Youth pastor Ashley Dusenbery offers his personal perspective on the use of baptism in BioShock Infinite.
SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't finished BioShock Infinite and don't want to know what happens, don't read this article. Nothing in BioShock Infinite is off limits in what follows.
One of the toughest questions people ask me is the question, why? Why did my daughter die? Why do I have cancer? Why can't I find a job? Why are people sometimes so nasty to one another? I work in a church. And a church is supposed to be a safe place. It's supposed to be a place where those genuinely longing for meaningful answers can go to sincerely struggle. So, naturally, as the caretaker of a local church, much of that struggling happens right in front of me, and I consider it a privilege to sit with people in the trenches of their inner wars. It is a war indeed, for the question that needs an answer, that persistent question, why, often has no answer accessible to finite human beings. And so in the absence of any kind of peace with God over his sometimes inscrutable, often painful plan, people of faith struggle. That's not always a bad thing, I think.
So what does that have to do with a video game? I finished Irrational's excellent BioShock Infinite recently, and I've had a little time since then for my mind to process the intense intertwining of story, character, setting, and atmosphere. My mind has gone to the places it is prone to wander to, the theological. Religion is a huge theme in Infinite. Religion touches almost every aspect of the game's narrative. The antagonist, Comstock, is a self-styled prophet and leader of a pseudo-Christian, religious cult-city, Columbia, suspended twenty thousand feet in the sky by a mysterious, quantum, science-fiction-y force. Booker DeWitt, the protagonist, seems at first to be motivated by a desire to wipe away a financial debt by rescuing a young lady from a tower in Columbia, but the game wastes no time at all in indicating that DeWitt has a deeper, moral debt that is not so easily erased. Images and language of water, baptism, washing, and rebirth all build upon one another in the telling of this story. There is even a baby who turns out to be the lamb of Comstock's prophecy.
Let me stop here and say that as a Christian and an ordained pastor, I was not in the least bit offended by the use of these decidedly Christian themes. For the most part, things like Christian baptism were used to move the story as well as I have ever seen them used in secular media. Levine appropriately tied rebirth to baptism. Part of what baptism represents in Christianity is dying as an old self and being raised to a new life. In Infinite, baptism is explicitly used three times as far as I can remember. The first time is when DeWitt is admitted into the city of Columbia. The second time is at the end of the game when DeWitt is offered baptism, which he rejects. The third and final time is when it is revealed that DeWitt and Comstock are really the same person, Comstock being the seemingly inevitable product of Booker's religious rebirth through baptism. Baptism in that instance is the means by which DeWitt dies for the sake of undoing all the evil that he and Comstock will bring about.
In each instance, baptism is used as an appropriate symbolic plot device for the point at which the players find themselves in the story. It's the initiation of a new and profound mission, a rebirth of DeWitt towards an ultimate destiny. It's the rejection of a salvation that DeWitt finds cheap and inadequate, preferring to seek the accomplishment of his mission in order to wipe away his debt, an ultimately futile effort. It takes Elizabeth bringing him back to the baptismal pool for him to fully grasp the profundity of his true debt and what that debt has earned him as a result. Even though there is death but no new life in the final baptism that ends DeWitt's and Comstock's lives, it functions quite well as a plot device given the kind of setting that these characters and their story inhabit. Levine wasn't aiming to speak theologically about the true meaning and use of Christian baptism. Therefore, I have no problem with him taking baptism and using it to tell a story separate from the Christian story.
These Christian themes and the religious tone of Infinite serve a story that seeks, I think, to answer a fundamental question about human existence: What effect does my free will have on reality? One of the huge revelations of Infinite was that the setting of this BioShock game and previous BioShock games exist in the same universe. In an instant, the players find themselves transported from Columbia, the city in the clouds, to Rapture, the city from the original BioShock at the bottom of the sea. These two dystopian cities exist in this multiverse in which the will of man has created an infinite number of branching universes. There is no road untraveled by the choices of humankind. Each road and each fork is itself a separate reality, a distinct universe of existence.
In case you are thoroughly confused, welcome to the club. Let me try to explain. The premise behind Infinite is that every choice each person makes leads to a new reality, much like in the reboot of the Star Trek movies. Spock traveling back in time started the new cast and crew of the Enterprise on an entirely new timeline and new set of adventures, a new Star Trek universe, if you will. Similarly, in Infinite, the reality of Comstock's Columbia and all the evils that flow out of that city in the clouds exist in a universe created along one branch of one choice made by one man, Booker DeWitt. Interestingly, baptism is the vehicle by which this choice is made. If DeWitt accepts baptism, he will rise from the water having taken a new name and new life. He is no longer Booker DeWitt, but he comes out of the water Zachary Hale Comstock, the Prophet of Columbia. And so reality branches for the millionth time in a nanosecond, and another new universe of existence is born, this one not so pleasant as the game's opening hour would lead you to believe.
