208: Faith and Doubt in JRPGs

It's hello and welcome back to another

episode of the Backlog Breakdown, a video game podcast where we seek to encourage and equip the church to engage the medium wisely. And as I am prone to say, well, I am one of your hosts, Nate, and with me today is my friend, my co host, my brother in Christ, Joshua Broccolo.

Hey, buddy.

What's up, dude?

How you doing?

And I'm pretty good. But we're also joined with another. By another friend. It's the one, the only, the mysterious, the. The international man of commerce and business, Mr. Mr. Luke Parker.

Howdy.

What's up, Parker? I was just talking to you earlier today, so I kind of know what. What's going on, but.

Yeah, that's true, man. Excited to get into it tonight.

Yeah. Josh was not talking to you earlier today because he's not cool like me.

It's true.

I mean, on both counts. He was not talking to you and he's also not cool like me. Both those things are true.

Sick burn.

Yeah, I know, I know.

No one can share random facts like Nate. It's true.

That is true. This is. It's. Listen, I don't have many skills, but the ones I do like, I will exercise freely. Often. Freely and often. But you know, as well, I guess you know, Josh, I know that you're going to love this part, but I'd like to know how it's been since we last spoke. How you doing, big dog?

Yeah, man, doing good, doing good. Life is always busy, but that's what everyone our age always says, right? So I guess that's just kind of par for the course. I was talking with someone the other day and it's not that life necessarily is busy, it's just that I don't catch up as well to it as. As maybe I did in the past. I don't know. Anyways, so I've shared this with some of the patrons, but recently my Nintendo Switch died. I actually got to the bottom of that and found out what happened there, that it was. It just would not charge. We didn't know what was going on.

OG Switch or was this Switch?

Yes. Oh, gee. Switch. Yeah, yeah, no, Switch 2 is fine, but I found out my K used a different charger with it and I think it was, you know, just not rated properly and kind of screwed up the whole charging port and whatever. Anyways, found out that you can send it into Nintendo and even though it's outside of the warranty period, because I've had it for, you know, what, seven years Whatever. They replaced it for a hundred bucks. So I'm like, okay, that's not bad, you know, compared to getting a new switch. So my switch was dead, but sent it back to its makers, and now it has risen again. I haven't gotten it back yet, but

I don't like the fact that you said that. I don't.

Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, also, happy Easter, because it's almost Easter or it's your Easter past, if you're listening to this on release day. So Happy Easter, you guys.

Hope it was a good one, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

For you guys. Yeah.

May your resurrection celebrations be joyful. I don't know.

Yeah. But, Parker, how are you doing, my friend, again? I know because we talked earlier, but enlighten everyone else.

I'm doing good, man. Living the dream, you know, working from home, just nerding out all day, looking at spreadsheets, research. That's my world, so I can't complain about it. It's. Life is good these days.

I'm glad that you like that, because, like, I know that for me, some of that just sounds absolutely abysmal. Yeah, I like this. I like the whole, like, staying at home and nerding out part. But then you're like, oh, spreadsheets and, like, doing, like, analysis and. And searching and stuff. And I'm like, no, that's. That sounds entirely too much like work, and I don't like that part. But I'm glad that you like it. I mean, you know, I'm glad somebody likes it. I'm just. I'm over here just making things awkward and weird, aren't I? Good mission.

He did confirm that it is both work, and he's living the dream, so. Both are true.

Yeah. So, dude, I'm glad that's. That. That's how that works for somebody else. Like, you know. You know. You know things. And thank you both for asking me how I'm doing, because. Yeah.

How you doing, Nate?

Yeah.

How's it been? I have spreadsheets looking.

I am the great white northern passive aggressor, and I will lean into that wholeheartedly. I don't know. We don't do spreadsheets in this household. We are notoriously anti spreadsheet in this house. We don't do sonic and spreadsheets.

No. Oh, man.

No. I like, not. Not acceptable, like, there. No, we're doing it. We're doing all right. Nothing super exciting. I mean, like, we're just kind of. I don't know. Work's been work. It's just kind of like it's fine. It's not, it's fine.

So it's.

Although today like apparently there was like some sort of like pretty significant sale going on in Amazon and I like even if I'm. We don't use, we haven't been using Amazon a whole lot over the last month. So like. Yeah, we haven't. So I guess I wasn't just sort of aware of some. But apparently there was a fairly significant sale going on in Amazon over the last several days because like I rolled into work today and. And it was like, dude, there were like just pallets of Amazon stuff that the clerks hadn't even gotten to sorting yet. Now some of that apparently was like, you know, they, they were down like a person or two or something as well. But like also just like, dude, it was, it was a pretty ridiculously heavy day when I rolled in there.

So. Yeah.

But hey, people gotta get their stuff, man. Cause you can't buy vacuum cleaners at the store. Did you guys know that that vacuum cleaners, you can't buy those at Walmart anymore. No, you have to get them delivered to your house.

Yeah, well you can get them delivered by Walmart. You know, order them from the app and. Yeah, just deliver to your house.

Yeah, Walmart delivers those. Yeah.

Yeah. Well that sure sounds like a fun experience that you had delivering Amazon packages.

I mean it was an experience. How much fun? Well, we'll leave that.

I'm sure we have.

We've just do that.

Some more fun experiences to share.

Just, just, just. We played and watched it. Let it through.

Now we're sharing XP with you. Critical hits. Good stuff to declare.

Press. XP share. So Parker, it has been a while since you've been on the show. Do you have any non video game related experiences you would like to share with the listeners?

Ooh, non video game related experiences to share with the listeners. You know, nothing too crazy. I mean, I've been doing some reading lately. Actually some pretty heavy reading. I just finished a book called the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which is a history of Nazi Germany. And if you're looking for something that is a deep dive into history, it's a phenomenal book. But you got to be ready because this bad boy is like 1200 pages long. So you got to be in the mood for a big old stack on that one. But if you like history, it's an incredible book. And the author actually is a guy who was a war correspondent and lived in Germany during the rise of the Nazis in the 30s, and so he was there firsthand. And then he went back, like a couple decades later when they found all these secret Nazi documents and stuff and compiled all of that together with his front, firsthand war correspondence, history, and wrote this kind of definitive story about Hitler and the Nazis. And it's pretty epic and a pretty great read and I do recommend it, but you. You gotta love books to get into this one because it's huge, so.

Yeah, that's intense.

That's. Yeah, I know that we've talked a little bit about that. So you did finally wrap that up not too long ago then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome book. I actually started reading it when I was in junior high, if you can believe that. A seventh grade me. No, ninth grade me wanted to know about the history of Nazi Germany. And so I read a few hundred pages into it, but then junior high got a little busy for me and here I am, like 30 years later, finally finishing the book. So it was worth the wait, though. Great book. Phenomenal book. And I recommend it if you're a history buff.

Cool. Is that by William Schreier? Shirer.

Yes. Shirer. Yes.

Shirer. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Okay. Interesting. Cool, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. Anything else? Or are you just going to be like, No, I got this big old, like, fat stack of knowledge to drop on your heads, so.

No, I mean, that's, you know, I've been reading some other stuff, you know, playing games, living life. Nothing. Nothing too crazy worth shouting out for the masses at this point. So.

Cool. Well, yeah, I mean. And that's substantial. Like 1200 pages, I think. Like, I'm not sure. Let me see here. I'm just gonna. I want to Google something. Page count for War and Peace.

No, see, I thought that was the alternate title to the book.

So War and Peace typically is 12, depending on the translation. 1200-1400 pages in most standard editions. So, you know. But that's a novel. That's not. Yeah, that's something else entirely. So. Yeah. Cool. How about you, Mr. Broccolo? What have you lately?

So I will say since. Since moving up here, we have not been. Well, yeah, by and large, we haven't been. We haven't had access to hoopla, if you know what hoopla is, through your library. It's a really cool service for digital books, but also audiobooks. And you can take out, like, I think six of them. Five, six of them a month, something like that. And so it's a really great resource if you don't want to be spending a ton of money on Particularly audiobooks, but they have lots of other stuff. Over the weekend I did a search because our local library does not have hoopla and apparently a lot of libraries have been cracking down on hoopla use. Apparently it's kind of expensive to do that. But I will say that I found a library and, and got a confirmation just today that is within the state of Iowa that I was able to get a library card for that has hoopla. Had to jump through a few hoops in order to get it, but I was able to get that. And so I've been listening to just today a book by Gavin Ortland called what it Means to be Protestant. And I have, I have some, you know, throwing out the, the, the caveat here of, of I like some stuff that Gavin Ortland says. I, I don't like some stuff that Gavin Ortland says. Like, I think, not that he is controversial, just that like there, there are things that he said that I'm like, oh, that's, that's dumb. But that said, he, I think he does well in debates because his particular style is non aggressive. It is very much, he takes a very humble posture and he, he will debate issues of Protestantism against Catholics and, and Orthodox orthodoxy. And so this book I think in particular is right up like what I like about him, right up his wheelhouse. It's written in such a way that, you know, like when someone talks and you can tell there they feel like they're defending themselves, they're kind of talking to someone on the other side, like the extreme other side of an issue. And so they couch things in certain ways. It sounds as though this was written to someone who is either a, you know, who is, who has strongly held beliefs in either the, the Catholic or Orthodox camp. So it's very, it's, it's been a very good read so far. I'm only like a quarter of the way into it, but he makes some very good arguments about the Protestant Reformation being a recovery, not a revolution, that it goes back to the source ad fantas. I don't think he actually says that in the book, but that just comes to mind for me that yeah, it's, it's a recovery of the Christian church rather than, rather than a, a revolution of it.

Well, even in the name. It's a reformation. Yes, it's, it's. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, they were seeking to reform, not revolutionize.

Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, so he's got some other argument. He talks about sola fide, he talks about sola scriptura. Is Kind of currently the chapter that I'm. That I'm on as well. And what these, what these terms mean and what they don't mean as well. So being very. About Scripture being the only infallible rule of faith, but we also have other authorities within the church. So you can tell he's met a lot of objections from these other sides. And I think it's particularly useful as people are looking into these other forms and Catholicism. Yes, yeah, exactly. So I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Despite what you may or may not, whether or not you agree with a lot of the stuff that Gavin does think he's a smart guy. So there's that and I would recommend that. The second thing, I feel bad because you recommended it last episode, but Redeeming Productivity did a. He recently did a live stream of basically a thing on how to plan your week. And it was really good. I really enjoyed the way that he framed different types of time. One of the key takeaways that I got was he. He uses these different phrases for map, like basically mapping out your, your energy levels throughout the day with the types of things that you need to get done. And so you have specific, you have lots of urgent things, admin things, chores around the house, things like that that just need to get done that. But there's also another, a separate category for things that are the most important things. So projects you're working on, things that will actually move the needle. And one of the things that he said in the live stream was that often those kind of chore type activities, things that you have to get done that, that we can tend to procrastinate from the things that will actually move the needle by doing things that feel productive. But it's, you know, kind of chore type things. And I was like, that is me. I tend to do that a lot. So like, you know, if I want a quick hit, I'll check my email and reply to an email, you know, because that, oh, that needed to be done. So I feel productive, but by the end of the day it's like, oh, I didn't get that much done. So anyways, that was great. I feel like I'm rambling. Those are two things that I would recommend. And yeah, that's what I got.

No, that's, you know, I'm glad that you brought up Reagan again actually, because, like, I kind of been eyeballing that, that episode and so now that kind of puts a little bit of a, you know, fire under my butt to actually listen to it because, yeah, yeah, I've come to, I've. I've really come to appreciate him over the last couple of months a lot. Like I think, you know, obviously he's sort of, I think targeting much more entrepreneurial types. Like so people who have to sort of do a lot more like basically sort of like they have to maintain their own schedules. Whereas like, you know, for me it's like I go into work and it's like, you know, but like, you know, when you. I have a schedule. Yeah, it's like sort of like that's built in but you know, sort of on the other side of this though, like we, you know, we've talked about sort of trying to grow the podcast so even there it's like sort of.

Yeah.

Giving useful frameworks for helping me to sort of think about time management in regards to this stuff has been really useful. So. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, he's really smart. I don't agree with every position he has, but I. Overall I, I think he's got really good advice on just productivity and time management. So the two things that I'm going to sort of like bring to the table as far as like non video game stuff is I did finish that Super Nintendo book by Keza McDonald. Yeah, I would say I feel like the back half of that book is significantly stronger than the front half.

Okay.

Especially the chapter on Iwata or the chapters on Iwara, the chapters on some of like their design philosophy. When it came to like you know, the Wii and. And all the other stuff I found again sort of the back half of that, that book to be really, really fascinating. And again I think, you know, just frankly the chapters on that that sort of focused on Iwata were really just like. It just kind of. It was one of those things that was just fascinating and it was. They did. She did some pretty deep, you know, it's not super, it's not like super deep but like she did a chapter or, or two on Miyamoto, she did a chapter on Sakurai, you know, so like you know, some of the key figures in the Nintendo's corporate history like. And yeah, it was like I said that's sort of the back half of that book I thought was really good. I thought, like I said, the front half I felt was like a little weak, a little heavy on like personal anecdote and just not nearly as interesting.

Gotcha. I don't know, but I've got a question real quick, if you don't mind me kind of inserting myself for just A second. How does a book about the Super Nintendo have chapters on Iwata? Does it just into Nintendo in general?

It's just, it's. It's not really about the Super Nintendo. It's just about Nintendo.

She's saying, like, super as Nintendo is super.

Nintendo is super. Yes. So it's not.

I apologize. I misunderstood. Yeah, well, it's Super Nintendo.

No, I mean, okay, that would be really wild. But no. So the book is just sort of like. Again, it's sort of this. It's a. It's a bit of an examination of the history of Nintendo framed from her experience, sort of like. And she. So she talks a lot about, like, growing up with it and everything else. And there was some. There was some stuff in there that, like, really connected and there was some stuff that really missed. But again, I think the back half of that book, it was like, I actually really. Again, I enjoyed the chapters on Miyamoto, on Iwata, on Sakurai, like the development process for some of that stuff. And it was like. And they were. Yeah, so I, I, Yeah, I think that it's like one of those things where, you know, like I said, the first few chat, like the first half of the book, I was like, this is fine, but it just didn't really, like, land for me. But it was like the back half, I was like, oh, this is actually pretty standout.

So, yeah, sweet. Cool.

It's. It's kind of a recommend, you know, it's like. But. And again, I think that some of that might connect with other people differently. Just for me, there's like. And again, I'm. I think I'm probably a little older than her. And so it's like some of the things that she's recounting very fondly. I'm just like, okay, neat. Like, like, don't care. But yeah, mileage may vary. I. I thought it was like I said, I think the back half is really strong and kind of. I do recommend, actually. It got me really. One of the things too, is it got me really curious about that, that book. And I've thought about picking up a copy of it before, but. Askawada. Yeah, like, and so at some point in time, that is on my list to snag, but we are a video game podcast and we should probably actually talk about some of the video games that we've played lately. So, Parker, being that you, you are our guest, what have you been playing lately, my guy?

