@book {2746, title = {Video Games and Religion}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, organization = {Oxford University Press}, abstract = {This article identifies key features of the comparison between video games and religion, focusing on contemporary video games based on specific ancient apocalypses including {\textquotedblleft}The Book of the Watchers{\textquotedblright} in the Enoch corpus and the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Many contemporary video games function as rituals of order-making, creating spaces of play in which violence is a performative mode of metaphysical sorting, allowing for new negotiations between {\textquotedblleft}good{\textquotedblright} and {\textquotedblleft}evil.{\textquotedblright} Through a consideration of popular gaming elements (fragging, fiero, firepower, and fun), this article proposes that the strong relationship between video games and apocalyptic literature invites a closer examination of how eschatological tensions infuse contemporary times, too often inviting an overly simplistic apocalyptic response to contemporary global challenges.}, url = {https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935420-e-8}, author = {Wagner, Rachel} } @article {898, title = {God in the Game: Cosmopolitanism and Religious Conflict in Videogames}, journal = {Journal of the American Academy of Religion}, year = {2013}, keywords = {Cosmopolitanism, religion, video games}, doi = {10.1093/jaarel/lfs102}, url = {http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/01/22/jaarel.lfs102.extract}, author = {Wagner, Rachel} } @book {271, title = {Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality}, year = {2011}, publisher = {Routledge}, organization = {Routledge}, address = {London}, abstract = {Godwired offers an engaging exploration of religious practice in the digital age. It considers how virtual experiences, like stories, games and rituals, are forms of world-building or "cosmos construction" that serve as a means of making sense of our own world. Such creative and interactive activity is, arguably, patently religious. This book examines: the nature of sacred space in virtual contexts technology as a vehicle for sacred texts who we are when we go online what rituals have in common with games and how they work online what happens to community when people worship online how religious "worlds" and virtual "worlds" nurture similar desires. Rachel Wagner suggests that whilst our engagement with virtual reality can be viewed as a form of religious activity, today{\textquoteright}s virtual religion marks a radical departure from traditional religious practice -- it is ephemeral, transient, rapid, disposable, hyper-individualized, hybrid, and in an ongoing state of flux.}, url = {http://www.amazon.com/Godwired-Religion-Virtual-Reality-Culture/dp/0415781450}, author = {Wagner, Rachel} } @inbook {270, title = {Our Lady of Persistent Liminality: Virtual Church, Cyberspace, and Second Life}, booktitle = {God in the Details Routledge Press}, year = {2010}, pages = {271-290.}, publisher = {Routledge}, organization = {Routledge}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=Fw8B6U2QLo4C\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Wagner, Rachel} }