|
|
|
Christus
Rex
Manhunt
Maurice Hagar
Pardon me for disturbing your leisurely read and for wasting space that might otherwise be devoted to more uplifting content. Personally, I’m outraged. By now some of you ought to be teachers and yet need to be instructed in the very basics of raising covenant children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. To my point: Do you know what video games your kids are playing? Learning recently that Christian high school kids are playing Manhunt necessitated phone calls to fathers but this tirade was precipitated by learning that even some Christian fifth-graders are playing Manhunt.
A review in USA Today (“'Manhunt' Redefines Game Violence” 01/27/04) calls Manhunt a “gruesome, disgusting and shocking, plus numbingly repetitive” game with a “snuff film theme.” In this first-person shooter, the player assumes the persona of serial killer Earl Cash who is the star of a series of snuff films. Driven by the whisperings of your “smarmy” director, you stroll through 20 levels of brutal death and mayhem. “Delivering the nastiest killings…is key.” You earn extra points if you can “lure your victims into shadows where they can't see you, then sneak up from behind for the kill” and “higher ratings are awarded depending on how much additional carnage you can add to the execution.” Weapons include such household items as plastic bags, glass shards, metal wire, sickles, chain saws, hammers, screwdrivers, and bricks. The game “quickly degenerates into a repetitious series of ghastly murders. And really, how many times do you want to see some guy's skull get smashed to a bloody pulp?”
To state the obvious, such violent video games are evil. A series of studies published in the Journal of Adolescence demonstrates that youth engaged in virtual violence are 10 times more likely to engage in the real thing, including drug-related and gang violence. Reuters reported recently on Swedish research showing a direct correlation between video game violence and adolescent aggression and crime. Child psychiatrist Frank Lindblad says kids who play violent video games “run a very high risk of criminal behavior. The border between the virtual reality and the real world becomes diffuse, and that is dangerous." Michael Rich, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, agrees: “Video-game players are rehearsing scripts of behavior that will possibly play themselves out in real life."
And there’s more. UPI Science News (“Brain Cells Victims of Video Violence” 12/02/02) states: “Hours of playing violent video games can affect the way the brain works on a cellular level, causing misfiring of signals between nerve cells or slowing brain activity.” Brain scanning reveals “less activity” in the frontal lobe “that controls emotions and impulses as well as attention span” and suggests video game violence desensitizes the brain so that a child “can no longer understand the real effect of violence," says Dr. Carol Rumach, professor of radiology and pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Not only are violent video games evil, they are downright dangerous.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no pacifist and righteous violence plays a necessary role in real life and potentially in simulations. But gratuitous violence has no place in the life of the godly. You know that, of course. But do you know what video games your kids are playing? And while I’m at it, do you know what they’re doing on the Internet, where 80% of adolescent boys are visiting pornography sites? If you don’t know, you’re not living up to your covenant obligations before God. If your eye offends you pluck it out. If your hand offends you cut if off. And if your computer or video game system offends you, cast it out. At the very least, be sure you’re using spy-ware (www.spectorsoft.com) to monitor everything because everything matters coram Deo, before the face of God. 
Volume One - Issue Two
Literature: Thoreau & the Dust of Death - Gregory Soderberg
Theology: Historic Creationism on Trial - Maurice Hagar
Aesthetics: Hours - Maurice Hagar
Culture: Manhunt - Maurice Hagar
Sodomy: Letter to an Editor - Marcus Rench
Skeletal Thoughts and Emaciated Musings - Gregory Soderberg
|
|
|