Oh, well, I do have a strong recommendation. I think I've told you about this game, there's a little indie title that came to Steam maybe a year or two ago and it recently dropped on all the other platforms. I know it just came to Switch. I think it just dropped on Game Pass. It's called Minishoot Adventures. And if you don't know what Mini Shoot Adventures is, it's kind of like if you crossed a twin stick shooter with a top down Legend of Zelda game, you would end up with this. And there's no dialogue in it. It's all kind of just this wordless experience. And you would probably think to yourself, like, okay, how would a twin stick shooter and a top down Legend of Zelda game work? And then you play this game and you're like, it works amazingly, actually.

Nice.

The game's incredible. I would give it a nine. Everybody that I've talked to is actually played it, loves the game. It's a phenomenal fusion of those things. So I'm not even a big twin stick shooter fan personally myself, but the twist of this, the mashup of the genres I just found to be so interesting and it was so well executed that I thought the game was awesome. So I would recommend anybody to play it. And it's out on, I think everything at this point. So that was, that was pretty great. Nate, you and I and your brother just finished playing wo long. That was an interesting game to play not that long ago. And let's see, what else have I played? I played a little sleeper game called Keeper, which was by Double Fine, the Tim Schaefer Studio. That's kind of an interesting puzzle y walking simulator y kind of artsy, fartsy game. So it's what I would call a quintessential like perfect game. Pass game. Okay. Lots of fun. Not a super long runtime. There's not a whole lot to it, but it's really pretty to look at and it is fun for like a couple hours. So that was really cool. And then I did just beat Pokemon Legends Za. So.

Yeah.

And that was maybe not the greatest Pokemon game I've ever played, but it was fun. I did like it overall. So it is a. It is a recommend.

Cool.

It's a good Pokemon. It's not the greatest Pokemon, but it is fun. And it's nice to play a Pokemon that's like runs decently well and has like decent visuals to it. Like Pokemon in 4K feels like a revelation that people have been waiting for for forever. So yeah, playing that in docked mode on a Switch too was really nice. So yeah, that's what I've been playing.

Awesome. Yeah, awesome, man.

How about you, Josh? What do you been into lately, man?

Yeah, so I've been playing two games. I finished Live Alive. Okay. And. And my. I feel like my. My thoughts on it kind of went back and forth in a lot of different ways. And some of that is for reasons that I can't really get into because it's kind of spoilery in terms of the game. I will say that. I know last time I talked about it, I said I was maybe like halfway into it, but done with most of the stories. So I thought that was kind of odd. And I do think, I think at the very least a third of the game is after you complete all the stories. So there is a good chunk of game that's kind of end game stuff, man. Yeah, there's a lot that I'd like to talk about. But again, it's kind of locked behind kind of some end game stuff. It does because it's a remake of a Super Nintendo game, it does kind of require you to do everything to get good endings, which is a little bit of a shame because I felt like it was kind of like I was kind of done with it because in some sense the. The combat, it's. It's of its era. There's nothing super deep about it. But it was fun. It was fun. I enjoyed it. It was not. I. I had heard that the game is very depressing. And I will say if you don't manage to go and get a good ending, then yes, it ends in a very depressing way. But there are ways to ameliorate that. However, you need to basically do everything in the game in order to. In order to get some better endings. And so it. It can be better. Anyways, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. It was a fun time. So, you know, in a lot of ways I don't think it's like this revelation that. That I feel like a lot of people made it out to be when it first came out. However, I do think it's kind of one of those hidden gem things of like, oh, yeah, this should have come to America. I get that it can be pretty dark. And so I understand why maybe Nintendo didn't. Nintendo of America didn't want it at the time, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it quite a bit. So finished up Live Alive. And then after that I was looking at my Locked and Loaded list and I decided to go for a short game and I busted out on the Genesis collection. On my Switch. I started playing a Game called Alien Soldier, which is a game made by Treasure who was. It was like a. Not a spin off but some. Some people who defected from Konami and they've made some really good kind of shoot em up Contra type games like oh my goodness, why can't I think of the. The really popular one on Genesis. Gunstar Heroes. That's what it's called, Gunstar Heroes. So Treasure is known for. For these really kind of tight run and gun type games. Kind of frantic and then they'll do some. Some crazy stuff. They do. They made mischief makers on Nintendo 64. So they do. Yeah. Anyways, they're known for that kind of a thing. I don't think they're around anymore. But anyways, this game is not what I expected it to be. It is almost like a boss rush of a game. What I've heard, Cuphead is if that makes sense, where the levels are extremely short and are basically there to give you some life before you fight another boss. But it's on a 2D plane. Your character actually takes up a good amount of the screen but you've got a bunch of different guns that you cycle through that you choose. So the game allows you to have three guns or four guns at a time out of six possible guns. You can power them up but you pretty much, you know, basically choose your loadout and power it up as the game goes on. And it is very difficult but in a way that. Sorry to reference it. Kind of like Dark Souls difficulty where if you learn the patterns it's very rewarding to play through it. And when you are like me and use save states, it can be very rewarding. I can imagine that this game would cause a lot of broken controllers otherwise. The other thing is when I was choosing my difficulty, it defaults to the difficulty of Super Hard. Well, the only other option is Super Easy. So I felt like the game was kind of making a statement with that and so I was like dang it, I'm in. I'm going to do Super Hard because I'm not going to play this game on Super Easy. Like what self respecting man would play a game on Super Easy? Come on. And I'm paying for it for sure. It's. It's slower going than I expected it to be. It feels more similar to like when I played through Ninja Gaiden 2 last year on NES, you know, emulation, whatever. But original where it's difficult, it takes a long time to make any progress. But it feels good when you do progress because I also, I use Self imposed limits. I say save states. I'm not save stating throughout battles. It's just at the beginning of a boss battle, like I save state there and then if I die, I just reset to this, the beginning of the battle. Yeah. So it is a lot of fun. It is very rewarding. It's also frustrating and I'm like, how are you supposed to do this? This is stupid. And then I watched someone else on YouTube do it and I'm like, okay, I think I can do that. And then I, you know, die 20 more times. Anyways, it's a good time. I'm actually really enjoying it. But you have to kind of learn the game in order to, in order to do anything in the game. Otherwise you'll just get smashed to the floor. So I don't know how any kid actually beat this, you know, front to back because it's, it's kind of insane. But anyways, having a good time with alien children. Yeah, that's gotta be it. You know, I don't know. I actually, I think on Super Easy you do have unlimited continues. So it would push you back to the start of. But last I think it was just last night I fought this boss that had five forms. So you had to go through all five of them back to back, which I'm just like, dude, none of these are like particularly easy. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, the game is crazy.

And so far I think to me,

you know, yeah, look up a video, you'll. You'll see. You can see that's those skill issues. I think at this point. I've beaten like 22ish bosses so far. So I still have, I still have a handful more to go.

That's not.

Dude, it is, it is and it's really cool. Really cool kind of art. Like crazy looking, you know, there's just crazy crab boss thing, crazy robots. You play as basically like this anthropomorphic eagle type character. It kind of looks like Storm Eagle from. From Mega Man X. Yeah, it's. It's a crazy game. It's bonkers. But I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Anyways, okay, yeah, finished up Live alive. Get a negative one. So anyways, what were you saying, Nate?

I was like this. These are all the. Also the people who are responsible for the sin and punishment games. Ikaruga.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

And apparently Wario World for GameCube. I mean they've got a pretty substantial library here, but. But a lot of it does look like this sort of like the, the shmups. So it's like they kind of like that sort of seems like that was pretty much radiant. Silver Gun. I remember that one. Yeah.

Yeah.

The last game, just over on Wikipedia, the last game that they developed was 2014. Some. A couple of 3D 3DS games. The Geist Crusher. The action video games developed by Treasure, published by Capcom. There was. It was baseline, some manga or whatever.

Manga.

I did not realize Gunstar Heroes was their first game. That is crazy. They have a Hajimeno EPO game on Game Boy Advance. That's also crazy. Anyways, that's not where Gradius three or five or Gradius. Right. It's Gradius. Anyways, yeah, they've. They've made some really good games. Yeah. Treasure is a cool company and that's kind of. And I've heard good things about this game. But it is different than what I. I expected more Contra 3, which I guess it is like it's similar. I get it. It looks like Contra 3, but it plays more like a. Again, I hate referencing Dark Souls so much, but that's what it reminds me of is like get good scrub and you'll feel good if you get good. But if you're not good, like you're going to be.

You're going to feel bad.

Yeah.

You feel bad about yourself.

Yeah. So yeah, I'm sitting at a negative 6 so far for the year. That's where I'm at. Cool. What about you, Nate? What you been playing?

Well, I finally rolled credits on Bioshock Infinite, so that takes my beat down score to one. Yeah. And which is fortunate because next episode we're going to be talking about it. So. Yeah, it's probably a good thing that I actually play that. I kind of just been still having, you know, aside from the getting gifted that copy of Dragon Quest vii, I haven't, you know, gotten anything for the year. So just kind of playing like, you know, spending some time in Destiny 2, you know, fired up, Link's awakening because it's like I want to get through that here pretty shortly. I did install Lord of the Lord of Ring Gollum in anticipation that Lord of Ring Gollum. Gollum. We have. We have Gollum at home.

You know the Teemu version written by Stephen Colbert.

Yeah. It's like we have. Starring Andy, you know, Andy Pickle or you know, the. The Pickles babies. As, you know, Tommy. Tommy Pickles. Tommy Pickles as Gollum. Geez. The Colbert thing due to. I just caught that.

Sorry, sorry. Not derailing us. Okay. Yeah. Gone.

Yeah, we're nice.

He's the lord of a ring.

So, yeah, we're gonna be playing back.

That's my classic line. Give me back my ring.

Sure.

Sorry.

Sure. But so. And yeah, it's sort of preparing myself to, you know. Yeah. Just, I don't know, wade through that tripe, that filthy. But, you know, it'll be one of those things that, you know, we've talked in the past too about how, like, I kind of have been meaning to experiment with just playing bad games, you know, to recalibrate. Because again, like, the. The dialogue is so kind of like, toxic. Because I think a lot of people are just, as a general rule, playing pretty good games. And then when they play something that maybe isn't, like, outstanding, they're like, this game sucks. And it's like, well, no, actually that's a. It's. It's a fine game. It's an okay game. It's a good game. It's just that the bar has been set so high, so it's like, I want to, you know, I think it's. It's good every once in a while to. In theory, because this will be the first time I've done it since I started to like, you know. But yeah, we're going to play this for an episode and it's going to be like, well, I don't feel good about it, man. I got to be honest. Like, I'm scared. I'm scared. But sort of offsetting some of that, though, I did that Pragmata game, the one from Capcom that spoke, say, I think come out next month, there's a demo for it and I just fired that up tonight for a little bit, you know, right before we started recording. And what I've played so far is pretty interesting.

Okay.

It's. It's a first person or third person action shooter thing with some puzzle elements in the shooting. It's kind of hard to describe, but there's these, like, little puzzles that you have to. You lock on the enemy and again, it's just. Just go play the demo, people. I'm gonna do a terrible job of describing it because it's like you lock on the people and they sort of enters in this little puzzle sequence. And then you have to break the enemy open so that you can actually deal more damage against them. And so far, like, you know, and again, I'm maybe 15 minutes into that demo, 20 minutes maybe, and I was like, oh, this is actually kind of cool. I can see this kind of being really a little frustrating, but also kind of fun.

Okay.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Like I said, I'm going to play through that demo and just sort of. That's one of a few games this year that I'm kind of like, side eyeing pretty heavily. So. Yeah, but like I said, I haven't picked up anything else. I. You know, I'm. I'm kind of like. I think I've played a game or maybe maybe three games of Marvel Snap in the last, like, week or so. Like, I've played a little bit here or there, but it's like. Yeah, I'm just kind of like, the game's still good, but I just like. I am kind of really at a point, like, it's a twofold prong kind of thing where I like the game. That's why I keep playing it, because I think it's a good game and I. I enjoy it. But there's two things where it's like, the. The kind of like the. The having to keep up with, you know, the new cards and everything else and sort of like the. The season and everything else. And so there's that chase. I don't really enjoy that as much as I used to.

Okay.

I think, too, The. The other side of it, though, is just like. And. And I've. I think I've probably talked about this before and it's. It's probably. We probably mentioned this before, but it's like when I am playing that game, I am not very nice. The things I will say to the random strangers that I am playing, like. And again, they have no idea I'm saying these things, but I know I'm saying those things. And I'm just like. Yeah, I just don't know if that's worth it. Like. Yeah, I just don't know. Like, I just don't like the effect that it has on me. So I think we're kind of. Like I said, we're really sort of. Yeah. Kind of on.

On.

On the outs with it. So. Yeah, it's not that I've completely abandoned it, but it's like. I think it's just. It is like, kind of just like it's. It's time to, you know, shuffle that one off. But. Yeah, but. Yeah, but anyways, as per the usual. Yeah. If you want to sort of check out some of the. The other stuff, like, you know, so far. I know that my GG lists so far for this year are pretty bare, pretty minimal, but you can check out Josh's stuff. You can check out my stuff over on gg, which is, you know, still technically the official app of the backlog beatdown. And if you're saying, like, what the heck is this backlog beat down, what are these numbers that you guys are talking about? It's a meta that we run all year long where the TLDR is. The more games you beat, the lower your score. You're removing games from your piles of shame, your backlog, whatever you want to call it. And when you buy games, you add points. The goal is to get that number down as far as possible. Unless you're an absolute psycho and your goal is to make that number as big as possible. I guess that doesn't make you an absolute psycho, but it. That's not the point of the game. Anyways, if you guys, if that sounds even remotely interesting to you, we have rules over on the Discord. You can DM us, you can email us, you can do whatever, and we will get your copy of those. We still need to sit down with John and just like hammer unofficial 2026 rules, but again, the 2025 ones are still pretty much. That's pretty much. I think there's some quality of life changes, but nothing significant. Anyways, all that being said, if you like that, you want to check. You like the idea of that, like the sound of that, Get a hold of us and we will get that stuff to you. We'll get that information to you. Other things that you might like and might want to check out, it's us, it's this podcast. And if you're listening to it and you've done the rating and the reviewing, you've done the sharing and the caring, and if you haven't done those things, please do hit all the buttons, tell all your friends all the things you know, rate and review us on your favorite podcast, podcatcher. You know, those things help, you know, especially as we're trying to grow our presence. But if you like what we're doing here and you're looking for an opportunity to go a little bit above and beyond, you know, in fact, the way a way that you can look at it is you can partner with us as we sort of seek to grow this thing out is we have a Patreon. And like so many other podcasts, you know, there's. There's not really. There's not really tears. It's pretty much for as little as a buck a month or more. If you, you know, feel like you want to give us more, you can have early and uncut access to each and every episode you get a patron exclusive podcast called the Bro Hang. You get a special on our discord, you get a little bit more access to us and you actually get to help shape sort of the, the, the content that we do. Parker is a patron. And you know, we. As a. We were having a conversation and I kind of. It turned into one of these things where I was like, you know, we. We were originally actually planning on talking about BioShock Infinite tonight, but Parker sort of like said, hey, this video that I had recommended that he check out. And then we had a conversation about it and then it kind of became a thing. And so now we're going to be doing an epis, sort of, sort of responding, you know, interacting. I like this one. Interacting with some content that has sort of been making the rounds lately. So we decided to do a pivot. But that's the kind of access that our, you know, patrons have. You know, the opportunity to pitch us on episode ideas. At the beginning of the year, they helped us sort of like lock down a basically Patron picks games list. And we've talked about. Link's Awakening is on there. Lord of the Ring, Gollum is on there. And there's a. There's a few others as well. I think I want to say Absolom is on there. Shin Megami Tensei 5, Vengeance is on there. I think there's got to be two more. Oh, Wind Waker is on there this year.

