Gaming - Why are people fighting to stop change in gender represention?

The subject of the portrayal of women in the fictional media is one that's coming up a lot at the moment in various contexts. Nowhere, however, is that debate engendering a more bitter battle than in the field of video games. Change in other areas is slow – due to a lack of will to change from an existing profitable formula to a more enlightened one and a simple blindness to issues obvious to insightful commentators. However, the process of change within video games is one that some people are actually fighting viciously to stop. In this article, I'll be looking at why.

It's easy to prove that historically female video game characters have been thinner on the ground than their male counterparts. Even today, a flat majority of playable protagonists are male. In fact, the situation is so bad that when a video for the 'No Right Answer' column at the end of August decided to debate the identity of the 'Strongest Female Video Game Lead Ever' both of their short-listed choices were NPCs. There are many criticisms I could make of the video, but the fact that some gamers are unclear on the concept of what a 'female lead character' actually is really speaks for itself.

An increasing number of games permit the player to select their own gender, but story-led games of this type often presume a male when any kind of default canon is established for tie-in fiction. When playing the generally very good Dragon's Dogma, it was extremely noticeable to my gamer wife that all of the plot-critical female characters seemed physically attracted to her female PC as well as my own male (to the point of hilarious soft-focus jingly cut-scenes). Whilst games like Dragon Age II have embraced widespread bisexuality for inclusiveness and player choice, we really didn't notice the other men swooning over my character very much – leaving a distinct feeling of 'we assumed you'd pick a male character..' in the game with the best custom creation I've ever seen.

Beyond this, video game characters display the same kind of physical 'ideal' as comic book characters. The default body type of the majority of female characters still approaches porn-star extremes. As far as costume is concerned female armour in video games is notorious, being seemingly constructed to expose as much of the body as possible.

It's generally pointed out that male characters are idealised to the same degree. This is broadly true, except that the males owe more to what men want than what women do. Whilst there are a lot of young males who genuinely seem to think that having breasts the size of her head is the last word in sexy, I'm not sure there is the same female consensus regarding biceps wider than your face. In any case, male characters do not often flaunt their bodies in the same way in terms of demeanour and clothing. Male characters as a whole also display a lot more physical variety, if only because there are more of them. To quote Bob Chipman, the most popular male video game character of all time is 'a short, fat, hairy guy with an unglamorous blue collar job'. 

Ladies.

Mostly, the traditional logic behind these design choices has been 'gamers are young males'. However, I suspect that another important argument in favour has simply been 'why not?' A sexy female character gives male gamers a better experience than a non-sexy one. If you're going to have a female character either way, why not give a portion of your audience the extra pleasure in a medium that exists almost entirely to please?

The answer to this can be seen if we change around the demographics concerned a bit. Imagine if it was an omnipresent convention that all male video game protagonists express homosexual interest in another male at least once during a game. I'm not saying that all those straight romance sub-plots are thrown out, just that some brief peripheral bisexual reference is made that has no real bearing on the wider game. Would this be regarded as a little bonus for the gay male gamer that had no bearing on anyone else's play experience?

 The results are very much already in on this one. Some time ago, a straight male gamer on Bioware's forums expressed great displeasure that at one point in Dragon Age II a male NPC makes a romantic advance on your protagonist, even if you are playing a man. He felt that including such content was 'neglecting' the straight male gamer demographic by including something that made them uncomfortable (in an 18-rated dark fantasy game, incidentally). This is far from the only protest about forward gay NPCs in the Dragon Age series and unfortunately it has had some effect. Even when responding to the absurd post, the developer who did so admitted that he doubted he'd do it again – despite having previously adopted the logic that it made no sense for all romantic interest to be up to the protagonist to initiate.

