Interaction with culture: Red Dead Redemption 2

Having some free time during the holidays,  I decided to enter the world of video games.  Maybe I should say re-enter since I was an early participant back in the day, but have not played anything since Tiger Woods golf at least 7 years ago.  Hearing a comment about fishing in Red Dead Redemption 2, I decided to make it my entry foray into the world of gaming.  I was amazed and appalled; intrigued and saddened; finally, disillusioned and bored.

RDR2 is a beautiful creation graphically.  It is an amazing recreation of the American West that takes the user to a variety of places in life of Arthur Morgan, (the character assigned by the game for the user.  Arthur has had a sad life, growing up in a gang of outlaws).  He has no real moral code nor, for that matter, does the game itself.  Here are the biggest negatives from a traditional Christian position:

• The game is based on immorality: theft, robbery and killing.  
• The language is out of popular culture and the type of cursing utilized regularly disparages God.
• Christianity and the church are vilified.  The preacher in camp is a thoroughgoing hypocrite, who is regularly drunk and participative in questionable activity.   A comment is clearly made when robbing a graveyard at a church that churches have been robbing poor people for a very long time.  Arthur makes clear that he has no faith nor interest in the subject.
• ALL Southern culture is vilified.  Southerners are seen only as ignorant, dishonest and deserving of being robbed.  

After a while, all the horse riding and silly tasks (drench the tobacco field with moonshine) make RDR2 pretty boring.  

I would recommend that parents only allow older teenagers to play the game and use the anti-Christian bias as a platform for relevant conversation about the clash of cultures that young people of today are in, whether they are aware of the clash or not.