NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Is It Effeminate For Men To Play Video Games?
Aired: 2022-06-18
Duration: 09:55


=== Giving Strength to Video Games (05:16) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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[00:00:21]  Chat from MindBen256.
[00:00:24]  Any thoughts on video games?
[00:00:26]  Cool.
[00:00:27]  It's a short question, therefore, I'll give a long answer.
[00:00:30]  I'll try to make it brief.
[00:00:32]  Yeah, I think video games, I would agree with guys like Michael Foster, right?
[00:00:36]  So, Michael Foster and Non Tennant, I know Non better than I know Michael.
[00:00:39]  I like Non a lot.
[00:00:40]  He's a friend, lives in New Zealand.
[00:00:41]  But both of them co authored the book, It's Good to Be a Man.
[00:00:44]  Fantastic book.
[00:00:45]  I highly recommend it if you want to read something on biblical patriarchy and just biblical masculinity that's not this weak, squishy, complimentary stuff, but real good biblical truth on manhood.
[00:00:57]  It's good to be a man.
[00:00:59]  And just for the record, I like Michael Foster says this when we say it's good to be a man, we don't mean it's bad to be a woman.
[00:01:05]  But we're not going to have that disclaimer every single time we talk about it.
[00:01:07]  I can just say it's good to be a man and it's good to be a woman.
[00:01:11]  But I don't have to say that every single time.
[00:01:13]  It's just, it's good to be a man.
[00:01:15]  It's not something to be ashamed of.
[00:01:16]  It's not something wrong.
[00:01:18]  It's good to be a man.
[00:01:19]  So read that book.
[00:01:20]  Michael Foster talks a little bit about video games and things like that.
[00:01:22]  I don't know if he talks about it so much in the book, but I've heard him in some of his podcasts and other platforms talking about that issue.
[00:01:29]  And what he says in a nutshell is this he says that a lot of video games that are geared towards men, most video games are, it's exactly what God gave to Adam.
[00:01:38]  As his mandate in the garden, but in a fake world.
[00:01:43]  All right, like World of Warcraft, you know, or I don't even know.
[00:01:47]  I haven't played video games in a very long time.
[00:01:50]  Although I can beat Mario 3 for the NES in under 13 minutes with one life.
[00:01:59]  Yes, I use three whistles.
[00:02:00]  Nope, I use two whistles.
[00:02:02]  You use one whistle to get to the whistle map, and then you use another whistle on the whistle map that takes you straight to the eighth world.
[00:02:09]  Bada boom, bada bang.
[00:02:10]  So, I'm fantastic at Mario 3, but even that, it's been years since I've played Mario 3.
[00:02:15]  So I think the most recent game that I've played that's actually been developed is Halo.
[00:02:20]  And when I say Halo, I mean the first Halo.
[00:02:22]  Halo 2, it's like two guns at the same time.
[00:02:24]  This is chaotic, right?
[00:02:26]  It's either Christ or chaos, way too much chaos with dual wielding.
[00:02:30]  I just want a grenade in one hand and a gun in the other.
[00:02:32]  Halo's as far as I got, right?
[00:02:34]  Now, all that said, my point is I think Michael Foster is right.
[00:02:38]  You look at a lot of video games, maybe not Mario, but the first person shooters, but especially these video games where you're building worlds.
[00:02:45]  You're literally like the game is to build civilizations and develop armies and then also commodities and resources and this and that.
[00:02:54]  And like that, there's already a game like that that God made.
[00:02:58]  It's called life, it's called the human existence.
[00:03:03]  It's called this world, God's world.
[00:03:05]  And I think, you know, men, it's kind of like you could say it like this in the same way that pornography, it's not just that it's perverse.
[00:03:17]  That it's wicked in that sense, that it's perverse.
[00:03:20]  But it takes something good in men, not speaking of women, not even speaking of that element of pornography, but just as it relates to men, it's taking something that God has put in you and wasting it.
[00:03:33]  Right?
[00:03:33]  If you're a married man and you're looking at pornography, you are draining the godly affection that is supposed to be for your wife.
[00:03:42]  You're wasting it.
[00:03:43]  You're giving your strength to women.
[00:03:46]  Right?
[00:03:46]  As the scripture says, do not give your strength to women.
[00:03:49]  Well, also, don't give your strength.
[00:03:51]  To video games.
[00:03:52]  So I don't think that it's just inherently wrong to play video games at all, right?
[00:03:58]  So, I'm not making some hard, fast, legalistic rule, but you know what I mean.
[00:04:04]  Take this with a grain of salt.
[00:04:05]  Within measure, there is a point where you're giving your strength to video games, meaning you're giving a lot of time and a lot of thought, to where even when you shut off the game, you're still thinking about it.
[00:04:19]  You're giving your heart and soul, your intent, your strategies, your thinking, your obsession, your ambition is being drained.
[00:04:33]  I think for the population as a whole, our government loves marijuana.
[00:04:38]  Drain the population of their ambition.
[00:04:41]  Keep them docile.
[00:04:42]  Give weed to the populace, give porn to the men, and give video games to boys.
[00:04:49]  It's just like that's in every way, it's the same principle.
[00:04:52]  It's just there's something good.
[00:04:55]  It's good to be a man, and it just drains it, it decreases it, it makes men docile.
[00:05:03]  And the last thing I'll say in sympathy towards men, I think that one of the reasons why men are prone towards video games is because they have been so exasperated by life.

