In Defence of Escapism

I'm writing this post in what is an attempt to offer a thoughtful response to the great deal of anti-video game rhetoric that has been floating around evangelicalism, especially neo-reformed circles.

First, I want to establish where they're coming from. The issue that many of these pastors, speakers, authors and bloggers bring up is not that video games contain some intrinsic evil or that they're turning children into mass-murderers - no, those are objections that stem mostly from the fundamentalist camp, and seem to have few champions outside of that. Rather, their criticism is that they have become a time-sink that threatens to paralyse a generation. Which generation is unclear - they seem to believe those primarily being undermined by video games are young men, despite the fact that the average gamer is somewhere in his/her early 30s and nearly half of them are female (http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame) (as an aside, here's a fun fact for you: there are slightly more gamers above the age of 50 than there are below the age of 18).

But the actual threat of the video-gaming epidemic is not what I'm writing about. I will concede that they are certainly sucking up an excessive amount of many people's time, young men included. I myself am no stranger to this: While I enjoy video games as a way to unwind, relax, and de-stress, I confess that I can take that too far. Heck, I remember when I was in my second year of college, studying for an exam one night, and my roommate handed me a copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon. All of a sudden it was three in the morning and I still hadn't done any studying - though I had built some pretty awesome theme parks, if I do say so myself. One even had an underground train people could take to avoid crowded areas. But I digress - the point of this is that I, too, have plunged hours into video games that I won't get back, hours that could have been spent on more productive things.

But like I said, this isn't what I'm talking about. Obviously with these criticisms came counter-arguments, people saying "Well, sure, we waste time on video games. How is that any worse than people from your generation (because it's always a generational criticism) who waste time doing other things? Our fathers who spend afternoons watching football or our mothers who spend hours a week curled up in bed with romance novels?" And of course, the answer was, "Well, uh, it's not." So now there's a bit of a crusade not only against video games, but against escapism in general - against doing things that take away time from your role as a man of God (because it is always men who bear the brunt of these attacks).

The truth is, though, is that this isn't anything new. It's been kicking around for a while. We've seen it in music, too. There are very few people today who would consider rock and roll to be the "Devil's Music" -:and even those who do usually do so rather quietly and aren't taken all that seriously - but this has been replaced with an entire new approach that argues much the same thing, but in a subtler way: "I don't think there's anything wrong with rock/[insert genre here] music, I just don't see why I'd listen to it when I could be listening to music that praises Jesus and builds up my relationship with Him" - as though music is only worship if its accompanied by some doggerel about how Jesus is your boyfriend! But that, too, is a topic for a different time.

What I'm getting at is this: There is a growing trend within evangelicalism (and again, perhaps within neo-reformed circles in particular) to dismiss anything that does not, as they put it, contribute directly to the Kingdom's cause. There's a couple of flaws in that line of thinking, which I'll explore in a bit, but first, let's look at the results. I realize this conclusion might offend some of you and anger others, but I think it is an observation that is accurate, and that observation is this: The evangelical church is a cultural wasteland. Perhaps this is a recent development, perhaps it has always been such - I would not venture to comment on that at this point in time. It's also a little unfair, since America itself has become a bit of a cultural wasteland in recent years, and its possible that the church's shortcomings in this area are simply reflective of the surrounding society. I don't think so, though - or at least, I don't think that's the whole story.

This is not, it is important to point out, an observation limited to those outside or on the fringe of evangelicalism, either. This is an issue that seems to me to be in constant discussion within the church. "We need to bring excellence to the arts!" is a common rallying cry in music and art ministries across the continent. There seems to be this understanding that we as Christians need to be producing higher quality art. Here's a question: What comes to mind when you think of Christian art? We're not exactly known for our creative output; our music is often derided as being generic and simplistic, our attempts at film are generally discarded as being cheesy and having low production values, and our recent literature is criticized for lacking substance or subtlety (I'm not even going to mention Christian video games). These criticisms do not apply across the board, and there are certainly plenty of exceptions in all three categories. Moreover, many of those criticisms can also be applied to their secular counterparts (anyone who's listened to the Top 40 or flipped through the New York Times bestselling list recently will know that humans don't need the church's help to create bad art). But the point is that even by the people creating Christian art, there's a sense that things could be better. "After all," they say, "We've got the greatest inspiration, don't we? Our art is fueled by the love and grace of an omnipotent God, who created the very concept of beauty. Why, then, aren't we creating the best art?" Why indeed.