That's right.

What is the sixth one? What am I forgetting? It can't be that. That important. We'll remember it when it's time. Oh, is it Absolum or did I already say that?

You mentioned. You mentioned that game. Is it bravely default? I don't know.

Oh, yeah, no, we have seven this year. It is bravely defaulters on there. Anyways. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, patrons get to nominate and vote that stuff. And yeah, we're going to play these games. The. The episodes would be out there when. Anyway, anyways, for as little as a buck a month or four more if you want to. You have the opportunity to join with us and there are perks. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, there is a link in the show notes and we'd love to have you join us and join that community. That being said. Yeah, we are last, surely. Well, I am talking awesome. I'm just. Yeah, and it's. We're. We're only halfway through things and I'm already talking like a. So the back half is going to be real good. But lastly. But Surely not leastly, we are, you know, proud members of the Playwell network alongside our friends Paul Lytle, the techno funk boy with his the Thorns of War, and now the what is the the Realms of LRT or whatever.

Yep,

that's. Yeah, it's a. Yeah. Paul does actual play stuff and he's actually in the middle of developing a tabletop role playing game system and he's got a whole nother podcast sort of focusing on that. And that's pretty cool. It's been. We, we actually behind the scenes, we got to look at his Quick Start guide and you know, and that was real sick. It looks great. Really excited about that for him. Wesley Ray, the Henshin dad himself, the host of the Henchin dad podcast and retro name Pony bro, Meredith Nicholas Porch, AKA the Wonder from Down Under, AKA Porcho, AKA the host of Nothing New under the Porch. You know, he's, he's retired that podcast, but we still love him. We still like him and we still count him as one of us. And the most recent addition to our ranks, whether they are esteemed or not, is Quick Mark, AKA Mark Erickson with Quick Play. You know, he has short talks about video games. We love him, we love his content and frankly, we love all these guys. We love all their content and we think you ought to check some of their stuff out. So, you know, without further ado, here's a word from one of them. LRT Gates is a podcast about my upcoming heroic fantasy tabletop role playing and novel project. As we have the Kickstarter this spring and work begins for the full game and novel that goes with it. I'm going to be podcasting my thoughts about game design, about adventure, about storytelling and the ideas that are going into the game and the ideas that inspired me to write in it in the first place. We'll also have some real gameplay and stories from the world of El Artia. El Artian Gates is available wherever you get podcasts.

Yes.

And we're back. All right, so here's the deal, folks. We, we are going to be interacting with a State of the Ark video called does do JRPGs do do faith better than Than Church? Or it's something along those lines. It's, you know, if I have my show notes in front of me, that would help. So why don't I pull those up?

Yeah, you got that. You got that right. Do JRPGs do better faith?

Do faith better than church. And we, we don't want to make just a solely like, hey, this is us reacting to this video, although there's just an element of that involved. But we thought, like, you know, I had shared the video with Parker. He and I had a little bit of a conversation, you know, healthy conversation surrounding that. And then Josh and I sort of were talking about some stuff and I kind of was like, hey, I actually think there's a bit of an episode here. Originally, actually, Parker and I were just going to spin this off into sort of a, a bite sized, adjacent kind of chunk of content. But the more we talked about it and sort of like, it was like, well, I think this thing can just blow out into a full episode. And so we want to engage with some of the core ideas that, that they talked about in the video. So it's not necessary for you to go watch this video, although it, you know, it might be helpful and it might give you some extra context, you know, so, so we, we got that, you know, just sort of wanted to preface all that and kind of, you know, like, you know, cards on the table, sort of talk about the inciting incident. Yeah. You know, and I think one of the things I just wanted to say is like, you know, personally, like, my initial take on this was like, I was not hostile to it. Like, I, I don't appreciate the titling. You know, I, I just don't like clickbaity stuff. And while I understand it and I don't like, I don't absolutely hate it, I have to be honest. Like, that kind of, the first time I saw it, I didn't like it. And you know, frankly, like, the first time I listened to it, like, I, I just struggled because, well, you know, but it's like. And so I listened to it multiple times because I had to come to it. And it was like. And it was mostly, it was mostly just like, you know, I'm just kind of kind of out myself. Like, I look at Mike and I as being two very similar types of people. And in a lot of ways I sort of look at Mike's trajectory, you know, and again, I'm not trying to give you guys homework or anything, but one of the hosts of, say, the Ark, Mike, you know, these are, you know, just. These guys are too. They're lapsed Mormons. They, you know, it doesn't seem like they're really practicing, you know, with the Church of the Latter Day Saints or whatever you want to say. But Mike, it just like, there's a lot of times when I'm listening to him talk, he reminds me of almost sort of like, like if there's a diverging path, like, and Nate McKeever sort of shows up on one side, Mike shows up on the other where it's like. And, you know, I know that it's not a perfect parallel. And so sometimes, like, Mike will say things, I just get frustrated with him. All that being said. So it's like, you know, sometimes he was saying things, I'm just going, no, you're missing the point, stupid. You know. But overall, I think the conversation was pretty good. I think there's, you know, and Parker, you and I even sort of talked about it. I think there's some useful stuff here for Christians to sort of chew on and not just sort of like the, the fact that like, you know, they talk about sort of the gnostic background of a lot of how like JR Richie's sort of borrow from gnostic tropes and stuff like that. And I think that is helpful and it's, that's good information. The other side of it, though, is like, there, I think, a lot of really interesting points that they sort of, that come out of this conversation. And so we wanted to engage with some of those. And they actually sort of, you know, towards the, they, they have a fairly healthy discussion, but they talk about some of the ways that JRPGs understand faith better in some ways. And I wouldn't even say they understand faith better. It's rather, they understand this sort of the experiential side, the, the human experience of faith in some ways perhaps better. And I think sometimes the church does. But there are also some ways in which JRPGs do not engage with faith. Like it don't understand faith. And so we wanted to talk like, I think those are really the, the primary talking points. And I thought it would be really good to, you know, maybe sort of just focus on those and sort of pull apart some of this stuff. But yeah, so that's, that's kind of what we're going to be doing tonight. And so that's something, something that I, when we were talking about this, and I just kind of like, this is a Tim Keller quote. And, you know, sometimes you got to take Tim Keller with a little bit of a grain of salt. But he had said this at one point in time, and I read, I came across it while we were talking about this and thinking about this. And I wanted to share this because I think this actually has some bearing on the conversation. But he writes, a fish absorbs oxygen from water, not air, so it's free only if it is restricted to water. If a fish is freed from the river and put out on the grass. Its freedom to move and even live is destroyed. Real freedom is in finding the right restrictions, the ones that you were designed for. And so I think that is sort of a, like that's a quote that actually come to bear on some of this conversation at some point in time. And I just wanted to kind of like throw that out there and sort of like plant that in people's heads like. And yeah, so hopefully we'll sort of circle back around to that but.

Awesome. Awesome. I guess I'll just interject and, and agree with you when you're talking about faith. So. And obviously we're going to be talking about different aspects of faith here tonight, but in that initial video what they call faith is like you said that that personal kind of reckoning, that personal finding something to put your confidence in. So they see faith as, as this action, this personal action that you take. Not in the like the title. I read it as if like the faith, you know, does, do video games, do JRPGs, you know, do they actually explain what it means to, to have faith or what you ought to put your faith in better than the church? And I'm like what are you insane? Because we all, we acknowledge that video games can be great experiences, but also that, that they are not oftentimes the, the writing is not the most, the most subtle, the most, the most artistic out of any medium. It's still kind of early on. There are some, some great experiences. Obviously that's why we're doing this. But anyways, so I think there is that caveat there of they do use their own definition of for what faith is. And it's not, I mean it's not totally unique but you want to be careful that it's not talking about the faith. It's just talking about how we personally wrestle with again what, what we find to put our confidence in. And so yeah, my understanding is, is tonight we wanted to talk about, you know, how Christianity interacts with video games and, and interacts with some of their, some of their points as well throughout the video.

Well and I think too one of the things though too is like especially given their, their context, it's like it's understandable that that functional definition that they, they come to like we would disagree. Like, and I think it's, it's fair to say like that that understanding a lot of us would just sort of like that, that that definition of faith does feel like a little wishy washy.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, it and it's, it's it's an important experience. And I do think they bring that out as well, because particularly Christianity is personal. There is a personal aspect to. God wants a personal relationship with you, which is pretty amazing. He also wants a corporate relationship with you, you know, and so, so when you're, when you are regenerated, you're also, you know, brought into. You're adopted into the family of God as well. And so there is this communal aspect in which you're saved as well. So. So yes, and is. Is kind of what I'm saying. I think, I think we as Americans are radical individualism. You know, we tend to just view the personal aspect of it, but there's also a communal aspect which I think they kind of tend to downplay throughout the video, which is, you know, again, for their context. Yeah, I understand that as well.

I, I think also they, they sort of. Yeah. In that sort of hyper personalization, it's something that you have to come to grips with. And one of the things they did say. Say in the video that I think we would strongly disagree with is that you have to figure out your faith for yourself, that nobody can give it to you. And we actually understand that our faith is a gift to us, you know, that comes to us by grace. And so even that, like, I think we would disagree with him again. And it's not that, like, I think, like I said, when you're talking about sort of like the human experience of faith, like, and sort of that journey, like, yeah, like, I think we can kind of agree with him there. But. But yeah, so we're gonna kind of pick through some of this stuff. And again, I think like, those sort of like the, the. That list especially is probably going to be the most helpful touch points here. And I think too, like, you know, and Parker, you and I were talking about this too, too, is like, I think there are some things that we can pull out. Like these are things that maybe are questions worth asking ourselves, worth asking our churches as well. You know, sort of when we get to the end of some of this stuff. So do you need to go, okay, yeah, dude. He can just. Joshua. So anyways, sort of picking up where we left off here. So where do you guys. Do you guys just want to sort of tick through the, the notes that we have here or, you know, are there some other things that we should probably talk that do you think are the. I guess the question is, do you think there are any. Is there anything else that we should sort of address before we kind of press into the the meat here. Parker, you got anything that you sort of wanted to note or.

Yeah, it's just kind of like addressing the. The trope that is really kind of at the core of their argument that we see in JRPGs a lot of time, which is this idea of killing God and how that's maybe just sort of a misunderstanding of what those RPGs are really kind of fundamentally all about. So I don't know if you want to get into Gnosticism or just have a brief recap of like what this trope is in games, because this is kind of the main thrust of like what they talk about and you know, kind of like how we're talking about God and faith and religion and video games. It's really kind of not that broad. It's more specifically in how that gets interpreted in RPGs or specifically Japanese RPGs. So I don't know if you guys want to talk about that in this or if you want to just kind of go 50,000 foot view and just go through the specific numbers here. We can do it however you want to do it.

Well, I think it might be helpful to sort of. Yeah, because it is like one of those things where there is a sort of common misconception that a lot of J Art RPGs or especially post Xenogears are very much about like, hey, it's time for the band of adventurers to. To go kill God. This is particularly notable in the. The Persona games. There's usually some sort of fight against like some sort of demi. Demi urge type figure. And again, that. That's got the, the, the Gnostic roots there. Yeah, I think Mike and Casey did a pretty great job. But if we went to sort of abstract, it is that Gnosticism was. Slash is a sort of a heretical offshoot of Christianity. There are a lot of reasons that it doesn't exist. You know, Mike and you know, Casey were a lot more. In their analysis, they were like, like these people consider themselves Christians. And I'm like, well, there are a few councils, you know, in church history that would disagree with that. And you know, Holy Scripture actually would disagree with that. But one of the sort of the primary things, and I think this is the big takeaway, is that Gnosticism at its core teaches that physicality is inherently corrupt and that actually the, the goal is to get back to sort of a spiritual existence and that Gnosticism, you know, and, and one. One of the things that's very. Yeah, okay. Don't let the dogs out when you come to bed because it'll wake me up. Okay. Yeah, I know. Such good radio much. Wow. But anyways, part of the. The point is that again, sort of going back to that is that spiritual, like, all things spiritual are like spirituality is like the. The state that we're supposed to get back to. And so, like, there's a lot of, like, you know, anything physical is inherently sort of seen as morally inferior or weak or even wicked. And so in the Gnostic mythos, right, there's the demiurge or Jehovah, you know, sort of deceives humanity and wants to keep them sort of trapped in the material plane and beyond. Like, you know, and so there's kind of like in killing the demiurge, like through Gnosticism, like, you know, you want to actually sort of conquer the demiurge or, you know, defeat the demiurge by sort of digging into the higher Gnosis, or what they called the Monad, which is that is the true creator spirit. And that's the thing that. That's the thing that you actually need to get back to. And again, sort of like. Again

and just the clarification of Gnosis being knowledge. So it's this knowledge that, oh, actually material things are. Are bad because the demiurge is bad. So the God of this world is bad and materialism is bad. And so now that I know these things, now I can. I can fight against it. And now I can enlighten myself and become a spiritual being once again.

Yeah. And so a lot of times when we see these, like, gods in JRPGs, they are borrowing from that trope, specifically Xenogears, you know, did it, like, sort of. And again, that was sort of. You know, they even mention it in the. The video. But it is kind of like, who did it first, Shin Megami Tensei or Xenogears? Because even the Shin Megami Tensei games are sort of. They're rooted in young the Jungian cosmology, which I think borrows a lot of things from Gnosticism in some ways. So it's like in sort of trying to find the truth, you sort of reckon with false gods that need to be slain. And, you know, it's always sort of slain these things because, like, so, yeah, that's sort of at the core. And. And some of it is they prop that trope up and they say it's like the reality. And I think actually Cason's got a bit of a point, and I would wouldn't disagree with him, is that these games really aren't about killing God, they are about discovering the true God. But unfortunately the answers that the like JRPGs give is usually it's like the power of friendship or some sort of like a life force of a planet or whatever other sort of like mystical shamanistic mumbo jumbo they sort of like want to sort of throw in there, but there's always like, is the God that you're fighting is ultimately a false God that needs to be cast down. But they never, you know, really demonstrate Christian truth, you know. So it's kind of. It's a bit of a mixed bag where on one hand we can actually say, yeah, absolutely, these false gods need to be thrown down. You know, at the same time, JRPGs don't offer any sort of substantial like, you know, they're like, again, it's sort of like what defeat what can defeat, you know, a false God. The power of friendship. Which is like. That's an incredibly unsatisfying answer, you know.

Yeah, I, I remember I had an experience actually playing, playing Xenobi Chronicles funny enough on Wii. And the way that the game props everything up is, is you end up, yeah, going against this, this godlike character at the very end of the game. And I remember being uncomfortable because I'm. Because it's just like, this is weird to. To try and take down, you know, the God, the creator of this world. And also, you know, also it makes no sense because creatures like, compared to the creator of the whole, like how would. How would these little creatures really have any power against this thing? But it made me uncomfortable. However, I think in that game in particular, then they go back and tell. Then. Then it kind of reveals who this God character is and how he came to be and how he created things. And so it made more sense within the broader context. But it is a game that kind of like opens up into. Gives you that context kind of late in the game and then ties that in with other, you know, all that stuff that happens there. But I will say just kind of the moment to moment kind of experiential or excuse me, experience of me playing it, I was profoundly uncomfortable with this idea of killing God. So it's certainly a trope that, that shows up in a number of different games. I do think what you mentioned, it is a true statement. This, this idea, this idea of. Of killing a God and the way that they frame it in their episode is that it's not necessarily about the death of the God, it's about the finding that there's actually something Greater than that God.

