Believers Battle with Satan, Virtually

Video game heroes have always had a variety of nemeses to battle, from Bowser to Nazis to alien invaders. Now, however, a far greater evil waits: Satan.

“Ominous Horizons,” a new Christian computer game that challenges players to recover Gutenberg’s stolen Bible from Satan so that “the Word of God will be made available to all.”

Video games are only the latest media form in which Christians are playing an increasingly vocal role. “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” released today (see B1), is an extended Christian allegory that is being specifically marketed to Christian audiences. Last year, “The Passion of the Christ” made $370 million domestically, mainly on the strength of its appeal to Christian audiences.

In the wake of these mega-successes, Christian audiences have attained a special new prominence in American mass media that they haven’t had before, and aren’t likely to recede into the background any time in the near future. The most surprising aspect of this push is in video games, a media particularly linked to unholy behavior.

THE GAMING PULPIT

“Ominous Horizons” is the newest title from N’Lightning Software Development Inc., a Christian company started in 1999.

The idea for N’Lightning came when Ralph D. Bagley, its President—a self-described “hardcore gamer since the days of ‘Pong’ and ‘Pac-Man’”—tired of playing games in which “Satan [was] the guy who rocked.”

“I prayed to God in the morning and played ‘Doom’ and ‘Quake’ in the evening,” Bagley, who is also a licensed minister, says. “It just didn’t feel right.”

Though Bagley initially had some difficulty attracting investors, he gained the necessary financial backing in 1999, following the tragedy at Columbine High School with its implied connection to violent video games.

Eighteen months later, the company released its first game, “Catechumen,” a first-person shooter set during Christianity’s early days in the historical Roman Empire. In it, players must “rescue [their] captured Christian brethren… [who] have been taken hostage by the evil Roman Empire, controlled by Satan himself.” Because the company seeks to provide an alternative to games that “portray violence to human beings or feature blood, guts and gore,” the warfare is purely spiritual—at least in name.

In both “Catechumen” and “Ominous Horizons,” which followed two years later, the bad guys are “Satan’s minions” and the player must “banish them back to their evil realm” using “spiritual weapons” such as the Sword of the Spirit and the Holy Crossbow (no mention was made of Monty Python’s infamous Holy Hand Grenade). In doing so, they show Satan that “nothing can overcome the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Other nominally spiritual elements are present. “The Shield of Faith increases your defense, the Gauntlets of Peace increase your firepower, and the Boots of Justice increase your speed and jumping ability,” states the advertising for “Ominous Horizons.”

When asked what, other than the terminology, makes these games Christian and not simply mitigated versions of violent first-person shooters, Bagley points out that they show how tough it was to be a Christian in the past and that, most importantly, “God is the victor.” In addition, players survive not on health, as in other games, but on faith. When in danger of being defeated, they simply need to find the Scriptures.

Bagley insists that his purpose in including this element was to expose people to the Word of God by showing them what he considers the “cool verses” of the Bible, in contrast to the “thou-shalt-nots” that he fears too many people associate with it.

Other than that, he merely wanted to produce a game that could be enjoyed by Christians and non-Christians alike. “I don’t believe in preachy games,” he said.

Why, then, make a company that markets itself and its games so explicitly as Christian?

“I felt that God had called me to do Biblically based games,” he said. “My pulpit is not at a church—it’s right here at this desk.”

LEISURE TIME

Bagley’s desk is not the only one that’s functioning as a pulpit. His games are only one part of a broader movement of Christians in the mass media. Popular series like “VeggieTales” and “Left Behind,” which present Christian messages for mass consumption are only growing in popularity.

N’Lightning’s sales have increased every year, and the company is now doing better than ever. Even Disney is hoping to cash in on the trend, marketing the “Narnia” movie directly to Christians.

They have hired Motive Marketing, the Christian firm that helped make “The Passion of the Christ” such a hit, to hold special screenings of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” at churches, according to businessweek.com. A ten-minute sneak preview of the film in Wheaton, Illinois “drew prolonged cheers and applause…from a specially invited crowd of ministers and church leaders,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

According to Professor Jason W. Stevens, who teaches English 197, “Religion and American Film,” Biblical themes have been present in the American cinema since the silent era. However, in the past, these movies either aimed for a broad audience or were “movies by the faithful made for the faithful” with a limited distribution. The phenomenon of explicit Christian media in mass culture and of marketing that specifically targets Christians is a new one.

“The churches have discovered that they’re in competition with leisure society,” Stevens says. “The [Christian] Church has decided that it’s going to make religion available as a commodity that people can consume at their leisure.”

Series like “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “VeggieTales” are also a part of a departure from past Christian media in another way. Instead of simply presenting a big-budget Christ story, they take an approach that Stevens described as “veiled” or “roundabout.”

“It’s an attempt to dress up the Christian message in forms that consumers are already familiar with,” he said. For examples, Stevens points to “VeggieTales,” children’s stories whose Biblical messages often aren’t apparent until the end, and the cinematic versions of the evangelical, apocalyptic “Left Behind” series, which often look “in some ways like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.”

This more indirect approach will soon be present in the Christian video game market as well. Rebel Planet Creations, formed in 2005, plans to release two fantasy role-playing games by the end of next year. Though the company markets itself explicitly as Christian and centers its games on themes like the problem of evil and the possibility of redemption, it avoids any overt mention of Christianity.

“Orion,” for example, is a pre-flood fantasy in which Adam feels the effects of the Fall and is eventually redeemed. Names like “Adam,” “Jesus,” and “God” will not, however, be used, according to an e-mail from Peter J. Churness, Rebel Planet’s Executive Producer. Another title, “Land of Lies,” concerns overcoming lies about God in order to move closer to Him. Set in a bright, vivid fantasy world, the game has a certain Narnian creativity to it.

A SPLIT SENSIBILITY

Simultaneous self-description as Christian media companies while minimizing the overt Christian content to appeal to the widest possible could lead these companies to contradiction. But it can lead to a greater audience.

Jonathan J. Loch ’07, a Lifegroup leader with Christian Impact, sees these games as a new way to present the Gospel and inspire interest in the Christian faith. He also recognizes the potentially self-limiting nature of this marketing. “Once you label something as Christian…it can turn a lot of people off,” he says.

The games are also a part of a broader trend within the Christian media of attempting to reach people through non-theological means. As Stevens points out, much of the draw to the “Left Behind” series comes from the anxiety of a family being divided.

“I think that you see a de-emphasis on the teaching of dogma and much more religion based on emotional appeal,” he said.

Indeed, Rebel Planet was started “because video games are arguably the greatest story-telling tool ever created–even more powerful than the cinema because in games you can actually become a character in the drama,” Churness writes in an e-mail.

It is a tool whose influence is becoming increasingly pronounced. Bagley sees the Christian gaming industry as a counterpoint to a stagnant video game industry that will take off in the next ten years.

“Though Christian blockbusters like ‘The Passion of the Christ’ [weren’t] what motivated us to do what we’re doing, [they have] perhaps validated our own observations that there is an untapped market out there of Christian consumers and non-Christian spiritually attuned persons,” Churness writes in an e-mail. This market is only growing and becoming more important.

“The public spirit in America has never been completely secular,” Stevens said. No longer, it seems, will its public culture be secular, either.