An even more extreme example can be seen in the story of the more recent game Remember Me. Not only did some publishers refuse to consider the game simply because the main character was female, but others baulked at the idea that she would initiate heterosexual romantic contact with NPCs because “you can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game.” There's so much wrong with this that it's just not funny. I strongly considered buying the game (which looks pretty cool, despite reportedly mediocre implementation of some of the ideas) if only to vindicate the publisher who finally did take a shot with it. I failed to do so only because of a typically eye-watering release price combined with a reputedly small completion time – a problem that Christmas has now fixed.

The bottom line is that including content designed to appeal to sexual demographics outside the straight male leaves straight males feeling 'this is not for me'. The fact that this causes them to think 'therefore it should not exist' is a BIG problem, but if all games triggered that feeling they'd be quite legitimate in asking the question 'why is nothing for me?'

Now flick back to female characters. Dressing like a hooker is a choice (or so the designers who dress these characters tell us). Acting in a manner designed to provoke everyone in the vicinity (most of whom appear to be beyond the fourth wall at any given moment) is a choice. In the real world, these are not choices that everyone makes – and many who don't do not regard them as aspirational fantasies or embodiments of the heroic ideal. Factor in body image fantasies that are more about what men want to see than what women want to have and a lot of female gamers are going to be left thinking that the character is explicitly not intended for them. When EVERY female character evokes that feeling, female gamers get left asking 'why is nothing for me?'

In the early days, individual female gamers wrote that they played games and were sure others did too, so could they have games for them please? Nowadays female gamers have read enough such articles from others like themselves to point out that they are obviously a large demographic - and that continuing to build games on the basis of 'gamers are young males' is to build them on a provable fallacy. Female gamers are getting louder within the gaming community and we're starting to see signs that change can happen. The reaction to these signs from some male gamers has not been pretty.

Almost any time a female commentator talks about the direction that games should take or the problems in attitude of the current content, there is a torrent of abuse directed at them from certain sections of the gamer community. When a player within an online game is identified as female, sexist abuse and harassment are frequently directed toward them.

While this kind of behaviour isn't present in all sections of gaming and such backlashes are sometimes suffered by male commentators too, there is a definite undercurrent of 'fighting for a cause' where women are concerned. Some gamers have claimed that sexist abuse and harassment are part of the 'culture' of the gaming community (which is odd, since they probably don't consider the presence of women a traditional part of that culture) and that wiping it out would diminish that culture. Gamers have lashed out at negative reactions to the above-described portrayal of women in modern games, claiming that such criticism threatens to 'neuter' future game production. As indefensible as it would still have been, Anita Sarkeesian didn't receive that infamous torrent of abuse because her attackers were too angry at what she said to remain civil. The whole thing happened before her disappointingly over-laboured first video even hit the web. The point of the attack was to silence her before she spoke, out of fear that if she was heard something might change.

A far more subtle undercurrent of this attitude can be seen in the recent savaging of game critic Carolyn Petit, who awarded GTA V a mere 9 out of 10. The principle flaws? 'An unnecessary strain of misogynistic nastiness' and 'serious issues with women'. Before the related comment threads were overwhelmed with back and forth about whether calling the transgendered reviewer 'she' was appropriate or not, there was a lot of complaint that the lowered score was unfair because Petit's discomfort with those issues didn't affect the quality of the game.

On the surface, one can have a certain amount of sympathy with the complaints. Marking down GTA for a lack of political correctness does feel like raising the bar at missing the point. On the other hand, a reviewer's assigned score has no meaning whatsoever except 'this is how much I recommend you play it'. Surely, therefore, it makes sense that anything which dents a player's enjoyment ought to lower the rating they assign.

Is saying 'marking down GTA for misogyny is unfair' the same as saying 'misogyny is not a valid thing to call out as a flaw'? Is saying 'marking down GTA because you didn't enjoy it is unfair' the same as saying 'the success of a video game shouldn't be judged by its ability to please gamers called Carolyn'? I fear the answer is yes to both questions.

I'm not saying that all those who argued against Petit's objections are the same type of people that send hateful threats, but the outcry seems to be based upon the same fear – that lowered reviews based on objections of this type will cause developers to alter future production,Therefore, such things can't be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Faced with such a campaign, it's no surprise that some people have attempted to calm the rabid fears driving these actions. One of the popular arguments is simply that whatever happens to future games, no one is going to take away the ones you already own.