The truthing above and beyond that God.

Right.

Or that thing that presents as God.

And so then you relate that to kind of in psychological terms of, oh, this is the death of your belief and the birth of your belief in something better and something grander and something greater and something more true. And I think that's. That. That is a. That is a valid way to look at it, I think. But I think that also the other point there is that we as humans have to serve something. You know, that, yes, we have a tendency, like, we're made to worship. We're made to worship the true living God. And if we don't worship him, then we are worshiping false gods. We're worshiping ourselves. You know, these, these things, these idols, these falsities. So I think there is a truth in there that, yeah, you, You. You have to serve something. And we, we inherently are worshipers.

I think that's also really sort of. And again, to sort of like praise. I think something that they got right is like, Casey actually brings up that point like, you know, and it's like when he's referencing Final Fantasy 10 2, you know, he talks about like the. The journey, the hero's journey, and sort of again, the. The confronting of the false God in Final Fantasy 10. And then at the end, it's like you get the 102 and what's, what's. What is unit become. She becomes a pop star. She becomes a false idol of a different sort of. And it was just like, I, I thought that that was really poignant. Like, you know, again, like, you know, we do. You know, I. It's like, those guys are really good at what they do, man. And I was like, when, When I heard that, I was like, dude. And then he draws the parallel to like, even today, like, there are a lot of, like, there's sort of almost a religious aspect in a lot of pop culture when it comes to just musicians etc. I mean, like, you think about just like, yeah, all of that stuff. So again, it's. It's something where it's like, you know, I, I think they were kind of hitting. They were hitting a lot of really great points. And I think, like, again, you know. Yeah. Without trying to, like, put too much burden on anybody, like, it's, It's. There were some really great stuff. Really great stuff in that episode, you know, worth sort of like wrestling with. But. Yeah. Anything else that we should probably talk about before we kind of move on. Again, sort of like looking, you know, sort of at this. This list and kind of wrestling with that.

I would just say that the framework from which they're, they're taking a look at this list again is this idea of faith, of wrestling with your personal beliefs. And so as, as we look at the list of what do video games or JRPGs do really well in this personal rest, just remember that it's related to your personal doubt, your dark night of the soul and your searching for something better is the way that this is framed. It's not necessarily, you know, do video games tell the truth more than the church does? It is. It is in, in your personal wrestling with the truth. Does. Is there more. Is there more of, of a profound experience that you can have personally with video games, or is it with a entity that teaches dogma? You know, because they have, they even have their own view of what the church is and they, they state it in the video and they, they tell of how. Well, I guess that is something. Actually, to give a little bit more context of this is that they heavily make it clear that their experience, their church experience, is such that doubts were anathema, that you were not to doubt the teaching of the church. I've heard lots of stories like that, but I will say in my personal experience, I don't feel as though I was ever told that outright, that when I had doubts, I was able to. I had people around me that would point me to the scriptures, you know, that would try and help me through things. It was not an immediate kind of shutdown of, oh, no, no, no, you shouldn't think about that. Don't. Don't think about contradictions. Don't think about, you know, doubts that you're having. I was encouraged to wrestle through these things. So I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I'm saying my experience throughout my entire life has been different than what they put forth. And so that's going to color even there, the way that they, they, they grade each of these because they've come from a belief system that is not only dogmatic, but that would discourage its adherence to look, to attempt to find answers anywhere else. Yeah, and.

Yeah, well, and I think it's like you referenced, like, your experience and, you know, I'd love to sort of have Parker weigh in, too, but I know that my experience was a little different. And in a lot of contexts, like, there was not a lot of room for many, for many years, there was not a lot of room to ask questions that had hard answers or didn't have easy answers. And it's like, and so like, when you're wrestling with doubt sometimes, like, you know, sometimes it was like that, you know, and I think being gracious and especially, like looking at Mike and Kayson's context where it's a, like Mormonism, you know, the Church of the Latter Day Saint or whatever you want to call it, like, it's a very dogmatic. It's. We. We would call it cultish or not cultish. It is a cult. Yeah. And you know, referencing the podcast, but it's. It's a cult. And so, like, the thing is, like, even more so, it's very like, don't question the teachings, don't question the authority. Whereas. And I do think that sometimes that in especially. I think sometimes. And it's not. It comes from a different place where it's like one, you know, maybe a fear for the soul versus sort of like, hey, you, like, don't. Don't step out of line. But I think it's also, I think a lot of times, like, you know, and you. I want to be kind here, but I think that a lot of. A lot of the evangelical tradition is not equipped to deal with heavier questions. Like, you know, I think there are a lot of people who, within that just don't. And so you're kind of actively discouraged from wrestling with these things. And it's almost like, well, you just need. You just need to pray about them more. You just need to trust more. And it's like. And while those things are probably true, I think sometimes in that experience, they aren't necessarily helpful. And so, like, I know for. For me, sort of part of my experience was like, at some point in time, like, like, I had to just come to terms with the fact that it was like, you know, and now granted, I. I kind of walked away from the church for a number of years and. But it was just like, I had to. I had to internally resolve that, like, oh, it's okay that I ask these questions because, like, asking the questions is part of, like, the. The actual search for truth, you know, and it's like, I'm reminded of CS Lewis quote where it's like, if you go looking for comfort, you're going to find soft soap. And, and he, like, something like hand wringing or something like that. But it's ultimately really dissatisfying. I'm going to paraphrase him, but he says, like, but if you go looking for truth, it's going to be hard, it's going to be uncomfortable, but you're probably. You might actually Find it. And I think that again, that that is, you know, and again, I don't want to say that every church is bad at this, but I do think like, especially, you know, because there are many traditions that don't encourage deep biblical literary literacy that people like, you know, and, and don't have like robust models for discipleship and mentorship. Like. Yeah, there's actually, I think sometimes within broader evangelicalism, this is a real problem where like they don't know how to deal with doubt, you know, and people aren't encouraged to like wrestle with those things. It's really, it's just like, well, you know, just kind of like we don't have a great answer for you, so we're just going to pretend that it doesn't exist. And again, I don't want to. So it's like. And again, that's just two very different contexts here. And so Parker, you know, sort of, even in response to this, like what, what was like some of your background and sort of like, you know, in wrestling and sort of like the openness to doubt and sort of wrestle with that.

Yeah, I think my experience was probably closer to yours, Nate. I came out of a kind of, I wouldn't say strict fundamentalist, but maybe fundamentalist adjacent kind of background. And I would say that just within that strain of Christianity there is not to be unkind, but I would say there's a strong vein of kind of anti intellectualism there where it's like, you're not supposed to even engage with like universities and higher education just in general is looked at with a high deal of suspicion. And there's an idea that like the pursuit of the mind is kind of like separate from the pursuit of faith almost in the way that like science and faith can't be reconciled. They're somehow supposed to be mutually exclusive. It's like there's this idea that like knowledge, you know, can be very dangerous and that it can lead you astray. And so I don't think it was ever taught to me specifically that way, but I think there is a sense of like, you know, don't go out there digging too much because you're going to find something that's going to lead you away from the trick. Truth is sort of the thing. So we need to kind of close up. We need to turtle up. We're the church. We're being assaulted on every side by the devil and Satan and the world and all this stuff. So we need to kind of like turtle up into this small group and just, you know, Backs together, spears facing outward, and fight all of that off. And part of that is like fighting off modernity, fighting off knowledge, fighting off universities, fighting off all these kind of worldly influences. And so in that sense, it's kind of like the, the implicit assumption is that like, yeah, you shouldn't really ask questions because if you, if you're struggling with doubt and if you're struggling with faith, you just, you just need to kind of rub some dirt on it and get over it. You don't, you shouldn't have a dark night of the soul. You should move past that as quickly as possible to get to the other side. Don't sit in the doubt, like, just, you know, try to pray more or work your way out of it in some way, but you don't really have answers for you. You just have to kind of believe these things, you know, so that's kind of the context I came out of. And it was, it took a while to kind of reckon with that because I'm somebody who likes to think about things deeply. I want to wrestle with things, I want to ask the hard questions. And I don't want to have a strong man to go up against. I want a steel man to go up against. I want a robust argument on the other side to fight vigorously with so that I can come out stronger at the end of it. And there are just certain parts of Christianity where that's, that philosophy is not really appreciated, I would say.

Yeah, no, it's like, I think something in there, it was like, you know, you sort of like rub some dirt on it, you know, just kind of like power through it. And it was almost like, and I don't know if I was. This was ever said and you know, I don't know if this was ever said explicitly, but it almost felt like if you doubted that was actually a moral failure, like there was something inherently wrong with you for wrestling with questions and wanting more than just like easy answers or just vague answers, like, sort of like. And I, and I think honestly that's why, like when I was exposed to Calvinism and the reformed tradition, like, there's, all of a sudden it was like, you know, and I, I had sort of been on my way back to the church at that point in time for a few years, but it was like all of a sudden like, you know, and that's actually like why the emergent church and some of that seeker sensitive stuff was so interesting because it was, it was not afraid to ask questions, like, and it was like, it was very much like, oh no, like come in like now was it like a peed up baby pool, you know? Yes, it was like, this is not the deep end at all. But then sort of like coming through that like again, I sort of getting into sort of being exposed to Calvinist doctrine and being exposed to the Reformed tradition and Reformed theology and Reformed thought and all of a sudden it's like, no, there's a depth here and a robustness that isn't afraid to like wrestle with hard things. And sometimes, sometimes the answer is like, you know, yeah, you just hold on to the, the hem of the robe of Christ. You just hold on to him and that's. That, that is what is ultimately going to get you through. But it wasn't, it was, it was sort of, it was actually like kind of hard fought for and it wasn't. Yeah, and so, yeah, I think that's because I think like you're going to have sort of a range of experiences. Like there are going to be some people who sort of came up in the church and where like, you know, I think it is actually very healthy to sort of have room for doubt, to have people who can sort of like talk you through these things, point you to scripture, maybe give you sermons or lessons or whatever for those hard questions. But what I'm also saying is like, there's a reality in which a lot of churches just, I, I think aren't equipped for that. Like, and they don't equip their people for that. And so when you have people who sort of want to dig a little bit harder, like, they're kind of like, nope, like, don't even go there. Don't wrestle with this. Like, you just need to accept the dogma. Like, and is it mysterious and sort of mystical? Yeah, but just like take your medicine and eat the slope and you know, again, I'm not trying to be unkind. I just think that like, you know, and it's, it's interesting and I think especially coming from Mike and Kayson's perspective as lapse ex Morgan Mormons. Like, they're lapsed Mormons, they are ex Mormons, whatever you want to call it, they, they came out of a cult. And so obviously like their experiences are very much painted by that and it's very understandable how they get to their presupposition. Right. But again, we would just sort of say, well, we actually, you know, and it's. I know some people, especially for people who aren't believers, they're going to be like, this sounds incredibly arrogant, but it's like, unlike you, we actually have the truth. Like, you know, we don't have sort of like these, these false narratives. These. We don't have the false religion. We have the true religion and we have relationship with the godly universe. And so like, like we, we are operating from a foundationally different perspective than you guys because like, you know, in some ways, like, we have found capital T truth. Now, do we know it fully and perfectly? No, but we have it right.

And, and you don't have to go outside of it to find the key that's going to unlock things like this idea of no gnosis. You can continue to dig forever into it and learn it more.

You know, we're never further up and further in man.

Yeah, but, but you don't have to. And, and I say that like, if you have a Christian worldview, you realize that all truth is God's truth. And so things point back to him, certainly. And so you can find wisdom in outside of the scriptures. I'm not saying that everything is. Is inside the scriptures, but they point back towards who he is in his full revelation in the scripture. So. Yeah.

Anyways, one last, one last shout out to those guys too is like. And especially casing because like one. I just think he came off like a total, just gigachad, like straight king energy. Like you go king. Really? I think he. Yeah. And. And Mike, Mike was good too. I just, like I said, I see a lot of myself in Mike. I see a lot of. Yeah, anyways, but. And this is kind of funny, but also like 100 cosine when basically Cason tells George R. Martin to just shut up and sit down, I was like, go King. Like, yes, get him. Like get them any. Anytime anybody digs on that hack, I. I do a little happy dance. So just wanted to say attaboy.

There's.

I. I doubt they'll ever hear this, but like, attaboy, guys. Attaboy Case. And get them. Get them. So if you guys, if there's sort of nothing else to sort of COVID before we start to dig into this. And this is really like, there's a substantial conversation, but at the end it sort of boils down to kind of these, what we got six, six ways that it does faith better. And it looks like three, four ways that it does not understand faith better. And again, this is sort of primarily, you know, we, we need to recognize that this context is. They're coming out of Mormonism. They. Yeah. And so they're. They. We would just disagree with them on some of this, like, the foundational things. But again, I think that, like, when you look at the meat of this conversation and what it was really about, I think this is, you know, pretty important stuff. So I'm going to just rattle, rattle off the first one here. And so the, one of the ways in which JRPGs understand faith better than some, again, the church, and again, we want to sort of like sometimes in some context, is that JRPGs, JRPGs dramatize doubt rather than try to suppress it becomes a story and an important part of the personal journey churches can treat doubt. And I'm, I'm going to paraphrase and sort of insert and sort of almost offer correction to some of this because again, I think there's some cynicism or maybe I'll read the claim and then we, we can sort of offer like, hey, actually it should read like this. But so they write churches are, or they say that churches treat doubt as contamination, something to be solved quickly neutralized or quarantined. In JRPGs, doubt is the mechanic to revelation. You must experience the doubt to get to the revelation. Gnosis. Gnosis. And again, we even talked about this. That's not always the case, especially in true faith. There's room for doubt, there's room for questions, and it's not seen as being a contaminant. But there are contexts in which the modern evangelical church, broadly speaking, actually sometimes just I think out of, and not being equipped like, they sort of do just they're like, oh, we, we don't want to deal with that. They just kind of want to push it off to the side or minimize it or just again, rub some dirt on it. Like, you know, so I guess in sort of looking at that, I, I think like, it's sort of like churches can treat doubt as contamination. Like, you know, and I would say, like unhealthy churches especially will, will treat doubt as contamination, something to be solved quickly neutralized or quarantined. And in fact, not understanding that sometimes, like that is, you know, again, there's the, the private salvation and corporate salvation. But it is, you know, we, we recognize that Christian living is a journey. You know, it's like, I mean, like one of the greatest pictures that we have of the Christian life is Pilgrim's Progress, and that is pilgrim putting his feet on the road. And sometimes he wanders off, sometimes he gets stuck, you know, and it's like, but ultimately like the, the road, he, you know, even when he wanders off, he comes back to the road, to the path that leads to the, the heavenly kingdom. And so yeah, I think the, the sort of, you must experience the doubt to get to the revelation Gnosis. I, I think actually one of the beautiful, beautiful things about Christian experience especially is that there are some people who came to know the Lord to experience salvation at a very young age and they just have a quiet faith that has never sort of been you know, shaken by serious doubt. Like, doubt is not. We don't look at doubt as being necessary. We also don't look at it as a moral failing. Like it is just sometimes part of the human condition. Right. And the human experience, but it is not. Doubt is not always necessary. I think that is somewhere where we would differ that like actually and the, the true revelation comes from God being gracious to us and you know, revealing truth, the truth of his Son through the Holy Spirit to us. So like, I would also say that I think we could probably disagree with that assumption. You know, just sort of say like there's, there's some truth in there. And I think definitely that's, that's an area where like, you know, we would encourage the listeners here to, you know, maybe sort of be people in their churches who welcome those who are wrestling with doubt, who have hard questions, who are sort of going through those, those hard nights of the soul.

