This Sunday, Brian Leupold will become one of the first people baptized in virtual reality.
In his rural home in Amity, Leupold will slip on his Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, step into the VR Church he helped found, and immerse himself in the digital waters of spiritual renewal.
VR Church exists wholly in the realm of AltSpace, a virtual reality, social media landscape that, as of a year ago, had about 35,000 monthly active users. The tech is in its infancy – cartoonish and occasionally glitchy. But here, Leupold sees the future of an inclusive church community.
During a recent Sunday service at VR Church, Pastor DJ Soto's avatar, or digital persona, arrived as a white, legless, Preacherbot whose disembodied hands bobbed up and down as he gesticulated about God's grace.
The community of Christian virtual reality early adopters is relatively small, so it wasn't long before Leupold met two other men working on similar concepts. Alistair de B Clarkson, based in Australia, was developing a virtual reality Bible app to take users through stories from the Old Testament. DJ Soto was traveling in an RV across the U.S. and giving live sermons in AltSpace.
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