On the surface, this is fair point. The ambition of software distributors to make continued use of single-player content dependant on an internet umbilical to their expensively-maintained servers HAS made spontaneous game loss a reasonable worry in another context, but it really doesn't apply here. No amount of change in ideas will result in people coming to your home to confiscate your hard copies, nor is it likely to result in the termination of the 'service' of server-linked games. So why worry?

Unfortunately, the ability of a game to engage with us on a purely visual level is severely tied to its level of technology. Movie special effects that looked 'real' when we first saw them are now so outmoded that we can see the flaws and their spectacle suffers gravely as a result. Video games are the same and their technology is galloping along just as fast as cinematic magic. Whip-wielding teacher Quistis is theoretically a desirable character – certainly belonging alongside Tifa and Lulu on the list of 'characters the Final Fantasy protagonist SHOULD have romanced'. However, the odds of her appearance exciting a modern player are somewhat reduced by the fact that she apparently consists of about ten polygons. There was a time when FFVIII blew audiences away with its stunning visuals, but that time has long past. Gamers who want these kind of portrayals don't want to be playing the same games in five or ten years time. They want to be playing the latest triple A game using cutting edge graphical wonders – just as long as it uses them to do exactly the same thing as all of its predecessors.

Another argument is that as long as a market exists for these games, there's no reason they won't still be made - they just won't be the only thing being made any more. If more women are coming into gaming and men aren't leaving, that means more games are being sold – so more should get made. If the same number of men are still willing to buy the same number of games, they should still get the same number being pitched at them – right?

Sadly, game publishing history has given little reason for confidence in this argument. There is hardly any sign that the corporate meetings of the big-money publishers contain ideas like 'our market research shows 60% male and 40% female, so let's get 3 games aimed at men and 2 games aimed at women out this year'. To all outward appearances, the meeting goes more like this: 'our market research shows that most gamers are male, so let's make sure all 5 of our big launches this year specifically target that demographic'. This is even true with the genres and play types being funded, as more and more games start to try and emulate Call of Duty.

Only a handful of game producers have figured out the secret formula that unites almost all gamers – their love of playing a really good game. I don't classify myself as a wild fan of tower defence or point-and-click adventures, but I definitely made time for Plants Vs. Zombies and The Walking Dead. In fact, a love of really good games is the only logical reason that female gamers exist so widely in a medium that stubbornly refuses any conscious attempt to appeal to them.

Unfortunately, a widespread realisation of this simple fact has yet to occur. It would be nice to think that absorption of a changed attitude to the presentation of female characters will lead to diversification – but it's a perfectly reasonable fear that it will instead lead to an absolute change in the ubiquitous paradigm. If these figures fall out of vogue, they may rapidly become practically extinct.

I'm not actually sure that an argument exists that can calm the fears of those who are fighting to prevent any change to the representation of women in games. In a sense, they are correct – something that they enjoy really might get taken away because other people disapprove of it. The benefits of the accompanying artistic growth might be clear to most, but they don't necessarily care about that. If the game industry starts catering for everyone who pays it money, it really will become slightly less indulgent for those who formerly were the sole focus of all the attention.

Sadly, having a stake in what happens doesn't mean that no-one but you should be considered. The notion that being the greatest numerical group gives you the democratic right to be the sole focus of decisions is a highly toxic one that is seen in too many contexts. In any case, vile attacks on those that desire change cannot be condoned. Using intimidation to oppress or drive out a growing minority is again something widely seen – as those who think being the majority gives them all rights to all things cannot bear the thought of actually ceasing to be the majority (or of having the pre-existing fact that they are not get recognised).