I have narrowed down the possible explanations to one culprit, and that is this: In the church, art is seen as a tool. This is where things get tied back together with the whole "Everything must advance the Gospel!" attitude that I mentioned up above somewhere. See, the issue is that because the Gospel (the Gospel being understood here to be the message that Jesus died on the cross for your sins - I am familiar with the arguments of N.T. Wright and others that this is a very incomplete understanding, and what's more I rather agree with him, but this is the definition, I think, that would be most prominent in evangelicalism) is the centre of Christianity, there is therefore seen to be a need for all Christian art to point to the Gospel. If there isn't some sort of prominent indication of salvation through Christ in the art (or of God's glory, if you're a new Calvinist), then it is a waste of time and is not worthy of support. In other words, many Christians refuse to accept art unless it preaches at them. After all, we are here to share the Good News, are we not? And isn't anything that doesn't do that mere distraction, not worthy of our time?

I'm not so sure. First, this image of life paints a picture of the Kingdom of God being little more than a dull, dreary sweat-shop, where men and women with neither names nor faces toil endlessly to make certain  that enough Gospel messages are rolling off the assembly line to be delivered to everyone. It's a bleak portrait that prizes utilitarianism and functionalism ahead of everything else. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for that mentality. There is a need to share the Gospel, don't get me wrong. But I think this negates an important part of who we are as human beings: We are tainted, even corrupted by sin, yes. This is evidenced every day in a million different evils we commit. But, underneath it all, we bear God's likeness. Even in the midst of the darkness that writhes inside us, we carry the spark of the divine. We are, at our core, in His image - and, like Him, we are creators.

Of course, humans can't truly create. As I said in my last blog post about jazz, our creation is more synthesis - we take ideas that we have already encountered, and fuse them together into something new. But the point is that this act is not merely distraction, but that there is within the work of art a celebration of who we are - an affirmation of our status as the creation of God. Surely not all of art is a positive creation, and there is some of it that is detestable by the standards of anyone and more that is so to the average believer. Yet it remains that much of it is not. In other words, what I am arguing is that art is either creation itself or the enjoyment of another's creation, and as a result it is the revelling in this divine spark within us. Art for art's sake is not an empty proposition, but is actually an expression of our status as children of God.

"This is all well and good," some of you might be saying, "but even if it were true, how useful is any of this if the Gospel isn't a part of it?" I might reverse the question and ask: How powerful is the Gospel if this divine spark is never witnessed? Of the many songs being mass-produced to share the Gospel, of the cookie-cutter paintings of Jesus (with long hair, white skin, and a gentle expression, of course) being handed out at conferences like mints, how many of them instil within the partaker a sense of the divine, of transcendence, of there being in creation something more than mere man?

Let me put it all in a nutshell: The fundamental flaw of Christian art isn't that the artists themselves are unskilled, because while many of them certainly are, there are also a number who are quite capable. The problem is that it's seen primarily as a marketing tool, Advertisement for Jesus, and therefore seems cheap and superficial. I would instead suggest that artists ought to create whatever they feel compelled to create, to fashion whatever their muses dictate. After all, if Christianity is true, then all beauty ultimately points to God, and if it is not, then creating art that promotes the Gospel is a waste of time anyway. This, however, is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that we, as a church, must seek to encourage art, even if it doesn't have obvious allusions to the Gospel, even if it doesn't preach what we want it to preach - even if, heaven forbid, it's made by non-believers.

So let's tie this all back up to the opening paragraphs. What we as a church need to begin doing, I think, is accepting and appreciating beauty that doesn't immediately denote the Gospel. I know there was some criticism when the game Skyrim came out: "They're spending time in awe of a virtual world" people complained, "instead of being outside in awe of God's creation!" But is not this imaginary world every bit as miraculous as the natural one? Not as beautiful, certainly, nor as large or deep or full or fulfilling. But it is a celebration of the divine spark and a testimony to our role, however much some of us may have forgotten it, as the bearers of God's image.

In closing, escapism in general and video games in particular do pose a very real threat - one can become easily addicted to them, and become so deeply embroiled in them that commitments and relationships suffer. But, should these impulses be mastered, escapism also provides the opportunity for enrichment, for development, and for sheer revelling in the incredible breadths of the imagination and this God-given spark - and to provide perspective, thinking how much this pales in comparison to God's own creative ability.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and remember that beauty is every bit as much a part of the Kingdom of Heaven as truth