=== A Relationship Not a Religion (03:47) ===

[00:05:16]  The Bible says, Fathers, do not exasperate your sons.
[00:05:21]  And I think a lot of men are like, Yeah, I'd rather be doing these kinds of things in real life.
[00:05:26]  But how?
[00:05:28]  Our world is so subdued by the spirit of feminism, our world hates men.
[00:05:36]  And men feel that.
[00:05:38]  Our world hates men and hates masculinity.
[00:05:43]  They don't want me to build.
[00:05:45]  They don't want me to contribute to society.
[00:05:47]  They don't want me to be a leader.
[00:05:49]  They won't let me lead.
[00:05:50]  They won't let me do this.
[00:05:51]  They won't let me do that.
[00:05:52]  But at least I'm still allowed to do it in this echo chamber, in this virtual fake reality.
[00:05:58]  At least there, I can pretend to be a man.
[00:06:02]  I can't even pretend to be a man in the world, in the real world.
[00:06:08]  And I get that.
[00:06:10]  I felt that.
[00:06:12]  And I guess my answer to you is get over it.
[00:06:18]  Try.
[00:06:19]  Try harder.
[00:06:21]  Keep going.
[00:06:22]  It's not a suggestion from God, it's not an option, take it or leave it.
[00:06:25]  It's a command.
[00:06:26]  You were made to be a man.
[00:06:28]  It's good to be a man.
[00:06:29]  You must be a man.
[00:06:31]  You're commanded to be a man.
[00:06:33]  You're commanded to work, to produce, to protect, to lead, to love.
[00:06:38]  You're commanded to be a man.
[00:06:41]  Whether society loves men or hates them.
[00:06:45]  I mean, in that sense, it's no different than the principle of being a Christian.
[00:06:49]  There are times throughout church history, right?
[00:06:51]  The dispensational pre mill will lose their mind when I say this, but there have been times when everyone's not all against Christians, when Christians aren't always being persecuted, when those who are Christians are praised, right?
[00:07:04]  That's what John Bunyan writes in his Pilgrim's Progress.
[00:07:07]  He talks about Mr. Buy-ins, he's one of the characters.
[00:07:10]  I love Pilgrim's Progress.
[00:07:12]  But Mr. Buy-ins, he's basically, the whole thing is, He just does things that benefit himself.
[00:07:17]  He's a man of convenience.
[00:07:18]  He is a Christian in word, not really in deed, but he is a Christian, a false convert, but claims to be a Christian, but a fair weathered fan, if you will.
[00:07:29]  And he has this one line.
[00:07:31]  He says, I love to walk with religion.
[00:07:33]  And John Bunyan, as all the Puritans, they're using the word religion in the positive sense, right?
[00:07:37]  That's really a recent phenomenon in American Christianity.
[00:07:41]  It's not a religion, it's a relationship.
[00:07:43]  Religion was a good thing.
[00:07:44]  So Bunyan's using it in the good way.
[00:07:46]  He's like, I love to walk with religion when it wears its silver slippers, when it's paraded in the public and receives the praise of men.
[00:07:57]  But when religion is under fire, when it's not popular, when religion is named public enemy number one, well, then maybe I don't walk with religion very much, or at least not publicly.
[00:08:11]  So that's the principle applied to just the Christian faith.
[00:08:16]  We can't be fair weathered friends.
[00:08:18]  There are times where society and culture actually praises as virtue what the Christian faith, the scripture, would call a virtue.
[00:08:28]  And there are other times, like the times that we're living in, where what God says is good, wicked men call wicked.
[00:08:37]  Woe to those who call good evil and evil good.
[00:08:42]  And so then, what is the marching orders from our commander in chief?
[00:08:47]  Jesus Christ, in those times when we live in this upside down world where virtue is demonized and vices are praised, what are we called to do?
[00:08:59]  Be Christians.
[00:09:01]  The orders haven't changed.

=== The Lie of Virtual Manhood (00:51) ===

[00:09:04]  So it is with being a man.
[00:09:07]  So I see the appeal of video games.
[00:09:09]  It's the one place, one of the few places where a man can be a man.
[00:09:14]  The problem is that that's a lie.
[00:09:17]  You're not being a man.
[00:09:19]  You're being a virtual man.
[00:09:22]  And a virtual man is not a man.
[00:09:25]  So go be a man, even in a world that currently doesn't want you to be a man.
[00:09:32]  The world that doesn't want men is a world that is in desperate need of men.
[00:09:38]  So be men.
[00:09:39]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:09:40]  But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
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[00:09:53]  To as many people as possible.
[00:09:55]  Thanks so much.