I find myself being called upon from time to time to defend video games to Christians and Christians to the video game industry. How did I end up in this unusual position? My Cardus bio summarizes the details of my video game career. Before all of that I was a student leader and then a campus minister with the CCO where we spent a lot of time talking about “all of life redeemed.”
The idea that God cared about the things I cared about made me want to care about the things God cares about.
I think I’ve gotten a little bit better at caring about what God cares about as time goes by, but I’m still working on it. Here’s some of my thinking that has managed to find its way into print or some other form of media:
- 2011 Cardus Comment Featured Essay – Trash or Treasure? Video Games and the Cultural Mandate
- defending being both a Christian of integrity and a gamer
- 2010 Gamesauce Article – Conflict and Call
- explaining what faith has to do with gaming and exploring normative game development
- 2006 Jubilee Conference – Changing the Day, One World at a Time
- a defense of gaming and gamers for Christians, exploring the intersection of faith and video gaming (audio files coming soon)
Here are a few books I’ve found helpful in the discussion:
- What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee, 2007.
- Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, 2004.
- A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster, 2004.
And here’s a pretty picture of the games I helped ship:
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