Deus Misereatur

God in the Machine: Video Games as Spiritual Pursuit by Liel Leibovitz My rating: 3 of 5 stars To enter the matrix of video games is to enter an Augustinian world? So concludes Liel Leibovitz, senior writer for "Tablet Magazine" and visiting assistant professor focusing primarily on video game and interactive media research and theory at NYU-Steinhardt, in his recent work "God in the Machine: Video Games as Spiritual Pursuit." This short, 144 page hardback will intrigue gamers and religious alike. Though written more on an academic level, well educated readers will be able to fathom much or most of the author's material. This book unfolds in four chapters where Leibovitz seeks to make the case that gaming, unlike television, literature or warfare, is more attuned to religion. Not that it is an alternative to religion, but that gaming "is a practice in rituals, ethics, morality, and metaphysics" (x). Similarly, religion is modular, rule-based, mov...

[Audio File Here] Prosperous Praying 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 Prayer: Great God, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; we pray with the sacred song writer – “Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me” (Psalm 119.132-133). “ The streets of our cities and the pews of our churches are crowded these days with emaciated men and plastic women. ‘There are too many limp souls .’” So wrote Eugene Peterson (“Leap Over a Wall,” 10). What do you think? Is Peterson right? Ask yourself this: How many of you Christian men feel like you’re a roaring lion for God? How many of you Christian women feel that you’re beautiful in the fear of the Lord? How many of you teenagers feel as if your faith is rock-solid and ablaze? Probably very few of you…of us. Most of us – I would venture to say – feel like ‘limp-souled’ orphans. Why is that? There are many reasons, but one that I ...

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before you. In love you predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of your will, to the praise of your glorious grace, with which you have blessed us in the Beloved (Ephesians 1.4-6). Almighty and eternal God, the strength of those who believe and the hope of those who find their faith watery-thin; fortify our hearts to have toughened, intensified trust in you, that through whatever trials we must wade we may believe and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls (1 Peter 1.8-9). O Lord, hear our prayer. LORD God who rescued your people from the enslaving taskmaster, liberating our forbearers from the house of bondage, having triumphed gloriously: we pray for those who are trapped by their cravings, predilections, and passions …show t...