Christians are among the targets of a satirical online game designed in the midst of America's continuing mass-shooting epidemic. Designed in just three days in the wake of last year's Orlando nightclub massacre, Thoughts & Prayers – The Game is a simple desktop and smartphone game that's low on gameplay but high on impact. More of a short interactive experience than an actual game, its message is short and sharp in the face of a complex issue: that the 'thoughts' and 'prayers' that so many of us claim we're sending as mass shootings unfold do nothing to actually prevent them happening again.
Visitors to the game's microsite are greeted with what appears to be 1980s-style arcade game, which begins with the somewhat sarcastic message: 'America faces an epidemic of mass shootings. It's up to you to stop them... with the power of your thoughts and prayers.' On clicking the subtly-adjusted 'Let us pray' button below, players then see a map of the United States, where over the course of 30 seconds, various mass shootings keep occurring, complete with a death count and a special social media hashtag for each event. Users can either choose to select 'Think' or 'Pray' in response to each, but when the clock ticks down to zero, a final score reveals that however much they thought or prayed, no lives were saved.
Three US-based web developers cooked up the 'game' in around six hours last June after lone gunman Omar Matteen killed 49 people and wounded 58 more in a Florida nightclub. Thoughts & Prayers received 300,000 plays with its first few days of release and has since seen millions of visits. It has again been shared widely in the wake of the Las Vegas concert shooting on 1st October.
It's a pretty dark piece of comedy that takes a low view of the common Christian response to tragedy. Yet while those of us who believe in God would take issue with the idea that prayers are powerless, perhaps we shouldn't allow our natural sense of offence to blind us to the painful truth hiding behind the rather secularist dig. Yes, it's a bit lazy to suggest that prayers don't actually stop gun crime (how on earth could we know that God has intervened to mean an event has never happened?), but the point being made is that on their own, thoughts and prayers are just as lazy a response. By just thinking about something, or processing it with our God, we can trick ourselves into thinking we've engaged in some sort of positive activism.
To really prevent further mass shootings in America, profound change is needed. Wherever you happen to stand on the gun control debate, that means political engagement and action, not just thoughts and prayers. For those who have lost loved ones in these continuing tragedies, thoughts and prayers are a helpful sentiment which might invoke some sense of divine comfort, but they need to be accompanied by practical acts of love. Given the scale and influence of the church in America right now, it seems to me that Christians are ideally placed to intervene in both of these ways. As I wrote at greater length last week, the church might just be the one institution powerful enough to make a dent on the problem.
The point of Thoughts & Prayers is that this is a game that nobody wins – not even the satirists. Those of us who believe in God are a soft target, but the accusation of spiritualised slacktivism does at least somewhat ring true. Rather than feeling too offended by the mean joke, let's imagine what might happen if Christians were as well known for activism, the pursuit of justice, and compassionate acts of love and care in the face of this terrible cycle of violence.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
