Playing the Gospel of Video Games

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.

Keywords:

Video Games , Religion , Religious Education , Technology