This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the "religious-social shaping of technology" and students are asked to consider four key areas: religious tradition and history; contemporary community values and priorities; negotiation and innovating technology in light of the community; communal discourses applied to justify use.

While the video game industry is usually willing to court controversy when the potential payoff is worth it, concepts of spirituality and faith have generally been avoided by both developers and publishers. In fact, religion seems to be such a taboo subject to include in video games that the only type of faith that really appears in titles here in the US is Christianity. Even then, the subject is often poorly addressed in games that are themselves poorly made. But why is it that religious content is so sparse in the realm of video games? The reasons are largely based on contention between religious and industry leaders, as well as the fact that you'll rarely find a topic as personal as faith.

The special issue of the Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology is out. As guest editors, Robert M. Geraci and I have tried to put together unique collection of articles on technology and religion. Three of the articles published deal with the production of Islamic knowledge for European Muslim minorities on the Internet – namely Carmen Becker’s article on German and Dutch Salafi online forums, Jens Kutscher’s article on online muftis, and my essay on marriage and divorce fatwas online.