Religion of Halo helps churches find young congregants

Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360

The New York Times explores how churches are using Halo to attract young congregants and the criticism it has caused. The article focuses on Protestant youth groups using the game to get young people through the door, then giving them the church spiel so that it'll be "hard for [the] teenagers to go to hell."

Critics say that allowing young people to play a game like Halo -- that they should not be able to buy on their own because it's rated M -- is actually a corroding influence. One critic put it succinctly when he said, "If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it."

As this blogger can clearly remember wanting to join the "troubled youth" program in elementary school because they got to play Nintendo and talk about their feelings while the rest of us were learning, it's pretty understandable how the allure of video games would get kids to do things they wouldn't necessarily want to do.

[Thanks Anonymous]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

[via] Joystiq