Geekklesia

I’ve been reading No Cape Required: 52 Ways to Unleash Your Inner Hero by Kristen Parrish as a weekly devotional. Parrish uses pop culture heroes to illustrate themes and characteristics Christians should embrace in their daily lives and walks with Jesus.  The first, naturally focused on Superman’s quest for Justice. This week’s was on friendships, as exhibited in the relationship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in the original series version of Star Trek. As I have been thinking about that theme, I am reminded that humans were created to be relational.  We were created first of all to have a relationship with our God (Genesis 1:26-27). He also created us to have relationships with each other (Genesis 2:18).  God Himself exists in a perpetual relationship with the other Persons of the Trinity (the Son and the Holy Spirit). The Trinity – three Persons existing as One Whole – is an immense mystery, but it testifies to this fact.  If we are, in fact, created in Go...

Just over five years ago, there were very few podcasts and blogs devoted to exploring geek culture through the lens of faith. In the time since, there has been a virtual explosion in the number and quality of entries. I am very excited by the possibility that the church is slowly embracing those who are traditionally within an often ostracized community. This past week,  I discovered a great new podcast: Theology Gaming.  Recently, they had a Theme Week where the various hosts posted individual blog posts relating to the theme of sex, love and lust in video games. They then came together in a round table format to discuss the issue. I liked their final takeaway that it just seems that our culture is so hypersexualized that it seems as if we expect every relationship to somehow culminate in a physical relationship, that there doesn't seem to be a place for the simple, chaste phileo friendship, but that it must develop into a relationship marked by eros . This will most lik...

I’ve been reading Douglas Cowan’s Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film and Television (Baylor University Press, 2010) and the first chapter really got my attention in a way that I didn’t expect.  The author states “…transcendence is not a function of sensation, but of relationship, and the reciprocal boundaries between those who exist in a relationship” (p. 40) and “…relationship is the key to encountering an Other” (P 41). These two quotes in particular started me thinking about humanity in general. If the key to transcendence really is relationship, then I think that puts a whole different spin on the story of the Fall found in Genesis 3.  There, we see that God created Adam and Eve as a special part of His creation. He did not call them into existence, but formed them Himself (Genesis 2:7). Mankind was endowed with the “image of God,” which involved much more than the notion that we looked like Him, but rather carried His character. And soon...