Role-Playing and Religion: Using Games to

Educate Millennials
Adam L. Porter
Illinois College
Abstract. I have been experimenting with using role-
playing and games in my religion classes for several
years and have found that students respond well to these
pedagogical tools and methods. After reviewing my
experiences, I explore the reasons for students positive
response. I argue that role-playing games capitalize on
our students educational expectations and fondness for
game-play, by drawing them into exploring signicant
texts and ideas. Of particular interest for religion and
theology professors, these sorts of games also encourage
empathy towards other viewpoints.
Like many teachers, I struggle with student engagement.
Getting my students to read texts, to think critically
about them, and to discuss their ideas in class is a
challenge. Infrequently, I have students who do research
on their own initiative, but more commonly I need to
require it. Just getting them to show up for class can be
difcult! Since there is a correlation between student
engagement and success, including persistence to gradu-
ation, encouraging student engagement is important to
me. I have tried a variety of different approaches to
improve it, some pedagogical (such as using active learn-
ing techniques or having students read aloud in class)
and some more punitive (like quizzes on the reading).
Over the last several years, I have been trying another
approach: using role-playing games. I was rst exposed
to this method of teaching when I was in high school, in
Bethesda, Maryland. One teacher, Mr. Biedron, often
used role-playing games. For Russian history, Mr.
Biedron was the tsar and students were assigned to be
nobles, serfs, and the like. Halfway through the semester
there was a revolution, and Mr. Biedron became the
general secretary, the nobles went through reeduca-
tion, and some of the serfs became leaders of the Com-
munist Party. In Middle Eastern history, students were
assigned to represent different nations and the course
ended with a peace conference. Mr. Biedrons approach
was unusual enough that when he retired, the Washing-
ton Post did an article on him (Gowen 2002). I have
been using the peace conference idea whenever I teach a
course on the Middle East, but more recently I have
become interested in using role-playing in my classes
more systematically.
The impetus for exploring gaming came in 2004. In
that year, I heard a presentation by Gary Yamasaki
at the AAR/SBL conference (Yamasaki 2004). He
described how he used the Acts Game to help improve
student attendance and engagement with his class on
Acts. Putting students into teams and rewarding them
for team attendance and team performance encouraged
them to pressure each other to come to class and to
prepare for class. He also reported that the mood in
the classroom changed when he introduced a game
format. At about the same time, I read an article by
Mark Carnes describing his experiences using games in
his classroom (Carnes 2004). Carness methodology
known as Reacting assigned students to historical roles
and the classroom became the forum where students
reenacted debates from critical moments in history.
Although Carness method differed from Yamasakis, he
too reported improved attendance, preparation, and
performance the areas in which I also sought improve-
ment. Inspired by these two sources, I decided to incor-
porate student-teams and some role-playing in my
Introduction to the New Testament class in the spring of
2005.
This class used limited role-playing in a game format.
Students were assigned to different teams (Pharisees,
Sadducees, Romans, Zealots, Essenes, or Christians).
They read Theissens Shadow of the Galilean (1987) as
a general introduction to the society and sects of rst-
century Judea. They also read the descriptions of the
Teaching Theology and Religion, ISSN 1368-4868, 2008, vol. 11 no. 4, pp 230235.
2008 The Author
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sects from Josephus and Pliny. After this background,
we read the Gospels. For each Gospel, the teams wrote
papers discussing how they (the social group they
were assigned to) were represented. Some groups com-
plained that the Gospel misrepresented them (We
Pharisees are not hypocrites!). The Christian team
made comments about the different descriptions of Jesus
(Is the Son of Man the same as the Son of God?). And
teams not mentioned in the Gospels, such as the Zealots,
discussed whether they agreed with Jesuss teachings or
not (Render unto Caesar? No way!). When reading
the Pauline corpus, students read several secondary
articles and wrote individual papers, but collaborated
on a team paper on Romans, discussing whether they
agreed with Pauls arguments or not. Since the responses
were written from the perspective of rst-century
people, students struggled to contextualize scripture in
light of history. This was a new idea for almost all
the students, and more challenging for some than
others.
