Between the Lines presents conversations that we have shared with our authors about their book, its inspiration, and its reception.

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Kevin Schut – Part 4 – plus two videos

February 4, 2013 by

Schut_KevinWe recently had the chance to talk with Kevin Schut about his new Brazos book, Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games.

Kevin Schut (PhD, University of Iowa) is associate professor and chair of the department of media and communication at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. His research uses video games to investigate the intersection of communication, technology, and culture. He has published articles and chapters on video games and history, games and mythology, and evangelical involvement with video games.

In part 1, Kevin spoke about common misconceptions about video games.

In part 2, Kevin explained the importance of the “magic circle.”

In part 3, Kevin discussed ethics and video games.

In today’s fourth and final post, Kevin addresses violence and video games and whether we should fear “game addiction.”

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Does playing violent video games make people act violently? Does “game addiction” really exist?

Of Games and God

Experts in the field of media effects argue over the effects of violence in games. Some argue there’s no clear evidence of any kind of effect. Those who see evidence for effects certainly don’t go so far as to say that playing games will make anyone physically brutal. Rather, they’d argue there’s proof that playing video games has a statistically-significant impact on short-term aggressive attitudes. In other words, playing a violent game jacks up a player for at least a little while.

Everyone agrees, however, there is currently no evidence on the long-term effects of playing violent games. The thing is, I would prefer that this be a moral discussion than an effects-based one anyway. I could imagine a world where there’s clear evidence that playing violent games has no effects on people, but I’m not sure that would make it right.

That said, I personally don’t think that playing violence is necessarily wrong, but it often is. Of Games and God has an extensive discussion of these issues.

Game addiction is not a clinical term… yet. There are mounds of anecdotal evidence that many gamers behave toward games in many of the same ways addicts deal with drugs, alcohol, and gambling. Video game designers often employ the principles of behavioral psychology, making games that are ideally suited to compulsive play—there are open discussions about this in the game industry. Even those of us who have our game-playing largely under control know the temptation to play just a little more than we should.

All this is to say that I think game addiction is real, even if it’s not a clinical term right now. However, I also think that just about anything can be addictive, including reading, stamp-collecting, and cooking. Most cultural activities that are potentially good also carry risk, and I think that’s true with video games. In Of God and Games I talk extensively about the difference between healthy and unhealthy escape.

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In this video, Kevin Schut explains what Of Games and God is about.

 

In this video, Kevin Schut answers the question, “Are video games dangerous or wonderful?”

 

For more information on Of Games and God, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

Filed Under: Between the Lines, Videos Tagged With: ,

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Kevin Schut – Part 3 – plus a video

January 28, 2013 by

Schut_KevinWe recently had the chance to talk with Kevin Schut about his new Brazos book, Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games.

Kevin Schut (PhD, University of Iowa) is associate professor and chair of the department of media and communication at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. His research uses video games to investigate the intersection of communication, technology, and culture. He has published articles and chapters on video games and history, games and mythology, and evangelical involvement with video games.

In part 1, Kevin spoke about common misconceptions about video games.

In part 2, Kevin explained the importance of the “magic circle.”

In today’s post, Kevin discusses ethics and video games.

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Is it ethical to do bad things in an imaginary video game world? 

This is really the significance of the magic circle idea: Do the things I do in a video game matter?

Of Games and God

We can look at it in a bunch of different ways. We could argue that everything in a video game is an imaginary symbol or sign, and therefore nothing good or evil is actually happening.

For example, if I’m playing the grim post-nuclear-apocalypse Fallout: New Vegas and I start killing innocent bystanders, I can just say that it doesn’t really mean anything because those people are nothing, just pixels on a flat, artificial screen.

But if the magic circle is a false idea—or only partially true in the above sense—then maybe there’s a connection between doing wrong actions in a video game and a wrong action.

I spend many pages in the book wrestling with this, and I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I think anyone who wants to argue that shooting someone in a video game is the moral equivalent of shooting someone with a physical gun has a pretty weak grasp on the trauma of actual physical violence.

