No Avatars Allowed

Joshua Wise

Description

How can video games challenge us to think more deeply about our reality, faith, and community?

Since the advent of video games in the 1960s, they have become the common experience of everyone from Gen-X to the Millennial and post-Millennial generations. While many of today’s clergy, parishioners, and theologians grew up gaming, the church’s stance regarding video games is one of, at best, bemusement.

This book takes seriously the idea that video games can challenge us to think more deeply about our reality, divinity, faith, and each other. It draws readers into a small, but growing, conversation about models of incarnation and what it means to distinguish between the virtual and the real. This book will introduce readers to concepts and questions from the perspective of a Christian systematic theologian who has been playing games since he was four years old, and who has been writing, speaking, and podcasting about this topic since 2010. It is an invitation into a relatively new conversation about divinity, humanity, and technology.

Foreword by Father Benjamin Gildas, AF
Introduction

CHAPTER 1
Generations of Believers That Game

CHAPTER 2
Violence: The Virtual and the Real

CHAPTER 3
The Church’s Suspicions about Video Games

CHAPTER 4
It’s a Secret to Everybody: The Limits of Knowledge

CHAPTER 5
He Emptied Himself: Rethinking the Incarnation

CHAPTER 6
The Mass Effected: Can There Be Virtual Sacraments?

CHAPTER 7
Scouting Things Out for Future Explorations

Conclusion

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Philosophie et théologie
• Technology
• Technologie

Informations

• Publié par: Church Publishing Incorporated
• Date de parution: 17 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781640651852
• Langue: English

