The Church of England synod, usually content to keep out of peoples’ business and discuss gardening tips over a cup of milky tea, has decided to whine about videogames again, still carrying a vendetta it’s carried since 2007, when Resistance: Fall of Man featured Manchester Cathedral in a level.
The Guardian calls the Anglican Church a “victim” of videogames for the Cathedral’s portrayal, which is rather pathetic in its own right. Meanwhile, the Very Rev Govender Rogers Govender demonstrated a very Christian lack of forgiveness by continuing to bitch about something that happened three years ago:
“Sony’s response was: “What is the church worried about? It’s just a game.’ I had to tell them, ‘It may just be a fantasy game to you, but violence is really serious on the streets of Manchester.’ We eventually managed to elicit a grudging apology.”
Lay member and former MP Tom Benyon called videogames a “bubbling sewer of gratuitously violent and sexual pornography.” He also claimed that one child had seen something in a videogame so scary that he had nightmares and “the images remained with him for months.” I’d say that kid’s a pussy.
“Why is it acceptable, indeed lawful, to portray the killing and burning of a woman in Fatality,” moans Benyon, “the sawing up of a woman in Mortal Combat (sic), playing football with severed heads; the chainsaw killing of a man in Saw III, rape, torture and so on? I have all these terrible games collected and if anyone has the courage to watch it, please do so.”
I love how he mentions Saw III, as if that wasn’t a movie first. But in any case, Benyon is the one collecting games and offering to show them off like they were porno tapes. The rest of us aren’t so childish as to see something we don’t like and then demand that it should be illegal, just because it offends our fragile sensibilities. These guys should go back to doing what they’re good at — being irrelevant.
Anglican church calls for tighter regulation of violent computer games [The Guardian]
