This is Faith in Play #68: Prayer, for July 2023. This arose in discussion on the Christian Gamers Guild mailing list. It seems that someone mentioned a new role playing game in which players were expected to verbalize the in-game prayers of their fictional characters to the real God. Guild members had mixed reactions to … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #61: Christian D&D, for December 2022. Someone I have known online probably since I first became Chaplain of the Christian Gamers Guild recently read my recently republished book Do You Trust Me? (and made some positive comments about it), but then messaged me thus: …in your book Do You Trust … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #55: Marriage, for June 2022. I have written quite a bit about marriage over the years; I’ll not endeavor to list anything here. It strikes me, though, that although in my fiction I’ve had several weddings and character marriages, and in my games likewise, I haven’t written much about marriages … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #50: Mercenaries, for January 2022. Recently my attention was called to our article Faith and Gaming: Warriors, written about two decades ago, the first entry in our miniseries on Archetypes, looking at types of characters and how they reflect and challenge our faith. I remembered that I followed it with … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #41: Faith, for April 2021. Recently somewhere on the Web a discussion arose that suggested that if you build a world in which God or the gods manifest visibly frequently and work wonders regularly, there is no need for faith in such a world. I am persuaded that this is … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #36: Thanks, for November 2020. Later this month Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving, a secular holiday established for religious people to give thanks to God. Canadians did the same in the middle of last month. Most cultures and nations historically have had a harvest festival celebration to express gratitude for … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #33: Psionics, for August 2020. About eighteen years ago, in July 2002, I published Faith and Gaming: Mind Powers, and thought I had said everything that needed to be said on the subject of psionic powers in fiction and games. It was republished fourteen years later on our refurbished reformatted … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #26: Fields to Harvest, for January 2020. Last month I wrote about the impact the Christian Gamers Guild has had on Christians and on gamers. I noted that there were now many other “geek ministries” trying to make a difference. In fact, between when I wrote that article and when … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #8: Redemption Story, for July 2018. Years ago I wrote Faith and Gaming: Redemption, which was republished last spring. In it I made the distinction between the “Prodigal Stories” that we sometimes call stories of redemption and the real “Redemption Story”, the story of how the price was paid, how … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #1: Near Redundancy, for December 2017. If it seems to you like I just launched a new article series two weeks ago, congratulate yourself on your astute observation: Faith in Play #1: Reintroduction just appeared. That series is in a real sense a continuation of the Faith and Gaming series of a … [Read more…]