For most students, the highlight of the class was the
reenactment of the trials of Jesus and Paul. The teams
prepared for the trials by writing position papers, based
on their previous essays, outlining their teams argu-
ments about why each man should be pardoned or
executed. During the trials, the Roman team ran the
classroom, often struggling to maintain order (one
Roman team eventually exiled one of the Zealots to
stand in the corner). To do well in the trial, students had
to demonstrate their mastery of the materials: each
group challenged the others to prove it from the text.
My students are prone to making vague general state-
ments or talking about their personal beliefs rather than
discussing texts. In the trial setting, I, as the instructor,
did not have to point out the weakness of this sort of
rhetoric the other students recognized it and de-
manded that their classmates support their statements
more robustly.
Another benet was that students empathized with
their characters. Thus, most of the students, although
Christian in real life, played Roman or Jewish characters.
Some argued that Jesus needed to be executed because he
like other popular leaders frightened the Romans.
Would they have argued this themselves? I doubt it. But
they were able to separate themselves from their charac-
ters and in so doing, came to understand why some
rst-century Jews thought it necessary to arrest Jesus and
to hand him over to the Roman authorities.
My goals for the class were to encourage engage-
ment, to teach the students to think about scripture
critically, to learn about rst-century Judea, and to
foster collaborative learning. Each of these goals was
fullled partially, but I felt that I tacked-on the role-
playing component to my New Testament introduction.
While students worked together in teams throughout the
semester, the amount of time spent actually role-playing
was relatively short. More importantly, the game was
not balanced, since the outcome was a foregone conclu-
sion: the Romans executed populist leaders. Thus, no
matter how persuasively teams argued for clemency, if
the Romans played their roles correctly, they would
always decide to execute Jesus. I suppose this illustrates
the frustrations of being the subaltern, but since students
could not be successful in their arguments, it reduced
the incentive to actually work hard. The students did not
notice this for the Jesus trial, but some of them caught
onto it for the Paul trial, and their arguments were not
as strong.
Pleased with my initial experience using role-playing
in my NewTestament class, I sought to learn more about
Mark Carness Reacting methodology. Because Reacting
emphasizes role-playing, a particularly effective way to
experience its potential is to actually play a game. So
several times per year, there are short Reacting symposia
offered at different locations. Joined by three of my
colleagues, I attended a Reacting conference at Michigan
State University in April 2006. While there, I played the
Athens at the Threshold of Democracy game and
learned more about the Reacting methodology.
Reacting game modules are long each game takes
about a month and most faculty use three per semester.
They are also complex. Each module is set at an inter-
esting point in history, when different groups were
arguing about several topics or alternate courses of
action. Students are assigned to teams, which work
together to write papers and construct arguments, and
then present them to the class. Students are not allowed
to read from these papers; rather, they use note cards to
help them remember their argument, which ensures that
their presentations are dynamic. Since some students are
indeterminates and have no position on a topic, they
are the target audience for the teams: when a vote is
called, will you have persuaded enough of your indeter-
minate classmates to side with you? Games present a
variety of issues, so characters who agree on one issue
might disagree on another, and someone who is indeter-
minate on issue A may have strong feelings about
issue B. When a game is over, the class discusses
what really happened and why the classs simulation
followed history or veered off in a different direction.
Inspired by my experience in playing a Reacting
game, I organized a class around this methodology:
Reacting to Western Religion. The class used three
modules. The rst, which I am developing with David
Tabb Stewart, was Deuteronomy and Josiahs Refor-
mation. It is set at the time of the discovery of the
book of the Law, probably the core of Deuteronomy.
