A long while ago now, I was asked to speak at one of the UK’s foremost conservative evangelical theological seminaries. Definitely in the top ten (are there ten?) I was – as seems to be what a lot of people want me for – there to talk about depression. Particularly, how I do ministry whilst having depression.

It was quite some time later when I ran into somebody who was there for that talk. He remembered me as the pastor who encouraged all the other pastors there to get into playing computer games! I didn’t remember saying exactly that. He also remebered sidling up to me at lunch and asking in hushed tones, ‘do you like gaming?’ before admitting conspiratorially that he did too. That was a response to a (very) short part of my talk in which I said I found playing computer games on my day off or as a means of unwinding a good way to focus my mind on something without doing anything too draining and debilitating. I may have let slip that on the one sabbatical I’ve ever had – which was, to all intents and purposes, slightly dressed up sick leave to make me feel better about taking it – I did make some considerable headway on Breath of the Wild and ran a glorious empire on Civilisation.

I didn’t think anything of those comments. I wasn’t quite advocating that everybody must or should play computer games. I may have suggested that could be helpful for others there too. What I was advocating, particularly for people struggling with their mental health, is finding some means of occupying your mind enough that you aren’t in your own head without it being its own stressor. For me, computer games meet that criteria happily. I know for others it is playing an instrument and learning new songs. Others still like art or country walks. Your mileage may vary. But however you do it, you need some means of getting out of your own stressful thoughts that occupy you throughout the week but in such ways that you aren’t replacing a set of work-related stresses with some similarly stressful non-work ones.

What I didn’t realise as I made those comments about computer games was that I had hit upon something that had been trotted out to the pastors/students in attendance with some frequency. Namely, computer games are bad, a waste of time and the sort of things pastors really ought to be avoiding. I am led to believe my view – that they are actually quite helpful for your mental health if you’re into that sort of thing – was stepping onto a landmine. Happily, I was totally ignorant of it at the time and only heard about it in retrospect. Also happily for me, I think I have the benefit of being right on my side.

The rightness here is twofold. First, there is nothing – biblical or otherwise – inherently wrong with computer games. They are, like most things, neither good nor bad in and of themselves. They are, like most things, capable of being enjoyed helpfully as well as potentially over-indulged and damaging. It is the nature of most things. But there is nothing wrong with them in and of themselves.

Second, it is simply the case that computer games can be beneficial for your mental health and relaxation more broadly. Some people find the same with lego, painting, playing sports, and all manner of other perfetly acceptable things too. Whatever is involved in the games you most enjoy is rarely so taxing as to induce stress-related anxiety attacks. it is, however, brain-occupying enough that you’re not likely to be thinking about that difficult pastoral problem as you lead your team to victory on Fifa or NBA 2K or you wallop bokoblins on Zelda or show no mercy to your family as you take the podium on Mario Kart. They are thought-occupying without being stress-inducing, which is helpful.

Singling out computer games as opposed to TV, radio or novels – all of which have come in for their own moral denigration before, ultimately, being accepted as legitimate and, susbequently, stimulating, then beneficial and extending – is not credible. All too often it boils down to people who (perfectly legitimately) aren’t into them deciding to castigate those who do enjoy them. It is hard to avoid the sneaking suspicion that my interests are deemed acceptable and good whilst yours, for somewhat opaque reasons, are deemed less worthy and excellent. It is often delivered in pseudo-Christain terms but not actually rooted in anything specifically Christian at all. Just a superior sense that my hobbies are better and more godly than yours.

The truth is, I can mount as strong an argument against doing any pastime I am not interested in as anyone else can on the moral inferiority of computer games. But neither case is robust because neither is biblical; it is just belittling other’s non-sinful, permissible interests because they happen not to be mine. After all, what is easier than arguing your thing is not ‘redeeming the time’ because I think it is a rubbish waste of time?

That, however, is just another way of saying I’m not interested in it (which is fine) whilst claiming God’s authority on your judgement (which is not fine). In fact, I would go as far as to say baptising my interests as sanctified and inferring yours are worldly, devilish pursuits when the Bible has said no such thing is to put words in God’s mouth, to do explicitly what the Bible says we ought not to do (call good, or maybe just neutral, evil) and is close to blaspheming the name of Christ. It is effectively saying things he has not said and besmirching his character by ascribing things to him that are not what he thinks, believes or wants to communicate. It is to do what the Pharisees were expert at doing; outlawing things God has not outlawed and, in so doing, making God’s commands more burdensome than they were ever intended to be. All in the name of making ourselves, our particular choices and interests seem more godly; that is to say, in the pursuit of a sense of spiritual superiority. When we think about this sort of chiding in these terms, it is almost the polar opposite of genuine godliness.

So, for the record, I am not the pastor who is telling you that you have to play computer games. Of course you don’t. But I am the pastor who wants to tell you that you might just find them helpful. I am the pastor who wants to tell you there is nothing ungodly about them. I am the pastor who is quite happy to play them along with you. And if you aren’t into them, all power to your elbow. Enjoy what you enjoy to the glory of God. Just make sure you have enough room for others to enjoy what they enjoy, even if it doesn’t float your boat, to the glory of God too.