There are three categories John puts worldly values into: 1) the lust of the flesh, 2) the lust of the eyes, and 3) the pride of life, (1 John 2:16). In the first article of the three part series I alluded to above I introduced a character named Joe, who identifies himself as a Christian but who also has a sinful-pleasure, as it were, for adult oriented, open-world video games and in particular Grand Theft Auto, (GTA). All packed in one blue-ray disk, the fifth instalment of the GTA series sports every kind of immorality this world has to offer including, theft, physical assault, vandalism, murder, manslaughter, multiple homicide, having sex with prostitutes, killing animals, doing drugs, dealing drugs, getting drunk, driving while intoxicated, stealing every drivable vehicle from cars to jumbo jets to military tanks and so on. Almost every female character in the game is in some skimpy outfit that shows a lot of her cleavage; and in the Playstation 4 (PS4) version of the game, the game designer RockStar Games included partial nudity at the local strip club. The PS4 version also includes various vantage points by which the player can view the game-play ranging from far-3rd-Person to close-3rd-Person view to 1st-Person view. Needless to say Joe can have his fill of lust by just playing GTA5. What can one lust after in games like GTA? Take your pick! Every scantily dressed woman; the ability to own $100,000 cars; the ability to do crime without any serious consequences; the ability to have $30,000,000+ in the bank; the ability buy weapons of war such rocket-launchers, honing-launchers and a rail-gun so to cause mayhem and so forth.
In the article I alluded to the fact that Joe did struggle with this moral quandary. He enjoys playing the game immensely but he does not agree with the values that it promotes when done in the real world. He has no problem committing virtual multiple-homicide and beating up virtual people and hiring computer animated prostitutes with fake money; but, although he would love to own a real $100,000 car in real life, he does have real issues with real murder, real theft, real crime, real sexual immorality and so forth. Is it not inconsistent to for him to hold the belief that its okay to commit fake murder, but not real murder? And that it is okay to pretend to be having sex with a prostitute in a game, but not agree with real men who pay real money to real flesh and blood women for sex?
To give a brief summary of the three part series, I concluded three things: 1) There is no real difference between playing a video game with questionable morals and watching a movie or reading a book that promotes those morals. However those morals are mere plot points to move the story forward and the story is written to serve adults; as such only adults should partake of these sort of forms of movies or video games. 2) Christians have the freedom in Christ, however we do not have the freedom in Christ to offend others or put a stumbling block to the cross in front of others. As such if ones partaking of such entertainment is causing someone to stumble, the Christian has the moral obligation to forsake their freedom in Christ to enjoy these sort of movie or video-games for the sake of their weaker brother or sister in Christ or unbelieving neighbour; and 3) no Christian is immune from being affected by the immoral content of such entertainment. It is imperative for a Christian to keep an eye on their thinking and if their enjoyment of these forms of entertainment is causing them to fail to represent Christ in all they do, then they have to walk away from the genre of entertainment.
Let's hone in on the second and third conclusions for a moment. It is true that Christians are not confined to rules and regulations as the Hebrews were in the Old Testament; we are free to dress how we want, work where we want, eat what we want, plant our crops however we want, and so forth. However do we have the freedom to enjoy worldly values, even in spirit if we are called to represent Jesus? No. However this is where the third point comes in. A Christian has permission to love a murder mystery or a crime drama but just as long as they hate the evil. This means that the Christian is to be hotly against the action not morally neutral on it; and if the Christian is starting to reclassify the morality of those actions into the latter category that is when the Christian has crossed the line and should put away the entertainment.
However it has been argued to me that virtual murder is murder just as lust is adultery. Jesus argues that if Joe was to merely lust after a woman to whom he is not married to, he has committed adultery with her. What is done in his mind, namely lust, is the same thing as doing it in action; so lust = adultery just as 2+2=4 (cf. Matthew 5:27-30). Is then virtual murder equal to real murder? When Joe maneuvers his character with the controller to kill another character in the game is Joe committing a murder that is parallel to a physical murder? Is Joe a murderer? Is Joe deceiving himself when he claims to have no issues "playing murderer" in a game but hate murder in real life? The answer is in connection with the third point made above. What is Joe's motive? If Joe is merely doing the murderous actions and stealing cars and so on in GTA to push the story forward, to go through the levels, then he is not a murderer. However if his motive is to end life, but since he can't do it legally in real life, he resorts to doing it virtually then he is a murderer, even if he is not one legally. If his mindset has evolved to the latter then he aught to slay the game. However is virtual killing, even to progress through the story, equal to real killing? No. Killing takes life, and video-game avatars are lifeless; you can't kill a rock anymore than you can kill a computer game character.
To conclude merely enjoying entertainment that uses ungodly values is not parallel to loving ungodly values; but ungodliness can arise when the entertainment, any entertainment becomes more important than God and representing him in ones day to day life.
