Three years ago now I discovered CLE through searching for Christian perspectives on videogames. In particular, games which had a lot of magic and mythological creatures and the likes within them, otherwise known as witchcraft and paganism. And the Lord lead me to the article "Videogames: Causing Witchcraft to Prosper".
Reading this article was a crucial step leading to my conversion, because these kind of videogames were the biggest idol in my life, set up from an early age. Some of my earliest, and once fondest memories, were watching my brothers play them and myself playing them for the first time. They were what I asked for my birthdays. I totally immersed myself in them, they were what I thought about all day, what I hoped for constantly, they were literally my gods. And I needed to repent for my idolatry, and I learnt that through finding this article.
Now that I have been saved by the true Living God, I thought I would share some knowledge and insight into some of these games before I forget the details.
The particular videogame series I was searching about was the Final Fantasy series, one of the videogames Chris touches on in his article.
This series has been propagating witchcraft for quite sometime now. The first installment began back in 1987 with the first major at home consoles.
At the time of this post, there are 15 installments in the main series, some of which have sequels, with numerous spin off titles. I have played nearly all 15 of them except for 11, and have finished them all except for 1 and 11. On top of this I completed a lot of the spin off titles as well. You might have guessed that this series was my primary idol of all my videogame idols.
Chris does a good job in his article explaining the gist of the series, but I will recap some of the details.
The main attraction and unique factor that distinguishes the series from other games of the same genre (which is Role Playing Games or RPG, specifically Japanese ones), are definitely what are generally referred to as summons. Summons are spiritual entities that the main characters call upon in battle to fight for them. Sometimes they play a major role in the plot/storyline of the game, sometimes they are just kind of there, but they are always there. And the main sources of inspirations for them are pagan gods. Examples include Odin and Phoenix, more familiar ones, then there are many more obscure ones such as Ifrit, Bahamut, Ixion, Quetzalcoatl etc. If you ask anyone who knows about the series, they are likely to tell you that the summons are the coolest parts of the game. The animations for these creatures are often spectacular, and some of the most epic moments in the series is centered around them. I very much think that the inclusion of these creatures has attributed greatly to the series' success. Because by their inclusion and centerpiece role they take, when the player marvels he glorifies them, and is made an idolater of them. Continuing on the worship of pagan gods.
"... for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." - Luke 16:15On top of incorporating pagan gods into their videogames, they also incorporate many other spiritual and pagan philosophies into their plots and themes. Chris goes into detail how in Final Fantasy 7 the main villain's philosophy is based upon Gnosticism and how the player is subtly taught Gnostic concepts throughout the game. Being a Japanese series, they delve into many eastern pagan concepts. However some of the installments in the series they even incorporate Christian concepts. And when they do, I think this is when the philosophies that are presented are most sinister and most dangerous.
This brings me to my primary motivation for this post, and that is to demonstrate how the tenth installment, Final Fantasy 10, communicates messages directly antithetical to the gospel.
To do which, I will do my best to concisely explain the necessary points of the overly complicated plot.
Final Fantasy 10The game begins, and you are introduced to the main character. He lives in this futuristic kind of city with big sky scrapers, called Zanarkand. He's a sports star, and he's a got a big game on that night. During the game however, the city is attacked by this big whale like monstrosity that can fly, quickly destroying the city, including the stadium. Panicked, the main character finds himself outside the destroyed stadium where he finds another main character, his father's friend. They look at the big whale monster, and he tells him, "We call it Sin." Eventually they both get sucked away by Sin.
Final Fantasy 10's SinFast forward, the main character washes up on an island in a world he's not familiar with (called Spira), and learns more about "Sin".
Cities like Zanarkand existed all over Spira, ran using machines and technology (referred to as machina in the game). Then Sin came and destroyed them all. Sin continues to this day to wreak havoc on the world and the people live in constant fear of being destroyed by Sin.
Sin destroying a villageNow there exists a religion called Yevon, and they forbid the use of machina, they teach that Sin is their punishment for using machina. They take inspiration from all the world's religions, however primarily they represent the Catholic Church. Their hierarchical structure, the character design, and their rampant corruption and authoritative presence, and their supreme political power all allude to the Catholics. And their suppression of technology is probably an allusion to the Catholic's well known history of suppressing scientific advancements.
Now the only way to defeat Sin is for a summoner (a person who calls/summons the spiritual pagan inspired creatures to fight for them in battle) to go on a pilgrimage across the different temples of Spira. After that they can then go to Zanarkand (a different one from before) to receive the Final Summoning, which is powerful enough to defeat Sin.
However! When Sin is defeated by a summoner, after a short period of time, Sin is reborn and continues to wreak havoc on the world.
So the Yevonites teach the people that if they follow their teachings and atones for their sins, when Sin (the big whale) is defeated, there's a chance it won't come back again. (A point I found interesting is they never once go into detail about what these sins are, besides the use of technology. And instead of sorting out the sin issue they just keep throwing summoners at "Sin".)
You can probably already see where this is going. Summoners defeating Sin. Who might the summoners represent? The game makes it very clear early on when the main character summoner walks on water.
Summoner walking on waterThen later on in the game, we learn that in order to summon the Final Summoning, the summoner dies in the process.
So the summoners are supposed to be a representation of Jesus Christ.