Students are asked whether they should reform Judahs
religion to bring it in line with Deuteronomy or not. The
second module was Constantine and the Council of
Nicaea, which explores the theological debates among
different groups of Christians about the nature of Jesus
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and questions of canon. And the third was The Trial of
Anne Hutchinson, which explores issues of Puritan and
Calvinist theology. Interesting themes connect the three
modules: all explore issues of reforming religion, all the
reforms had signicant impacts on womens religious
experiences, and all struggle to dene what constitutes
scripture or how to interpret it.
These are not easy topics and my students worked
hard to understand unfamiliar sources (such as non-
canonical early church documents) or to read familiar
documents in new ways (such as considering the eco-
nomic or social impact of the Deuteronomistic reforms).
Most found it difcult to comprehend the theological
debates that raged in the early church or in Puritan New
England. But, although the material was demanding, the
debates were vigorous and, as with my New Testament
class, the students frequently called upon each other to
support their arguments better. As one of the students
wrote on the course evaluation form, The debate-like
setting made it impossible not to learn because we all
had to have some type of argument and come prepared
to argue at every class. Am I satised with this class?
Not yet. I need to gure out better ways to provide
feedback to students, to help them understand difcult
texts, to give them more time to plan strategy, and so
forth. But I was delighted with their energetic classroom
performance and am looking forward to teaching the
class again this fall.
Why do students respond so well to games and role-
play in classrooms? Carnes identied several motiva-
tional inducements of the Reacting Pedagogy (Carnes
2005b, 610). These include the following:
Escaping from oneself. This allows undergraduates to
assume identities different from their own and to
articulate thoughts or positions different from their
own.
Competition. Most historical moments involve con-
ict between different factions or ideas.
Teamwork. Students learn to coordinate their efforts
and help each other. Stronger students help weaker
students and both benet.
Student empowerment. Reacting games empower
students by allowing them to run the classroom. They
decide the agenda and determine who speaks, gov-
erned by the rules of the game.
Vicarious engagement with the past. Reacting allows
students to engage with the past, rather than just
reading about it. This allows them to internalize
some of the ideas and thus learn them better.
Drama. Reacting games are set at important
moments in human history. Students are drawn into
the drama and are less likely to skip class, especially
towards the end of a module, when important deci-
sions are made.
Liminality. The Reacting classroom is different: stu-
dents run it, they reenact history, they are not
themselves, but characters in a drama. Liminality is
interesting and students can be drawn into the class
more deeply.
I agree with Carness analysis, but I think we can
go further. While Carness motivational inducements
would have encouraged earlier generations, I believe
they offer special resonance with the current generation
of college students, the Millennials (Howe and
Strauss 2000; Hesel and Pryor 2007; Hoover 2007).
According to Howe and Strauss, the Millennials have
specic expectations about education (Howe and
Strauss 2003). Notably, they suggest that Millennials
tend to be very social, with large circles of friends; are
used to collaborating with their peers on schoolwork;
prefer useful work to original work; expect their
teachers to notice them and monitor their performance
in order to reward them for doing well or to offer
assistance if they are doing poorly; and prefer many
smaller assignments to one-time exams or papers.
Other scholars have noted that the Millennials have
been raised in a world of games, especially computer or
video games. These games may have negative effects on
people (or not the debate continues to rage), but
all games involve problem-solving, critical thinking,
and strategy. Learning by playing games (whether
chess, poker, or Quake) emphasizes a trial-and-error
approach. Players try one strategy and fail; the next time
they play, they try a different strategy. This approach is
very different than the traditional logical, rule-based
approach to solving problems (Oblinger 2003, 40).
Additionally, many games offer more than one path to
victory. The value [of the game] is not all tied up in
winning one way; it is more about the path to victory
itself (Carstens and Beck 2005, 23). But most games
are competitive and many people play games with the
hope of winning.
One could correctly argue that not all gamers are
Millennials, since 20 percent of adults over fty play
games (Oblinger 2006, 2). But Millennials play games at
much higher rates than older Americans: 77 percent of
college students are gamers (Rainie 2007, 10). Thus,
while gaming is popular among most age demographics,
it is more common among Millennials. And, contrary to
popular opinion, more women (60 percent) than men
(40 percent) play computer or online games, while
roughly equal numbers play video games (Jones 2003,
6).
