Toying with God

Bado-Fralick and Norris present an analysis of religious games and toys which notes their connection to the commodification of religion in modern western society, and the efforts by religions to market their own values in competition with those of consumer culture. There is really nothing like this very thoroughly researched work, which combines research on popular culture/material culture with study of games/toys and religion.

~John Lyden, Professor of Religion, Dana College, and Author of Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals

Bado-Fralick and Sachs Norris provide a dense and quite complete study on 'the world of religious games and dolls' in a perspective that will interest not only the study of religions but also other related fields of social and cultural studies.

~Florence Pasche Guignard, Numen

For Bado-Fralick and Sachs Norris (religious studies professors at Iowa State University and Merrimack College, respectively), religious games and dolls are charged with 'the magic of childhood combined with the mystery of religion.' The authors brilliantly use their subject to reveal a complex interplay between worship and the workings of popular culture. A detour into ancient divination practices using dice, magical dolls, and sports as ritual shows these items to be anything but superficial, and raises a central question: why do religious playthings often evoke feelings of unease? Like the religious toys it analyses, this book is at once fun and serious business. Dolls like Buddy Christ and Nunzilla or unwinnable Buddhist board games may produce a few perplexed laughs, but a game like Missionary Conquest, won by setting up the most global missions, has an undeniably colonialist edge. The authors also use toys and dolls to explore consumerism, feminism, politics, and the nature of ritual and play. In this readable and fresh look at religious culture, the authors are critical and respectful. They’d rather cast dice than throw stones.

~Publisher's Weekly

While some people might scoff at religious toys and games, viewing them as frivolous or irreverent or both, the book argues that such playthings are simply examples of 'contemporary lived religion' in a postmodern world.

~Leanne Larmondin, Religion News Service, Christian Index

A work of original and seminal scholarship, Toying With God is a 210-page, informed and informative compendium providing a historical and analytical survey of the role games, toys, and dolls play within the context of a religious culture, including the underlying commercial implications for those that produce them. Enhanced with a profusion of notes, an extensive bibliography, and a comprehensive index, Toying With God is a unique and recommended addition for academic and community library Religious Studies and Popular Culture reference collections and personal reading lists.

~Midwest Book Review