Now summoners sacrificing themselves aren't enough to defeat Sin forever, the Yevon religion teaches that works based doctrines must be involved to end Sin once and for all (just like the real Catholic Church.) But at the end of the game, we learn from the lady who gives the summoner the Final Summoning, after being questioned about Yevon's teaching, that these ideas of Yevon are false as well, and that they are designed to give the people hope in a hopeless world. "Sin is eternal" she says.
So what is the main character's response to this information? They devise a genius plan involving the use of machina, and through the idolised power of friendship, they stun sin then enter inside it to destroy it within. They then find Yu Yevon (the namesake of the Yevonites, Yu Yevon is a representation of God), who lives in Sin and uses it as his armour. They kill Yu Yevon, who takes the form of parasite, and that ends the cycle of "Sin".
So what ideas and philosophies does one learn from completing this game? First and foremost, the idea that
there is no sacrifice for your sins. This idea is one that is reiterated throughout the plot of the game to the player. No matter how many summoners (representations of Jesus Christ) they thrown at "Sin", it keeps coming back. (Really it is again reminiscent of the Catholic Church and their abominable Eucharist, perpetuating the sacrifice.) However at the end of the game, we learn that "Sin" can't be defeated through any sacrifice whatsoever, so applying this idea they learn from the game to the real world, is that
there is no sacrifice capable to made as a propitiation for your sins, therefore Jesus Christ's sacrifice is not enough either. So the other dangerous ideas that the game teaches is how the problem of "Sin" is resolved, and that is through embracing that thing which was forbidden (in the game machina), and to destroy god.
"For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." - Romans 7:9The philosophy we learn how to deal with sin in our lives, instead of resolving sin how it needs to be resolved (through the mercy of God by the blood of His Son), we
ignore God and his laws and commandments and continue in our sin, and through our own power we overcome life's troubles. Cause as many people would have you believe, it's not sin that's the problem but God and His standards. In the game, going so far as to kill their wicked misrepresentation of God, which I reckon illustrates the animosity the spirit behind the game has for the True Living God.
Because this game parodies the Catholic Church, Christian concepts are straw manned / misrepresented, and when they are dismantled, they are replaced by even worse philosophies on top of the misleading mess.
It was through one of my older brothers I was introduced to this series, and I can't help but think this had a considerable impact on his religious philosophies. He believes in God, but he has fallen into the Hebrew Roots heresy that denies the power of Christ,
"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" - Collosians 2:14 Though all our family was lead into to an extent through my dad, he's the only one out of us all that has committed down this road. And I think this is at least in part due to the philosophies that this game teaches. That all sacrifices for sins are insufficient and that we have to depend upon our own works. (Not to mention he has also embraces a number of blatant sins, but somehow justifies them.)
I thank the Lord; I don't think I was too affected by most of these ideas. I that the Lord again, that the main takeaway in regards to these philosophies, was to rather be highly skeptical of organised religion. The game parodies the Catholic Church well, especially its hypocritical and oppressive nature. When I was reading through the New Testament for the first time when I wasn't yet saved, even then I was astounded at how often Jesus challenged and rebuked the Pharisees, the religious leadership of the day. Especially when I got to Matthew 23. I am very grateful to the Lord and believe that it was His doing that I retained this understanding, and not the wicked philosophies I could have fallen deep into by playing in the devils' playground.
These conclusions I did not realize at all until after I was saved, and they really shocked me when I was given this understanding of what the game is actually teaching. Because I've only shared only a tiny fraction of the details in this game to expose it; all these wicked philosophies are hidden behind an emotional story, immersive graphics, and music that pulls the heart strings. Behind all this beauty our natural instinct isn't to suspect evil. With other videogames that have such offensive and sinful philosophies, are often more explicit, darker in tone, and vulgar. Whereas in this game, while it is dark in a sense, it is more tragic, and despite that it remains pleasing to the senses. It would be similar comparing death metal to a Disney musical.
Another point to consider as well, in these videos games, you spend at least 40 hours completing the game, a lot more time than a movie and even a lot of television series. And because you play as the characters as well, and watch them become stronger as you level them up, you become even more attached to the characters and the ideas of the game. Thus learning the philosophies of the game.
Many other installments in the series use Catholic or actual Christian concepts in their storylines. In the 13th and 14th installments have obvious pope figures, and in the 15th the main character is another Jesus figure who dies to save his kingdom from this disease which is supposed to represent sin. (But disease is afflicted on to people, it isn't brought upon themselves like actual sin.) There are many more allusions throughout the series as well, and many other corrupting philosophies. But number 10 I'd say is the worst offender, and teaches corrupt philosophies that pertain most closely to the gospel of Christ. And it is one of the best selling and most popular/esteemed in the series, in the top 3 or 5 in both categories.
I hope that I was clear enough throughout this post, and that the plot summary isn't too difficult to understand. Happy to clarify on anything for anyone. Hopefully there's some insight in here and that it is valuable!
I am so thankful for Chris writing the Videogames article, because there are so very few people out there speaking against this kind of stuff. Even many so called Christians that are against witchcraft in media in general, like Harry Potter, will make very many exceptions, such as my own parents. And if someone hadn't clearly laid out the sin within the videogames I played, who knows if I would have ever given them up.
Far more crucially though, through the article I was led to the truth about repentance, and that I needed to repent for my idolatry and witchcraft (in heart) as well as turn from it, along with my other sins. So that my sins could be remitted and that I could be born again! I am therefore extremely grateful, and hope to add my voice more loudly to those speaking the truth about the works of videogames.