Yet representations are powerful. Novels matter, movies matter, and so do games, at least partly because what happens in them resonates with what we know to be true.

Evil in a story is somehow like evil in everyday life. I believe it’s the same in a video game. But the exact nature of the relationship between imaginary and real things is very, very complicated.

The long and the short of it is that I don’t have a short answer to the question—and neither does the book! But I think the book raises many of the issues that matter.

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In this video, Kevin Schut talks about what prompted him to write Of Games and God.

For more information on Of Games and God, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

Filed Under: Between the Lines, Videos Tagged With: ,

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Kevin Schut – Part 2 – plus a video and a giveaway

January 21, 2013 by

Schut_Kevin

We recently had the chance to talk with Kevin Schut about his new Brazos book, Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games.

Kevin Schut (PhD, University of Iowa) is associate professor and chair of the department of media and communication at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. His research uses video games to investigate the intersection of communication, technology, and culture. He has published articles and chapters on video games and history, games and mythology, and evangelical involvement with video games.

Last week, Kevin spoke about common misconceptions about video games.

In today’s post, Kevin explains the importance of the “magic circle.”

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In your book you refer to the “magic circle.” What is this? And what are its ramifications for how we play video games?

The “magic circle” is, in a nutshell, the idea that what happens in a game, stays in a game.

Dutch sociologist Johan Huizinga wrote an important book about games in the mid-twentieth century called Homo Ludens (“Man the Player”). One of his key concepts that today’s game theorists have seized upon is this idea that when we play a game, we suspend the normal rules of society—we step into a “magic circle.”

Of Games and God

So, for example, we would normally think of killing someone else as bad. Yet in chess, that’s the whole point of the game. Players enter into a kind of special contract where they agree that what normally applies doesn’t now.

The implications are that games don’t really affect real life. If a game is in a magic circle, then what we do in a game is separate from what I do at work, with my family, and in my church—separate from how I think and talk in general. There’s certainly something to this. I have no trouble distinguishing between the buccaneers I was just battling in Sid Meier’s Pirates and the people walking down my street—I don’t start swordfights in my local mall. Humans have a great capacity for imagination and are quite able to keep that separate from everyday life… in a sense.

There’s the problem, however: A lot of scholars and commentators are starting to point out that video games are never really, truly, completely separate. Yes, a game is a different sort of social place than the mall. But the only reason we understand the game at all is because we have society and culture outside the game. A “knight” means nothing if we’ve never heard of the guy in shining armor, and rules governing the pawn don’t work if we can’t speak a language.

Likewise, some game stories and characters ring true to us in ways that stay with us after we’re finished playing, which is partly why many of us play the games in the first place.

I don’t think Huizinga meant it this way, but if we use the concept of the magic circle to pretend that we can do whatever we want in a game and that it will have no impact on the rest of our life, I think that’s probably a bad way of looking at it.

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In this video, Kevin Schut introduces Of Games and God.

 

For more information on Of Games and God, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Enter to win one of five copies of Of Games and God:

This giveaway has ended.

Filed Under: Between the Lines, Videos Tagged With: ,

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Kevin Schut – Part 1 – plus a giveaway

January 14, 2013 by

Schut_Kevin

We recently had the chance to talk with Kevin Schut about his new Brazos book, Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games.

Kevin Schut (PhD, University of Iowa) is associate professor and chair of the department of media and communication at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. His research uses video games to investigate the intersection of communication, technology, and culture. He has published articles and chapters on video games and history, games and mythology, and evangelical involvement with video games.

In today’s post, Kevin speaks about common misconceptions about video games.

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What are some misconceptions you think Christians have about video games?

The classic misconception is that all video games are full of violence and sex. There certainly is a group of very prominent and expensive games that fit this description, but there are lots of high-quality, fun, and popular games like Angry Birds or Crayon Physics or Scribblenauts that involve little fighting or innuendo.

Of Games and GodLikewise, many people assume video games are mindless. Again, some really are a lot more about unthinking reaction times than anything else, but most involve some level of strategic thinking, and some of them, like current hit League of Legends, are complex enough to spawn multiple websites with reams of tips, tricks, and discussions on how best to play.

