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.

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.

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