What interests me is how many of Carness motiva-
tional inducements resonate especially well with the
traits of current college students. Lets consider his list
again, in light of the data about Millennials and gamers.
Gamers are used to escaping from themselves,
playing in computer-generated worlds as characters very
232 Porter
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different from themselves. These characters run the
gamut from super soldiers to Tolkeinesque elves and
dwarves. Even those who do not play games may
assume alternate roles on the web: as a famous New
Yorker cartoon noted, On the internet, no one knows if
youre a dog (Steiner 1993). For students with a history
of playing games or entering chat rooms, escaping into a
different character would be familiar (Turkle 1997).
Millennials are used to competition and may partici-
pate in organized sports at higher rates than the previous
generation (Howe and Strauss 2000, 172). The games
they play are also competitive, offering either computer-
generated opponents, or the option to play with or
against other human players. Losing (dying) often has
little cost, but players still strive to win. In Reacting,
winning may help a students nal grade a fraction, but
losing has a low cost; nonetheless, students want to win
the game. Finally, competition is part of our society in
business, sports, and other elds, although not usually in
the classroom. Rather than ght the competitive model,
Reacting co-opts it for an educational benet.
While sports and video games are competitive, both
offer the opportunity to participate in team activities.
This may be obvious for most sports, but starting in the
1990s (rst with the game Doom and later with Quake),
teamplay became available to gamers. This rst appeared
on computer games on local area networks (LAN Party
2008) and later on the internet. Gamers arranged teams
not only in rst-person shooters (FPS), but also in mas-
sively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) such as Ever-
quest or World of Warcraft. User demand has prompted
manufacturers to add this feature to game consoles, such
as the X-Box or PlayStation3. Additionally, many stu-
dents have previous experience in team projects and
collaborative learning (Howe and Strauss 2000, 155). In
short, allowing students to form teams and collaborate
channels tendencies they already have into improving
their classroom performance.
Empowering students works especially well with Mil-
lennials. Games empower people, allowing them to play
characters very different from themselves or from any
regular person. Gangsters, super heroes, and super sol-
diers populate games, allowing players to vicariously
live these roles. Other games, like the popular Sims
franchise or Black and White are called God games,
since the player directs the lives of the characters in the
game. What empowerment! But most classrooms disem-
power students; even in discussion-based seminars, the
instructor remains in charge. Reacting changes this:
during game-play, the students run the classroom. The
instructor becomes a resource, a guide, or a mentor, who
can help the students by offering suggestions on ways to
improve their efforts, while allowing students to be
empowered in the classroom.
The idea of engaging with the past ts Millennials
fondness for useful work. Rather than learning for
learnings sake, students have a practical, pragmatic
reason to master abstract ideas: they want to be able to
argue and convince indeterminate characters to support
them. While Millennials may not see much use for origi-
nal work, most instructors do. Reacting addresses this
pedagogical need as well. Each character role has a
slightly different argument, so students cannot easily
crib their papers; since their speeches have to be made
from note cards, they have to have achieved a certain
level of mastery of the material to succeed. Finally, stu-
dents are rewarded for good arguments by garnering the
support of their peers.
Appealing to the students sense of drama does not
seem to have an obvious connection to Millennials. Nor
do we often think of games as offering us a dramatic
narrative. Indeed, most traditional card games (bridge
or hearts) or board games (chess) offer no signicant
story; rather, they are abstract strategy games. Some
video games are similar, with almost no narrative struc-
ture (Tetris), but many successful franchises develop
major characters, and gamers purchase games to see
what happens in the story. According to Lawrence
Kutner, popular games offer complex characters and
very interesting, intricate plots (Kutner 2008). The
most protable game to date is Grand Theft Auto IV
(Pham 2008) which offers a richly textured and thor-
oughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as
fun, featuring a pungent script by Dan Houser and
Rupert Humphries that reveals a mastery of street patois
to rival Elmore Leonards (Schiesel 2008). In short,
drama may be universally appealing, but students expect
it in games.
