'Of Games and God': A Review

My "Gift from Author" version
sitting on my counter the day
 it arrived in the mail!

Full disclosure: Kevin Schut, Ph.D is the author of ‘Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games’. He is the chair of the Department of Media and Communications at Trinity Western University in Langley, Canada. Before getting his Ph.D at the University of Iowa, he and his wife served as missionary teachers in Africa and Eastern Europe, where I met them. His AP Modern European History class is what taught me how to write (now you know who to blame!) Before publishing this book he asked me to read and give feedback, which I did gladly and, I'm sure, inadequately.

The plight of the nerd has improved considerably in the last few years. While it was previously frowned upon for an adult such as myself to openly display their love for Star Wars, this is no longer the case. Sci-fi has infiltrated mainstream culture to an incredible extent. Shows like ‘Chuck’ and ‘Big Bang Theory’, popular comic book movies like the ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’ or ‘The Avengers’, and the sleek, lens-flaring ‘Star Trek’ reboot have not only taken the taboo out of being a nerd, they’ve thrust nerds to the forefront. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would hear the term “adorkable” used, and I certainly never thought such a term would be used endearingly and as a compliment!

Real life nerds, in their native
habitat (Star Wars: In concert)

The real-life “Revenge of the Nerds” is going swimmingly, but it is still very much a work in progress. While sci-fi TV, movies, and literature have garnered respect, or at least acceptance, in the main stream, the realm of video games has lagged slightly behind. Despite generating revenue equal to or surpassing the music and movie industries, gamers have remained a niche sub-culture. Where sci-fi lovers and avid comic book readers have been allowed to start reading their books out in the open, we gamers are still relegated to our mother’s basements (Disclaimer: I do not, and have never lived with my parents since leaving for college: I live with one of my college roommate’s parents instead! But on the ground floor, mind you!).

The sub-species of Christian gamers have been scorned even more. Not only are we looked down upon by society as social outcasts for being gamers, but we very often have the judgment of our Christian brethren beating down on us as well. We’re not just anti-social, we are misallocating our skills as Christians by “wasting our time” playing “meaningless” games. While my gaming activities may not be sin (it depends on who you ask), they are often addressed by Christian leadership with the sort of tone that would usually be reserved for a disappointing relative. But are the identities of being a gamer and a Christian mutually exclusive? Do they really have to be at odds with one another?

‘Of Games and God’ is for any Christian gamer who has ever felt ashamed to admit their love of video games in front of other Christians. It is also for every Christian who has proclaimed gaming as a waste of time. At the same time, there is something in this book for the unabashed gamer who has never really taken the time to consider the pitfalls of the platform. The activities we allow to fill our time, as Christians, are something we are responsible for, and therefore they must be analyzed from time to time. But there is room in the Christian worldview for joy, for play, and for fun. To write off all games as a waste of time would be a missed opportunity for exploration, creativity, education, and, yes, even social interaction. To me the question isn’t so much  “Should Christians even play video games at all?”, but rather, “Can the Church afford to ignore and shun the segment of the world that does?”.

Look closely and you'll see
my name in the acknowledgments.
Probably as close as I'll ever
get to being published!

Schut does a brilliant job of explaining that games are really just another media platform. Just like radio, television, newspapers, the Internet, or even books (real books, not just comic books!), games are a form of media that provides both information and entertainment. They just happen to be newer and more varied than the other platforms I just mentioned (with the exception of the Internet). That newness, along with the extremely wide range of game types, often scares people. But like any form of media, they are not innately evil: neither are they innately good. While he will defend the merits of gaming, Schut doesn't naively ignore its faults. Most people fall into one of two camps: they immediately think no good can come of gaming, or they don’t care about the moral implications at all. Christian gamers, and Christians in general, have to think beyond that.

