T. A. McMahon & Carl Kerby, Jr. (Part 2)

Program Description: Tom welcomes back his guest, Carl Kerby, Jr., of Apolomedia Ministry as they continue their fascinating look at video games, discussing both the dangers in even some that sound innocent and the benefits of using the games to develop godly thinking and discernment.

Transcript:

Gary: Welcome to Search the Scriptures 24/7, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring T.A. McMahon.  I’m Gary Carmichael. Thanks for tuning in. In today’s program, Tom continues his conversation with Carl Kerby Jr., head of the ministry Apolomedia. Now, along with his guest, here’s TBC executive director Tom McMahon.

Tom: Thanks, Gary. My guest—second week with Carl Kerby, Jr. Carl’s expertise, really—and I’m telling you, it is expertise—has to do with video games, and he’s the co-author of a book titled It’s Not Just a Game: How Parents and Gamers Can Apply God’s Word to Video Games. It’s by Carl Kerby, and with Drew Thorwall. And he also has a DVD: Game Over: It’s Not Just a Game, which I’ve been through both of these, and, folks, I can’t recommend them highly enough, especially [to] those with children who are playing video games, those who are grandparents, and they want to have some input in the lives of their children and grandchildren. I think this is an absolute necessity.

As we talked about last week in terms of the entertainment media—movies, television, video games—these have a tremendous amount of influence on our young people, and they can be addressed, and they can be addressed in an excellent way. People can be edified and informed as to what the issues are, what the problems are, especially if this whole territory is foreign to us.

Now, Carl, we mentioned last week about a number of video games. We went through the rating system, which is similar to the movies, but that doesn’t always tell the tale, as you mentioned last week. It doesn’t talk about the spiritual side. They don’t get rated for their lies about the Bible or for advancing their own theology and so on, which can be a problem, and is a problem.

Now, one of the things I want to start off with is video games—you talk about them before 1995, the early video games, and in that, I want you to bring in how things have changed, but also in some ways how video games have been Christianized, or how they’ve been anti-Christianized. So let’s go with that.
Carl: What we do in our book is we go through the history of video games and when things changed. You see a lot of people and parents who think about video games—what do they think of? They might think of Pacman, Donkey Kong, Mario, and were there any deep stories and spiritual messages in those games? I mean you might be able to make an argument a little, but no, not really. And a lot of people don’t realize it was because of—back before 1995, it was the job of the publishers, the people making the video games, to decide how games were rated, you know, and that’s actually kind of going on today, as well. The ESRB, which is a video game rating guide, does not apply to apps on your phone. The publishers actually determine the ratings with a lot of the apps in release, so that’s just a side note: if you’re downloading apps to your phone, even if it says it’s friendly for everyone, it does not mean it is.

But anyways, before 1995, it was up to the publishers to decide what was allowed in games. Well, Nintendo said, “We don’t want people to think that the Japanese are bad,” because before that, Atari had a big video game crash and had gone out of business, so Nintendo was treading very lightly to the American audience. So they said, “No spiritual video games allowed in America.” So actually, if you look at the Japanese versions of a lot of games, you find a lot more spiritual messages, believe it or not, but not in an American audience. After 1995, a game called Mortal Kombat came out, and that game got all over the news because of its realistic depiction of violence. The graphics were starting to get to the point where things looked real and not just pixelated dots on the screen. So the government stepped up and said, “Video game companies, you better clean up your act or else we will shut you down.” What ended up happening was ESRB, the ratings guide system, was started, and that’s when Nintendo stepped back and said, “Okay, America, it’s your responsibility now.” They backed out, and then a swarm of very spiritual and anti-Christian video games started coming to an American audience.

Tom: Right, because the blame now wasn’t on Japan, the blame was right here, if this is what was going to be allowed.

Carl: Exactly.

Tom: Stunning. Now, in terms of early on, were there video games that sort of would be friendly to Christianity?