Others assume video games can’t possibly be profound or artistically powerful. This is a bit more excusable, as the vast majority of video games are clichéd, very simple, or both. However, even simpler games often engage different aspects of humanity than movies or books, and some big and complicated games like Dragon Age: Origins can thoughtfully engage mature and challenging topics.

Making broad generalizations about game content is like looking at the top ten summer blockbuster movies and assuming all Hollywood movies feature robots, explosions, and skimpy outfits.

The sheer number of video games put out every year, from small indie programs for mobile devices to art games done by academics to giant commercial titles (usually called AAA games), means there are a myriad of possible experiences. There are stupid video games and thoughtful ones. Ugly and beautiful ones. Clichéd games and games that are profound artistic experiences.

It’s time for us to stop talking about video games as all one kind of thing. Instead, I think we need to start thinking about how to effectively evaluate individual games, considering things like how they were produced, what kind of artistic tools they use, the cultural forces they engage, and much more. That’s what my book tries to set up: a place to start critical engagement of the medium.

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For more information on Of Games and God, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Enter to win one of five copies of Of Games and God:

This giveaway has ended.

Filed Under: Between the Lines, Giveaways Tagged With: ,

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Matthew Dickerson – Part 4

October 29, 2012 by

We recently had the chance to talk with Matthew Dickerson about his new Brazos book, A Hobbit Journey.

Matthew Dickerson (PhD, Cornell University) is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a writer, and the director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf. His previous works include From Homer to Harry Potter; The Mind and the Machine; Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis; and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R .R. Tolkien.

In Part 1, Matthew spoke about the relationship between our world and the world of The Lord of the Rings.

In Part 2, he explained how his love for Tolkien’s writing influenced the composition of A Hobbit Journey.

In Part 3, he discussed whether The Lord of the Rings should be understood as allegorical.

Today he offers some thoughts on Peter Jackson’s film portrayals of The Lord of the Rings.

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Do you think the original trilogy of The Lord of the Rings films accurately portrayed the themes you see in the books? Do you anticipate that The Hobbit films will be accurate portrayals?

I will reserve judgment of Peter’s forthcoming trilogy of films based on The Hobbit until I have seen them. I am curious to see how much use they make of material in the Appendices, and how much they add to (or take away from) the plot. I think it might be really good. The one thing that concerns me from the trailers I have seen is the addition of a sword fight between Bilbo and Gollum. That could very much change some important philosophical and moral ideas that Tolkien incarnated in his original story.

As for the original trilogy, there were certainly some aspects that were very well done by Jackson. I was particular moved by his portrayals of a few of the individual characters. By and large, I thought he did Boromir very well, and Eowyn too, though perhaps his Eowyn might have been a bit stronger. Sam was well done. I think Jackson also did a good job with some environmental aspects, in his portrayal especially of the ravages of Isengard under Saruman.

But by and large, I thought that Jackson absconded with Tolkien’s names and characters and plot elements in order to put forth a very different underlying worldview that in many ways was entirely at odds with that of Tolkien. I read once that Jackson said he might change a few plot elements to make them fit better with film instead of book, but that he was committed to Tolkien’s most basic philosophical beliefs. And in that I think Jackson is flat out wrong on some very important areas. I outline a few examples in my book. One is how Jackson undercuts some of the most important moral free-will choices of the book’s heroes. Another is how he seeks to show corruption and moral failure in almost every important virtuous hero such as Faramir, Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf; he applies broad brushstrokes of cynicism where Tolkien did not.

Jackson, in making his grand cinematic display—and trying to keep it more action centered—not only eliminates much of the dialogue and description and the importance of the world itself, but I think he also glorifies violence in a way Tolkien’s books never do. It is much more “sword and sorcery” than Tolkien’s works.

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For more information on A Hobbit Journey, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Between the Lines: A Conversation with Matthew Dickerson – Part 3

October 22, 2012 by

We recently had the chance to talk with Matthew Dickerson about his new Brazos book, A Hobbit Journey.

