Following older discussions about the differences between the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings book series, as well as a lot of the inevitable flak pertaining to the Left Behind RTS game, I ask you:
Can Religion be a part of Games, Comics, and Movies?
I’ve seen this discussion from a lot of different perspectives throughout life, so I will lay out some of the basics. There are many, many different religions in our world and they have differing beliefs; some of us are very religious, some avoid religion at all costs, and almost everyone is extremely confused all of the time about it. This stems from the root (hah, get it? Stems – Root) of religious belief in that no one knows anything about it for certain, we call this faith. Some people call it stupidity.
The reason this question is relevant is because almost everyone is afraid of a pushy religion. Throughout history a lot of bad things have come from a religion being forceful, and this has caused everyone to be understandably hesitant towards anything bearing the mark of religion. These reactions have caused many religious people to become very defensive, even to the point of posting on people’s blogs in defense of their exploitative pajamas. This has developed as a begrudging tension between religion and popular culture.
Whenever a character is ‘resurrected’ in a movie and spreads his arm to his sides, people get uneasy and wonder if they’re being subliminally and sinisterly converted to Christianity. Comic book characters, especially in the big two, less then rarely make reference to their religions or to any religion at all. For the most part any videogame or boardgame that has religious content is a campy church product that is so inundated with the mythos it is painful for anyone to even think about. So far this discussion has remained centered around Christian beliefs, but it really applies to any religion. Would a videogame based around a Jewish character ever gain an extremely wide audience? Games like Prey, which feature strong Native American characters, are looked at for their gameplay features and the religious beliefs in them are passed off as stereotypical. Yet Asian themed games are rich with the mythology and religious connotations and people eat them up. Do games like Jade Empire sell as well in Japan as they do in America? Are they making games over in China about adventuring cowboys leveling up and fighting bushes set ablaze by god?
A brilliantly good example of these ideas is the first Matrix movie, which followed a blatantly Christian storyline but incorporated equal elements of Buddhism and many other religions. A poor example of this can be seen in Spiderman 2, where the symbolism of a martyr is crammed down your throat until webbing comes out your ass (maybe it was released opposite the Passion of the Christ and they needed more of the niche viewers). It is clear that most ideas can be enriched by incorporating religious themes which resonate with all of humanity, but are people too afraid of religion to accept a good product based around religion. Should religious ideas be removed entirely from these forms of media, or does it simply have to be done tastefully and with enough tact to let people know they can still think for themselves?
For some of us, religious imagery is no different than mythological imagery. As long as it’s all done in a fantastical sense (and more importantly done well) I don’t have a problem with it. Things like “Left Behind” though are, like you say, obviously using media as a way of making a point in the real world that I disagree with, so I avoid those and dislike them. Something like Neon Genesis, however, makes great use of religious icons and concepts in order to tell a story, and I’m all about that.
There was one time I was in an online Star Trek game (yes, it doesn’t get any nerdier than that) and we decided to introduce a plot that was based on an episode that basically said old aliens seeded the galaxy, creating most lifeforms in the galaxy. (Hunt for the DNA Code or something was the ep title.) Another GM refused to go along with the plot, simply because it was “against Christianity.” Since when did it matter that the imaginary world of Star Trek didn’t fit into Christianity?
Oh, and here’s a page listing the religions of various comic book characters:
http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html
And here’s an important image of Christianity in D&D:
http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?affid=-1&productID=283
Oh thank god I can know things like the fact that Orgazmo is a latter-day saint. Thanks for the good links! Also for reminding me that I completely left out Evangelion, even though it was fresh in my mind.
I also left out Hellboy as a great integration of Catholic beliefs with the Cthulhu Mythos. Simply fantastic, and very popular too!
When my master screenplay Jesus Goes To Hell comes out things will be different. Imagine Vin Diesel or THE ROCK as Jesus, and Tom Sizemore (if he cleans himself up) or Steve Gutenburg (THe Goot is more versatile than he gets credit for) as John the Baptist as Jesus and John the Baptist spend those days between Jesus’ crucifixition/death in hell freeing the righteous pagans! ROCK BOTTOM on LUCIER!
P.S. Jesus really did free the righteous pagans according to the Bible, after all those born before Christ had no means of salvation. John the Baptist, a righteous pagan, would be the obvoius choice for the buddy of Jesus considering their history!
I’m tired of seeing Christianity in books, movies and games. It’s just been done over, and over, and over again.
I don’t mind seeing other religions sometimes.
That’s just the sort of opinion that this question is addressing: why do people get tired of the Christianity that is in books, movies, and games? Personally I don’t think it’s been done over and over again in games, as far as I know it’s barely been done at all.
What books and movies have caused you to become so tired of it?
I’m not tired of good stories being told with Christian mythology, but bad ones are far more common, hence a general burnout
I get tired of it because Christianity is everywhere. I get tired of books where the main character, every few moments, thanks God or talks about going to heaven or sinning, etc. Or when I get into a book just to find that it’s the same old story where the main character is supposed to be Jesus. (I didn’t find out that Narnia was supposed to be one of those, Aslan as Jesus, until much later, but that’s an example).
I can’t really name specific books, but it happens in a lot.
It could also be because I’m an atheist and notice these things more, where you are (possibly?) Christian and don’t notice it so much.
I think the Main Event pretty much hit the idea exactly, that it’s okay for there to be a lot of stories around Christian mythology, but that there are a lot of them which are done badly or without much tact.
Let’s not confuse the words ‘notice’ and ‘dislike’. No matter my religion, I notice when something has religious undertones or influences, what we’re talking about is disliking the use of religion in this kind of media. What I consider the “general populace” seems to be very averse to the use of any kind of religious imagery.
Left Behind RTS Game?! Sounds like a great idea. Especially if you want to offend people.
Seriously though, I don’t have a problem with religion in any medium. Even if its done badly, I usually don’t mind.
As for Christianity being everywhere, I would agree with Bartoneus in that I don’t think Christianity has been overdone in games. I mean, boardgames are basically non-religious because its difficult to make a religious boardgame. Video games certainly could be more religious, but I think the fact that a significant portion of the video game market is non-Christian (i.e. Japan, and to a lesser extent Korea) probably leads to the reality that there are fewer Christian themed video games than there otherwise could be.
Movies and books, on the other hand, are a different matter. Let’s face it. We live in a Christian country. Additionally, most of the movies we see and books we read are written by Americans, for (mainly) Americans (especially movies). Since most Americans are Christian, it makes sense that the majority of movies and books are written to appeal to Christians. Now that doesn’t mean it has to have Christian themes in it; rather, it means that it is more likely to have Christian themes in it as oppossed to themes from some other religion. Well, that’s my theory anyway.
There are lots of religious boardgames (of varying degrees of quality.)
I am not making any of these up:
Settlers of Canaan (Settlers of Catan but biblical)
Ark of the Covenant (Carcassonne without France)
Christian Fluxx
Jewish Fluxx
And of course, Redemption, the CCG about preventing other people from saving souls. Oh and saving souls. These people had a booth at the most recent Origins even!
Long link ahoy for all of the games marked religious on Boardgamegeek:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/search.php3?title=&designerid=&designername=&publisherid=&publishername=&yearmin=&yearmax=&ratingmin=&ratingmax=&numratings=30&weightmin=&weightmax=&numweightratings=&searchuser=&minplayers=&maxplayers=&playingtime=&categoryids%5B%5D=115&B1=Submit
I forgot about Redemption. Good call!