At its heart, these attempts are nothing more than an effort to ensure that all art produced within this medium conforms to a single style and message. Beneath the veneer of defending a dating kind of pleasure, it is possible that the true motive for all of it is that the message in question is 'everything is for men'. A physical shift within gaming to pander less exclusively to males would merely represent a far more terrifying (for them) decay of the unquestioned idea that male privilege was the proper order of things.

Disturbingly, this isn't just happening at consumer level either. Some publishers are in on it too. According to one anonymous account I read whilst reading up on this issue, an attempt by a male-to-female transgender game developer to give a female character a major part in an upcoming game was rejected - for the stated reason that “you just want everyone to be a woman don’t you, well some of us like the fact we’re men and don’t want our games brainwashing people into thinking they need to be like you.”

This would be inexcusable even if the character was transgender, but as far as I can tell that wasn't the case. Not only did the person in question (who sadly isn't named) presume all gamers were male, he consciously believed that exposure to the idea that women can be aspirational figures would be devastating to their sense of gender identity. He understood full well that games can have a cultural and intellectual impact upon 'people' (meaning young males) and considered that inviting them to put themselves in a woman's place or see her as a pivotal figure in the virtual world were poisonous notions to be kept out of gaming.

Of course, not all male gamers are part of some massive conspiracy to uphold the foundations of male privilege. In fact, a great many are encouraging of the idea that representation of women in games should improve and diversify and almost all are deeply opposed to the horrible abuse a minority of gamers throw out. What is important is that male gamers who feel this way stand up and say so. Those championing the status quo will readily claim to be speaking for the entire male gamer segment, which most of the industry still regards as the sizeable majority. If their words are the only ones heard, it gives the impression that our silence endorses their statements. Once it is made clear that the male gamer demographic is almost entirely opposed to such attitudes, the raging of these people will make far fewer headlines and draw far less attention. 

Article on Dragon Age II complaints 

Article on Trans representation in the industry 

Christianity - My testimony and other thoughts

I've been writing about a variety of subjects on this blog, essentially determined by what I feel is interesting or important at the time. It seems fitting, therefore, that I write an article about the subject which is most important of all to me – my Christian faith. I hope you will find it interesting and will get something out of it.

I was born into a Christian family. My parents were both committed Christians who attended a house church twice a week. To give you some background, this church had started out as a regular prayer meeting at a local Methodist church. When the time slot became unavailable, the meeting relocated to the house of one of the members – a man called Fred Dunn. He was overjoyed at the answers to prayer that the meeting was receiving and said that they could meet every night if they wished to. The meeting continued to be richly blessed and in time Mr Dunn received a ministry for preaching, prophesy and other gifts besides. The meeting became essentially a non-denominational church in its own right under the name Bethesda and still continues today.

I was taken to these meetings from infancy and my parents certainly taught me that Christianity was true. That said, in general it didn't take me long to start questioning what my parents told me if other sources disagreed (especially teachers). I remember my mother telling me about her own journey to faith when I was very young. She said that she'd believed when she was a child, then had some doubts as a teenager because other people believed in other religions. How did she know that she was right and they were wrong? I don't remember her answer, but I do remember absorbing the existence of the question. This small house meeting was not tied to the expectations of the wider community and had very few young people, so it's unlikely that I'd have continued in Christianity for very long out of simple inertia.

Of course, personal proof was not hard to find in a place as blessed as Bethesda. I don't remember the first time I heard someone speak in tongues or felt the blessing of God myself, but it would have been pretty young. All the same, my definitive moment came at home rather that at church. We left the home in question when I was 6, so I was certainly younger that that.

I'd closed my eyes for some reason I can't recall. As I sat there, the blackness of my eyelids parted vertically and I saw a bright yellow light beyond it. There was a man standing in the light with his arms upraised. He was wearing a white robe tied at his waist with some kind of brown cord. The face was one that I recognised. He looked exactly like the portrait of Jesus I owned – one that Mr Dunn (who had himself received visions in the past) had regarded as a good likeness.