Matthew Dickerson (PhD, Cornell University) is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a writer, and the director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf. His previous works include From Homer to Harry Potter; The Mind and the Machine; Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis; and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R .R. Tolkien.

In Part 1, Matthew spoke about the relationship between our world and the world of The Lord of the Rings.

In Part 2, he explained how his love for Tolkien’s writing influenced the composition of A Hobbit Journey.

Today he discusses whether The Lord of the Rings should be understood as allegorical.

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Even though Tolkien was known for disliking allegory, do you consider The Lord of the Rings to be allegorical?

No. Not at all. Certainly not in the strict sense of allegory of a book like Pilgrim’s Progress, and not even like Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, which I think can be read very allegorically. If you try to turn Tolkien’s works into allegory in that way, you will, I think, fall flat. Not only will an attempt to cram his characters into some allegorical straightjacket fail in the end to make connections that hold, but in searching for allegorical meanings that don’t exist you will miss the rich “meanings” that do exist.

Now if you ask whether Tolkien’s works are applicable (as opposed to allegorical) then I would answer “yes”—which is really just giving the answer Tolkien himself gave in his famous Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings. Of course not everything an author says about himself or his works is by necessity true, but in this instance I think that Tolkien was speaking accurately.

I do think that Tolkien’s short story “Leaf by Niggle” does have some elements that are both strongly allegorical and autobiographical, but that is another question. When it comes to The Lord of the Rings I think the first thing is to enjoy them as stories, and appreciate and delight in the world, the characters, and the narrative. If you want to look for meaning and applicability of that meaning to our own story—which, I think, is a very worthwhile endeavor, and one Tolkien himself thought valid—then look for the meaning in Tolkien’s words themselves and his tale itself, and not in trying to force his tale into some mathematical correspondence with some other story.

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For more information on A Hobbit Journey, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Between the Lines: A Conversation with Matthew Dickerson – Part 2

October 15, 2012 by

We recently had the chance to talk with Matthew Dickerson about his new Brazos book, A Hobbit Journey.

Matthew Dickerson (PhD, Cornell University) is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a writer, and the director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf. His previous works include From Homer to Harry Potter; The Mind and the Machine; Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis; and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R .R. Tolkien.

Last week, Matthew spoke about the relationship between our world and the world of The Lord of the Rings.

In today’s post, he shares how his love for Tolkien’s writing influenced the composition of A Hobbit Journey.

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How did your passion for The Lord of the Rings lead you to write on it?

I think the answer to that is, “only indirectly.” I do love Tolkien’s works. And the fact that I love them has led me to read them very carefully, and I’d say somewhat frequently—though not as frequently as some people I have met. I haven’t memorized genealogies of the hobbits, or long poems, and I haven’t named my pets after creatures in Middle-earth. I did read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion aloud to each of my sons. And I have also taught courses on Tolkien’s works many times at the college where I work, so that has given me opportunity to really think carefully about the books.

And, I suppose, writing about Tolkien’s great work gives me an excuse to spend more time with stories I love. That isn’t bad motivation.

I think what most led me to write about Tolkien, though, was my conviction that his works are not only deeply beautiful but also that they still speak today. They remain as relevant now as they were half a century ago. They still delve into the most important aspects of human experience, and shed light on concerns that are as much part of the 21st century and they were a part of the 20th. Reading Tolkien gives one a deeper insight into the world in which we live.

That, I think, is part of why I wrote about the books, and also why I am passionate about them.

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For more information on A Hobbit Journey, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Between the Lines: A Conversation with Matthew Dickerson – Part 1

October 8, 2012 by

We recently had the chance to talk with Matthew Dickerson about his new Brazos book, A Hobbit Journey.

Matthew Dickerson (PhD, Cornell University) is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a writer, and the director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf. His previous works include From Homer to Harry Potter; The Mind and the Machine; Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis; and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R .R. Tolkien.

