Teaching with Games. Formative Gaming in Religion, Philosophy and Ethics. Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue explores the power of games to shape worldviews, share perspectives, develop religious identities and provoke ethical reflection. Contributors bring together ideas from classrooms of philosophy and religious studies with case studies from religious communities and companies engaged in game design, and reflect on their own experiences as makers, players, teachers and critics of games. This introduction proposes a concept of formative gaming to explain this multidisciplinary, multi-context approach. The issue includes four articles, two reports and an interview, and this introduction briefly summarises each contribution before identifying the key themes and shared questions that emerge across the collection.