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Home > Heart and Soul > Take me to VR church


	Podcast:		Heart and Soul
	Episode:		Take me to VR church
	Category:		Religion & Spirituality
	Duration:		00:26:34
	Publish Date:		2020-03-20 09:00:00
	Description:		Worshippers are gathering for a church service led by Pastor D.J Soto in Virginia in the USA. But many of them are at home or even in other countries. The church he founded in 2016 is now on three different virtual platforms, and from an initial congregation of just five, now attracts hundreds of worshippers. Sophia Smith-Galer attends a church service in America while sitting on her sofa in London, and learns how virtual reality technology is preserving the memories of Holocaust survivors. This Christian Virtual Reality Church is revolutionary for those unable to attend an actual physical church - people like one of the church’s other pastors, Alina. She is housebound due to illness, but says this virtual Church has transformed her life and relationship with God. Meanwhile Elder Zach, who attends a physical church and the VR Church, explains why going to an old-fashioned, real life church still has its enduring appeal. In Leicester in the UK, thanks to a VR headset, we meet Sikh students as they encounter some of their religion’s most important artefacts for the first time. The Anglo Sikh Virtual Museum uses 3D technology to allow access to Sikh objects which physically are spread all over the world. The initiative’s director, Gurinder Singh Mann, says it’s a way of engaging young Sikhs, and teaching non-Sikhs about the religion. VR technology is also teaching future generations about religious tolerance. It is the 27th of January and Jews and Holocaust survivors from across the world are on a pilgrimage to Poland for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among them are Holocaust survivor Ben Lesser and Karen Jungblut, director of global initiatives at the Shoah Foundation Institute, based at the University of Southern California. Its mission to preserve the first-person accounts of 50,000 Holocaust survivors and other witnesses began with videotape. Now it uses 360 filming to capture those testimonies in the landscape where it happened. How does giving his testimony at Auschwitz-Birkenau affect 91-year-old Ben? But can immersing yourself get too, well, real? Hussein Kesvani, a Muslim journalist who writes about the online experience of British Muslims, joins us to experience a virtual reality app that allows the user to relive the battle of Karbala, a vital and instrumental moment in the Muslim faith. Is visualising something like this a step too far? Presented by Sophia Smith–Galer.
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