In today’s post, Matthew speaks about the relationship between our world and the world of The Lord of the Rings.

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In A Hobbit Journey, you write that The Lord of the Rings is “not about another world at all, but about our world.” Can you elaborate on this?

In saying that, I’m actually echoing Tolkien’s own ideas. But it does take a bit of unraveling to figure out both what he means and what he does not mean.

Certainly in some sense Middle-earth is another world, and these books could appropriately be called works of fantasy. The geography of Middle-earth is not the geography of our world. The seas, mountains, oceans, rivers, and cities don’t line up with any of our continents. And it’s not set in any one historical period of our world either.

But in many other ways, Middle-earth is very much based on the world in which we live and in which Tolkien lived. Most directly, it is based on languages and myths of our world, especially various Norse myths, which of course came from a particular period and geographic setting in our history. In fact, the word Middle-earth is just a modern English version of an Old English and Old Norse word meaning the world of men—as distinct from Asgard, the world of the gods.

Then, too, many of the cultures and peoples of Middle-earth are based very closely on peoples of our world. The most obvious example is Rohan and its people, the Rohirrim, who are based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon peoples, at least in terms of their poetry, language, names, and values. Even the geography of Middle-earth isn’t quite so different from that of Europe, with the Shire taking the place of England in the upper northwest, and down in the south you have Gondor where Ancient Rome was.

Perhaps most importantly, I think Tolkien portrayed through story many ideas that he thought were philosophically true—and to a large extent theologically true—about our world, and indeed are based on that which is true in our world.

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For more information on A Hobbit Journey, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.

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Best of The Brazos Blog – Between the Lines

September 10, 2012 by

It is the one year anniversary of The Brazos Blog! To celebrate we are posting the best of the blog – along with a variety of giveaways (we will have one per day – see below).

Today we are featuring our “Between the Lines” blog posts. In these posts, we share conversations with our authors about their book, its inspiration, and its reception. You can see all of our “Between the Lines” posts here.

Over the last year, we have posted interviews with Charles Gutenson, David Benner, Gary Colledge, Eric O. Jacobsen, and many others.

Today we would like to feature our interview with Brazos author Miroslav Volf about his book A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good.

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To whom was this book written and what do you hope that they take away from their experience with it?

We live in an inescapably pluralistic world. In many countries, Christians are one among many religious communities. Positively, the purpose of the book is to suggest a way—an authentically Christian way—of being engaged in promoting human flourishing and the common good while seeing oneself as just one among many communities living “under a the same roof.” Negatively, my goal is to suggest a way to avoid the twin dangers of faith’s public “idleness” and “coerciveness.”

In your book, you argue that religious points of view should have a place in the political or public arena. In what ways do religious voices do this well? In what ways do they do this poorly?

Religious folks participate in public life poorly when they seek to impose their own “true vision of human flourishing and of the common good” on others. Now, believing that I know what makes for human flourishing and serves the public good is not a problem—provided I don’t claim infallibility and am willing to learn; indeed, such belief is a precondition of vigorous engagement in public life. Conversely, religious folks participate in public life well when, in addition to embracing the truth of their own position, they respect those who disagree with them (in obedience to the injunction in 1 Peter to “honor everyone”). Respect here means giving others space to articulate their position as well as willingness to learn from them.

How has the role of Christianity in the public life of the West changed in the last hundred years? Is this a positive or negative thing?

In many countries in the West, a century ago Christian churches were dominant cultural institutions. Today this is no longer so. Other religions have taken their own share of social space, and, even more importantly, secular institutions have gained in significance. Increasingly, Christian communities have become culturally marginal. Many Christians bemoan this development, fearing loss of power and influence. In contrast, I think that the former social dominance of the Christian churches and their proximity to political power have been more a curse than a blessing. Marginality is much more appropriate to people who worship the crucified Messiah. Does such marginality mean diminished influence? I am not sure it does. A good argument can be made that, close to political power, the Christian churches have historically less shaped the exercise of political power than been harnessed to serve the needs of political power.

How is Christianity’s view of the good life —or “human flourishing”—different from our Western culture’s?

