Michael Haycock

MICHAEL HAYCOCK {[email protected]} received his bachelor’s from Yale and his master’s in religion from Claremont Graduate University. He currently serves as the Christian Life Coordinator at Georgetown University.

The Earth and the Inhabitants Thereof (Non-)Humans in the Divine Household

Articles/Essays – Volume 52, No. 4

In 2009, Elder David A. Bednar warned about potential pitfalls of digital spaces. Reminding listeners that the acquisition of our bodies was our primary reason for entering mortality, he said, “some young men and young women in the Church today ignore ‘things as they really are’ and neglect eternal relationships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no lasting value”: eternity or bust. In immersive virtual environments like Second Life, the allure of the merely simulated—“the monotony of virtual repetition”—can substitute “for the infinite variety of God’s creations and convince us we are merely mortal things to be acted upon instead of eternal souls blessed with moral agency to act for ourselves.”