Born-Again Digital: Exploring Evangelical Video Game Worlds Vincent Gonzalez A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in the Religious Studies department in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2014 Approved by: Yaakov Ariel Jason Bivins Jonathan Boyarin David Morgan Barry Saunders Randall Styers ©2014 Vincent Gonzalez ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Vincent Gonzalez: Born-Again Digital: Exploring Evangelical Video Game Worlds (Under the direction of Yaakov Ariel) Evangelical Christians have been creating video games for over thirty years, outpacing the efforts of all other religions. By the count that guides the present study, 773 games were made for religious audiences through 2010, of which 474 identify their affiliation as only “Christian,” or “biblical.” Like other artifacts of digital religion, these games allow us to see the entanglement of people’s theological and technological universes. However, unlike many other aspects of digital religion, religious video gaming’s novel artistic forms, cultural critiques, and theological possibilities largely blossomed beneath notice. Evangelical video game culture, thus, presents the creative production of a historically significant avant garde whose critical perspective has been neglected outside its own community. In particular, Evangelical video gaming transforms the concerns that connect it to other digital cultures – “violence,” for instance, or “immersion” – by attending to the moral status of the player-in-play. This study combines the methods of Religious Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Cultural Studies to show how the popular artifacts of digital religion can shed light upon their cultural context. My initial frame orients Evangelical video games through broad theoretical concerns and a series of cultural histories then focus our attention upon specific telling instances. My introduction applies a relational ontology to establish a vocabulary for examining religious video games in terms of the digital, religion, and play. Chapter two considers how groups learn iii to live with computers and details the specific stakes of digital religion for Evangelical Christians in the context of “spiritual warfare.” Chapter three situates my catalog of religious games within a detailed history of digital religion. Chapter four focuses on the place of Evangelicals in the debates around video game “violence.” Chapter five then considers how those debates are visible in seven Evangelical First-Person Shooter games. Chapter six provides a theoretical orientation to the future of Evangelical gaming by considering the notion of “immersion” in games. Chapter seven concludes by summarizing findings and offering suggestions for further research. Finally, an appendix presents a catalog of religious games as a resource for ongoing research. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES …...................................................................................................................ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ….....................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1: THREE FUNDAMENTAL DYNAMICS: DIGITAL, RELIGIOUS, AND PLAYFUL Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 Concerning Dynamism........................................................................................................8 Where Does the Digital Begin?....….................................................................................12 Provisional Definition of Religion.....................................................................................19 Excursus on Play …...........................................................................................................28 Video Games as Mundane Software …………………………………………………….33 Conclusion …....................................................................................................................38 CHAPTER 2: BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND DEEP BLUE: THE STAKES OF VIDEO GAMING FOR EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY Introduction………………………………………………………………………………40 What is Evangelical Media? …………………………………………………………….43 The Human-Computer Interfaith ………………………………………………………..50 Video Game Critique and Spiritual Warfare ……………………………………………60 The Satanic Panic………………………………………………………………………...66 Spiritual Mapping as Historical Context ………………………………………………...71 v Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….75 CHAPTER 3: HOLY GHOST IN THE MACHINE: A HISTORICAL SITUATION FOR EVANGELICAL VIDEO GAMING Introduction ..……..........................................................................…...............................77 Thinking in Curves: Theoretical Grounds for a History of Digital Religion …................78 How to Count Religious Video Games ….........................................................................87 In the Beginning was the Word [1951-1982] ….................................................…..........96 The Birth of Digital Religious Entertainment [1982-1990] ..…........................................99 Technologies of Bricolage and Religious Gaming's First Bloom [1990-1998] …......... 105 New Playspaces and the First Great Acceleration [1998-2004] ….................................116 Apps, Profiles, and the Bounds of this Study [2004-2010] …........................................129 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................143 CHAPTER 4: SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES AND BACK AGAIN: EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS AND THE GAME-VIOLENCE DEBATES Introduction......................................................................................…............................145 First-Person Shooters ......................................................................................................148 Presumption and Playership ............................................................................................152 Locating Violence............................................................................................................158 Evangelical and Worldly Histories of Game-Violence ..................................................163 Remembering Columbine ...............................................................................................173 Divine Violence and Sacred Play................................................................................... 181 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................186 vi CHAPTER 5: TAKING THE KINGDOM BY FORCE: LIVING AND DYING IN THE EVANGELICAL FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER Introduction ….................................................................................................................189 The Demonic Archipelago …..........................................................................................194 The War in Heaven …......................................................................................................200 Saints of Virtue …............................................................................................................209 Catechumen and Ominous Horizons …...........................................................................213 Rev 7 …............................................................................................................................219 Eternal War: Shadows of Light …...................................................................................222 Afterward: Into the Rain ….............................................................................................224 Conclusion …..................................................................................................................232 CHAPTER 6: DIGITAL BAPTISTS AGAINST DIGITAL IMMERSION: AN ESCHATOLOGY FOR EVANGELICAL VIDEO GAMING Introduction ….................................................................................................................234 Journey to the Center of the Art.......................................................................................239 The Emergence of the Immersive …...............................................................................242 Evangelical Disruptions to Immersion …........................................................................246 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................255 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION: THE NEW CREATION Introduction......................................................................................................................258 Where to Go From Here ….............................................................................................263 vii APPENDIX: Religious Video Games (1982 – 2010) ….............................................................267 WORKS CITED .........................................................................................................................345 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 - A Game Play Curve………………………..................................................................82 Figure 2 – Religious Video Games (1982 – 2010) …...................................................................88 Figure 3 – Evangelical First-Person Shooters …........................................................................ 199 ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 1 – The Guard at the Gate …....................................................................................... 1 Illustration 2 – “Pick up yellow wings to get more Hope”............................................................22 Illustration 3 - Demon, Neutral, and Saint in Left Behind: Eternal Forces…...............................40 Illustration 4 – The Human-Computer …......................................................................................52 Illustration 5 – Spiritual Warfare in Timothy and Titus …………………………………………65 Illustration 6 – End Times Ministry in Computer Bible Games and Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist...................................................................77 Illustration 7 – Devil World ….......................................................................................................92 Illustration 8 – Feeding Animals in Super 3D Noah's Ark …......................................................145 Illustration 9 – Constructing Doom's Realism …........................................................................170 Illustration 10 – Enemy Morphology in Quake and Eternal War: Shadows of Light..................189 Illustration 11 – Destroying Sacra on the Path of Fallen Power and the Path of Divine Obedience……………………………………………...207 Illustration 12 – Firewall Defender ………………………………………………………….…234 Illustration 13 – A Designer of Immersive Games and His Audience ………………………...237 Illustration 14 – Caught in the Web ............................................................................................ 249 Illustration 15 – Game Saved…………………………………………………………………...258 x