Page 86 - Pure Life 11

Playing the Gospel of Video Games

1
Author: Ionut Cristian Baru (Romania)
Reccive: 19/06/2016 Accept: 07/08/2017

Abstract
Even before modern technological era, there was a close
relationship between religious education and technology.
Religion has helped many people to understand new
technologies and technologies have led to new understandings
of religion, and even new forms of religion. Religious
education can focus on a variety of sacred concerns including
myth, ritual, symbol, scripture, doctrine and experience, and
furthermore as Jeff Astley (Astley, 1994) says in a context
can and does ecompass indoctrination, personal formation,
reasons and emotions. However these concerns tend to fall
into two general categories the ethical one (or relational) and
transcendental one. Nowadays a variety of video games
explicitly aim toward religion. Video games researchers note
that within video games, religion tends to suffer from a
narrative and procedural incongruity. For example Michael
Walthemathe suggests that video games provide a narrative
and procedural platform for playful identity formation and
ethical reflection, Ian Bogost (Bogost, 2007, p. 288) observes
that religious video games are undermining their religious
aims by adopting the conventions of mainstream video games
genres without regard for their implicit procedural rhetoric.

1. PhD Student at Faculty of Orthodox Teology, University of
Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania, ionut_cristian.baru@yahoo.com