Can I offer one quick thought on that, Nate?

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

So I think some of what they talk about in their context is RPGs, JRPGs in general, they focus very specifically on teenagers and coming of age stories. And I think that's important to note in the context of faith and doubt and stuff, because what they're doing is they're zeroing in with a sort of laser focus on that really critical point in people's lives where they're transitioning from. Okay, this is what I was taught, this is what the institution taught me, this is what my parents taught me. But what do I believe? And so a lot of this, a lot of what they're saying about like having to doubt to get to the revelation or gnosis is what we would call the process of taking your parents faith and making it your own. Right? We would say as Christians, like you don't inherit salvation from your parents, you know, and you can grow up in a great Christian home, but that doesn't necessarily make you a Christian. You have to go through the process of wrestling with those truths that were given to you by the church or by your parents or by whoever that person was in your life that shared the gospel with you. Or the scriptures themselves. And you have to come to that decision personally yourself. So you call that a wrestling or a doubting or whatever. But I think the question that needs to be asked is is this just something that was handed to me or is this something that I actually believe for myself? Is this, am I, do I have my parents faith or is that faith my own? You know, and that's kind of like the journey that we could maybe co sign with, you know, in these JRPGs where it's all about people like unshackling themselves from. You know, usually it's like a corrupt church or a corrupt institution or you know, the tradition of the culture that they grow up in or whatever. But they go out to find out who they are and what they believe. And so there's that sort of like journey of self exploration and finding yourself or whatever. But we would I think maybe just say like you can't inherit your parents faith. You have to come to these conclusions yourself. And it has to be your faith, your personal faith, not something that anybody else gives to you. So maybe that's like a better context to kind of set up, you know, specifically what's happening in these games is they're dramatizing that period. And what they're saying is you need to throw it all away and come up with your own thing. And what we're saying is actually don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Just make it your own. Make sure it's not somebody else's.

Yeah, that's good, that's good. I would also like to just bring up like we've talked a lot about, as we're talking about you know, Christianity and in. Or faith in ostensibly Christianity as well and how it interacts with video games. A lot of the conversation has been about these tropes of video games and a lot of it has been about this wrestling, this faith. I just want to kind of throw out there like one. Basically a question that comes to mind for me is why particularly are we focusing on like what makes video games this medium is in which this is particularly prescient Because I do also think a lot of these, these profound kind of wrestling against like when you are confronted with something that does not align with your belief system, with what you believe to be true, that can, that causes that tension in, in that wrestling as well. And I think that is also available in other forms of medium. So you know, you can get that from a movie. I've certainly gotten that from many books. You know, I've had To wrestle through concepts as I've, as I've read books. I think what makes video games particular within this conversation is the fact that it's interactive. And so it, I think particularly also as we're talking about JRPGs is they're generally pretty linear, they're telling a story. But you get to embody a character in certain ways. You do that in books too. You get to hear inside their brain as well. But you have this, this sense in which even though the characters pre written the stories pre written all this stuff will only ever end in a handful of ways. Okay. You have a particularly. You place yourself, you place yourself in this character's shoes as you carry it out. And so inherently you start to wrestle with what this character is wrestling with as well. So anyways, that's what comes to mind for me is why, why video games? Why not other media portraying this?

Well, yeah, and I think that's kind of like the thing is like the defining thing is like we've talked about this, about just the way that media works on us is that one of the, the reasons that video games are so potent at sort of like with storytelling is that you are inhabiting that space in a way that you know, you talk about books and yes, you're sort of like a passenger in the book but like in some ways you are, you are the actor. Like you like, because like you're the one inputting, you're the one sort of pushing that forward. Like you, the, the, the narrative proceeds with you because of you. Like it's there, you know, but like it's your. In, in some ways it's your agency that is driving that experience. And so like. And you are in a way sort of inhabiting that space. So that's, that's why it's more potent. Like, because like it's like yeah, it's, it's. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's again, that's sort of. And again that's, that's kind of like one of the really interesting things and that's why some of these like video games sit so heavily with us, you know, and it's like, you know, is because again you're sort of stepping into that space in a certain capacity. One of the, sort of looking at the second one here and I thought this one was pretty, that JRPGs understand institutional drift. They understand that institutions may change over time, starting with good intentions, but can become corrupted. And again like you, you know, it's sort of. I'm, I'm tweaking Some of like how it was stated, but it's like, I think they kind of make the assumption that every institution like drift is inevitable. And I might agree with that presupposition to a certain extent. I mean, like, after all, like we're all Protestants. So at some, like, at some point in time, like institutional drift, correction, like meets correction. It's like, you know, the Church prior to the Reformation, prior to the, you know, Protestant sort of, you know, the, the protesting of the Protestants, like the Church was a thing and then. And, and even there you had like the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox sort of schism there as well. So it's kind of like one of those things where it's like we would actually sort of. I think that is something that is. It's good to remember that, you know, like these institutions in a way are sort of like there since they are fraught with humans and humans are fallible and, and sinners and everything else. It's like inevitably like there's no such thing like as a perfect institution and actually becomes like the minute people get involved, it becomes imperfect. Now by the grace of God, we know that the true church, even though it's flawed and full of sinners, is a perfect institution. We're just waiting for the fulfillment of all of that. And in a way it is sort of incorruptible. Like God will preserve his remnant, but again that's, that's his work, not ours. And so we're. But I, I think it is. Is actually good to understand that like, yeah, like things change over time. Again, sort of like just specifically in our own tradition, looking at the Reformation, that was necessary because in a lot of ways, like the Church at that point in time had really fallen away from Scripture and there were a lot of abuses perpetrated in the name of God upon people. You know, like not even just non believers, but also people within the church. Like, I mean Luther's, one of his big things was the practice. Like, you know, one of the reasons he even started looking at this is like the, the he like examining the, the practice of indulgences which, you know, the Catholic Church says they got rid of, but they didn't really. They're still sort of there. They just call them something else now anyways. So, you know, again, like I, I think this is something that like, yeah, I, I can kind of co. Sign to. It's like, it's a good reminder that hey, like even if something starts out with good intentions, I also think like one of the things is like, in some ways, like, it's. It reminds me of the. The parable of the. The tree that. Like, when. Or not even a parable, when Jesus is talking like a kingdom about. He's like, it's like a tree, and it's got many, many branches, and it's like, you know, it's like. But that's a tree that has a solid trunk, and probably those branches are. And. And I'm. This is a little bit sanctified imagination. I'm not trying to sort of like, this is exactly what Jesus meant, but I think that the kind of tree that Jesus is talking about, like, when he was talking about the. The kingdom of heaven or the. The kingdom, and. And. And sort of in talking about the church and the way it expresses. It's a tree that the trunk is solid and kind of inflexible, but the branches. Like, the branches grow out and they can be. It's kind of like a willow, almost. Like, have you ever seen a willow tree? Like, the trunk itself is. Is pretty substantial. No, they're not all huge, but, like, the branches can sort of just be whipped all over the place, you know, and the tree will survive in spite of that. And that's, in a lot of ways, I think, a really good picture for, like, the church. As a general rule, there are lots of branches that sort of tend to be a little more flexible, that can be shaped a little bit more by, like, current context. But at the core, like, there's. There's like ten pillars or whatever, you know, however. But, like, at the core is like, the truth of the gospel, and that is inflexible, and that doesn't change. That's not shaped by culture, you know, and maybe I'm.

Hopefully.

I didn't say anything too blasphemous or crazy there, but I just. I think some of it is that it's kind of. We want to make the. The assumption that the way that we experience faith and the way that we experience church is just. It's been the same forever and ever and ever. And that's just not true. Like, I mean, even in my. Like, you know, there are lots of healthy churches that don't experience literature, don't engage in liturgy and worship the exact same way. At the core, that's the. It's the gospel proclamation, you know, and that. That is the thing that a good church will always have. But those expressions can and do look different, you know, but I don't know. Hopefully that just wasn't too insane.

That makes sense. I would Say too, like there's, there's always a call for reformation, you know, in every age, in every generation. And they're not, they may not be capital R Reformations, they might be low lowercase R Reformations, but you know, so I think we would agree with this idea that like, we understand too that institutions drift away from their core purpose. And if you're not always in a state of trying to true it up with scripture, that's the measuring rod and trying to reform it back to scripture because the tendency is just to kind of like drift away from it, to water it down to make it culturally more appealing, to try to diversify the message, like whatever, like our 10. Our natural tendency is to drift away from that.

Yeah.

And so we like, we have that problem in the church that these video games are saying is that if you give it enough time on a given trajectory, it's going to go so far out into left field that it's going to be corrupt and it's going to cease to even, you know, fulfill the original intention of what it was there for. And so, you know, I guess for us as Christians, we can say yes. And that is why we are constantly reforming the church. We're constantly trying to like, look at the scriptures. We can never get away from the scriptures. It's all about the scriptures. Because without that, we will drift and it is inevitable. That will get away from the gospel, will preach a different gospel, a false gospel, a social gospel, whatever that is. And so we have to be constantly on guard for the fact that, you know, we could drift in there but for the grace of God go we kind of a situation. So yeah, that's where I would say, I would agree with them. Like they say that we see that in video games all the time. The institution starts for a great reason. It becomes evil over generations or power concentrates within there and it becomes corrupt. I mean, we have the same things in churches too. If somebody gets a little too powerful, the pastor is the CEO of the church and he has a little too much sway or he's bringing in really important people or donors, and so he gets his final say on everything and he squashes the elders or whatever the case may be. We have that problem of power accretion and accumulation in the church and we need the constant be working to make sure that that doesn't corrupt our churches. So yeah, I would agree with that.

Yeah. Yep. I, I, I agree. And, and it's, it's, it's interesting though where you find that because you, you were talking about that, Parker, where the problem is, is not the institution of the church. Where the problem is, is in human hearts that. That change that trajectory and that do that drift. The only other thing that I would add is that I think this also shows kind of the. You. You touched on it, Nate, the suspicion that they. That they employ to come to their conclusions. Because while I completely agree with both you guys, yes, drift is. Is a problem. And yeah, over time, we see lots of ways in which different church movements, different churches, whatever, have drifted and caused lots of damage and taught false things and. Yeah, all kinds. Absolutely right there with you on the same. On the other side of that coin, though, is that I think it's also possible to refine the faith through generations that I do think that theologians have been able to. We have more definition around the faith nowadays than we did, you know, the first generation of Christians. Even the concept of the Trinity and things like that that we don't fully understand, that we don't fully grasp, but we have it better defined now than, yeah, I would say, 2,000 years ago. And so I think there's also a positive aspect, so long as, you know, the sin doesn't run rampant within it. So there's a poss. What I'm saying is there is a possibility of positive things that happen over time. Not. It's not always negative in the way that they seemed to portray it in the episode, in the way that, yeah, these types of stories where you have to rebel against this. This monolith that has become evil. Yes, I understand what they're getting at, and that is true. But I do think, actually, when you look at the. The true church, that actually we've done some work to refine. Again, advantage going back to the fountain, like you talked about, separate Semper reformanda always reforming because we have our standard of that we should be reforming ourselves too. And through those things and obviously the work of the Holy Spirit, clearly. But I think he has brought about clarity in some areas as well. So that's all that.

Yeah. Okay, moving along here, point number three. JRPGs dramatize the gap between transcendent truth and religious bureaucracy. They are separate things. I think that it's especially like. It's. It's interesting to me because, like, in reading this statement, I can't help but think of, like. And I don't want to be. I don't want to be unnecessarily unkind, but I think of Rome. I think of the. The. The. The Roman Catholic Church and the grandeur and the beauty of, like, those buildings and how so many of those buildings are, like, meant to point to transcendent truth, but they are also sort of just like. Like, in some ways, it seems inextricable, inextricably tangled up with sort of the. The, Again, that bureaucratic corruption. But, like, the. The reality is, like, that the truth, Transcendent truth, is not inherently tied to those structures. Like, you know, religious bureaucracy may try to sort of. Again, I think of Rome in particular, you know, and. And again, the Catholic Church. But, like, you know, it's not to say, like. Like, yeah, anyways, I'm not gonna get too far into that. But, like, those are two different things. And that the. The truth isn't inherently. That the transcendent truth in a lot of ways is not dependent on the organization. It's not dependent on the. The church organization, but rather. And again, that's sort of the transcendent truth is, you know, revealed and rests in holy Scripture. So I don't know. I don't. I think. I think that one's just like, yeah, we can. We can kind of see these things, and. And I think it's. It is easy to sort of. You know, I think sometimes in real life, those things can get a little tank. Tangled up sometimes. Like.

So, yeah, I think it's good to question why it's set up the way that it is, but I think you'll find answers if you dig. Maybe. Maybe with. Maybe with maybe some modern evangelical churches that aren't rooted in any type of historical context. It's just. Oh, this just works. You know, we're set up like a company when you're talking about bureaucracy, something like that. And maybe that's where you say, okay, yeah, no, this isn't true. There's no real. You know, why. Oh, goodness. Okay. Should I go down this rabbit trail? Why do we play songs that sound like Coldplay on Sunday mornings to worship Jesus? You know, like. Oh, well, the answer is it actually stirs up our emotions as opposed to, you know, having that. And. And I get that that's in service to the Lord, but sometimes it's manipulative, you know, so. So there's. There are elements there. So. Yeah, I mean, insofar as. It's true. It's true. Yeah. But insofar as. Oh, no, actually, the church has thought through these things, and there's a reason we have. Like you talked about Nate, our liturgy, and there's a reason why we do things the way that we do. And whether that's even. I'M not a part of a Presbyterian church, personally. But whether that's. Hey, our bureaucracy is set up this way. We have authority structures this way because we believe that's what scripture lays out for us to do. And this is the best, the best good and necessary consequence of the way that our authority should be. So I think you can find. If there are answers, then find those answers. If they're bad answers, well, then you found it. You found your answer. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, yeah.

And it, It's. It's sort of. Yeah. And I think again, sort of like this. This is sort of particularly potent for like, maybe unhealthy churches or. And again, sort of looking at case in a Mike's context, like coming out of Mormonism, like, yeah, I can, I can absolutely understand why those things would seem linked in a lot of ways because that's kind of what that institution does. That's what those, those types of institutions do. They try to sort of say, like, no, like, these two things aren't separate. They, they exist in tandem. But the reality is like, truth is not tied to a particular organization. It is like, it is rooted in Scripture. Like. And yeah, it's like, again, the example I go back to is like, Rome and Rome sort of making the sort of the dictation that in some ways scripture must submit to church tradition. And it's like, yeah, like, dude, no, like, no, no, you got the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Yeah.

