I had the opportunity to watch my nephews and niece this weekend, and while I was watching one of my nephews kill 80 people (he told me so) I had a few thoughts. First thought, is why am I letting my 10 year old nephew play Call of Duty? Second thought is, how bad is this for a developing mind to be role playing murder? Third thought, is why are young boys so drawn to violence? I am tempted to talk about how role-playing murder is probably bad for any age (including my young 39 year old self), but I'm going to dwell on my third thought for a minute.
Why are young kids, and even not-so-young kids drawn to violence? Browse through the video game section at Target you will notice that probably 8 out of 10 video games involve killing people. Just about 10 out of 10 games involve adventure of some sort. Take a look at movies and books that are geared toward men and you'll notice the same themes - violence and adventure.
I contend that boys (and men) are drawn to violence and adventure, because we are created for violence and adventure. But not the kind that involves sitting on a couch killing 80 people.
I'm reading a book called "The Book of Missionary Heroes" which is what I believe is the kind of violence and adventure that we have been created for. This book is full of stories of brave men traveling thousands of miles by land and sea to share how God, through the life of Jesus, has taught us how to have life. These stories tell how brave men and women risked their life, and sometimes sacrificed their life for others. They were tortured, starved and imprisoned and saw their companions die tragic deaths. These brave men and women went into hostile lands of cannibals to share that the power to lay down your life for others is greater than having controlling power over another man.
When you are willing to risk your life for something, you are tapping into the God-life of Jesus. Art always reflects the artist, and our lives are the reflection of our Creator when we live self-sacrificially.
Living self-sacrificially will always entail adventure -- not always traveling thousands of miles across land and sea -- but it will involve putting our own self-interests in the hands of others at time. But what about violence? Jesus was never violent -- so should we ever be violent? Why are we drawn to violence?
I contend that we're drawn to violence because we're drawn to adventure, and oftentimes adventure will involve violence as a result of struggle. But if we follow the life of Jesus and the command of Jesus to "turn the other cheek" we have to accept that violence to others as a means to protect your own self interest is always wrong.
Like all sinful desires, violence is just a warping of something that is meant for good. Violence is a byproduct of the God-given emotion of anger. There are healthy reasons for anger -- we should be angry at injustice -- but there are unhealthy reasons for anger -- when we have to share our candy with someone else.
So what do we do with our Call of Duty-loving boys? The same thing we need to do with our girls. The prescription for our violence-prone boys (and men) is the same prescription for our prince-seeking-prone girls (and women). Invite them to live a better story. We Americans are in a spectator-obsessed culture. We like to "watch the game" (or role-play it with video games) instead of living it. We live vicariously through movie stars, athletes,video game characters, or anyone else living a more interesting life than us. And, we create heroes of ourselves by putting together nice Facebook profiles or Instagram selfies.
Instead of watching or making stories we need to LIVE stories of adventure -- and this is how we risk our lives for others and truly live.
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