Carl: You know, when things did slip through the cracks—and you saw it a couple times—yeah. Now, there are some games that were released to America, believe it or not, that we don’t even talk about in our book that would be pretty surprising, like a game with tarot cards released for the Nintendo, and Nintendo let something slip by. But most times when you saw Christianity in old games, they were depicted at least as the good guys. Legend of Zelda was a game where, actually, if you look at the original Nintendo game, he had a cross on his shield, and he was fighting Ganondorf, whom they called the “prince of darkness,” and a lot of people say, “Well, he was the first Christian video game hero.” But now, if you look at Zelda and the way things have changed over time, they’ve built their own religion out of the Trinity, which used to be…the tri-force used to be a picture of the Trinity, [but] has now become its own religion with goddesses who formed the earth in their own version of the creation story, which is much different than the Bible.

Tom: Mm-hmm. And some of the—considering your book, you talk about a video [game] called the Binding of Isaac, which is a distortion, right, of the idea of Isaac of the Old Testament?

Carl: Yeah, I talked about (last week) when I started doing research for these games, I had the wrong motivation. I was looking for a reason to play the games, and the Lord convicted me and said, “You know what, who are you going to give your time to, Me or the world?” And so I stopped playing a lot of games, but the way I was able to finish my book seven years later was from other people sending me links; so they’d send me Youtube videos of different games and say, “You should check this game out. It just came out.” Well, my friend sent me a clip of the Binding of Isaac, and it showed the first 10 minutes of the game, and they lay out the whole storyline for you. You play a little boy named Isaac, and your crazy Christian mother in the game is trying to kill you because she heard a message from God, and so the whole game you’re trying to run away from your mother—who has a kitchen knife—who’s trying to kill you. It’s just a sad, depressing depiction of Christians, and people ask me a lot, “Well, are video games targeting Christians intentionally or not?” Well, in some cases like this, I’m going to say, “Yes, they are.” The maker of the game even said that he was using his past experiences in life and wanted to make the game as a release to how he was feeling.

And so I told you last week, I don’t like telling people what to play, what not to play. I’m always going to challenge people to get into God’s Word; but the Bible is clear we have to be careful. Psalm:101:3I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
See All... says, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside.” And this game promotes itself as “110 percent evil.” That was their advertising campaign. So we cannot promote evil. There are better options out there of games that we can be playing if we’re going to play the games. But this game—I’ve seen Christian blogs hailing it as a Christian game because it’s loosely based off of Abraham, and it had over a million downloads. We have to be careful not to promote these games which are not promoting a biblical message but a distorted, evil…

Tom: You know, another distortion—perversion—with regard to Christians would be the Call of Juarez, which I remember your dad saying, “Hey, he just thought it was a good old Western!” Tell us about that one.

Carl: You know, I got to the point when I was doing the research that I was kind of getting sick of playing the games, so I wanted to find a good cowboy video game, an old Western, unlike the games that I was playing. But even there, I made a horrible mistake. And so I think this goes back to the point even if the game looks friendly—I mean, I know there’s a game called the Bible Game for the Playstation 2, and that game has some distorted truth about Christianity that you have to be careful on. Madden Football has lyrics in the songs that are blasting Christians. It’s everywhere, so I’m not—we can run and hide from the world, or we can teach our children to critically think and be prepared and walk away, and that’s what I had to do with the Call of Juarez. In this game, you play a pastor who in the very first scene of the game is preaching behind a pulpit. You pick up two weapons in the game: the first weapon is a Bible, the second weapon is a gun. So your character has these two weapons, and you’re just confused. They don’t really tell you what to do with them. So you press one trigger; what happens? Your character starts reading the Bible in the game. Now I’m confused; I have no idea what’s going on. What happens when you hit that button? Well, the bad guys who are shooting at you, they put their guns down. They start listening to the character preach. They start feeling remorse for their actions. Now what do the game developers want you to do? They want you to press another trigger and shoot an unarmed man. I mean, what is—how is that portraying Christians? A pastor? The Word of God is a weapon to unarm people, make them so you can shoot an unarmed man! It’s some scary stuff out there, and I want my son to love the Word of God.

