Earlier this month, when visitors came to the largest video game conference in the U.S., they were greeted by protesters. The group of people were Christians who were upset at the release of a new video game called Dante’s Inferno. At least that’s what the video game developer, Electronic Arts, wanted you to think.
As Phil Cooke recently pointed out on his blog, the protesters were actually actors hired through a marketing firm for EA. The company hoped the parody protests would generate some publicity like real protests have in the past. The fake mob carried signs saying "Hell Is Not a Video Game" and "Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation." Plus EA even created a website, which unfortunately mirrors some awful Christian design work, to make the protests seem more realistic.
As I read this article, the question that popped into my mind was the same that Cooke shared with his readers.When the culture creates a parody protest from Christians, isn't that a huge indicator that the real ones they're making fun of, don't work? Maybe it's time Christians created a new engagement strategy.
What do you think?






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Comments (18)
I will take issue with your use of the words "mock" and "make fun of". I don't think this protest is a parody, I think it's an attempt to manufacture real controversy. In politics they call it astroturfing.
Christians have been at the center of hate and protesting against the world for centuries. NONE of this is what Christ taught.
I personally think that tactics like this are fundamentally unChristian. What happens is that you parody the thing, turn it into a black and white issue and then refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the person or group you are protesting.
Of course, I agree that these kind of protests may not work (I say may because at minimum they do serve to bring attention to the offensive material) and I am probably too cool to march around with a picket sign for fear someone I know will see me...which is a sad thing in its self. But I still maintain that these copywriters and art directors have crossed another line of mocking God.
Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise (or smart and cool) in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish (or uncool) in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
We should participate as citizens (which includes protesting) if something is bad law or policy, but when we moralize and try to get the culture to conform to Christ without Him, we are doomed to failure.
Let us change the land one person at a time instead of one law at a time.
This, of course, was not a Christian protest at all. It says something that the planners believed a mock Christian protest would attract positive attention to their product. But I doubt they could duplicate a mass of sincere, and sometimes off-key, caroling. That's something you can't do well on line, you have to step out into the real world.
There was a minister in Scotland who got heavily involved in a protest against a education policy that would allow (among other things) the teaching of homosexual partnerships as being an equally valid home and family environment as a hetereosexual environment. (You can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... )
We're now a few years on, and the minister who was so heavily involved has said that he wished he hadn't got involved, not because he has changed his opinion, but because it completely removed his ability to share the gospel effectively for a number of years, because people knew him from that campaign.
Now, I'm not saying that it wasn't the right battle to fight, but I think we have to think much more carefully and strategically before we wade in with 2 left feet.