So what does this game have to do with the person in the pastor's office asking the hard questions of life? What does it have to do with you as you try to be a good friend to someone who is hurting? Or what does it have to do with your own struggles? Why is my life like this and not the way I want it to be? I think this game is an attempt, in a purely secular way (I don't mean that disparagingly), to offer hope and comfort when our lives branch in a way that we don't expect or in a way that brings suffering. It offers hope for us to think that there is a reality in which a version of us exists that isn't suffering in whatever crisis we find ourselves. At any moment and with every choice, we are creating universes of possibilities of happiness, misery, or something in between. What we do has meaning outside of ourselves.
As I experienced BioShock Infinite, I found hidden within the story it was telling a narrative of human choosing apart from the existence of God. It was a moment both precious and profoundly sad. It is precious because I believe that behind the searching questions this story has explored through the medium of video games is an impulse that comes directly from our creator. It is the impulse to search, explore, and pierce to the marrow of the mystery of our existence as human beings and seek an answer to the question, why are things not the way they are supposed to be? This game has left me thankful for Ken Levine and his team at Irrational Games for so beautifully telling this story. It is sad to me because the multiverse their exploration has led them to is hellish. Just below the luminescent, idealized surface of Comstock's Columbia is a nightmare of racism, oppression, greed, and violence that the player must survive to reach the end, only to find out that the whole time, Booker was doing battle with the products of his own heart.
Thanks Gamespot for publishing such a fantastic article. I just finished Bioshock Infinite and did wonder how the Christian community may react. It is great that this is a game that can be enjoyed by all people not just from an entertainment point of view but also spiritual and academic views. Keep it up!
Fantastic article. It always amuses me when people point out how hypocritical us Christians must be to enjoy violent games and such. Because really, they're just entertainment.
It's also nice to see a fellow Christian's take on BioShock Infinite's representation of Christian baptism - and make no mistake, it IS Christian baptism and not of any other religion, as the guy baptising actually says Jesus's name on a single occasion. Which brings me to the most prominent disparity between the game's representation and baptism in real life - it's almost completely disconnected from the real rebirth.
Booker (and Comstock) seem to think of baptism as some sort of get-out-of-sin-free card, which it's not. Baptism itself is meaningless without the recognition of what it actually means, and that is that the true baptism that grants spiritual rebirth is of the Holy Spirit, not of water.
Point is (for those who skipped the religious mumble-jumble), the game can't show that the ideologies behind Christianity are flawed, because it doesn't represent those ideologies correctly (a nod to erix43). Rather, it shows that human nature is inherently flawed, and no amount of self-righteousness will change that (in fact, as Comstock demonstrates, self-righteousness only worsens the human condition).
All up, it's probably the most emotionally engaging narrative I've ever played, and I thank the developers for that unparalleled experience. It's just a bit of a shame that it ends on such a sad note, hence missing the opportunity to explain the true meaning of spiritual rebirth and the positive transformation it brings.
Great article. It gives me hope to hear a fellow Christian give such a reasonable response to a clearly profound game. I'm sorry to say that most of the people in my church would probably freak out if they played Infinite. So thank you, Mr. Dusenbery, for this well-written and well-thought-out article.
Replying to this a bit late because I wanted to finish the game first and didn't have time to do so until yesterday, but I want to say it's a very well written article. It's good to see that religious people can approach a subject without making things black and white or trying to shove things down other people's throat. Too bad the other side didn't show such respect in comments...
1 Like This is a great and engrossing game, but the trouble I have with it and something like "Django Unchained" is the fact that this is a production created by white people for white people. It is a way for white people to pat themselves on the back and feel better about who they are. It has just the right amount of racism when the reality of conditions like this were far worse. Al Andalus, Slavery in the Americas, Native American Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, The Opium War, the Holocaust, the colonization of China, Africa and India, etc are inconceivable assaults on humanity and the reason many places in the world are in the condition they are in today. Basically anyone in a loin cloth. Inhuman places like Liberia and how Pakistan and India are on the brink of destroying the Earth, They are basically the very same people, when a generation ago, they were all following Gandhi. These are all direct results of exposure to greed, ethics and abuses alien to their native social structure. These effects don't disappear just because the people are let go. I've never heard of a black leader even consider shooting a white child in the head, like Fitzroy. That's like Maya Angelou or Oprah gets caught gunning down a bunch of 3rd graders, but I've definitely witnessed much worse racism than this game depicts.
