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Virtuous Worlds: The Video Gamer's Guide to Spiritual Truth
Popular titles like Halo 3 and The Legend of Twilight Princess fly off shelves at a mind-blowing rate. John Stanifer, an avid gamer, shows readers specific parallels between Christian faith and the content of their favorite games. Written with wry humor (including a heckler who frequently pokes fun at the author) this book will appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike. Those unfamiliar with video games may be pleasantly surprised to find that many elements in those "virtual worlds" also qualify them as "virtuous worlds." -- "Virtuous Worlds is just what anyone would need to bridge the gap between video games and Christianity. Even someone like me who isn't really a part of any religion can find this book uplifting and supportive." ~ Michelle "Akuriko" Morse, award-winning cosplayer, featured in Nintendo Power -- "While video games are often seen as immoral influences, Stanifer takes a more nuanced look. Analyzing a variety of games, he discusses how they support Christian beliefs. This will be a fun read for any Christian gamer and a ressuring one for many parents." ~ Scott Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor of New Media Communications, Indiana University Kokomo -- "I was surprised and impressed at the number of spiritual lessons John drew from a variety of games. Members of any faith can find tremendous worth in reading this book. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has the misconception that video games are just for entertainment purposes." ~ Laura "Flute Link" Intravia, vocalist and flutist for Video Games Live -- "In Virtuous Worlds, Stanifer will teach you to play video games better by understanding the spiritual truths of this world. He will also do the he will teach you to play your life better by understanding the truths of the video gaming world." ~ Caleb Grimes, author of Star Wars Jesus -- "So often Christians are fighting against culture, but John has utilized one of those rarely used the ability to see God's Grace working in the world and through the lives of others even when they least expect it." ~ Rev. Derek White, Christian Gamers Guild --
198 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 8, 2020
I have given this book 5 stars partly just because I love that it exists.
Virtuous Worlds is a systematic examination of some thematic and conceptual correspondences between Christian faith and...videogames. Yes, videogames!
As such its market is probably quite niche--although, come to think of it, maybe not that niche: It’ll appeal to people who sit in the overlap between the two sets “videogamers” and “Christians”.
I sit comfortably in that set--I discovered this book because I first read a complete online fanfiction novelisation of one of my favourite ever videogames (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time--yes, that is the sort of thing I do--which I highly recommend; I’ve reviewed that too over at fanfiction.net) written by the same author.
So I think it is brilliant that such a book as this exists and that someone actually bothered to write it. Stanifer clearly loves videogames and he loves Christ, and this book expresses his love for both.
The book is organised into different ‘worlds’ and ‘levels’ (a la Super Mario), rather than ‘chapters’ and 'headings', and each one looks at a set of correspondences between Christianity and a different game or group of games.
(As a side note, it would have been nice to have a hyperlinked contents page formatted for Kindle where all of these were laid out and could be accessed easily--but that is a side note.)
The nature of this subject matter does, however, make the book somewhat...odd. Certainly unusual. Stanifer himself is self-conscious enough about the oddness of his subject that he has an imaginary 'heckler' character interject throughout the book, but for me this only shows humility and adds another layer of dialogical comedy to the proceedings. The book doesn't take itself too seriously.
Indeed, the juxtaposition of lofty spiritual matters and weighty quotes from the Bible with illustrations from two-dimensional pixellated games can make for some quite amusing sentences sometimes, even for someone who identifies both as a gamer and a Christian (or a 'gamer of faith' as Stanifer calls us).
Here are some of the biggest hum-dingers I noted:
"The consequences of being led astray in Super Mario World are hardly worth comparing to what happened in Genesis 3."
"So the morals we learn from Chrono Trigger and Biblical history are ultimately much the same."
"In Halo, no credit is given to God."
And these chapter headings were pretty funny:
"Mario Kart: Racing Towards the Imperishable Prize"
"By His Pills, We are Healed: Spiritual Prescriptions from Dr. Mario"
If nothing else, though, this is usually entertaining and at its best the book reads like an extended sermon which takes its illustrations from videogaming, rather than ‘real life’.....
Therefore it could also appeal, I suppose, to someone who was interested in Christianity and also played a lot of videogames, or to someone who was relatively new to Christianity….and also played a lot of videogames. If there is anyone like that out there who happens to be reading this, you should definitely read this book!
Sometimes the link between the two domains is just a bit too tenuous, however. Here are some of the passages where the juxtaposition of the two worlds got just a little too ridiculous for me:
"Tetris works in much the same way. The game’s programmer gave each block its shape, and these diverse blocks work together to build unity." (comparing Tetris to unity in the body of Christ)
"An extra life is a precious gift, both to humanity in general and Mario fans in particular."
"What never changes is that Mario is unable to open the doors on his own. He needs a power higher than his own, specifically one that comes from the heavens. He needs the Power Stars."
"Mario Teaches Typing puts players on that road to discovering the power of words."
And the overall winner in this category:
"Seconds after the player stomps on the Koopa Troopa, it pops out of its shell like nothing ever happened and starts crawling around again. If the player is standing right next to the shell when this happens, it usually means that Mario’s going to lose a life. The dangers of half-finished business are well-documented in the Bible."
Other times, Stanifer actually offers some thought-provoking insights, such as the following on the power of Story, very reminiscent of his heroes Tolkien and CS Lewis:
"one of the best ways we as human beings can learn to grow and better ourselves is by immersing our minds and hearts in Story. Fairy tales and other kinds of tales confront us with the reality of good and evil, showing us how to live and how not to live."