Finally, the liminality offered by Reacting is similar, in
some ways, to online worlds such as Second Life, or
games like World of Warcraft. In computer or video
games, different rules apply, such as the ability to heal
instantly with a med-pack. Except for the popular Sims
franchise, most games are not set in the mundane world;
rather, gamers are thrown into the future, the past, or a
dangerous version of the present. Accessing any com-
puter or video game is a liminal event, in so far as the
experience is mediated by a computer or game system. All
these attributes are paralleled in the Reacting classroom.
It is different than typical classrooms and different rules
apply. It is also different from the real world, since
students are set in different time periods or different
places in the world. The liminal aspect of the Reacting
game is enhanced by having some activity appropriate to
the setting begin the class session, such as sacricing a
pig in the Athens game or singing God Save the Queen
for the Darwin game. It is also enhanced by having
students use their character names during class or while
discussing class materials or activities, much as gamers
use handles or aliases in video games.
The grading of Reacting games also appeals to
Millennial expectations. Students write multiple short
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papers and do many presentations, rather than having
one major assignment. Thus, the faculty member has
many opportunities to evaluate their performance and
mastery of the material. Faculty can intervene as appro-
priate, again meeting the Millennial expectation for
monitoring and having their difculties noticed.
In short, using role-playing games builds on the traits
of both Millennials and gamers. Since many college
students fall into both categories, the Reacting method-
ology would seem especially appealing. An additional
benet that Reacting may offer is that it could be a way
to encourage male student engagement. One concern
faculty might have about Millennials is that female stu-
dents signicantly outperform their male colleagues
(Howe and Strauss 2000, 222229; Hesel and Pryor
2007). Nationally, women comprise about 60 percent of
the student body and are generally more satised with
their education than their male counterparts (Noel-
Levitz 2007, 13, 10). How can colleges stop male
ight? One way might be to use games in the class-
room. In both my New Testament class and my Reacting
class, my subjective impression was that male students
performed better than in my other, more traditional
classes. Their attendance was better and they were more
likely to have prepared the material and to participate. I
have heard similar comments from other instructors
who have used Reacting in different colleges. Unfortu-
nately, the question of gender response to the Reacting
methodology has yet to be studied, since most of the
Reacting assessment data has come from womens
colleges (Stroessner 2008). Still, the anecdotal reports
suggest that role-play encourages male student involve-
ment in classes, which might improve their retention and
persistence-to-graduation statistics.
Finally, I mentioned above that I noticed that stu-
dents came to empathize with their characters, even in
my early attempts to use role-playing. This has been
noted by professors using the Reacting methodology
(Carnes 2005a; Slater 2005, 3; Stroessner 2007) and
may be of particular interest to faculty teaching courses
in religion or theology. Many of my students come from
rural settings or small towns in central Illinois. It is not
a region teeming with religious diversity. Getting stu-
dents to understand different faiths or different versions
of their faith is challenging. It is even more challenging
to get students to empathize or sympathize with those
holding different viewpoints. Role-playing allows stu-
dents to articulate viewpoints different from their own
and, in so doing, come to understand those viewpoints
more sympathetically.
Most of my classes have similar learning goals. I want
students to read challenging texts, think critically about
them, and articulate their responses to them cogently in
discussion, speeches, or writing. The Reacting method-
ology helps to achieve these goals, but offers additional
benets. For example, it encourages student leadership,
independent thinking, and the recognition that there can
be multiple correct viewpoints about issues. It also
helps to demonstrate that history is not predetermined,
but that if certain ideas or movements had won, the
world might be very different than it is today. Reacting
allows these diverse learning goals to be met because it
draws upon and utilizes tendencies already present in
the Millennial generation of game-playing students.
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