I was very young, but I had a solid grasp of the difference between fantasy and reality. Perhaps I'd have dismissed this event in the intervening years if it had been the only proof, but that would have been a disservice to my younger self. I remember exactly what I thought at the time. I thought that this settled the question of whether there was a God and whether there was a Jesus. I was now certain of that. What I needed to know now was: what is true about Jesus? This is still my attitude to Christianity today and I am still learning the answer to that question – as I expect I always will be.

This is quite a dramatic claim to be making, I realise. Yes, I am flat out stating that I have seen Jesus. That this was when my Christian faith first became entirely concrete.

There are reasons why I don't normally make these statements. Many of my friends don't believe and what I have just testified will not change that. Although they respect my intelligence and integrity (I hope) generally speaking they regard claims of miraculous visions as delusional. I therefore place them in an awkward position when I directly claim to have proof. I have observed in some prior debates on religion that claims I've made to have proof behind my faith have been completely blanked.

Yet I find it displeasing that people who I have treasured as friends for over a decade in some cases honestly have no idea about this stuff. So I'm going to put it here. You can digest it if and when you're ready.

This isn't the only vision I've had, but such revelations are not commonplace. In the day to day, week to week prayer life of the Christian answers are not received like that. However, getting an answer IS normal. The way that Jesus normally touches the heart is with a wonderful sense of peace, which radiates out from the very centre of your being and fills you up. This is a hallmark of God that no other display of supernatural power can replicate, a display of his character that can move anyone to tears through the sheer beauty and sense of love that is borne within it.

When you pray about something, you know that God has his hand upon it when you get peace. When you ask which way you should go, you follow the road that has the most peace when you contemplate it. To feel such peace is one of the meanings of the phrase 'being blessed' – although it can also thankfully refer to having a bounty of good things within your life. Jesus has answered many of my prayers this way, and he has led me well.

A powerful blessing of peace when you ask for something generally means that you shall receive it. I've prayed for help in many difficult situations and had things fall into place. It's impossible to prove to another person what was a miracle and what was just chance, but if I ask for something and it happens I certainly always say thank you. However, feeling some peace doesn't always mean everything will go away. I remember praying once when in despair about bullying as a teen. The bullying did not immediately stop – but the fear which was causing the vast majority of my actual suffering melted away completely as I prayed.

Sometimes a small feeling of peace simply means that God has heard you, rather than 'yes'. When my Grandad was taken ill for the last time, I prayed for quite a while that he would recover. I felt enough peace to know that my prayer was heard, but not enough to expect a miracle. When I eventually prayed that my Grandma would be okay if he did pass on, I got a very powerful sense of peace. I knew well enough what that meant. He died shortly afterwards, but my parents were able to extend their house and take my Grandma into it. Despite her severe medical difficulties they never had to put her into care, and she lived as a happy and much-loved member of their family unit until her passing at the start of this year.

The feeling of peace can be felt anywhere, because God isn't limited to church buildings. All the same, it is possible for certain places or church gatherings to be inherently blessed. Simply entering what I can only call Holy Ground can give one a sense of peace – when I lived at a house opposite St. Michael's church I always noticed it the moment I left the town centre and entered the square. Likewise, peace can be felt more easily and powerfully when praying and worshipping in a good church gathering – the blessing at a Bethesda meeting is stronger than I've felt anywhere else. This is a genuine endorsement by God – meaning that rote rituals of consecration do not of themselves ensure such an effect. Lincoln Cathedral was dead as a doornail when I visited it and seemed more interested in raising revenue than in functioning as a place of worship. It also means that the feeling can drop away if the preacher or group leaders make a mis-step, allowing you greater ability to discern God's truth from what people say is God's truth if you're paying attention.

This method of discerning the truth is at the core of how I explore my Christian faith. Many Christians believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God. Since our perceptions are not infallible, they argue that the scripture should always have the final word in what we believe. Unfortunately this neglects that our interpretation and application of these scriptures is entirely fallible, even assuming that the original meaning was accurately translated from a uniformly inspired and perfectly expressed set of originals. In fact, my faith in the Bible is based upon the endorsing blessings that my God gives me when I read it – blessings I've found almost entirely lacking from the teaching of other religions. If I feel that God is leading me to do something different from what I'd have guessed based on how I read the Bible, I'll generally follow his metaphorical 'voice' if I'm sure.