Tom: Mm-hmm. You know, there’s another aspect to this that as I was reading your book and looking at your video, as I mentioned with my background in movies and film, I’m thinking about acting. Acting is—it’s a roleplaying kind of device, but you can’t divorce yourself from who you are and say, “Oh, well, that wasn’t me, it was just the character that I was playing.” Do you see a correlation there to somebody who is now working their way through having to make decisions—whether it be shooting this person or so on—I mean, before it was like, as you mentioned, whether it be Super Mario or whatever, you’re dealing with pixels, basically. But these—this is a whole different kind of ballpark. Do you see the roleplaying as being a part of the problem?

Carl: People like to ask me all the time, “What kinds of games do you play then, Carl? What kinds of games are okay?” And I have different guidelines; I do look at the sex, language, violence, and messages, but the number one thing I actually look at when I want to play a video game is this: in the game, am I encouraged to do the right thing? Am I encouraged to be the hero of the game? You see, video games are kind of an escape, and I always wonder if I was facing this situation in real life where I had to act and be the hero, would I step up, or would I shy away from it? And the video games I kind of see as a test to see would I make the right actions. And so that’s my number one guideline is are you encouraged to be the hero, and encouraged to do the right thing? And I think there is a lot to the roleplaying, because now, games—the way they’ve changed over the years—they promote you to do evil and the wrong thing.

Tom: Yeah.

Carl: You look at Grand Theft Auto: who do you play in that game? A criminal making drug deals, picking up prostitutes, and the worse things you can do, the more points you score. And so the whole point of the game is to be evil and be bad, and you see game after game after game…and a lot of the top-selling games, that is a key message of them, and quite honestly, as a gamer and as a Christian, I don’t see how you can find pleasure in that. I don’t see it. Someone else may be able to try to explain it to me, but I don’t see the pleasure.

Tom: But there is pleasure; it’s called pleasure in sin for a season. You see, anything—whether you’re roleplaying or whatever it might do—if you’re doing something that’s contrary to the Word of God, in your mind…Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 that even looking on a woman with lust – if you have lust in your heart - that’s sin. So that’s one aspect of this that’s really a problem.

But Carl, now wait a minute, come on, it’s just a game, right? [laughs]

Carl: You know, it’s not just a game.

Tom: I know, I just—and of course, where I was laying it out that way, you hear that all the time, right?

Carl: Oh, everywhere I go. I went to a church once, and I asked, “Who in here lets your young children,” and I’m at a conservative Christian church with parents with young children around eight years old—so I say, “How many let your young children watch rated R movies? Raise your hand!” I didn’t get a single hand that went up. I said, “You know what? I wouldn’t, either. Well, let me ask you this: how many let your children play Assassin’s Creed, Halo, Call of Duty?” And I named some of the top-selling games that are out there right now. About 75 percent of the hands in the room went up. And, you see, the thing I don’t get is those are rated R video games! We talked about the ESRB—those are M-rated games. And so the same level—sex, language, violence—are in those games like there would be in the movie, and in a lot of ways, they’re worse, because instead of watching a movie for an hour and a half, you’re playing 80, 100, 100 plus hours in a single game; and you’re not just watching the character on the screen like in a movie, you’re controlling them, and a lot of times naming the character after yourself. So if anything, we have to be more cautious with video games than the other mediums that are out there.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Now, this is, to me, as—and again, I’m just going on by what I’ve read that you’ve written and discussions I’ve had with you and so on—but I would guess that this video game called Minecraft is not only one of the most popular games being played by young people, but by Christians in particular. So tell us—you know, I started off by saying seduction. People tell me, “Oh, yeah, well, I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s just a building game. It’s just like an artist’s canvas, and so on. I don’t see what your problem is with it.” Tell us about that, Carl.