The next conclusion that we have, I feel like it's almost a restatement of some of the stuff we've already talked about. It says that JRPGs recognize that institutions also calcify and power consolidates. Gnostics refused central authority, but that's also why they don't exist anymore. So again, they equate this idea of rebelling against a false power structure as Gnosticism. Excuse me, Gnosticism, which we're not fully on board with that, but we understand its utility. But yeah, I mean, this is just more. Hey, institutions calcify and power consolidates. I feel like it's really similar to mission Drift.

It's the inversion of drift. Like, it's. Instead of sort of going too far afield or too far outward, it turns too far inward. And again, sort of. Parker, you talked about growing up in sort of a much more like, fundamentally fundamental, adjacent sort of, you know, experience where it's like, turtle up, spears out. Like. And the, the reality is like, you know, the church as an institution is, Is a living thing. And so you need like how many. Like, there are dozens of. Especially in the mainline denominator, like dozens of thousands of mainline denomination churches that are dying. Because, like, you know, there's. And. And it's. And that's. And these are. These are calcified. They sort of. They close themselves off. They weren't. You know, it's, It's. There's no bringing in new blood. There's no kind of. It's like, nope, we're just gonna. And eventually they just, you know, calcification, like petrified wood is. Is the. You know, that's. Yeah, it's kind of like it's. It's dead, you know, and so it's. Yeah, but it's. And again, sort of going back to that model, it's like you do need a strong core, but you also need to make sure that you're. You don't want to be so strong that you're brittle. Again, calcification. You also don't want to be so sort of, like, tolerant that you're just sort of blown or like, just blown all over the place and just torn out. So you kind of need that, like, strength and rigidity meets flexibility. Yeah. So I don't know if there's too much to retread there. I don't know so well.

I would just say really quick, like, you know, in, in your teenage years, there's a heavy emphasis, especially in Western culture, on rebellion and rebelling against your parents and media will glorify that a lot of times or even say that that's, like, inevitable and necessary as part of your passage to manhood or adulthood or whatever. And so I think that's why this Gnostic rebellion sort of really resonates with teenagers, is because you're already the, the, the pump is primed, so to speak, for you to be like, I'm a teenager. It's time for me to rebel against stuff. What should I be rebelling against? And what JRPGs are kind of trying to tell you is rebel against institutions, rebel against religions, rebel against the church, whatever that looks like. Rebel against, you know, traditional value structures that you grow up with. It gives you all sorts of sort of scapegoats for how and what you should be rebelling against. Basically, anything that's a central authority is something that's up for rebellion against and to be dramatized in a way where you're now the main character in this drama where you're tearing that thing down and you're destroying it and actually needs to be destroyed, because it's always Corrupt. And the answer is always for you, as the character coming of age, to be the one, the chosen one, to sort of like bring about the rebellion that ultimately tears down this corrupt structure. And of course, as a teenager, you're just going to eat this stuff up because like everywhere else in culture you're told that you should be rebelling and that's just kind of like what you do at that age. So, yeah, I mean, I think that Gnostic rebellion fits nicely in with that. And that's why we see it in so many games that are geared toward teenagers and games that are RPGs, JRPGs, whatever. It's just kind of everywhere. Right?

Yeah, the, the rebellion as virtue trope, you know, Right. Where it's just like. Yeah, yeah. And, and I think too, like, even sort of that it's like, you know, the thing is like, you know, it's sort of like following that idea out is like if you do sort of descend into anarchy key, just eventually everything just sort of burns down, you know, and again, it's like you actually, you do need authority. Like, you want that authority to be righteous, you want those to be good men and women, you know, leading and, and teaching at the same time. Like, you know, like, yeah, it's not, you know, sometimes things need to be burnt down, but not all the time and not everything. Yeah, again, semper reform on them. You know, I think this next one is pretty potent and we've all like, I think, you know, to some extent, you know, I think there's a little bit of conversation here, but it's kind of interesting because I actually think this is a really spot on analysis of, of some of like again, broader evangelicalism, evangelicalism, evangelicalisms practices, but that modern churches often. And again, again, want to preface this, this is also looking at their context coming out of Mormonism. I can totally understand how you can sort of make this assumption. Right. And again, I think this is also something that JRPGs do sort of advocate for. But modern churches often reduce faith to behavior modification, moral compliance and therapeutic reassurance. The, the deistic therapeutic mono. No, it's the therapeutic monotheism. Moralistic therapeutic monotheism. Yeah, theism. What? Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. But yes, that term actually used to bounce around though, and that was a great sort of definer. Like that actually expressed a lot of what was essentially being taught in churches, you know, but JRPGs treat faith as a metaphysical engagement with reality itself, not merely as a lifestyle. And boy howdy, did I want to stand up and clap. I was like actually yeah, like faith is a metaphysical engagement with reality itself. Like it is, it is like more than just like faith is a spiritual thing. And it's sort of part of what it does is it brings us along side and in, in sort of within the grain of real truth. Like you know, and it's not just a lifestyle, it's not just something to be aped. It's not just a moral code to sort of confine to, but it rather is sort of like you stepping into true reality. So and again, in parentheses it says more like Augustine and, or Augustine and Pascal. Deeply devout Christians pointing towards something higher. Not a Sunday self help sermon. And I think like, like I said, I think that, that the, the reality is like actually in some ways JRPGs do just sort of like, you know, sort of throw off and say like no, like again they, they do it. Yeah. Anyways, so I like this statement like even if, you know, I, I think the fact is that like yeah, and actually we should treat faith as again a metaphysical engagement with reality itself. Like you know, I, I like that. I like that one a lot. Like I was like actually that, that one, that one tracks no notes. You know,

I like Kayson's comment on that. Just pointing it back to folks like Augustine and Pascal, like deep thinkers about the Christian faith and tradition. It does compare and contrast nicely with a lot of, you know what I, since I'm Baptist, you know, a lot of Baptist sermons have your sort of like three point sermon and the practical application and then you call it done. But you know, I think what he's pointing out here is there's like a lot of deep truths that are messy, that are really worth wrestling with and folks like Augustine did it, I mean better than anybody, but you don't get that kind of deep wrestling with things and the profound insights that come along with that. There's a holistic sort of person who can wrestle with those kinds of things and understand them and come to a deeper faith. And that looks very different than a typical Sunday morning sermon that's just focused on how do you apply Sunday school kind of a thing. There's, there's a lot of very pat answers in churches and a lot of very pat sermons that kind of just scratch that sort of therapeutic itch for people for practical application. And kind of what he's saying is actually like Augustine is much deeper and he had an appreciation for that, for that depth and that rang a lot truer for him than a lot of like Sunday self help. Sermons. And so for that, I, I think that's. I would agree with that statement. So I'm not saying that's every church. I mean, there are good pastors, there are bad pastors, there are pastors who really put a lot into their sermons, and there are pastors who phone it in. And, you know, I've been in churches that have both, so I'm not going to say it's every church, but I think there are enough of them out there that this hits pretty hard for me as well.

Well, and again, sort of the, The. The therapeutic. The moralistic therapeutic deism. It was. I, you know, in some ways it still gets bandied around a little bit. Like the, the reality is like, that analysis exists because, like, I think there is a lot of. The heart of Christianity is about spiritual renewal and transformation. And again, it's a. Like, I love that phrase, metaphysical physical engagement with reality itself. Like, there's something that I just. Oh, like, yeah, just my reading that my heart kind of sings a little bit because, like. But the reality is, like, it is easy to make it very behavioral. I mean, like, we have an example of that in the New Testament, the Pharisees, man. Like, these guys. Jesus praised the Pharisees for being faithful and tithing. Like, he was like. And he was actually like, that's virtuous in some ways. But, like, these guys are also like whitewashed tombs, you know. And there is something where it's like that. It's not mere obedience, but it is, again, sort of. It is something higher. Ultimately. Christ. Yeah. Glorified. But so moving on here. And again, number six says JRPGs may understand the crisis of faith better and what to do about it. Not to give up, but to go through a process of rediscovering a higher principle. And. And again, I think that's. It makes sense, especially coming from Mike and Kayson's background. But also I. I think Parker, you and I sort of even our backgrounds. Like, again, it's like, you know, it's. It's like that you sort of hit that dark night of the soul and prior to sort of. And again, it was. I. Maybe some of that was there and I just didn't see. You know, I wanted to sort of be generous to the people, you know, to. To my family when I was growing up and every. You know, and to. To. There were men in the church who probably cared for me, and maybe I just wasn't receptive to it. But there was also sort of. The reality was like, you know, there was Just no room for wrestling, for doubt, for sort of, you know, any of that. And it was like, it was kind of like one of those things where it's like, well, you just need to believe harder or whatever. And it was like. But like, no, it was like. And it, it took me. I mean, you know, like I said, I walked away from the church for like 10 years and you know, I, it was hard, hard fought lessons. And it was. But it was like. And again, I don't think that's always the case, but it was like, you know, you go through that, you ask questions, you wrestle with things and eventually again, even going Back to that C.S. lewis quote, if you're looking for truth, you know, it may be hard, but if you, you press into it, you might actually find it. And I think that the reality is like, I think again, in broader evangelical contexts, yeah, it is like there, there aren't any great answers. It's just kind of like they throw up their hands and kind of shrug. But like, no, it's like, yeah, persevere, hold fast, press on.

And yeah, yeah, I see sort of a common thread among all of these as I'm kind of like looking at them and recounting like how the episode went, where they talked about it. And that is like these are going to be more applicable the closer you are to a very legalistic religious background, which tends to be kind of more hypocritical, more rules based, more externally focused. There's not as much of an emphasis on the heart, the matters, you know, it's, it's all about sort of like just behavior modification and, you know, external compliance with things. And so your mileage with this list is going to vary, but I think you're going to get a lot of mileage out of it. If you come out of a very legalistic church background, you're going to identify those things quicker and you're going to see a lot of what the JRPGs are pointing out is that these really rigid legalistic institutions are corrupt and in need of some kind of reformation or maybe just being torn down altogether. And you know, that's why a lot of people come out of very legalistic churches and the first thing they do is rebel and they go off in the exact opposite direction. When it's time for them to come of age and make that faith their own, they go, nope, I don't want anything to do with that. I want to do my own thing. And they leave the faith. And I think a lot of that is a form of what we're talking about rebelling against that structure that just told you that you need to buckle under the pressure of conformity to, you know, the will of those in power. So.

Yeah, well. And I think too. And. And sort of. I think we can kind of circle back to some of this too, because. And again, it makes sense given their context. They're coming out of the cult of Mormonism, you know, so, yeah, like, which is incredibly pharisaical, incredibly hypocritical, very legalistic. And yeah, I mean. And yeah, I think that. And, and again, like, sort of even sort of coming out of a fairly legalistic sort of background, like that. That was my experience. Like, you know, and it's like my, you know, my parents weren't, you know, my family. It wasn't like one of those things where it's like, it wasn't intentional. It wasn't meant. It was meant to protect in a lot of ways. But like the expression, like, ultimately, like. And, and when I went out, I was just like, nah, I'm gonna. Like, I'm gonna. I'm. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do me. And so, yeah, let's kind of like move on to the ways that jrp. Jrpgs don't understand faith better. And I think, like, some of this stuff we can. They replace faith with Gnostic rebellion. And again, it's sort of like, I think in a lot of it's that, again, the trope of rebellion as virtue, that it's just like, if you're rebelling, it's inherently virtuous, you know. And again, that's sort of like the. The Gnostic claim. And it's like, yeah, that's. That's actually. We just be like, that's actually patently false and it's actually kind of wicked. That rebellion in and of itself is not virtuous. It doesn't mean that. It's like, sometimes it is necessary and sometimes it is righteous. But like, you know, the Old Testament also says the rebellion is as a sin, is as the sin of witchcraft. So it's like, yeah, if you are rebelling against rightful authorities, you are in sin.

So, yeah, there's. There's a difference between doubt and questioning and rebellion. There's. There's a pretty hard line between those things. But again, coming from a. A belief system in which you're required to believe that a man found golden tablets in a cave, you know that. You know that that has no. The, the historical facts go against the dogma of your belief system. Like, I I understand why this is difficult. This is a difficult pill to swallow. But yeah, questioning doubts, those. That's not rebellion. It's not necessarily rebellion. Sure, it can lead to rebellion. But I, I've. Most of the time questioning and doubts will lead you to either an answer or non answer. And then what are you going to do do with that? And, and yeah, so, yeah,

I. And I think we can kind of like tick along here because, you know, we are kind of nearing the end of this list, but. So churches at their best don't teach rebellion against transcendence. They actually teach submission to it, acceptance of it. And I thought like, you know, just to sort of hearken back to the actual episode of State of the Ark. This is like one of those things that I was like, really encouraged by because. And sort of like, you know, again, to sort of interact directly and respond directly to the video is like, there was actually a little bit of a back and forth between Mike and Kayson about this that I thought was really. And it's. I didn't catch it the first time I went through. And then Parker, you. You kind of like, we were talking about it. You're like, actually like, this part was really cool. And then when I came back through and I, I checked it out, like, I, I was listening again a little more intentionally and whatever, and it was like I caught it and I was like, oh, I love that. But Cason and Mike are sort of having a back and forth here and Cason actually says that like, you know, at some point, like, yes, there, there's like, you do need to, to a certain extent, sort of throw off, like unshackle yourself from some of these things. He's like, but you know what the actual real beauty is, is when you find the things that are worth sort of coming up under that, shackling yourself to these higher things, these more beautiful things. And again, sort of going back to that Keller quote, it's sort of this realization that like, actually there are good things for you to sit under and to submit to. I think of like when I was listening to. So that Keller quote ties in here. But I also think, like, just even I think about the, the words of, of our Lord when he says, my yoke is easy. Come to me. Like, my yoke is easy. Like, you know why it's easy? Because you were made for it. Like that submission to his calling and like the path that he has for you and the work that he has for you. It's not saying that it's always going to be easy. Just to do. But he's saying it's gentle. It's. I'm gentle and lowly. And the yoke is easy, like. And it's like, the right things aren't a burden. The right things. When you submit to the right things and rightful authority, it's not a burden, it's a joy, it's a delight. It's the fish in the river. You are free to live as you were meant to. And I think, like, you know, and I don't think Cason quite went that far, but he also pushed Mike a little bit because Mike. Mike sort of. And we'll get to where Mike's. Mike's position was. Like, he almost sort of ends at first with the Gnostic rebellion, where he just sort of throws everything off. Like, it seems like where he's at in his journey. And one of the things I. And I just loved it. But Kayson says, and you're not there yet. And it was like. And when Parker, you. You put that in my ear. And when I heard that, I was like, attaboy. Like, push. Because Kayson's sort of like, he's on the other side of this in the. In some way. And, like, and. And I want to. Full disclosure, my hope and my prayer for both of these guys is. I don't think they know Jesus Christ. I want them to absolutely, like. Like, I want these guys. I think, you know, I. And I think. But anyways. But, like, I heard that, and I was like, you're close. You're a lot closer than. Than you. You aren't. Now, you can also just submit to the wrong things, thinking they're the right things. But, you know, but yeah, anyways, so I. I love that because, like, yeah, it's like, so much in Western culture, like. And again, Casey sort of addresses. We teach submission as something that's morally reprehensible. Like, it's a. It's a very charged term. And like, especially in our. In our culture, full of just a radical and radicalized individualism. Like, submission to anything is just like, that's an abomination. But, like, the reality is, like, it's like, yeah, it's. It's not getting rid of everything. It's not getting rid of all the shackles. It's actually understanding which ones you're actually meant. Like, what. What are the restrictions that you're. You're actually meant for? And so I think, you know, do you guys have anything to sort of push back, add to that, or.