Sadly, many Christians don't really understand the way that learning works. When I did science at junior school, I was taught things as facts. When I did science at secondary school, I was taught that these were oversimplifications and therefore technically untrue – then taught new facts. When I did A-Level science, the pattern repeated. I am sure that if I had done a science degree, it would have done so again. This is not a pattern distinctive to science – learning always works with broad strokes first followed by refinements and deeper mysteries, and you never get to know everything.

Christians should expect the same sort of paradigm shifts as their knowledge of God grows. Unfortunately most denominations set up certain 'core beliefs' which cannot be challenged within that church. The sorry state of understanding regarding the Trinity is an obvious symptom of this, as is the historical backlash by religious groups against paradigm-shifting scientific ideas which have sometimes proven accurate.

Of course, Christians do have good reason to be ideologically orthodox. Every spiritual or scientific teaching (and they are both just ways of trying to get an accurate picture of the reality around us) will claim to be 'the amazing truth'. Many spiritual teachings which claim to develop Christian teaching are erroneous or outright lies. Having found the Way, the Truth and the Life (even if we don't comprehend every fact about Him) Christians are naturally wary of being led astray (as some sometimes are). How do we discern truth from lies here? Ultimately, we do it by the same test that we used to determine if Christianity was true at all. It's simple, but the inertia created by being attached to the rest of a denomination can slow down the process or drag you the wrong way.

This is not to say that fellowship with other Christians is bad. Lives dedicated to Jesus should be fruitful in changing the world around us for the better, yet it's naïve to think that this is a one way process. The world changes us too, and eventually we will reach an equilibrium that is appropriate to the relative sizes of the two parties. As well as providing a more blessed atmosphere, more answered prayers and the teaching we need to grow, church is a reset button that allows us to notice if we're slipping away from God inch by inch and correct it. When I say this I don't mean that it's a chance to receive peer pressure and a lecture on the virtues of conformity. I simply mean that you can forget how special your walk with God used to be if you busy yourself with other things for a couple of months, or develop wrongful practices without ever sitting down and listening to the Spirit for long enough for him to challenge you about them.

This balance with the world around us brings the discussion back to my own life. Many Christians come to faith as adults and have to begin learning the new lifestyle after decades of practising a different one. Being raised a Christian with a personal commitment to it, I never faced that critical life change. However, there are complexities to being a child Christian too. There are many life lessons that the Bible cannot teach you – simple facts and norms about living day to day and in relation to other people that have to be learned by actually living in the world. To be a Christian child is to learn how to live like everyone else, whilst also learning how and where to positively differ from it at the same time. This is a tough ride, and it's lonely to know that most of the people around you can neither understand nor value the part of yourself that's more important than their approval.

I got baptised on 9^th July 1995, at the age of 13. By this point I had been a dedicated believer for a long time, but I felt led to make the important step of taking that particular action. Christianity isn't just about arriving at the moment where you repent of your sins and receive forgiveness, nor about agreeing to a set of rules. Furthermore, repenting in that way isn't about going through your diary and denouncing specific deeds in your past, but about regretting any wrong you have done because you want to do rightly.

The Christian walk of life isn't about following rules – rather it is about a relationship with God and about gradually allowing him to perfect you within it. This isn't a process that any follower of Jesus has ever completed on this Earth, and no-one can ever become like Jesus (the definition of perfection in this model) without letting him take the lead. It is of course easier to theoretically dedicate your entire existence to Christ than to actually change any specific part of your life in response to his leading, but the act of making that commitment is a really important one. I got a wonderful, peaceful blessing as I came out of that water, which persisted undimmed for the entire rest of the day.