Throughout the course of 'Of Games and God' Schut makes references that will make long-time gamers giddy with joyful memories, but he also does an excellent job of explaining things to the uninitiated. This makes the topics at hand approachable for both sides. Refreshingly, Schut also doesn’t presume to have all the answers. What he does, chapter by chapter, is present a variety of topics that Christians and Christian gamers should think about. That isn’t to say he lacks any opinion whatsoever: he just chooses to expend his energy trying to facilitate proper evaluation and discussion of what games are, what they should be, and what we have to be careful about letting them become. 

Maybe you will consider it an added bonus that I can confirm that Schut himself is for real. He's an actual living, breathing adult video game player who also happens to be a thoughtful Christian: not just some stuffy academician trying to sell a book (that being said... buy his book!). Whether it's the explanations of "the magic circle", the exploration of the values of gaming community, or the analysis of the merits and perils of fantasy and escapism, 'Of Games and God' will challenge you to think about topics you never considered and reconsider topics you had previously dismissed. Like and good game, Schut motivates us readers with a challenge: the challenge is to consider new ideas and refine your preconceived notions about the values an pitfalls of video games. While there are no achievement points or trophies to be earned for completion, it is a challenge worth accepting. 

An intentionally overwrought homage to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series

The following spoiler-free piece on The Wheel of Time series is directed at fellow blogger Mac and any other potential reader who refused to begin the series until it had an end.

(Note: please refrain from any comments that might spoil any volume of the series for the uninitiated)

Unsuspecting provincial finds himself swept up by an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil, which (only very recently) now threatens his home and everyone he loves. And, oh by the way, the fate of the entire world may or may not rest on his shoulders.

So begins nearly every modern fantasy tale since Tolkien penned the prototypical (and still the greatest) model in the mid twentieth century. No author should be faulted for attempting to follow the path beaten by a master storyteller, and the Wheel of Time is no exception to this rule.

Some fantasy authors focus on grand plot and narrative, others on political machinations and war, many on character development, and still more on world building. Rarely can an author pull all these categories together, and even the master (Tolkien) needed multiple volumes of backstory and appendices to pull it off. Jordan was no exception in this regard. His story spanned continents, pitted kingdoms against each other, and drew the unsuspecting into the treacherous ‘Game of Houses.’ There are occasional ‘quests’ that stand alone, yet work toward the eventual climax of the series that span multiple books, for better or worse. This can be either rewarding or frustrating for the reader, and occasionally both at the same time. Yet, more than any other author, Jordan possessed a knack for writing those last hundred pages of a book so gripping that school, work, or any concern are easily forgotten in the furious sweeping of pages.

Writing characters (particularly women) was never Jordan’s strength. Indeed, the reader will lose track of the myriad minor and occasionally forgettable characters that cross paths with our main hero(es). For that matter, Jordan himself seemingly misplaced some of the major ones at certain points. But you never stopped caring for them or wanting, waiting desperately for the next volume to discover their fates. This stemmed from Jordan’s major triumph- the building of a compelling world that draws in the reader.

A world armed only with steel and scientific magic confronted a very real, physical threat to its survival. The characters live in and fight for (or against) the world, and we the readers love them for it. Jordan carefully portrayed these characters in this world, lovingly devoting pages to the material elements of their surroundings. A source of some criticism for the length of each book, this thick description rather contextualized the plot and characters in a way that gives them meaning to readers, and makes us care whether they live or die, and in what manner.

The Eye of the World, first volume of the series, was published in 1990, and Jordan issued a new installment every few years until the eleventh, his last solely authored volume, Knife of Dreams, in 2005. Jordan was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis in 2006, and after treatment died tragically in 2007. Recently established fantasy author Brandon Sanderson took up the gargantuan task of co-authoring and completing the final volume of the series, which was released in three installments under the subtitle, A Memory of Light (also the proper title of the last installment). Sanderson impressively gathered the far-flung and loose ends of Jordan’s epic tale and wove a convincing and dramatic pattern that leaves the reader satisfied but wanting more.

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.” (EotW, 1)

Jordan and Sanderson’s ending was not what I expected, and it came more than a decade after I expected it, but (in their words) “it was an ending,” (AMoL, 909), one that I endorse wholeheartedly.