In honour of the Pope’s highly successful tour of England (a.k.a the Roman Invasion) and in the spirit of complete bias in reporting, I’ve decided to play advocatus diaboli to Andrew’s advocatus Dei.

It’s amazing what you find by being literal with Google: who would have thought that there was a Jewish iPhone Community website: I mean, apart from the Jewish iPhone community?

In flat contradiction to the offlining movement, the Jewish iPhone community is advocating for Yom Kippur in glorious MP3.

Similarly a Cincinnati-based congregation is offering live stream of High Holidays services to the pocket of your choice.

Offlining during Yom Kippur is an understandably Jewish response to contemporary hyper-connectivity. Yet, both of my examples above fit well into another very  Jewish tradition, that of tikkun olam (תיקון עולם‎), a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world.” The concept originated in the early rabbinic period from the performance of ritual mitzvot (commandments or religious obligations). It was given new meaning under Lurianic Kabbalah, in which God contracted part of God’s self into vessels of light to create the world. These vessels shattered and their shards became sparks of light trapped within the material of creation. Prayer, especially contemplation of various aspects of the divinity (sephirot), releases these sparks and allows them to reunite with God’s essence.

The question is, can cyber-space also contain these sparks to redeem? Given the existence of 4chan it’s easy to argue that the virtual world needs all the repairing it can get.

Jewish iPhone Community website, ‘Yom Kippur in mp3‘

Jonah Mandel, ‘Rosh Hashana online; Yom Kippur services go mobile‘, The Jerusalem Post (09/07/2010)

Dr. Lawrence Fine, ‘Tikkun in Lurianic Kabbalah‘, MyJewishLearning.com

BONUS REFERENCE! Blogger Velveteen Rabbi gathers together a whole bunch of Yommy sparks from across the cyber-expanse here and here.

(C) FIAA GmbH

Rumours of a Bible MMO have been greatly exaggerated. The Bible Online: Chapter 1 – The Heroes looks to be less than its source material might promise. Players assume the role of Abraham and (somehow) his descendants; this last being perhaps the most interesting feature mentioned. I’m not sure how they could incorporate that into the MMO-sphere, but I’d be interested to see how they did (the screenshot above may give some small clue).

I had initially hoped for a Sword and Sandal epic in glorious 3D, but so far we have what looks like a particularly insipid RTS. I get that you can play it online, but I’m not sure that makes it Massively Multiplayer. Apparently RPG elements will also feature, but these are not yet represented on the rather barren website.

One should not imagine The Bible Online to inhabit the same space as juggernauts such as World of Warcraft, or even smaller residents such as Warhammer Online; rather, it belongs to the surprisingly large but still unexplored (by me) world of free, browser-based MMO’s. Publisher FIAA have two other games on the market: FPS Operation 7 and traditional, fantasy RPG Kalos War. FIAA are situated in Germany, so perhaps the information on their website holds up better in their native tongue, but descriptions of Kalos War – itself incorporating Judaeo-Christian history and mythology in an interesting manner – include the following:

The elders of the Presbyterian Vanadin El Lathir of the Elf lost the Holy Sword that was kept in a secret place. Worried that this may break the current truce, Vanadin and his companions began to trace the whereabouts of the secret mark.

The Bible Online‘s site contains much less information at the moment, although it appears news bureaus were issued with a press release of some sort. This garnered attention from the boys at Penny Arcade, who (although they seem to have mistaken Genesis for Exodus) responded in the expected manner.

via Jerry “Tycho Brahe” Holkins ‘Remove Sandals 0/2‘, Penny Arcade (30/8/10)

(With apologies to Penny Arcade.)

Seen the other day on Oceanic World of Warcraft realm Nagrand:

“Efimovich: is recruiting now. We are a Christian guild dedicated to following Christ’s example and playing Warcraft as he would wish us to. We are looking for a Christian warlock and Christian shaman to join our 25 man Naxx group.“

I wish he’d said “Christian shaman” before “Christian warlock”: they’re both funny, but “warlock” makes for a better punchline. He continued to say that Anglicans, Protestants and Catholics were all welcome, before stating that:

“A letter of reference from your pastor, vicar or priest may be required.”

Veterans of WoW may remember a Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transsexual guild that was initially banned a few years ago by an unimaginative moderator, on the grounds that it violated their policy prohibiting sexual discrimination. A public furore ensued and the ban was overturned. I believe this guild’s required certification of one’s Christianity would violate the policy against discrimination on the grounds of creed.

To muddy matters somewhat, the guild’s name Maskirovka is a Russian word meaning ‘camouflage, concealment’, and is often used as a loanword by the West to denote  military deception or a ‘fog of war’. The name of the poster (and, presumably, guild master), “Efimovich”, is similarly mystifying, as it was Rasputin’s middle name. Was the poster’s tongue in his cheek? This seems unlikely, as a drawn-out debate proceeded apace in the Trade channel following the original post, and Efimovich staunchly defended his right to advertise his Christianity and form a guild based on it. It is, after all, a free country. The majority of his detractors simply said he was a pederast, or words to that effect.

That was the best pun-tacular headline I could come up with. The usual apologies to all.

Finnish Muslim social site Muxlim has created a virtual world, Muxlim Pal, which is currently in open beta. Muxlim chief executive Mohamed El-Fatatry said this world is primarily for Muslims in western countries, for whom expressing their religious selves is more of an issue than for those in primarily Muslim countries.

Only 98% of members (presumably of the Muxlim social networking site rather than the new Muxilm Pal world) were said to be Muslims, with the other 2% presumably friends and interested hangers-on.