1 Like Another racist cursing us "white devils" & blaming us for all of the world's ills. People of all colours & creeds have had no problems wiping each other out for reasons of race, religion & politics for centuries, long before Europeans colonised parts of the world, bigot. If you expect me to be ashamed of & apologise for the colour of my skin then you'll be waiting a long, long time.
1 Like @CrouchingWeasel @Karikma Hes a typical ignorant person who is just likes to talk a whole load of crap without the facts. No African leader would kill a kid? what planet do you live on? in the congo they friggin eat people. Pygmy people are being EATEN by African blacks, blame the whites for that?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/09/congo.jamesastill
@Conan1985 @CrouchingWeasel @Karikma It's typical for you in your own culture to delude yourself into a mentality that everyone is the same. No matter what, you put yourself in the position where you even have the right to judge and point your finger, when due to how you are typically raised you have no real frame of reference to what is just and fair. The truth is, while black people do commit grossly inhuman acts against each other, they rarely do so to other races, but you convince yourself to the contrary with no tangible evidence, because it is a part of your evolution, I assume, to treat any other culture living in relative peace with you that they are violating you in some way. Just to get something you want. In concert, you are cordial and friendly until everyone's guard is down, and then you betray. based on some ridiculous delusion you convince yourself of, that you later admit to being wrong, after the generation has died out and no real restitution can be made.
Example: in 1948, after WWII, the allied nations had a problem deciding what they will do with all those Jews. They can't stay in America or Europe (damn Jews...) I know, we will go to the Middle East and kill a bunch of Palestinians and push them out of their home. Then we will put Jews there in their place and pump a bunch of money into the area so they can make life uncomfortable for the people they displaced, when Jews could have simply moved into the area like they did before all that. Jews seeking refuge preferred Middle East countries as opposed to westernized countries back then. They are essentially family after all because they both descended from Abraham, and they even fought alongside each other in the Crusades. Now was that fair? Today we see how much was ruined with one act.
Well thought out and written article. I was wondering how someone in the church might view this game.
lol Silly nutters! Why don't we start burning all the books again aswell :D Those objects are clearly whats wrong with the world
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I find small minded little bigots like yourself more offensive than religion. Intolerance causes more problems than religion ever has or will.
Well glad there's a religous article made by a christain that actualy appreatiates video games and the medium and saw through the violence. I mean it's slightly hypocritical that christians would say something is violent like games but I do realise in the bible it's in different context and most of the time show how violence is bad while in most games it's glorified. So anyway I was happy with this artcle, written as it should've been.
It is entertainment. Its not meant to be fact. I dont think it should be take serious. Are movies in the same context taken seriously? Why should games? I am someone that doesn't think we need to satisfy every damn person that could get offended. Doing so just hurts creativity.
there are some christians who claim video games are bad!but it has its pros and cons!yes u might end up spending too much time playing games than building up ur spiritual life as well as doing ur job of winning souls!but u can also learn a lot of things from games too!regarding wizardry or witchcraft!in reality there is no such thing as good witch or wizard!but in games its more fictional but they fail to see it that way!people blaspheme against the the supreme being day in day out!but he gave us free will!he will not force u!u must be willing!but if u are out there and say there is no god!look around u see the works of his hands!how u came to exist !how u grew!crawled,stood,walked,!think about it!
well im gonna go back and finish it because no gamer feels satisfied until they've beaten the game, am i right or is it just most people.
The only problem with religion in the game is that the character is not allowed to make choices. Like the part when you have to kill Comstock. I didn't think Comstock was so bad. He held captive his daughter and is an oppresive ruler. Your character was an out-of-towner looking to kidnap his daughter. It's not that religion was used in a bad way but, that your character was so against it, it made me feel uncomfortable to play as Dewitt. Press X to take baptisim. I don't want a baptisim. I'm Catholic. I've already been baptised, thank you. If there going to have a religous opinion in a game then don't force me to press a button, just do it in a cutscene and I'll do the fighting. I didn't like the end only becouse I don't like when everything was a dream or the meaning of everything was some kind of spiritual mind trip. The only stories like that I like is something like Total Recall, The Matrix or Inception where there is dream stuff but, it is all related to real events.
"I don't like when everything was a dream or the meaning of everything was some kind of spiritual mind trip."
... yet you're a catholic.
@gkibarricade Nothing about the end of the game was a dream... Go replay the game again.
