When: June 7, 2024, 9:00 am - Friday

Where: Pembroke

Session 5

• Micki Pulleyking, Missouri State University, Convener
• Grant Testut, Oklahoma Christian University
• Timothy Williford, Student, Oklahoma Christian University
• Chris Rosser, Theological and Instructional Librarian

Video games have been around for over half a century. Though the medium still struggles to be accepted by some circles as a viable art form, it has demonstrated its ability to influence the broader culture through economics, language, music, and a recognizable iconography. Some game developers have used their craft to make profound statements about life, death, love, loss, politics, and even religion. This session is a venue for the discussion of video games as art, and of their potential to hold meaningful conversation with people of faith.

Grant Testut, Oklahoma Christian University, “‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance’: Rekindling Jesus’ Playful Ethic in Theological Education” 

The presenter recently built a theology course called God and Gaming, in which the class explored faith in conversation with video games. They learned about video games as play, as art, and as interactive narratives; they learned about the theology of play. The course was even structured as a game in which the participants were not just “students” but “players”. This paper explores what the course revealed about a neglected corner of theology, and how such theology can spur students and faculty to collaborate in creating art out of education.

Timothy Williford, Oklahoma Christian University, “Am I Jesus Christ?: the Ludological Effects of Portraying Christ in Video Games”

SimulaM is developing a first-person Jesus Christ simulation video game through publisher Space Boat Studios, which is called “I Am Jesus Christ”. This paper explores how placing the player in the role of Jesus Christ has problematic ludological results that do more to undermine than to support the gospel narrative. The presenter will explain the player-avatar relationship in video games, outline the differences between narratology and ludology, and critique SimulaM’s game against another upcoming religiously-themed game. 

Chris Rosser, Oklahoma Christian University, “Learners at Play: Seven Pedagogical Shifts for Teaching across Epistemologies”   

The rise of gamer culture has inspired innovative strategies for gameful course design by which classroom identity reconfigures from communities of learning to learners at play. Gameful design helps mitigate problems of epistemic authority, de facto instructor or institutional assertions of authority over diverse epistemologies. Just as video games broaden encounters with different ways of thinking and of inhabiting diverse worlds, so also gameful design encourages exploration and fosters desire-driven encounters with diversity. This presentation outlines seven key pedagogical shifts for teaching across epistemologies, illustrated through three exemplary gamified courses.

Speakers