"Although the Bible never mentions Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, it does affirm the value of Story. In the Exodus narrative, when God brings the children of Israel out of Egypt, He doesn’t just bring them out. He commands them to hold a Passover feast each year on that same day. When their sons (or daughters) ask why they are celebrating the feast, the parents are to say to them, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (13:8). In effect, the parents are supposed to tell their children the “story” of the Exodus so that its message about God’s goodness to His people is never forgotten."
And if you can get on with the tone and theme, the book overall is edifying and perceptive.
So all in all, this book is good fun, and definitely worth the whopping £2.19 I paid for for it on amazon. A must read for anyone who is a young Christian / interested in Christianity and into videogames!
Well played, John Stanifer. Keep up the good work!
Virtuous Worlds is a systematic examination of some thematic and conceptual correspondences between Christian faith and...videogames. Yes, videogames!
As such its market is probably quite niche--although, come to think of it, maybe not that niche: It’ll appeal to people who sit in the overlap between the two sets “videogamers” and “Christians”.
I sit comfortably in that set--I discovered this book because I first read a complete online fanfiction novelisation of one of my favourite ever videogames (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time--yes, that is the sort of thing I do--which I highly recommend; I’ve reviewed that too over at fanfiction.net) written by the same author.
So I think it is brilliant that such a book as this exists and that someone actually bothered to write it. Stanifer clearly loves videogames and he loves Christ, and this book expresses his love for both.
The book is organised into different ‘worlds’ and ‘levels’ (a la Super Mario), rather than ‘chapters’ and 'headings', and each one looks at a set of correspondences between Christianity and a different game or group of games.
(As a side note, it would have been nice to have a hyperlinked contents page formatted for Kindle where all of these were laid out and could be accessed easily--but that is a side note.)
The nature of this subject matter does, however, make the book somewhat...odd. Certainly unusual. Stanifer himself is self-conscious enough about the oddness of his subject that he has an imaginary 'heckler' character interject throughout the book, but for me this only shows humility and adds another layer of dialogical comedy to the proceedings. The book doesn't take itself too seriously.
Indeed, the juxtaposition of lofty spiritual matters and weighty quotes from the Bible with illustrations from two-dimensional pixellated games can make for some quite amusing sentences sometimes, even for someone who identifies both as a gamer and a Christian (or a 'gamer of faith' as Stanifer calls us).
Here are some of the biggest hum-dingers I noted:
"The consequences of being led astray in Super Mario World are hardly worth comparing to what happened in Genesis 3."
"So the morals we learn from Chrono Trigger and Biblical history are ultimately much the same."
"In Halo, no credit is given to God."
And these chapter headings were pretty funny:
"Mario Kart: Racing Towards the Imperishable Prize"
"By His Pills, We are Healed: Spiritual Prescriptions from Dr. Mario"
If nothing else, though, this is usually entertaining and at its best the book reads like an extended sermon which takes its illustrations from videogaming, rather than ‘real life’.....
Therefore it could also appeal, I suppose, to someone who was interested in Christianity and also played a lot of videogames, or to someone who was relatively new to Christianity….and also played a lot of videogames. If there is anyone like that out there who happens to be reading this, you should definitely read this book!
Sometimes the link between the two domains is just a bit too tenuous, however. Here are some of the passages where the juxtaposition of the two worlds got just a little too ridiculous for me:
"Tetris works in much the same way. The game’s programmer gave each block its shape, and these diverse blocks work together to build unity." (comparing Tetris to unity in the body of Christ)
"An extra life is a precious gift, both to humanity in general and Mario fans in particular."
"What never changes is that Mario is unable to open the doors on his own. He needs a power higher than his own, specifically one that comes from the heavens. He needs the Power Stars."
"Mario Teaches Typing puts players on that road to discovering the power of words."
And the overall winner in this category:
"Seconds after the player stomps on the Koopa Troopa, it pops out of its shell like nothing ever happened and starts crawling around again. If the player is standing right next to the shell when this happens, it usually means that Mario’s going to lose a life. The dangers of half-finished business are well-documented in the Bible."
Other times, Stanifer actually offers some thought-provoking insights, such as the following on the power of Story, very reminiscent of his heroes Tolkien and CS Lewis:
"one of the best ways we as human beings can learn to grow and better ourselves is by immersing our minds and hearts in Story. Fairy tales and other kinds of tales confront us with the reality of good and evil, showing us how to live and how not to live."
"Although the Bible never mentions Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, it does affirm the value of Story. In the Exodus narrative, when God brings the children of Israel out of Egypt, He doesn’t just bring them out. He commands them to hold a Passover feast each year on that same day. When their sons (or daughters) ask why they are celebrating the feast, the parents are to say to them, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (13:8). In effect, the parents are supposed to tell their children the “story” of the Exodus so that its message about God’s goodness to His people is never forgotten."
And if you can get on with the tone and theme, the book overall is edifying and perceptive.
So all in all, this book is good fun, and definitely worth the whopping £2.19 I paid for for it on amazon. A must read for anyone who is a young Christian / interested in Christianity and into videogames!
Well played, John Stanifer. Keep up the good work!
July 19, 2021
Stanifer clearly knew writing a book about parallels between video games and Christian teachings would make some people skeptical, so he cleverly sets up the book with characters (The Heckler) who make objections that he responds to throughout the book.
As a result, you get a book that makes good points in a humorous and accessible way.
See a full review here: https://eclalibraries.org/2020/10/01/...
As a result, you get a book that makes good points in a humorous and accessible way.
See a full review here: https://eclalibraries.org/2020/10/01/...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews