Convert Or Die?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Religion, Technology
A charming new video game from the folks who brought you the Left Behind book series is on the shelves right now, and well…if you don’t think radical, extremists have taken over the evangelical movement and are now its voice…please keep reading.
Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.
The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.
This is probably the best/worst/saddest part of this story/game/insanity:
Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.“You are fighting a defensive battle in the game,” Frichner, whose previous company produced Bible software, said of combatting the Antichrist. “You are a sort of a freedom fighter.”
And yes, the retailer who has banned albums from Sheryl Crow, Nirvana and the Goo Goo Dolls, as well as books from authors like George Carlin, is not backing down from this fight. They’re going to keep the Left Behind game on the shelf, come hell or…er…wait…
A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the retailer has no plans to pull Left Behind: Eternal Forces from any of the 200 of Wal-Mart’s 3,800 stores that offer the game, including just seven in California. The nearest are in Chico and Redding.“We look at the community to see where it will sell,” said Tara Raddohl. “We have customers who are buying it and really haven’t received a lot of complaints about it from our customers at this time.”
Always low standards. Always.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 and is filed under Religion, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 13th, 2006 at 10:49 am
So let me get this straight. Justin says ban this game, Sean says don’t ban Holocaust denial. And guest commenter “David Duke” says “I am not a crook”. These two posts appear one on top of the other. My brain hurts.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
It’s a ridiculous idea for a game, it should be banned on the basis of stupidity. Let’s simply eschew the notions of religious whateverness – it’s a dumb idea for a game.
With any luck, we can kill two birds with one stone by keeping it in Wal-Mart:
1) Cutting in on Wal-Mart’s bottom line
2) Killing the franchise where it stands
December 13th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Never underestimate the public’s desire for a new reason to shoot down pixellated “other guys” in video twitch games.
Personally I prefer the swords and sorcery and strategy/tactics type games over the first person shooters.
December 13th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
As a Christian, this is exactly the type of thing that makes me a little ashamed to identify myself that way. In my opinion, the Church’s only charge from God is to show the rest of the world God’s love. As long as it is following that command, the rest of the commandments and other details fall into place.
How does this fall into that? I’m not sure, and I hesitate to criticize anyone who really and honestly believes and seeks to follow the will of their God, but this just seems like another lame attempt to make Christianity “cool.” This is the last thing my faith needs – again as far as I’m concerned.
These are just my rants though.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:56 am
WWJD??? buy this game, play it, and laugh hysterically… really… reminds of me of that bit on family guy with the bewitched flashback, where Endora gets the holy water thrown on her by Darren, and he yells, ‘you know what that is Endora? Huh?? It’s holy water! yeah, like that don’t ya?? Power of Christ compels you B***h!’
I can’t wait to see this game, it’s the funniest thing i’ve ever heard. And the quote from the company’s Rep about after you kill people you just pray to get your soul points back…
December 16th, 2006 at 10:26 am
In creating the game, the Left Behind Games Company photographed hundreds of blocks of New York City in great detail.
The population group depicting the city residents, however, looks nothing like the real residents of NYC, and they are depicting as lacking religious beliefs.
As a simple extension of logic from facts on the official game website, the game allows players to act out a campaign of religious warfare in which all the residents of NYC will be converted or, sadly, killed. Initial descriptions of the game described characters from the Christian “Tribulation Force” exclaiming “praise the Lord !” as they killed their opponents.
The game is based on the “Left Behind” book series and the “evil” forces in the game, the “Global Peacekeepers” are in the book series the forces of the UN and commanded by the antichrist. In co-author Tim LaHaye’s series all non-fundamentalist Christians left on earth after the “Rapture” die exceedingly gory deaths and then go to hell to suffer for all eternity. LaHaye believes that there is a 200 year old Illuminati conspiracy to create a satanic one world government and that public education, secular government, and and something called “secular humanism” are part of that conspiracy. That Lahaye’s paranoid, bigoted ideology gets packed into the videogame in various ways. For example, characters on the “evil” side in the game are described as “secularists” skilled at deception who got their training in “college”. Rock musicians are all on the side of evil in the game, and the evil side features a number of characters with middle-eastern sounding ( presumeably Muslim ) names. ( for an 8-part series on LaHaye’s beliefs, see: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/26/122744/780 )
The game’s makers have admitted that the game is rigged – the side of ‘evil’ can never lose. So what is it ? What is a game in which players can never lose ? Is it a game ? Is it indoctrination into the ideology of religious warfare ?
Initially, at the introductory levels, the game seems innocuous – players spend most of their time converting noncombatants and acquiring resources ; the heavy violence comes later in the game.
Interestingly, the CEO of Left Behind Games, Troy Lyndon, made statements to Computer Gaming World last February, 2006, to the effect that imply the current commercial release of “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” will desensitize teenage gamers to violence. ( http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/12/15/13453/933 ) :
“The CEO of Left Behind Games, who has recently characterized the nature of “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” as potentially wholly nonviolent such that “You can actually play the entire game without firing a shot.” ( from a Boston Globe review of the game ) said in February 2006 that play resulted in “hundreds of dead bodies” piling up on the lovingly detailed streets of the virtual New York City in his game and that he thought the game might gain a “mature” audience rating for its depiction of mass killing. But Lyndon expressed a concern that making those piles of corpses magically vanish would desensitize gamers to violence.
Then, Troy Lyndon’s game was redesigned prior to commercial release so that those dead bodies Lyndon referred to just disappeared… and it was marketed to a 13 to 34 age range that included teenagers. “
March 12th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I myself don’t believe in God, I am in fact a devoted Buddhist. I find this this game very humerous and i would probably play it once or twice. I’m not a big fan of video game or PC games, i prefer to spend my time more valuably.