In very broad strokes, I contrast “love of pleasure” and “pleasures of love.” Though with many exceptions, Western culture of today understands human flourishing as “experiential satisfaction” and is organized around love of pleasure. For many reasons, such a conception of human flourishing is deeply problematic and unsustainable. The Christian faith offers an alternative that I, as a committed Christian, find immensely compelling. We flourish when we love God with our whole being and neighbors as ourselves. For many—not just secularists—this is unacceptable. Today we need a vigorous discussion about human flourishing. That is the most important public debate of all.

In your book, you argue that Christians should embrace pluralism as a political project. What do you mean by this?

By pluralism as a political project I mean embrace of political institutions which are on the idea that our societies have become culturally (including religiously) pluralistic and which give “equal voice” to all people, irrespective of their cultural and religious identity. Each person can bring into public debate their own vision of human flourishing, vision derived from their own religious faith or non-religious perspective on life. Pluralism as a political project doesn’t imply that all perspectives are roughly equally true or beneficial; that’s a feature of what one might call “world-view pluralism” (or, in some versions, “relativism”). Pluralism as a political project is rather the idea that people advocating divergent perspectives have all equal right to shape the public space.

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Filed Under: Between the Lines

Between the Lines: A Conversation with Eric O. Jacobsen -Part 2

August 13, 2012 by

Eric O. JacobsenBrazos readers know Eric O. Jacobsen from his 2003 book Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. Eric has just released a new work with our sister division, Baker Academic, titled The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment.

Eric O. Jacobsen (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington. Along with Sidewalks in the Kingdom and The Space Between, he is the author of numerous articles exploring connections between the Christian community, the church, and traditional neighborhoods.

We recently got a chance to ask Eric a few questions about The Space Between.

Last week, Eric discussed the relationship between his latest work and Sidewalks in the Kingdom.

Today, he tells us more about the history and message of The Space Between.

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Tell us a little bit about The Space Between. What is the main argument or purpose of your book? Why did you feel compelled to write it?

I sense that there is a major cultural discussion going on right now about geography.  On the one hand, the popularity of the internet, cell phones, and social networking technologies seems to be telling us that geography doesn’t matter and we can have a rich experience of community wherever we happen to be. On the other hand, there seems to be an equally strong localist movement that wants to assert that geography and place are intensely important. Farmers’ markets are popping up all over the place, cities are tearing up arterial streets to put in bike lanes, and there is a lot of emphasis on shopping local and investing in our neighborhoods. This discussion is going on all around us, but we lack a comprehensive framework and a vocabulary to make sense of it. If public interaction with other people is important, why is it so, and how does the shape of our public spaces impact our experience of community? I wrote The Space Between to help the Christian community understand this conversation and to equip us to engage it in meaningful ways.

In your book, you challenge your readers to look at the built environment theologically as a place for human thriving and Christian discipleship. What do you believe are the greatest obstacles for this? What are a few examples of how this plays out on a practical level?

The Space BetweenI think that the greatest obstacle to understanding the theological implications of the built environment is our fragmented pattern of thinking. We think about each day in terms of what we need to accomplish, and then we think of each of those things as separate activities to be done in separate places. We need to run a few errands, we need to work out, and we need to spend time with our kids, so we schedule a trip to the grocery store, the gym, and the park. The automobile allows us to accomplish these things in a single afternoon, even though each activity may be twenty to thirty minutes away from the others. We can get those things accomplished, but the experience of getting through that list is going to leave us feeling harried and disconnected.

In the not too distant past, a person might have walked to the grocery store with her kids, which would have allowed all three activities to be accomplished in an overlapping and holistic way. Putting together communities that allow for this kind of multivalent interaction takes more work then just building a strip mall in the middle of nowhere, but ultimately it is these settings that help us live as integrated beings and build up human community. In The Space Between, I try to lay some of the groundwork for building settings that do a better job connecting us to one another and to our world.

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For more information on The Space Between, click here.
To read an excerpt, click here.
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