I think it plays really well into the Next one, actually, we could.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I was like, I. I kind of just. But anyways. Yeah. And this is, I think, like, the thing that I love the most. And again, I just. Well, not I love the most, but I. I did love this as well. But the reality is that churches operate in lived reality, not in symbolic abstraction. Churches deal with real people struggling with real things, and it try. And it's trying to help them navigate life. The best thing you can do is to play video games on Saturday and go to church on Sunday, because video games can only give you an isolated experience. You and the screen, not actual people. JRPGs can oversimplify things. Ideas can seem profound until you interact with other people. Tetsuya, I love also. So, yes, you bagged on George R.R. martin. You also bagged on Nomura. Nomura. And I'm just like, yes, get them. I do. I loved it. I loved it. I was like, yes, it seems really in depth and it's. But it's not. It's not that complicated. It's not that interesting. But anyways, kind of moving along. Unique community. Churches deal with marriages, funerals, addiction, loneliness, trauma, budgets, child care, all the stuff that JRPGs ignore. And it's sort of. It's one of those things that, like, there is an actual, like. Yeah, the reality is like, it's. It's kind of like there's the lived reality of the thing. And I think, you know, just sort of like, you know. And we did get some questions and commentary from Paul, you know, and. And other. Well, Paul. I'm thinking of actually something Paul wrote.

Okay.

In particular, in regards to this, because it's, like, funny. It's like. And I loved when Cason sort of like, like, went after George R.R. martin. But, like, part of the thesis of Game of Thrones is like, you know, kind of like George R.R. martin was like, you know, yeah, but what about Aragorn's tax policy? Like. And he wanted to know all the messy business sort of afterwards. And the reality is like, I. I don't think that matters. You know, it's like, I think this story was meant to be aspirational. The stories. It's a story. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, we don't need to get mired in the humdrum because we actually have that in real life. And so, like, the JRPGs, like, they're not going to show you the dirty details. Like, they're not. They're not that interested in that. But the. The reality is like, you actually, like. And that's. That is the thing. That's where the church actually, like, you know, it's not just. It doesn't just matter because of this, but like, in this. Where it's like, no, it actually, like, churches address real life. They're not abstractions. It's material, tangible realities. Like. And again, so I. I like all of that. That last point in a lot of ways, like. Yeah, especially, like, telling me to play video games on Saturday and then, like, you know, go to church on Sunday. Like, I. Ideally, yes, that's exactly how I'm gonna. How it's gonna go, you know. Yeah, mostly joking, mostly kind of sort of maybe. But so, yeah, it's. Yeah, and it's. I. Like I said, I. I think that point is probably one of the most potent in. In the entire talk where it's like, you know, ultimately, JRPGs are kind of empty. It's not that they don't have anything to say, but, like, again, they're abstractions. And I think this kind of ties to sort of even, like, the next part, too. But, like, I want to pause here for a minute and just sort of like, get your guys feedback and sort of like, on. On this thought,

so I'll go really quick. I think it's. It's interesting that JRPGs and video games in general are great at this rebellion. They're great at deconstructing things, but it's really hard to actually build the things that get deconstructed. So JRPGs are really good at throwing stones at that glass house. But, you know, the church built that house over millennia, thousands of years, 2,000 years. Now we've been going. It's really hard to do that. It's really hard to create an institution that lasts for 2000 years and thrives amid all the different cultures, all the different timelines, all the different world events that have happened. It's really easy to come in as a video game, as Johnny Newcomer, and sort of poke a few holes in it and say, yeah, there's problems here. Doesn't this suck? Doesn't this suck? But the noble thing, the hard thing, the difficult thing, is to build the institution that lasts in the first place. And so I think people need that perspective that, you know, the criticisms that JRPGs offer, you know, maybe some of them are valid, but at the end of the day, they're doing the easy work. They're doing the child's play. Like churches. Like, we're saying they live in real life, not an abstraction. And if you can build something that lasts for 2000 years and grows in that time and thrives in that time, that's the real work. So if we're trying to look at a scale of like video games in the church, there's no comparison. When you think about it that way. It's great that they provide those criticisms, but they don't provide any meaningful remedies or antidotes. You know, you tear down the power structure and in a sense, like you put the crown on your head and you sit in the rubble heap for the most part, like there's no afterwards with these games. Once you tear that thing down, what do you put in its place? And video games don't tell you what to put in its place. Or like we said in the case Of Final Fantasy 13 2, the answer is like, go off and be a pop star. Start a new religion or cult in some kind of worldly materialist philosophy that's ultimately empty and meaningless. That's the end goal that JRPGs get to. But they know they're bankrupt and they have to stop with just tearing the thing down because there's no after story to that. So we're living in the after story. We're living in the real life piece of it that has to be figured out. The childcare and the budgets and the trauma and the loneliness and all that kind of stuff, helping people get through that as the church. And so I think that's just an important point to make. And so I do agree, I like that that point and I would agree with it as well. So.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's kind of, it's. This is self serving, but it's kind of an affirmation of what I do. I'm an associate pastor. You know, I work in discipleship as well for my church. And so a lot of this is, is right along those lines of, of kind of what I at least attempt to do and, and like the scripture says to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to equipping others to, to try and do this as well, of just the messiness of life and how you respond to that and going to the scripture and, and helping to obviously going to God as well through prayer. Yeah. But hearing from him in the scripture and attempting to apply that as best we can in the, the day in and the day out. So, you know, as it relates to video games, you know, it's hard to even compare because it's, you know, the set story, you know, it goes, it goes in A certain direction. Yeah, I'd love to see a nuanced character that. That's wearing, you know, the garb of a.

Of a.

Not. Not necessarily a priest because that's, you know, again, pretty. Pretty Roman Catholic for the most part. But I just think of the depictions of. Of church people and. And church leaders in video games, and they're usually pretty poor descriptions. They're usually kind of what we've been talking about here of the. No, I'm going to hold on to these sayings that I don't fully understand that don't actually apply to real life, but I'm going to hold on to them kind of the. They kept using the. The example of Waka in Final Fantasy 10. You know, although he's not. He's not a religious leader. He would just be someone within a religious, you know, system that only. That kind of regurgitates things without ever questioning it. But yeah, no, I mean, it's. It's. Yeah, it's absolutely true that life is more complex than a video game.

Would you.

Would you be surprised to hear something like that? So.

Well, and again, I think the insight where they're just like, actually. Actually like, you know, and that's. That's kind of like. Yeah, and Parker, you brought it up too, but I think that's sometimes, like, why we find this sort of brand of escapism. It's. It's ultimately empty, but it does kind of like lend itself to a false virtue. Right. Where it's like, I'm tearing down the establishment. I'm, you know, I'm part of this, like, getting rid of the evilness and the wickedness and everything else, but it's like. And it does sort of leave us discontented and sort of, I think a lot of times just like. Yeah, just like, just burn it all down. Burn it all down. Burn it all down. But yeah, that's. That's child's play. That's like. That's the easy part. The, the hard part is like to. To mix, like to get in there, get your hands dirty, mix it up and actually build something that lasts for a thousand years. And I think that that's, you know, that that's something that, frankly, I think, you know, I love to see a game like, encourage that, like you, You.

You know, A video game on Super Nintendo where you. You play as this angel fighting against demons and then you set up a town.

Yeah. I think you're actually supposed to be God who becomes like sort of an angel thing.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

Yikes.

Yeah, it's.

He hikes.

It's. Well, it's. It's a demiurge. It's. It's a false God. Yeah.

Okay.

I don't know, man. I've never played actor.

I don't remember Gnostic.

Yeah, yeah, everything's Gnostic. Yeah. We did have some. Some questions and comments, you know, from some of the. From. From some of our patrons. And I think that, you know, a lot of it is sort of like, some of this is like, you know, I. I do have to just give Turkey for just having, like, just, I think, an absolute banger of a question. He's like, I've never watched these people before. Why are these grown men not wearing shoes? And I'm just like, I'm five minutes in and a lack of shoes totally discredits them. I mean, it's a thing.

I. I am wearing shoes right now. You'll never know.

Like. Like, listen, you don't know if I'm. Yeah, you don't know if we're wearing shoes, but we're not going to show you our feet either.

Right? Yeah, there's a difference.

Or my socks.

They were wearing socks. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But they were. Yeah.

There was a more serious question that I don't think we have a ton of time to go down entirely, but we can at least kind of touch on it. I believe it was a Costa that asked. Okay. So he says, as parents, I think it's wise to consider that without a solid foundation in the truth, these games tend to communicate themes of overcoming the godlike authority over life, taking your own fate in your own hands, pushing back against any sort of sovereignty or predetermination in life, etc. Clearly, these are not realities for us, as we know that God is sovereign over our lives and we're told to submit to his loving authority. How do we navigate the exposure of these games or media to our children when we're raising them with a biblical worldview? So basically at the core of that is, you know, if we're under. If we. We're pulling this apart, you know, using these gnostic themes and kind of caveating. Okay, this story, here's actually the, you know, the resident archives would say, here's the symbolism behind it, and. And it points to this archetype and you using all this. This kind of psychological interaction with these gnostic concepts that are in it. Well, how about, you know, when do you. When do you allow your children to engage with it? If they don't. Even if they don't have this, you know, breadth of knowledge to even understand the symbolism that's going on. Because otherwise, is it just saying down with God? You know, like, is that really what's happening? Let's kill God together. Let's band together as friends and kill God. You know, do you really want your kids engaging with that?

I mean, I think that's going to be like. I don't know if there's a definitive timetable and it. But so it's going to be like a case by case basis. But I think the important part is, like, it's like one like, you know, your child, so, you know, maybe like when they're ready to engage some of this stuff. But I would sort of. I would also say because I. I think, like, the reality is, like, some of us definitely play games that, like, you know, we didn't understand what was going on in this stuff at all. Like, you know, when I was 16 years old, I was not that smart even. Heck, in my mid-20s. Yeah, I'm in my. I'm pushing mid-40s, and sometimes I'm still not that smart. So I think you just. But I think the important part is there is just like, hey, when you think it might be ready to, like, let them play it, but also be talking with them about it, you know, like, talk them through it. Like, you know, I think, you know, Xenogears, again is sort of like a really interesting piece. Like, you know, actually I was talking to Parker and I said, I. I think, you know, and. And actually, I think Bergen maybe at one point time said, like, he played through Xenogears with State of the Arc.

Yeah.

And those episodes, I. I think I might like to go back and do that just as a bit of an exercise myself, and that'll be.

He also encouraged us. He was saying, hopefully, you know, an episode like this will get us to. To finally play Xenobiers.

Yeah, someday, you deranged Canadian. But, like, we have enough on just

talking about how you wanted to do it.

Yes. Not right now. I'm busy. I've lost it. Someday. Yeah, he's been. To be fair, he's been pounding that drum for years, so.

Yeah.

Yeah. But I. I think the important part is, like, have the conversation with your kids. Like, you know, it's. And I think that just kind of goes back to like, one of the things, like, any. Any counsel that I think we've ever given parents all pretty much boils down to just, like, know what your kids are playing and talk to them about it. Like, just like Know what they're watching, know what they're reading, know what they're listening to, talk to, like, be involved and talk to them about those things. Because the. The reality is, like, the worst thing you can do is let them be. It's. It's not let them be exposed to this stuff. It's. Let them be exposed to this without, like, helping them navigate it. Like. Because I actually think there's a strength, like. And again, not. Not all material is, like, suitable for everyone. Right. But I think there's a strength in, like, you know, like, I'm. I'm hopeful that someday when Byron's old enough, like, we can play, like, near automata together or, you know, xenogears or something. You know what I'm saying? And we can talk about, like, the themes and what does this really mean, you know, because, like, there are important things in there that, you know. Yeah, he could. He could also maybe read books and get some of this stuff too. But, like, you know, it's like. Like, it's. Help them to engage these arguments and these ideas. Like, walk through that with them and. Yeah, don't be afraid to, like, help them wrestle with their doubt. You know, I mean. I mean, that was part of it for me is like, you know, it's like when I had hard questions about existentialism, you know, like, I was exposed to it when I was 16, 17 years old, and there were some interesting ideas in there, and I was wrestling with those. And when I had, like. I'm not saying this is like, the sole reason, but it's like I was exposed to existentialism. I had some hard questions, and my parents and a lot of people in my church didn't have great answers for me. And so I was like. I remember that as like, you know, so it's like, yeah, like. So that means, like, hey, maybe get your hands dirty with some of that stuff, like, learn about things that maybe. Yeah, I don't know.

But.

Yeah, anyways, sure, that that would be. That's. That's how I would answer that question. Yeah, that's how I.

Did you have any thoughts on that?

I mean, I would say, like, as somebody who doesn't even have kids, but aspires to have kids at once at one point in the future, you know, teaching your kids to think critically about things, I think is really important. Like, teaching them how to, like, understand what an argument is and how it's constructed and how you can respond to that, and not just taking everything at face value, but teaching them to think about things and teaching them really how media in general will catechize you to certain worldly beliefs and you just need to be aware of that. It's not that you just shut yourself off from all media, but there's a process that it's trying to teach you and inoculate you to certain ideas. And you have to understand what those ideas are and how to refute them properly with the scriptures. So a great example this is in JRPGs, but this is just in media in general. And you could get this from a Disney movie, but all of these things are teaching you to have faith in yourself. They're never teaching you to have faith in anything external. So you don't need to play a JRPG to get that. You could watch almost any Disney movie to understand that theme and that narrative. You know, it's everywhere in our society. So maybe start with something like that. It doesn't have to be some super complex God killing JRPG that's 50 hours long. It could be a two hour movie. And you could get to the same endpoint, which is talking about how these media texts are teaching your kids a certain thing. But here's what scriptures have to say and here's why our answer is better than what the world will teach you. So that would be the thing that I would encourage people with. But I would also say, like, you know, these video games are often about fighting and defying fate. But I would echo Cason's point where he says, but there's actually so much power and healing and relief that comes from accepting things. Games are just all about rebellion. But there are certain times where you just need to accept realities of life. Life isn't just all about rebelling to everything. And, well, they'll never teach you that accepting things is a part of a healing process in many areas of life. And so having that discernment about when to apply certain things and not just believing that all things are for all times is maybe an important concept as well. So just teach your kids to think of themselves and to think critically about this stuff and guide them in the process would maybe be the answer I would give.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There, there. I mean, and there were a lot of great comments. And you know, I'm gonna give Paul props on a little bit.

Can I answer that question first?

Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry, Josh. I. I'm just being a jerk. No, I'm just being a jerk.

