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Avatar Discipleship – Who am I engaging with the avatar or the person?
How do you disciple Christians in the metaverse? Is it possible to disciple a person represented by an avatar? Who are you discipling, the avatar or the invisible person it represents? Who are we really engaging with? These are questions often discussed in the church I work with in Virtual Reality (VR). These aren’t just questions that are relevant to VR. According to recent statistics in America[1] over 25 million attend church online. People use the description ‘in person’ for those who attend onsite church, but if we are ‘online’ are we not present ‘in person’ as well? If I attend church via Zoom or YouTube then the experience may…
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A Review of “Corpo:reality – Body and Embodiment in AI and Robotics”
The Corpo:reality – Body and Embodiment in AI and Robotics conference was held in early December in Würzburg, Germany, organised by Netzwerk für Theologie & Künstliche Intelligenz. Elon Musk recently indicated that AI would eliminate the need for all jobs and we will all have robot friends.[1] At the conference Dr. Ilona Nord raised the question will robots replace the pastor or is the physical presence more important? There are uses for robots in social care, industry and even to assist the pastor, but to replace them would remove the physicality. Even with Zoom meetings, YouTube services or in the metaverse, both pastor and congregation need to be physically present,…
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The potential impact of closure of Churches in the metaverse
In March 2023 Microsoft ‘sunset’ its metaverse AltspaceVR platform to move its resources to support developing other immersive experiences. This may appear irrelevant to readers, unless you are involved in church mission in the metaverse.[1] Welcome to the metaverse! The term ‘metaverse’ first appears in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash describing a virtual environment where lifelike avatars engage with each other.[2] Thirty years later, it is a vision Silicon Valley are heavily investing in and a few churches (predominantly American) have grasped the vision of the metaverse mission field. However, churches in the metaverse are different, in August 2021 Facebook changed its name to Meta to focus…