Carl: Yeah, you know what, I’m going to start off with the positives: there’s a lot of appeal to the game. The way, you know…I describe it as a digital canvas, and somebody can take that canvas and draw a beautiful painting in real life that glorifies God; but another person can take that canvas and do something really bad with it. And so that’s the way I describe the game: it’s kind of a digital canvas where you can make pieces of art and use it in different ways, but number one warning I’m going to give to parents out there that are letting their children play it, you’re playing with a lot of people online, and you have no control over what they’re going to do with that canvas. And I’ve seen some really truly evil stuff out there in the digital world with Minecraft that you just—you don’t want your children seeing. Now, I’ve seen some people actually present the gospel message using Minecraft to do some neat things, as well. But here’s the thing: even in a game that I can see the pros in it and the positives, they still sneak stuff in, and the developers did that with this game, as well. You can actually visit a place in the game that looks just like hell. And then also, at the end of the game, they sneak in just eight minutes of deep New Age teachings in it. I mean, let me read you a couple of the quotes from there.

The end of the game says this: “And the universe said ‘I love you.’ And the universe said, ‘You have played the game well.’ And the universe said, ‘The light you seek is within you.’ And the universe said, ‘You are not alone.’ And the universe said, ‘I love you because you are love.’” So a lot of Christians, you know, will try to look at it and say, “You know what, it’s a Christian video game! The universe represents God, right?” No, that’s not the category I would put it in, because you know how they finish the game?

They say, “Then the game was over, and the player woke up from the dream, and the player began a new dream, and the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love. You are the player. Wake up.” And so the whole point of this game is saying, like, “Look, you are god.” I just fear that a lot of parents have no idea that message is in the game, so what do you do in this situation? I think first of all, the most important thing you do—I’m not telling you to throw the game away or do that—I’m saying the number one reaction we should have when we hear about these messages is get into the Word of God with our children and make sure we are the teachers, because the world’s teaching a whole different message.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Carl, just to underscore that, first of all, the lie from the beginning, it starts with Lucifer in heaven: “I will be as the Most High. I will be God,” basically. And then he brings that lie to in Genesis:3:1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
See All...: “Yea, hath God said?” Genesis:3:1-2 [1] Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? [2] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
See All..., and then he offers godhood to Eve; there’s the lie. And we see later the Antichrist will set himself up as God to be worshipped as God.

Now, this is from a biblical perspective: in Hinduism, in Eastern mysticism, this is called the perennial wisdom; the whole idea is that we are God, that God is in everything. It’s pantheism; it’s panentheism and so on. So what I would say to people who are enthusiastic about this—yeah, there might be a canvas, it might be a device, but the bottom line—the punch line is this is to draw you into a worldview that’s antithetical to the Bible. It’s antichrist from the get-go. So when you’re making your decision…and, Carl, as you said, we just present the information. Everybody is accountable to God for every thought, word, and deed. We can’t get into everybody’s head; we can’t get into everybody’s heart, but we can present what—as you’re doing Carl—you’re informing them as to what is in the video, and they have to make the decision, because they’re held accountable before the Lord for what they do. So, you know, I’d like to say, “Well, yeah, why don’t you get rid of Minecraft,” or whatever you do, however you deal with it, the problem is solved. No. It comes back to what you talk about last week, it comes back to critical thinking. It comes back to being a Berean. It comes back to knowing the Word of God and being able to pick and choose and decide what glorifies God and what doesn’t, and I think all of us—I know myself, I could do some housecleaning with that, which I’m trying to do, you know: being in the Word of God every day, and trying to please Him in all these things. It’s a problem.

So, look, a video game is just a potential problem for young people at home, right? I’m saying that sort of tongue in cheek, because I’ve been at churches—in one church I was in, the video game section was larger than most arcades that I’ve seen. This was a huge church. So it isn’t just a matter for folks at home—that’s where the first responsibility is—but for churches themselves; they’re just…you know, youth pastors, they’ve got one of the toughest callings, I believe, around, because of how they have to deal with young people, but they’ve—many have been given over to entertainment, and that’s a huge problem. Do you see it that way?