And about you wanting to have a choice in whether your character is baptized. By offering you, the player, the choice to be or not be baptized would severely alter the plot of the game and thus ruin the story. Why are people nowadays becoming so upset about not being able to make every decision in a video game's plot? Get over it and let the good people at Irrational tell their story!
Im Catholic too, don't get offended because the character is baptized, it's a video game. If your'e such a devout Catholic then you shouldn't be playing a video game like this in the first place... you kill people, I'm pretty sure that breaks one of the 10 commandments.
Gamers only kill pixels.
But you are forgiven for mixing reality with fiction, this is to be expected from a believer.
@tomjacobs @MagicMarker5000 I think he was saying that if one believes taking a baptism ingame is wrong, then killing should be viewed as wrong too.
@gkibarricade "I didn't think Comstock was so bad. He held captive his daughter and is an oppresive ruler. Your character was an out-of-towner looking to kidnap his daughter."
Comstock kidnapped Elizabeth from Booker when Elizabeth was a baby, so Booker is just trying to get his daughter back.
Fantastic article. Also this line from his bio: "Also [he] has a giant Braveheart sword in his office for children to play with."
2 Like O yeah, I read about that guy who got his money back. He didn't have a problem with all the killing and racisim.... hmmmmmm..... credibility... redacted.
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@vogelhut or you could just buy it like an upstanding individual of society, and at the same time you'll be supporting the amazing gaming endeavors of Irrational Games
2 Like At least the guy who wrote this article is smarter than the guy who wanted a refund at Steam because of the baptism thing.
4 Like @urtin3 I tend to agree, I'm also a Christian, and I feel like his actions were very rash and a little close minded, obviously this man saw it as some kind of deep, intriguing plot device, rather than dismissing it for being sacrilegious
If things like this offend you and cause you to question your faith then that shows a shortcoming in you, especially if you turn around and ask for a refund because of it.
2 Like @endorbr I don't think that guy who asked for a refund was worried of how Jesus would feel about it, but what he feels about. In fact, I think most christians believe they're better than God himself.
@xsonicchaos @endorbr i am a Christian my self and i so many Christians that are so prideful that they chew up every bodies sin but there own because the refuse to see there own faults and because of it they hit a minefield of troubles in their life some of which i believe are their own doing and the others God sent to try to get them to realize what there doing,but most of the time they end up getting mad at God and taking it out on him when it really was their fault all a long.
2 Like i have only one problem with the youthful pastor. in the first paragraph he brings in one of the main arguments against religion, he brings it up himself, and then doesn't answer it, basically just talking around it.
go ahead and hate, i'll just spew my deduction:
every human being is born not believing in any god. that's a fact, no child knows of religion when it's born.
that's the original position. if you want someone to believe in a god, you have to provide evidence, since you're the one who tries to convince.
there is no absolute evidence that a god exists. using a holy book as argument is fallacious, since the credibility is tied to the existence of the claimed deity. therefore it'd be a circulus in probando to use the book as an argument for the deity.
there is also no absolute evidence that there is no god.
the only logical choice is to be an agnost, open to both options, maybe god does exist and we'll find out one day, maybe he doesn't, there's no way to tell at the present, so we can only stay open to both options.
@blackrunie what prove do u have that nmo god exist!does what david blain,dynamo,kris angel!doesn't it baffle u !levitation!these guys walk on water!Jesus did way bigger miracles than these guys yet u marvel at their feats and say there is no god!it's written in the bible only a fool says in his heart there is no god!
I think he answers such a tough question as well as anyone can (mostly because nobody can possibly have the answer to such a question):
He said: "And so in the absence of any kind of peace with God over his sometimes inscrutable, often painful plan, people of faith struggle. That's not always a bad thing, I think."
In other words, the only possible answer he can provide (as he can never possibly understand god) is that there will always be a silver lining in suffering. Does that make it any better? No, but it does show that god isn't as merciless as some would paint him to be or view him to be in light of trials and tribulations.
@blackrunie I'm not religious, but my understanding is that Christianity is all about faith, and believing in god in the absence of proof. A logical deduction about the existence of god is not even applicable. It's something you believe, because intrinsically you believe it to be "right" and "true". And that's why I'm not a Christian. I have no problem accepting the fact the universe is governed by a force beyond human logic and comprehension. But this business about Jesus being the son of god and dieing for humanitie's sins feels like a human invention, and is not something I can accept based on faith alone.
that's also not possible. it's impossible to believe anything without any proof. it could be stupid proof or a dumb reason, like believing a drunk friend's story, just because you've been friends a long time or something like that, but it's impossible to believe in something for NO reason.
maybe people believe in god because they want to believe in a fair world where everyone gets their due, i don't know, but don't say it's all about faith. faith is believing, believing requires a sort of evidence.
