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Religion in the Metaverse: Finding community and fellowship in VR���������������������������������������������
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Religion and virtual reality
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VR Church's lead pastor, D.J. Soto, preaches a sermon in his Fredericksburg, Va., home on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. Soto sings, preaches, and performs digital baptisms to a growing congregation of avatars in the metaverse.
A recent Sunday church service was missed by Garret Bernal and his family while under quarantine for COVID-19 exposure. Bernal, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (Mormon church), said, "I could not have had such an immersive experience sitting in my seat." He put on a virtual reality headset and tried to imagine what it would be like to worship in the metaverse. Pastors guided him and others through computergenerated illustrations of scripture passages that looked like they were coming to life as they prayed in one of the many metaverse spaces that became popular during the Coronavirus pandemic. While floating over pastures, rocky cliffs, and rivers, he was able to commune spiritually through virtual reality, one of many evolving metaverses made popular during the Coronavirus outbreak. From meditations in fantasy worlds to traditional Christian worship services with virtual sacraments in hyperrealistic, churchlike settings, their devotees say the experience provides fellowship that is as genuine as in a brick-and-mortar temple. Bernal's most crucial aspect of his short stay was his closer connection with God.
The service was hosted by VR Church, founded in 2016 by D.J. Santiago, a former high school teacher and pastor of a nonvirtual church. VR Church describes itself as a spiritual community that exists entirely in the virtual world to celebrate God's love for mankind. Soto had previously felt called to start new physical churches. However, after discovering the VR social platform AltspaceVR, he was made aware of the possibilities of connecting in virtual reality. Having heard that Facebook would invest billions in building out
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the metaverse last October, he set out to build an inclusive Christian church there.
During his first year, Soto often preached to just a few people, most atheists, and agnostics who preferred debating faith to listening to it. Approximately 200 people have joined his congregation since then. He has ordained other ministers and baptized believers who couldn't leave their houses from his Virginia home due to illness. "The church of the future is the metaverse," Soto said recently. "This isn't anti-physical. I don't think physical gatherings need to disappear. However, your metaverse campus will be the main focus of the church in 2030."
The founder of SacredVR, Jeremy Nickel, an ordained Unitarian Universalist who calls himself a VR evangelist, also saw the potential of VR to build communities and "get away from brick and mortar" when he founded the company in 2017. Nickel began his secular meditations to include all comers following his study of alternative practices at the seminary and his time in Nepal with Tibetan Buddhists. The name put off some religiously unaffiliated community members, so he changed it to EvolVR, and more people joined. The pandemic, however, boosted attendance from a few dozen to hundreds who now attend dharma talks and meditation sessions via their chosen avatars, sometimes meeting at a virtual Tibetan Buddhist temple perched high in the mountains or floating weightlessly above the ground.
Nickel explained that one of the reasons why the group has become so popular is you get the meditation you need and the community. Bill Willenbrock, who runs a Christian fellowship on the social platform VRChat, says virtual reality can enable people to share deeply personal issues more quickly. I have heard the number of times, 'I'm contemplating suicide. "Virtual reality" can be beneficial, said Willenbrock, an Eastern Orthodox chaplain who converted from Lutheranism.
He preached recently in a cavernous virtual cathedral lit by stained-glass windows. As avatars sat in the pews, a giant banana sat next to another man in a shirt and tie. There was also a mushroom, a fox, armored knights. They then took turns explaining why they joined the virtual community. People saw it as a complement to inperson gatherings, not a replacement for them.
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For example, it is cold, wet, and not very pleasant outside here in Scotland. Still, I am sitting in a beautiful church with the heating on." Another, with a robotlike avatar and the username UncleTuskle, said, "as a person with social anxiety, I am more comfortable here than in a physical church."
According to Paul Raushenbush, senior advisor for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core, and host of a VR talk show with religious leaders who use the technology, virtual reality can help people meet without judging their physical abilities or appearance. Ruushenbush appreciates how the platform uses whatever technological opportunities are available to bring people together. Alina Delp can attest to the fact that they are changing lives.
While she has traveled across the country and skydived for years, she has mostly been confined to her Olympia, Washington, home since 2010 due to a rare neurovascular condition. When she attended her first VR Church service,
she wept, knowing she had found a home. Delp became drawn to the community because of its judgmentfree environment and emphasis on "God's love rather than fear." She began volunteering with small groups and eventually became a pastor.
"I was granted life. It's the difference between endless hours of sleep and television versus my ability to be productive," she said. In 2018, Soto baptized her in a virtual ceremony in which her family and friends cheered her on as she was submerged in a purple robot avatar pool. Even though many VR advocates believe such sacraments should only be performed in physical space, it felt like a true blessing to Delp. "Jesus baptized me. Jesus changed me," she said. "The water, or lack thereof ... doesn't have the power to change me."
