Page 104 - Pure Life 11

Playing the Gospel of Video Games /103

The moral of the story (everyone deserves a second
chance in God's eye) comes to light when Jonah delivers
the message to the lying, thieving, fish-throwing sinners
of Nineveh.
Jonah: A VeggieTales Game features an innovative
"egg-timer" that allows caregivers and parents to control
the length of time the game will play before automatically
saving and shutting down.
A "shutting down period" of five minutes allows game
time to be extended through the use of a password and the
1
system tracks each player's time individually. But some
Christian groups didn’t stop here.
They incorporate the young learner’s experiences of
meaning in video games into the heart of a public
religious rite of passage. In Exeter Ctahedral Andy
Robertson used a video game named Flower, during a
2
service in 2012.
The game was introduced by the young person’s
personal practice and the clergy then assisted in helping
the learner practice religion through his interaction with
3
the game.
This individual religious learning experience was then
shared with the wider community and welcomed them into
the learner’s personal experience.
Judaism has its own video game superheroes as seen in
The Shivah: A rabbinical adventure of mourning and
mystery. The title of the game, Shivah, refers to the real
life Jewish ritual of a weeklong mourning of the dead.
Dave Gilbert, the creator of the game and founder of
Wadjet Eye Games, is Jewish himself.

1. https://www.ebay.com/p/Jonah-A-VeggieTales-Game-PC-2002/30579530, September 15, 2017.
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wREUXBf6fho, September 16, 2017.
3. Gottlieb, 2016, p. 18.