Mindfully: Why GTA Rocks

If you know anything about video gaming (I do), you'll know the Grand Theft Auto games have been one of the most popular and the most controversial games out there in the past decade. Why? Two main reasons, I think:

1. Depravity: We are really really bad and jacked up people, all of us. Yeah. that includes Mother Theresa and Gandhi too. As a result, we cant help but see the thrill of sins (like killing, driving retarded, prostitution, extramarital sex, drunkenness and the sort) in the video game. It explores a side of us we often wouldn't act out because of our own innate pride ("atleast I dont do that is real life!").

2. Infiltrating Culture: This is the reason GTA interests me. As one observes the evolution of the GTA games throughout the years, they will be able to see that the games get better at tapping into the backbone of the culture it is selling itself to. You just have to walk aimlessly around in the game, and you will notice the attention to detail when it comes to relating of our (urban) culture today.

Now, lets turn to Jesus: the most famous person ever. When it comes to depravity, it is the complete anti-thesis of his perfection. Jesus was the all perfect all good God-man. Though he was accused of various sins by the religious people of his time, he committed no sin. So in this point, Jesus and GTA is at odds.

On infiltrating culture, Jesus was the perfect standard. Jesus left his home in heaven on the side of God the father, and came to this earth as a man and lived as a poor homeless carpenter with complete humility. Though he was the counter-cultural rebel of his time (and if you think about it he still is), he hung out with the "worst" people of his time in the streets including hookers, poor, and corrupt government officials. So, in this thought, we can draw a lot of parallels between Jesus and the genius behind the GTA games.

Finally, GTA is successful for a good and a bad reason. I play it sometimes too, to be honest! (Not everyone who plays it becomes a criminal mind, but at the same time individual discretion is recommended.) What we need to do to be effective for Jesus in our world today is to redeem the world around us, to use everything to proclaim Jesus' fame. Let's stand strong against the depravity that the world so loves, and instead give the good news of free grace of Jesus, like Jesus did: infiltrating culture.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. (Jesus prays for his people, John 17:14-15)