The Christian-American Contradiction was perhaps the easiest time I ever had expressing my religious or political views. However, I also imagined that it would be the least challenged by my imagined readership. Or, to be more precise, the nonexistent readership I’m worried about discovering my website.

Perusing the number of content creators and fellow gamers I follow on Twitter, I see a lot of people of a more liberal, non-Christian persuasion. In College I was constantly being bludgeoned with jokes about how stupid us Christians are. I held my hands out defensively, promising that I wasn’t like those hypocritical Christians. No, really, I was different! So to sit down and write a piece critiquing the most common perception of conservative-Christian bore with it no challenge. The only people I was bound to disappoint were the people at my Church, and I was used to having different opinions from them.

It didn’t give me the courage to speak more freely about my faith, however. I instead continue to be frightened of offending someone with my beliefs. I fear that merely identifying as a Christian is enough to push others away. So I have strived to focus on writing about games and media. To speak positively about the worldly things I love.

But it has not lasted. I feel the two sides of myself twisting like a soaked towel, constricting until all of my delusions and distractions are wrung free from me. I am left with nothing but this conflict between my two identities. I am a gamer, yes, but I am also a Christian. One of these identities should come before the other, and yet frequently it is the world that wins.

I need to reconcile my two selves so that I might move forward with confidence and fearlessness.

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

This is the Great Commission given to the disciples of Jesus Christ. In the book of Acts and the epistles following, it becomes clear that not all Christians are capable or meant to go forth and spread the Word. That they could assist their fellow Christians and wandering missionaries such as Paul was enough. Nevertheless, I feel that my inability to be proactive and act is little more than complacency. Others with less than I have were able to uproot themselves and travel great distances with the intent of planting a Church or helping the less fortunate in third-world nations.

When I was working on this website’s redesign and trying to structure it with regularly scheduled columns, Sunday Studies was my desired solution. Speaking openly about my faith without having to be pushy or upfront with it. This goal failed. It was nothing more than criticisms I had of the Church for a long time. It lacked personal accountability. It lacked a proper effort to truly understand how to apply the scriptures to myself.

As I began to be more critical of myself, I also became more and more frightened to speak my mind. The problem has become exacerbated by my fear to speak even of worldly things.

It is painful, then, that the only things that give me comfort these days are the Eh! Steve! podcast and RamblePak64 YouTube channel. When I am with my friend discussing games, or burying my nose into the pages of notes and concepts of a game I plan to thoroughly analyze, all of my cares vanish into the void. I am at peace with myself. Matters of confidence or the judgment of strangers are as forgotten as what I had for lunch on the fifth day of the last month.

I would love nothing more than to believe this, somehow, is what I’m meant to do. Creating podcasts and videos is what God has directed me towards in my current life. Yet how could that be? Would that not be complacency? To bury myself in my worldly hobbies and keep all of God’s lessons and glory to myself?

No matter what stage I’m at in life, I keep coming back to Cecil’s own war waged within himself. A product of my over-thinking? Who knows?
Original source is this Pixiv account, but I don’t have an account to access the specific image. Grabbed from this foul-mouthed Tumblr.

Thus the cycle begins anew. So come the concept of “spiritual gifts”, and a desire to interpret them from a modern perspective. I may not be a great writer, but certainly I could use my enjoyment of the hobby to somehow express my faith.

Such a train of thought travels one of two rail lines. The first is the already trodden topic of my anxieties of worldly rejection. A topic that God had already spoken with Samuel about in the Old Testament.

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

1 Samuel 8:7

It’s easy to comprehend this idea – that it is not, in fact, me being rejected but God himself – but harder to believe it. Nevertheless, the second rail my train of thought travels is often the creation of a new community. A website dedicated to those that identify as gamer and Christian alike. A place for personal religious accountability and freely speaking about beliefs, while simultaneously sharing a love of a worldly hobby.

Just as when I was a child, my imagination is constantly getting away from itself. I imagine community gatherings at different conventions across America. I envision standing at a booth, handing out cards and informing curious con-goers about our website. I foresee twenty-four hour game streams in which we raise money for different missions groups.

Then comes all the doubt. The possible rejection. The figurative and literal spit upon our shoes. The denial for market space so that a “diverse convention supportive of different religions and lifestyles” does not “make anyone uncomfortable”. I am defeated before I even try.

But this yearning for a community is nothing new. When I was in College and LiveJournal was one of the more popular social media spaces, I created just such a group with hopes of conversing with like-minded individuals. It was not much of a success, but my desire to create such a community has never died.

I am a Christian and I am a gamer. I know many find the latter label quite silly these days, or perhaps an identity heavily weighted with pro-GamerGate baggage. I cannot deny my absolute love of video games, though. When I made comics, many of them were either inspired by or somehow about video games. When I went to College, I had a plethora of game ideas spilling from my mind. I’ve even pondered how I could create an excellent video game filled with Christian concepts and themes, yet not so condescending and copy-paste as the plethora of bad games out there.

With this passion comes conflict, though. I am far more driven to discuss the worldly topic of video games than I am the eternal topic of God. If I cannot even speak my mind on video games without fear of rejection then how can I discuss my faith?

I’ve been really enjoying my dive into and study of Final Fantasy IX lately. Coincidentally, it is also a story filled with characters struggling with their identities, duty, and following their hearts.

Round and round I go. When I’ll stop, even I don’t know. This topic will no doubt arise again when I speak with my therapist, and I imagine she and my pastor would have differing feelings on it. Isn’t one of the reasons I’ve wanted to create this website community due to feeling so misunderstood even in Churches, though?

For now, I can only pray and follow my heart in conjunction with the Word of God. If I am at peace with the podcast and the video series, then I shall endeavor to put my all into them. I shall not hide my faith, though I will not speak of it when there is no need. I shall not shy away from writing about my faith, documenting my struggles to better myself. I think it would do me better not to tear down the interpretations others have of the Bible, but to instead challenge myself to be a better Christian.

I still do not know what it feels like to “give it up to God”, though I’ve given in to Sin enough to understand complacency. Self-improvement is hard, and the fact that I remain overweight is testament to the fragility of my own will. I do not think it bad that I struggle so much with my dual identity. I imagine my efforts thus far have been to address them as a singular, the possibility of being passionate about games while being dedicated to God. I fear rejection of these ideas, as I have no doubt many non-Christians would view this as yet another problematic example of the faith.

It is not the faith that is at fault, though. It is my own lack of faith, be it in myself or in God to lift me up. My inability to accept a humble lot in this life rather than being the stone that causes waves to ripple throughout the lake. Or perhaps I cannot conceive of the ripples a pebble can make, and thus give in to doubts. Doubts in myself become doubts in God. If I cannot believe in His ability to use me, then I will never do more than squander at the bottom of life’s barrel.

I just need to surrender, to release all my cares and worries of the world’s rejection. If I cannot do that, then I will always remain stagnate. I can never move forward.