Guest Post: Gaming and God (Samuru)

It’s my pleasure to have Samuru of Gaming and God, a fellow gamer and writer who works to share his passion of anime and video games in conjunction with bringing glory to God through these interests. Without further ado, I’ll let him share more about himself with you!


Thank you for the opportunity to write a guest post on your blog! I enjoy your writing, as it gives a hopeful and biblical view on some of my favorite games (and others I want to try like Animal Crossing). It’s always great to see more Christian gamers talking about their experiences, especially from a girl’s perspective as I don’t see that many out there doing this.

I want to start out by introducing myself. Online I go by Samuru, and my real name is Michael. My username came about many years ago, I think when I was in my early teens when I started playing Dungeons & Dragons. I didn’t know what the game was about, so a few friends of mine while I living in New York City told me they were playing it. They called it “papers and pencils”, which intrigued me as I had never heard of this game before and I was already a gamer by then. 

D&D Character Creation sheet

I was told I needed to come up with a name for my character for my character sheet. Back then, it was a black/white copy and you had to write everything in detail about various details of who you wanted to be. I liked Samurai, since they were considered powerful warriors and had cool armor so I went with the name “Samuru”, which sounded like Samurai. Did you know that the name Samuru in Japanese means “Who is like God?”, which is the same meaning as my real name? I kid you not, I was in shock when I Googled it! God is amazing, how He pays attention to the details in our lives so we give Him the glory for them all.

Now that you know why I picked that name, let me go over why I love gaming and how I started my blog, Gaming & God. Since I was around 8 or 9 years of age, I was playing the NES, then the following console upgrades after that. I’ve owned the NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, Game Gear, SEGA CD, PlayStation 1-4, borrowed a DreamCast for about a year or more, and used to go to the arcades monthly, if not every week. I’m no newbie in terms of gaming, nor do I pretend to be a spectator. I feel that if you are going to bring a positive change to a community, you need to be part of it and involved. Sadly, I see many times Christians talk poorly about video games yet they don’t play them nor understand the fans of this genre of entertainment. 

My blog came about when I felt the urge to share some of these lessons that I had learned as a gamer, as well as sharing what I felt God was showing me when I played certain games. I’m not saying that God audibly spoke to me or gave some “secret” that nobody knows, I’m talking about Lara Croft from Tomb Raider discovering truth in her journey like we do when we encounter Christ, or how Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII found forgiveness after having a baptism-type experience in the Advent Children movie. Comparisons like that kept coming to me as I played, and I didn’t see it being talked about anywhere so I went ahead and bought the domain GamingandGod.com, started a free WordPress account, and years later I’m still at it!

I write about various topics, like game reviews among other media reviews, my scriptural take on a character or plot of a game, creating resources for Christian gamers or just people who want a safe environment to talk about their hobby, event recaps like cons or concerts, interviews and lots more. There’s so much out there about gaming that I never run out of ideas to write about, I just hesitate writing them sometimes because I second guess how my posts will come out.

Over time, I’ve gone from just writing blog posts or being on staff with sites like Geeks Under Grace or Beneath The Tangles (still there) to socializing more on social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) or joining discussions and Bible studies on Discord. I want to be in the middle of what is happening in gaming culture right now and not live in the past, though I love retro gaming and consider myself one! There are more communities popping up with Christians who game so that’s always great to see. 

Some aspirations I have with my blog and brand, Gaming & God, is to connect more with these larger communities and be a bridge for other gamers to find them, Christian or not. I would also like to generate some money from the blog to pay for its expenses, like hosting, graphics, or even equipment if I want to expand to things like podcasting or other media. A few other ideas I want to act on would be resources for parents, writing a book or two (either a compilation of blog posts or something else), and interview developers or other team members of major gaming companies. The bible calls us to be the salt and light of the Earth (Matthew 5:13-16), so that’s what I pray to God to lead me to do with my writing. That is always the motivation in all that I do, and I pray that He would lead me to make the right decisions to do that daily. 


Thank you again to Samuru for this wonderful post! Please check out Gaming and God for more of his insights and work, as well as the other communities and resources listed here.

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