I
came across a new indie wargame that just blasted through its Kickstarter goals, and is set up formidably for its launch. It's called Trench Crusade, and is an alternate history World War I game in which, during the last crusade, heretic Templars opened a gate to Hell and started an 800-year conflict with the demonic armies. In 1914, fanatical Christians and Muslims attempt to hold the line for humanity against the princes of the damned. The art and miniatures are exceptional, and the rules seem very interesting.
On a blog post about the game, the writer described an early fracas that occurred in the game's nascent community, in which so-called "Deus Vult" "Christian supremacists" and anti-woke Warhammer nerds were apparently making other people uncomfortable with their eagerness and interest (the article called them "the worst kind of people"). This led to shutting down a discord server, and starting a new one with explicitly "anti-political" rules in place to police the tone of the community.
While I get that there are always annoying people out there who will try to stir up controversy and push their particular views around, I find the scandal at the energetic Christians showing up to be a bit rich. Oh, you made a very explicitly badass Christian setting, and then actual Christians got excited and showed up for the representation of their culture? What a bunch of rancid troublemakers! It's, of course, only Christianity that creators feel entitled to both work within the space of, and feel that they can talk down to about their beliefs when Christians get involved. Imagine telling off Native Americans getting pumped about a glorifying alternate history of the conquest of the Americas, or being surprised when Communists get involved about a new Soviet-era game.
These kinds of aesthetics are never just contextless bits to be used willy-nilly. I'm not going to deride so-called "cultural appropriation" (it is, actually, okay to use Christian iconography in your settings), but these are not dead cultures. Some people take them very seriously, and it should be exciting when the culture you're drawing from is interested in what you've made.