Extrait

NO AVATARS ALLOWED
NO AVATARS ALLOWED
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON VIDEO GAMES

JOSHUA WISE
Copyright 2019 by Joshua Wise
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References:
Pages 11-12: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1850).
Page 57: Walt Whitman, O Me O Life , Leaves of Grass (Philadelphia: David McKay Publisher, 1891-92), 215.
Page 58: G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane Company, 1914), 85.
Page 124: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses, Poems, vol. 2 (London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1842).
Page 151: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1965).
Church Publishing 19 East 34th Street New York, NY 10016 www.churchpublishing.org
Cover design by Paul Soupiset Typesetting and page design by Beth Oberholtzer
A record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-184-5 (pbk.) ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-185-2 (ebook)
To my brother, Matthew, who has been my companion on many adventures.
To Fr. Ben, who has been my fellow explorer in these wild new worlds of inquiry.
To Fr. Dave, with whom I have journeyed far.
And to Sarah, who has been my constant support in this effort.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Father Benjamin Gildas, AF
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
Generations of Believers That Game
CHAPTER 2
Violence: The Virtual and the Real
CHAPTER 3
The Church s Suspicions about Video Games
CHAPTER 4
It s a Secret to Everybody: The Limits of Knowledge
CHAPTER 5
He Emptied Himself: Rethinking the Incarnation
CHAPTER 6
The Mass Effected: Can There Be Virtual Sacraments?
CHAPTER 7
Scouting Things Out for Future Explorations
Conclusion
FOREWORD
How many things in life can you say are truly consistent?
Life is incredible in its ability to be both shockingly turbulent and remarkably steady. It s in the tension between those opposites that we are molded and shaped into who we will become. The origin story of No Avatars Allowed takes place between those two opposites.
I met Dr. Joshua Wise on orientation day at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia almost a decade ago. I was still a bright-eyed seminarian heading toward ordination, and he was a masters student ready to challenge expectations and professors on his way to fulfilling his calling of teaching theology. We were strangers in a strange new place, who bonded over coincidences: we both studied at Eastern University as undergraduate students; we had known some of the same professors; we were both from the Episcopal tradition though studying in a Lutheran setting; and, perhaps most importantly, we both held a lifelong love of video games.
Video games would be the shared joy to bind our friendship together. That day, I could never have guessed the chance meeting would change my life so drastically and influence so many future days and decisions. I had no idea we would start podcasting together, sharing our love of God and games with the world on the No Avatars Allowed podcast. I could never have dreamed that, even further down the road, podcasting would become my passion and pride, shaping so much of my life and career. And the idea that Josh and I would eventually live together in intentional community and serve in parish ministry together, PhD and priest, would have then likely seemed absurd.
That was the journey ahead of us, and the road between then and now has been filled with epic challenges-achievements unlocked, goals accomplished, others failed, heartbreak, laughter, and loss shared, and so much more.
Some of my best memories are of those early days of No Avatars Allowed . We built a podcast and a friendship on hours of StarCraft online play, Call of Duty special ops, midnight releases at Game Stop, laughing at horrible press releases, and teaching church councils and sacraments. I learned more theology and church history from Josh doing those podcasts than I did in the seminary classroom. Even then, before his PhD program, Josh was one of the most knowledgeable and well-read theologians I had ever met. He taught me to keep thinking about what I was playing; during those days I thought more deeply about my faith than I ever had before-and perhaps since.
I remember those days as much simpler times. When Josh and I first met, I was happily married and studying at Lutheran seminary just long enough to transfer to an Episcopal school to finish my seminary training and become ordained. That path took me through the birth of my oldest daughter, two ordinations, and a devastating first call that shook my faith and my marriage to the core.
Josh and I built No Avatars Allowed along the way until my own journey deviated too far and I left the podcast. The show changed format and eventually ended. Our friendship became strained by disappointment and distance. The years after that contained so many changes. Josh defended his dissertation and graduated from Catholic University in a remarkably short amount of time. Both of us lived through the pain of divorce, and the self-discovery and meaning-making that comes afterward. We launched a new ministry together, an intentional community designed to serve the small parish where I am rector. And, there, living and serving together it became clear: it was time to resurrect No Avatars Allowed . Through all of the changes in each of our lives, from that first chance meeting to the reboot of the podcast, these things remained the same: our love of games and how much fun we have talking about them.
This is not just an origin story, but the heart of this book. Games aren t just some silly pasttime. From childhood to adulthood, play is the psychological space where we process transition and our ability to cope with the challenges of the world around us. That tension between turbulence and consistency is what psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott described as the psychic space of transition. It is a child leaving their mother to go play and explore, while always safely returning home for reassurance. This is the same psychic space where we play out our relationship with God.
I know of no one who has thought more about the philosophical and theological implications of the intersection of video games and theology, particularly from an orthodox Christian perspective, than Dr. Joshua Wise. He has taught, thought, and written about how games can reveal philosophical concepts to us with implications for our reality, about how this kind of play has the power to change us and reveal to us ourselves and therefore our God.
Thinking of the distinctions between my own level of reality as a player and the reality of the world generated in a video game, and the interaction between myself and my avatar between these levels of reality, has helped me better understand the vastly difficult concept of God s relationship to Creation. Not just a philosophical concept, this way of thinking about levels of existence directly affects my own understanding of my relationship, my dependence on the Eternal God who is not a limited, finite creature like me. While outside Creation, God also interacts with my world in a way that brings about the plan of salvation.
Beyond thinking philosophically this way, Joshua Wise has helped me personally understand more fully the power and importance of the good news of Jesus. He has been consistently my friend and brother along the way through some of the most difficult challenges life has presented. And, as a priest, I ve learned through all of this the importance of embracing the things that bring you joy in life as a way to engage in ministry that is passionate and authentic. If the world is playing video games, the church needs to meet people there.
I m thrilled that the work Joshua Wise has done with video games and theology will now make its way from podcast to print, as well as for the opportunity to introduce him and this work to you. I know that, if you take this book seriously, you will discover how the kind of fun and joyful play that video games offer us can also become thought-provoking and life-changing. It is good news that God has given us the joy of these games, as they reveal to us God s Son.
How many things in your life can you say are truly consistent?
I give thanksgiving to God for the love of games, for deep friendship that shares that joy and love, and for No Avatars Allowed going strong almost a decade after its start. May the ideas of this book, and the brilliant writing of Dr. Joshua Wise delivering them to you, bless your life the way they have blessed mine.
Father Benjamin Gildas, AF
INTRODUCTION
Friends, Learning, and Gaming
Many of my friends are priests and minsters. They are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopalian. They are women and men, older and younger than I. And the thing that literally every one of them has in common is that they play games. Not all of them play video games, but all of them are gamers. For some of them, games are their main hobby; some of them engage in the pastime whenever they can. But every one of them wakes up Sunday morning, administers word and sacrament, and, at some other point during their week or month, plays games. All of them have played modern board games. As far as I know, all of them have played pen and paper role-play games (and have yet to sell their souls to Satan or join a cult). The vast majority of them have fired guns at the simulacra of human beings in video