being made.” Then after the insurrection failed, Sorbo immediately promoted far-right conspiracy theories, claiming: “ANTIFA led the charge into the Capitol building dressed as Trump supporters.”
Sorbo also tweeted on Tuesday: “If you don’t pay taxes, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Why should you have control over a system you don’t contribute into?”
According to Sorbo, TruPlay Games is “the only mobile gaming app that truly honors the values that bring us together and teaches them to our kids.”
But why would we want to honor the values that bring people together when those gatherings are conspiracy theory-fueled insurrections?
‘What it is to be a man, and what it is to be a woman’
There’s also a gender role component to TruPlay.
“Our children are being swallowed up by a culture that teaches them toxic truths about what it is to be a man, what it is to be a woman,” Promise Keepers CEO Ken Harrison explains. “And TruPlay is providing a gaming way for them to learn true values that mothers and fathers who follow Christ will approve of.”
That language is code for a complementarian power dynamic that empowers men in the workplace and keeps women at home. Even though they do not explicitly spell this out in their promotional videos, they demonstrate it in who they choose to be in their videos.
The videos that feature their team of investors and programmers show only men.
The videos that depict testimonials are from moms in their homes.
When “toxic truths” are considered in contrast to these depicted roles, it’s clearly an attack on people who do not adhere to those gendered roles. Whether or not they are creating this gender-role dynamic on purpose is irrelevant.
Harrison says, “Your kids are gonna have a blast not realizing that they’re actually at Sunday school.” In another video, a child points to a character on the screen and exclaims, “See? Huh? There’s the evil queen! We don’t even notice her!”
And that’s precisely the problem. This game is built on the assumption of a lack of awareness for what’s really going on.
What’s really going on
Despite all the hype about creating a safe environment for kids, TruPlay’s ultimate concern appears to be to convince kids to submit to their theology and gender roles and then to consider those who don’t enemies who deserve a violent death.
“For the first time in American history, less than half of Americans go to church. While over 60% of people in this country over 40 believe in God, that for children, it’s only 32%. That’s a crisis,” explains Brent Dusing, founder and CEO of TruPlay. “We want to see an entire generation change — 30% of kids believing in God to 40, to 50, to over half, and maybe even see the entire world change.”
“These games present a narrative of characters trusting God as they violently kill their enemies.”
Yet these games present a narrative of characters trusting God as they violently kill their enemies.
“Our land was overrun with Philistines threatening to enslave us all,” one video says. Again, when Christian nationalists who think immigrants are overrunning our nation and threatening to enslave us through the tax system are the ones promoting this, the game narrative takes on an authoritarian Christian meaning.
The games are based in the RhymVerse, which TruPlay describes as “a world where God is real and the Bible is true, but there is also real evil that must be overcome.” As is typical of Christian nationalists, reality is presented to kids as a fight.
“To face the various evils of Rhym, our heroes must use all their weapons, including their childlike faith, to win this fight,” the TruPlay website explains. “They fight to save their world from villains who would seek to rule over it.”
In their newest game, “King David’s Battles,” the David character yells, “God’s on my side! You’ll see!” Then the video adds, “Play through the levels of King David’s greatest moments.”
In case there is any ambiguity, David explains how his dad wanted him to bring food for the soldiers. Then David counters, “But I knew God had called me to something bigger. And I was looking for the chance to prove myself. Lord, I know you’re with me. Help me be like you.”
And what is this God like?
The games reveal a God who drowns all the families and animals on the entire planet except for Noah’s family and the animals in the ark. And it reveals a God who commanded genocide against Israel’s Canaanite neighbors.
“Attack!” one game says. “God, I don’t feel strong enough to fight these monsters,” pleads one of the characters.
Again, who are the monsters in the minds of those who are promoting these games? They are those who won’t submit to Christian nationalism and patriarchal gender roles.
So the David character ends up shooting rocks at animals and at people wearing turbans.
And as all this happens, one of the children in a promo video says, “I want to increase my skills and to learn more about God when I play it.”
Of course, the violence on these games is pretty tame. But it is a way for Christian nationalist patriarchs to get kids pretending to commit genocide against those who don’t submit to their God and learning about God in the killing. And it offers no helpful resources to process why such violence against one’s neighbors may have been written about in the Deutoronomistic history books of the Bible because TruPlay says their content is “based on the Holy Bible, which we hold as inspired, authoritative and inerrant.”
Undermining the core values of civility
Because conservative evangelicals believe justice happens through penal substitutionary atonement or through eternal conscious torment, their core values promote a theology of justice that is violence against human bodies.
So while these games may present themselves as safe alternatives to the games played by white kids who commit mass murder, they present a narrative of universal genocide pushed by people who point to the same Scripture passages the games are based on to promote Jericho marches and insurrections.
“Non-Christian fighting games are generally not encouraging the kids to fight their neighbors, while Christian fighting games are.”
Thus, the difference between non-Christian fighting games and Christian fighting games is that non-Christian fighting games are generally not encouraging the kids to fight their neighbors, while Christian fighting games are.
As Decamp argued from his research, the way to encourage kids to play video games without becoming violent is to foster “close positive relationships with their parents.” But the evangelical gospel completely undermines such relationships because it scares parents into thinking their God might burn their kid forever unless their kid submits.
No matter how much laughter may fill an evangelical home, the kids know in their bodies they never can fully love and trust God because God threatens them with violence, brings justice through violence and encourages them to fight their neighbors in political and patriarchal spiritual warfare.
Glorifying violence and dehumanizing our neighbors
As more and more mass shootings like Columbine assault our nation each year, Trump is correct in saying, “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society.”
But there is no greater glorification of violence than the evangelical worship culture of glorying in the violence of a global flood, Canaanite genocide, penal substitutionary atonement, eternal conscious torment and Christian nationalist politics. The Columbine shooters may have played Doom. But Doom has nothing on what evangelical kids think their God has in store for their enemies, and possibly for them.
McCarthy says, “The idea of these video games is to dehumanize individuals.”
But there is no greater dehumanization of individuals than the evangelical theology that requires every evangelical to exchange their humanity for ignorance or violent delights. And the entire idea of the TruPlay video games is to dehumanize those who don’t submit to this theology.
Newt Gingrich is correct in saying the core values of civility are being undermined by video games. But it’s not Hollywood and secular computerized games that are the primary perpetrators. It’s authoritarian Christians with their lack of self-awareness for how their sacralized Christian nationalist patriarchy is dehumanizing their neighbors.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.
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