The last thing Mr Dunn told me before I left for university was this - “people say that the way is straight and narrow, but it's not. It's just straight.” This sounds like a strange thing to say, as it appears to contradict Matthew 7:14. What I have always taken from it is that not all Christian lives need to be carbon copies of each other. We are all following Jesus and desire to be like him in terms of spiritual righteousness, but we can come toward him from any point and bearing in the world. Just because two Christians have extremely different lifestyles, it doesn't necessarily mean that one is automatically a better Christian than the other. We might have to abandon any number of paths we've laid out for ourselves to keep moving in the right direction in our Christian life, but 'running the race' doesn't involve stepping sideways into anybody else's lane.

This was a word that I definitely needed to take with me into university life. As I mentioned before, Bethesda didn't have much of a youth element. With the exception of a Christian meeting at school, I had little history of socialising with other Christians my own age. The new church I joined in my student town had a large youth culture and there were university societies as well. These groups were wonderful to have fellowship with, but they had a very unified culture which I did not automatically fit into. Even more strangely, many of them seemed to have very limited social links with the non-Christians around them – whereas I naturally formed strong links with several 'alternative' societies very quickly. It would have been very easy for me to make the mistake of trying to change myself to fit the local Christian scene, but changing to myself just to be like everyone else wouldn't have been beneficial for me. Whilst my theological differences sometimes caused friction with the leaders of student Christian scene, the non-Christian societies gave me something very important – an environment where people could equally belong whilst being different to one another. It's only in the later years of my time in this town that I've developed a solid group of Christian friends – many of whom regard themselves as misfits in the local Christian community. But I've had enough fellowship with them to know that Christ is truly in their heart – and on that basis I call them brother and sister.

I've often been told that I'm not like other Christians by my non-Christian friends – and I can't say it hasn't worried me form time to time. After all, Christians are supposed to stand out as different. I've also found myself standing bemused as my brothers and sisters in Christ fretted over the presence of sinful practices within the rest of the student community. Surely this should bother me more, as it does them?

I have a naturally blasé nature in many respects – yet I like to think that the main reason I'm more able to accept the non-Christian society around me is the faith I am able to place in God's plan for others. I firmly believe that God had a plan for my life before I was even born, and unlike some Christians I am equally sure that he has a plan for everyone else. These plans will work in God's own time – and if they can succeed, they will. At my age, Fred Dunn was a drunken, brawling thief with no visible interest in Christ. I'm sure melodramatic Christians would have declared that he was 'going to Hell' at that age, but the truth is God had the entire thing in hand the whole time. It is not given to me to know whether my friends will make it (with the exception of one, whom I asked God about many years ago and got a reassuring answer) but I see enough love of goodness in them to hope that one day they will come to love Him.

Becoming a Christian is your own choice – one that I cannot make for anyone else. Until it is made, everyone is a sinner in need of God's forgiveness. While desirable, reducing the rate at which a person commits sins doesn't actually change that one way or the other. I don't even believe all sins should be illegal under state law – whilst we might regard them as morally wrong, Christians were never commissioned by Jesus to confiscate free will from all nations under threat of force. People have a right to make their own choices – even wrong choices – unless the harm to others (or more contentiously to themselves) outweighs the harm in tyrannising them. Our duty as Christians is simply to pass on the revelations we have received about how a person should live – revelations that make no sense without Jesus at their core. Thus we preach him foremost, and what the truth of him means after that.

Christianity is a reaction to the truth. If it is not true, I have no interest in basing my life around it. Since we are fallible creatures doubt will always be possible, but a person who doubts all information about their environment cannot function. Seek him and you will find him. Ask other Christians and they will tell you their testimonies. Ask them to pray with you or pray on your own, and he'll be there. Christianity isn't the easiest life, but I recommend it.

God bless.

The Bethesda meetings now have a website which archives some old recording and gives contact details for their continued fellowship. It can be found here: http://bethesda-fellowship.co.uk/index.html

God's Place In Life by Kingspikearcher