Assuming you mean evidence in terms of science, I'd say not.
Since we can not repeat, for example, a direct conversation with God (it's up to Him if that happens, you see), we can't use it as evidence, even if there are witnesses; it may be recorded, as it was in the bible, but people eventually doubt what is written.
@blackrunie And your argument is kind of wrong because some believe that people know of a God at birth and choose to reject him.
A new born baby isn't capable of much beyond general biological function much less the notion that we somehow have all the mysteries of the universe unlocked in our infantile minds and that every single one of us somehow chooses to reject that knowledge to suffer the ignorance of the world. Religion, spirituality, theology are all based in knowledge which we have to acquire with time and effort. Unless there are forces at work outside our corporeal existence and our current existence is somehow as a result of things that take place before we arrive here (i.e. the concious rejection you're referring to) then this argument is ludicrous. None of this is anything we currently have the ability to prove or disprove but there is a certain logic to the universe whether we understand and fully grasp it or not. Believing that we as new born babes have conscious thought about God is improbable to the point that it becomes more or less false.
as stated by Karl Popper, even claim you make has to be falsifiable.
that thing you say people believe is impossible to check, therefore you can't claim it.
combined with Occam's Razor, my starting point is the only remaining option at this point.
also, you'd be going against general biology.
@Speedracer__89 @blackrunie @12eece
Occam's razor says that it's always the easiest answer, based on the knowledge you have. for example, if there was a homicide and you bring up government conspiracies and aliens, you're widening the window of the case without hints leading to it. Occam's Razor says those options'll be excluded, since it's always the easiest answer.
you could question Occam's Razor, but it's an induced rule that so far has always held true. i guess you could call it my postulate.
as to how it relates to the discussion. i called upon it when , i believe, you offered the possibility that scientists are just lying to us and science is just a conspiracy. that's needlessly broadening the window without clues leading to it.
@blackrunie @12eece @Speedracer__89 Sorry that my point was unclear. I said what 12eece said I said haha. Thanks for clearing that up. My point with that was to say that we put faith in a lot of things and not just God or science. And we believe them without substantial evidence we have actually experienced.
Blackrunie - I would like to know more on how you view Occam's Razor and how it relates to this discussion.
@12eece @blackrunie @Speedracer__89
i don't think that's fair to say though. many scientific processes can easily be observed by the everyday person (boiling water, chemical reactions in household products etc.).
also, i mentioned that i confine myself to Occam's Razor, so the possibility of people lying to you about science is non-existent.
thank you for explaining again, my reading comprehension gets a bit muddy after a while.
1 Like @blackrunie @Speedracer__89I think in the last part he's trying to imply that anything somebody else says is true that you cannot verify yourself, could potentially be a lie, i.e. they could fabricate their findings.
He then uses that implication to say that your belief in science is the same as some peoples belief in God. As unless you can prove it yourself you relying on their word.
I'm only guessing here as he seems to contradict himself half way through, but its as close as I can managed to a reasoned argument :)
why do i have to do the research? would it not be true if someone else proved it?
i didn't assume, i said that it's strange to think that, since you'd then have to explain how the baby got that knowledge.
evidence doesn't have to empirical.
biology is as empirical as possible, there's almost no deduction in biology. biology is correct, because the inducted concept still applies.
sorry, i'm not following the last part, could you paraphrase that?
@bakagami @Speedracer__89 @blackrunie
i just finished okami, great game. i just failed to get the trophy for getting away from the water dragon -__-
@Speedracer__89 @blackrunie there is one thing that I know to be true: you don't know what you are talking about.
1 Like Alright alright, you, yourself do all the scientific work to prove that the human mind cannot make decisions or believe in something at such an early age, then you can get back to me on that. What I'm trying to say is that if you assume general biology is true without actually testing it then you have put your faith in that. In other words you have to make a lot of assumptions to believe that science is real. (I am not trying to negate science here, just your argument) It takes a lot of faith to believe in something that you haven't tested yourself, correct? By the logic you are inferring, you don't have the empirical evidence to argue that biology is correct or incorrect. So you can't claim it. Pretty much everything isn't falsifiable until you actually do the work to check if it is false. You can't believe anything you hear or sense. Actually trying to prove something has the ability to be falsified is an incorrect statement in itself. You would have to check the validity of the test that proves the object in check is false. And then you would have to prove that the test you tested the other test is falsifiable. Pretty much by these arguments we can't know anything is true, at all.