You're fine. And actually, Parker, you said a lot of the things that I was gonna say, so I don't Mean to steal from you. The. The term that came to mind for me. This is pretentious. I apologize. But media literacy was the term that came to mind for me is. Is teaching your kids how to think about these things. So just like Nate's point of, you know, your kids so, you know, if they're old enough to even wrestle with some of these concepts. But I will also say that it. Sometimes you can make it out to be this big. This big difficult thing. But like Nate said already, like, hey, so much of this stuff went over my head when I first played it. I think of something like Final Fantasy Tactics, which I did play when I was a teenager, and I love that game. I probably don't understand all of the story that was going on there. And that was an evil church story, you know, that. That was there. I think if my son as a teenager wanted to play that game, I would encourage him to play that game. But in the context, yeah, that we could have conversations about it and then it could be even an opportunity. Maybe the only thing that, you know, he notices is, oh, this church is evil. Okay, cool. Does that mean that my church is evil? No, not necessarily. You know, that. That doesn't. That's a non sequitur, right. Just because a church is evil doesn't mean my church is the. The church is evil kind of a thing. So talking about those things, that could be an opportunity to address some of these concepts. That it could be an opportunity for. For even inviting questions and doubts and things like that in a safe place, you know, between you and your kids, to dig into maybe some of those questions, maybe some of those doubts. And then I would say the final thing is what I do often, where my brain goes with a lot of these stories that have. That have this false God narrative is it brings me back to man. My God is so majestic because we could have had, you know, theoretically, hypothetically, whatever. Every other depiction of God is so flawed. Like, we could have this horrible, you know, uncaring God of. Of. Of H.P. lovecraft, you know, that doesn't give a wit about humanity. But no, our God is loving and cares for us and is relational. I could have this, you know, this false God, this demon worship, whatever that this church in this game is having. But no, my God, like, loves and has sacrificed and has poured out his mercy and his grace upon me. So even in comparison, that's one of the things that I do. The Shin Megami Tensei games that use a lot of. Of the Gnostic gods and the. So the Demiurge and stuff like that. Oh, you know, a false deceptive God, oh my God is altogether true and always speaks truth. And in like we've talked about is is he lives along the grains of reality because reality actually reflects who he is in all these things. So you can begin to kind of compare and talk about these things. So I think it presents an opportunity. The caveat to that was, hey, if you don't want, you know, murder and backstabbing and even the idea of a false church, if you don't want to introduce that concept to a six year old, I completely understand, you probably shouldn't. But as you know your kids and as they get older, this could be helpful. So that's my two cents.

Yeah, it was more than two cents. Sorry, I just want you to know that. No. And we did get a lot of really great feedback. I think we've addressed a lot of some of this in some ways, shape or form. But there was something like I said something Paul did say towards the end and he had a good bit to say, you know, but I think something he said, it was towards the end of some of what he wrote and he said, this is the point. Final Fantasy 4 was very profound to me last century. I was a dispensational Baptist last century. My relationship with God has been moved so far by the preaching of the Word and communion since then. Does anyone's sermon and rise to the level of influence of my life of a Lord of the Rings or a lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe. No, I also only have one of each of those. Not like 1300 Sundays in the last. Not like the, the. Not 1300, like the Sundays in the last 25 year period. And I was reading that and I was thinking that and I was like, you know, that is like we, we do have these conversations about video games and media and. And we sort of have these. We sort of dive deep on. And these things do leave like big marks on our lives. Right. But then again I was just sort of like in some ways struck by the fact of like just the subtle work of the faithful preaching of the Word, of the. The, you know, taking of the elements, you know, participating in the Lord's Supper. And it was like, you know, it's sort of like one. It is definitely a privilege like to get to hang out and chop this kind of stuff up and sort of wrestle around with these ideas. But also like sort of. There was something in that where I was just reminded like, but how much greater a privilege that every Sunday we can gather with the Lord's people, we can be ministered to. Like, we can be ministered to by his word, by the preaching of that word through. And also through prayer and sacrament and publicly and corporately. And like, I, I think like, sometimes it's like, you know, there is a way in which the influences of these things can be overstated. And it's like, are we, are we allowing Sunday mornings to influence us this way? You know, and anyways, like I said, it was just a comment. It was part of a much like, longer, you know, chain, you know, chain of thoughts. But I did really, like, I like that. And it, that kind of resonated with me. Like, you know, yeah, like, I have. Yeah, but it's like he's also sort of saying like, yeah, you read the Lord of the Rings for the first time one time and it's going to hit you the way it hits you and you might grow in your appreciation for that or whatever. But like. And again. But yeah, yeah. Anyways, I thought that was, that was a good thought. I, I mean, like I said, I think we get. We had a lot of great, great thoughts there, you know, and, and again, I think we've kind of hit most of those. So, yeah, I, I wanted to, you know, sort of like, it's, it's not really part of the actual shout out, but I did want to shout out all our patrons who sort of submitted comments and questions and sort of. Yeah, and hopefully, yeah, hopefully they liked what we did here too. But, you know, I, I think this is a really good conversation. Like I said, it's like one of those things where, you know, hopefully for those of you who have made it this far, Mike, you, you found this conversation to be edifying and encouraging. All the other good things, but maybe even moderately entertaining, you know, because, yeah, I had fun. I had fun doing it. I had fun participating in it. Hopefully you guys had some fun listening to this. But I think it's time, Josh, to start landing the plane.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So goes the plane. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned shout outs, so that's something that we like to do in every episode. My shout out for today, actually, I've got a shout out to two people. That's Micah and Reed. Both these guys have reached out to me personally for different reasons. Micah suggested an album that I listened to and I'm. And for both of these guys, I did not reply in a timely manner. And so this shout out is also a public apology that I'm such a turd. So I apologize for that. But I've been digging. I knew this about you, and in Reid listen to something that I mentioned on the podcast, and he's talked to me. Me about it more, and he's been a helpful resource there. So you guys are awesome. And I am not, because I'm very bad at getting back to people, and then I forget about it, and then time goes by and. Yeah. So I apologize, but y' all are cool, so thank you, guys.

Yeah, you know, I have a shout out for everyone who wasn't a stinking hater when it comes, like, dude, we gave. We did a community top 10 list, and all I hear is a bunch of crying about how it's an abomination of a list. You guys did it. It's. It's your fault. And then you have the audacity. The audacity to, like, complain about it.

Yeah, it's a good thing. That's not what this shout out is about, though. It's about the people who didn't complain. Y' all are cool.

Yeah. To the ones who didn't complain about it, like, good on you for being cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well. Oh, do we have to shout out this person, too?

Here comes a new challenger.

That's right. The last form is. Is some challenges because it is the first episode of the month. Last month, my challenge was to start taking the kids out for lunch individually. Virgili. Every week. That has been going very well. The kids especially appreciate it, and we've had some really cool conversations. I was asking my youngest a couple weeks ago when I took her out about baptism, because she's interested. She's. She's expressed an interest in baptism, and I don't want to publicly humiliate her. That's not the right word. But I don't want her to be embarrassed. But I asked her. She's. She's five years old, guys. I asked her why she wanted to be baptized while we were eating lunch, and she said, so I can have some of that juice when you drink it in the service. So I'm like, okay, cool. In the back of my head, I'm like, okay, you're not ready yet. But, you know, and then I explained to her, you know, why. Why we want to get baptized and in the gospel and what Jesus has done. And she was like, yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah, definitely that. So she's. She's very enthusiastic about that as well. But her initial answer just told me, like, okay, we're gonna wait a little bit longer if that's kind of on the forefront of Your mind. Anyways. No, but the. But that challenge has been going very well and it's been very profitable for us as a family too, having that personal time. So that's good. Moving forward. Somewhat similar, but we found. So. So our kids are part of a homeschool choir co op thingy on Friday afternoons. And all three of them are in that. And it's about. It's about 20ish minutes away. And. And typically my wife would go drop them off, hang out in that area town and come back home. Well, a couple weeks ago I decided, hey, how about we just both go? Because it's kind of like child care. And then let's go and, you know, grab a coffee or whatever and go to a park or something like that. And so we've been taking the time on. On those Friday afternoons to go on little mini dates. And so that I want to keep that up because it's a little. It's a little harder in this context without family around us to. To have kind of spontaneous dates. So that has been very nice and I'd like to keep that up. So that's my challenge.

As far as the challenge, sort of the update is march was the McKeever family minimalist money month.

I think as a general minimalist money march.

Love those minimal money March. It was just really sort of. I haven't crunched the numbers actually. Like, it's funny because Parker's kind of like one of those guys. Like, he kind of keeps me honest when it comes to my finances and he asks me how things look. And I have yet to crunch the numbers for February. So I'm going to sit down actually tomorrow. I mean, tomorrow I have the day off. I have lunch scheduled with my pastor and I've got some chores to do. But I think I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna look at February and March and then sort of like kind of. But what. What I can tell you is from a very personal context that I did sort of reign in a lot of my personal spending. And. And I do feel like it has made a little bit of a difference. And so now what those numbers actually end up looking like. But it's more about just March. March has really been sort of establishing. Been more about establishing sort of like, okay, like, what is. What is the bare bones? Like, what if we had to like, sort of cut everything else out? Like, what do we actually need? And it's sort of about establishing that low that. That sort of like this is like, we can make it work on these numbers. And so I'm. I'm kind of. I. I feel pretty good about it. Like, we. We did go out to, you know, we went to the Chinese buffet yesterday after church. You know, sort of not really a celebration, but like, hey, like, hey, we kind of made it through the month without going nuts. You know, it's like we bought groceries, we ate at home. For the most part. We utilized gift cards to get. Like, we. We utilize gift cards to, you know, it's like, you know, I don't know about you guys, but, like, I. Well, I get gift cards, you know, around Christmas time. And then sometimes people just give you, like, hey, here's. Here's like 25 bucks for Panera or whatever. You know, it's like, you know, like, you know, friends and family give you them. I get them over the holidays from some of my customers. And so it was like, we did kind of like, just like, hey, like, we want to go. Like, we want to get some sandwiches or something. It's like, well, let's look at what we got. And so it was like, even there, it was kind of, like, interesting. So, like, hey. Because like, those. Those things just sit there sometimes and you completely forget about them. Yeah, it's like, it was. It's really funny, but years ago, you know, a family member, you know, one of the family member passed away on. On Megan's side, and we were sort of, like, doing cleanup. And it's not, like, funny. It was sad. It still is kind of sad. But it's like, we're doing some cleanup, and there was just a drawer. You open up the drawer, and it's just full of, like, gift cards that people had given them. Like, just. Just stacks where it's like.

Yeah.

And I'm sure that they used plenty, but it was like they just had gotten so many that there's just like, this drawer where it's like, there's probably hundreds of dollars of, like, take, you know, gift cards in here where it's like, oh, you could have probably eaten out for weeks on. On that. But anyways, so it just kind of made me, like, thinking about that anyways. Yeah. So it's. As a general rule, I'd say, like, it feels very much like a success, but I actually have to crunch the numbers to see if it was or if it just feels that way because those. Those two things are not always the same.

It's true. That's true.

Nice.

So cool. Yeah. So I guess, like, moving forward, and I've said this before, but it's like, so In February, there are two things that I'm gonna sort of like, throw out there. It's like I've been talking about sort of getting started with sort of doing some counts like getting some counseling slash therapy. And I think next month is the month where I'm, I, I want to make it happen next month, like, get it started, get that ball rolling. I think I'm kind of time wise, financially wise, and you know, I, I think honestly, like, I'm kind of in a place where I'm ready to talk about some of the things that I need to talk about. Like, I've, I've sort of been wrestling with some of that stuff. And so, so I want to get that ball rolling and I'm going to kind of throw that, actually, when I, I didn't put that in notes because. But the other thing is, like, I have talked about, you know, off and on, we've talked about, we've talked about getting, you know, physical fitness is a part of like, kind of what we have talked about. And I think for the last couple years, I've let some of that slide by. And so I'm really. And that's why I'm putting it in our notes. I want to commit to like, at least one, like, you know what I'm gonna say? I'm gonna say just like twice, twice a week, just get like a kettlebell workout and nice. And just start there. And hopefully, you know, you know, I know those are like, technically two challenges, but one of them is like, it's like the, the counseling is going to be like once a week for a while. Yeah. And they, but yeah, I, I, I do feel like it's, it's necessary. Especially like, it's, it's kind of, I'm hitting a point where it's like sometimes my shirts get a little tight around my tummy and I don't like that. I don't, I don't like that. Also, I need to just, you know, I've been eating better over the last couple months. Like, again, I sort of like, talk to you guys, I think a little bit pre, pre hitting record, but it's like, I've been eating a lot more fiber lately. You know, that's like one of the, the dials. I've been like, sort of turning up. And so it's like, okay, like, I think, you know, we've got some, some better habits and, and, and some better rhythms going on. It's like, I think it's time to sort of like, add, add in a little Bit more, like, be a little more intentional and rigorous with weight training, so.

Cool.

Cool.

But, yeah.

Nice.

How about you, Parker? Do you have any challenges for yourself? I'm sure you do. No, you've just. You've just. You've.

Maybe I didn't come prepared.

I don't know.

He's just like, you know, he's just like, no, I'm just good. Like, I'm good where I'm at. Like, the rest of y', all, like,

no, but everything dialed in now. Well, do you have any final thoughts then? Because we are just about ready to. To wrap it up here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can kick us off here.

Okay. Final thoughts? No, I mean, I appreciate you guys being willing to pivot on this. I wasn't trying to, like, pitch a whole episode on this. I just, you know, Nate and I got into a conversation about it and thought we could talk about it, so. Appreciate your willingness to kind of divert some attention to this. I think if this was good, I. I like having conversations about these things. I think there's a ton more stuff to get into about video games and faith and tropes and what video games try to teach us and what they're good at and what they're not. I think we covered a small sliver of it tonight, but I think there's, you know, a lot more stuff out there, so I'd be curious if you guys are able to figure out what those topics look like in the future and. Yeah, looking forward to it.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, yeah, thanks for. Yeah. You know, and. Yeah, yeah, thanks for pitching it. And sort of. I think. I think Josh and I sort of. When we were talking back and forth a little bit, texting back and forth and forth a little bit, like, it was like, oh, actually, like this. This just kind of makes sense. Like, it feels like, you know, semi relevant. You know, it was a State of the Ark episode that happened not too long ago, and in a lot of ways, like, you know, I think, like, yeah, we don't want to just be, like, response content and stuff like that, but we thought that, like, oh, there's some. There's some interesting meat on these bones, too, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good stuff. Thank you for making the time. I know these are always long nights, but appreciate you being here and. And your contributions. Yeah, I've had a great time, too. It's been. Yeah, it's been good.

Well, we've had. We've had fun. It's been good. It's been good fun. I. It's been great. It's been fun. I don't know if it's been great fun. I assume it's been great fun. I wish I could talk. I wish I could talk. Yeah. But the fact that I can't is just that it's getting harder and harder to string sentences together like words together, to make complete sentences and complete my thoughts. I think it's time to just, like, really just land the plane.

Josh.

And so we have done all the things that we need to do. Where can they find us? And then, until next time, what should they do?

That's right. You can find us on the backlog breakdown. Oh, my goodness. Now I can't talk. It's like a curse, an infection. No. Linktree.com thebacklogbreakdown you can find all of our different social media sites and things, ways that you can contact us. If you've got thoughts on some of the stuff that we've talked about, we'd love to hear from you. Go to that linktree.com thebacklogbreakdown and until next time, guys, keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down those benefits.