Carl: Oh, I agree 100 percent. As a youth minister myself at Crittenden Baptist Church, I face that every day. And I’ve used my video games to glorify God. I actually brought some video games in and they brought a canned food item, we donated them, and they got to play some of the games for a little bit; and then at the end, I presented the gospel message. I’ve seen the church use video games and set up a video game room, and this church I went to was very conservative, very conservative music, and they were a Bible-teaching church, but they had this video game room, and so I went to the pastor, and I said, “You know, pastor, I know a lot about video games, and there’s some scary stuff out there. How do you get away with this? How do you do this and glorify God with it?”

And the pastor gave me one of the best answers that I’ve seen on using video games in ministry and in your house at home: he said, “Carl, I have designated a team of 12, and we have looked at every single game we allow in that library. No one can bring an outside game in. And we have someone designated to look at what’s in that game from beginning to end, and if it passes, then we allow our children to play it, because we know what’s in there and what the messages are.” And so that takes a lot of homework. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of parents don’t want to deal with it. It’s just another piece of homework that they have to do to go do research and study and find out what’s in these games. I get emails all the time from parents asking me about games, because they don’t know where to start. But we have to do it. We can’t ignore this segment of the culture anymore. This gaming culture has messages that are being taught, and we have to get involved as families and as parents especially.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Carl, as I mentioned last week, I want to underscore it this week: I’m excited about your book that you co-authored with Drew Thorwall, and the title again: It’s Not Just a Game: How Parents and Gamers Can Apply God’s Word to Video Games. And the DVD—you’ve got to see this DVD. A little side note here: Carl, your dad, only a little taller and a little less weight, but I can see—Oh! Plus Masami your mom, I can see Masami there, as well. So I’m excited for you, and I’m excited about what you’re doing.

Again, the DVD is Game Over: It’s Not Just a Game. We’re going to be offering it here at The Berean Call, and Gary will tell you later how you can order the book.

So, Carl, what’s next on your agenda regarding your addressing this very serious topic of video games?

Carl: Is it strange I may have started a ministry, because this is a passion of mine, but I have nothing planned at the moment? God has been opening doors daily for me. We don’t advertise that we go out and speak anywhere on radio or in churches, but the doors just keep opening up, and even though I have my church I need to focus on, and I have my “tent-making job” to support my family, but this is a much-needed message, and so I don’t have any plans, but I know God has huge plans for us, and I’m just waiting to see where He leads us.

Tom: Well, you know, that’s not a bad place to be in. You know, you have let the Lord orchestrate, and that’s the best way. You know, somebody said that…a bumper sticker, “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats,” okay? So that’s what we want. We want God to orchestrate. But nevertheless, from The Berean Call’s standpoint, this is such a needed message that not only do we cover you in prayer, but where we can promote what you’re doing, because of how important it is, we’re going to do everything we can.

Carl, do you have anything in mind with regard to Minecraft? Because, you know, we’ve covered it just a little bit. It’s not in your books, but what are you thinking about along that line?

Carl: I do have a dream project where I want to cover that ending in detail, because we just covered just…we just scratched the surface today, and I really think this game more than any other game we have an opportunity to preach the gospel to a segment of our culture that needs it. I was so blessed to hear that we had a friend buy a box of our DVDs, went to MineCon—that’s a Minecraft convention where a bunch of Minecraft fans go—and handed out our DVD to all the people that were going to this conference because he wanted to try to reach the gamers out there. I have a desire and a passion to reach this gaming community and culture, and I feel God has given me the passions and abilities to do so, and so I want to find a way to use Minecraft to help spread the truth of God’s Word.

Tom: Yeah. Well, we love you, brother, and we’re so excited to have the opportunity to hear what the Lord has put on your heart, so we’re going to—and I ask everybody out there to keep Carl, Jr. in prayer, because this is so needed. So God bless you brother, and thank you so much for being with us.

Carl: Thank you.

Gary: You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures 24/7 with T.A. McMahon with guest Carl Kerby, Jr., a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about Carl’s ministry, go to apolomedia.org.  We offer a wide variety of resources to help you in your study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019 Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us at 800-937-6638, or visit our website at the bereancall.org. I’m Gary Carmichael. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you can be here again next week. Until then, we encourage you to Search the Scriptures 24/7.