What's wrong with a video game that depicts a "defensive" religious war set in a real, contemporary US city that's been recreated in loving detail - at least in terms of the physical features of the city - and which features game characters that look nothing like the real city residents they are supposed to depict and who do not bleed when they are killed, at close range, by assault weapons and whose corpses simply fade away from where they lie on the city streets ? What's the big deal if the game is based on a bloodthirsty pop-culture series that's been read by upwards of sixty million people ? So what if the game suggests that "secularism" is satanic and depicts a total war in which there can be no noncombatants ?

So what if this game sidesteps the moral and religious injunctions against killing by enabling players to do rote penance, when the game characters they command kill, by repetitively pressing a "prayer button" on their gaming joysticks ? ( note: this piece has been excerpted from a longer piece of writing entitled Religious Warfare Stocking Stuffer.

Religious warfare is now on store shelves in time for holiday shopping. Nothing like a video game depicting religious warfare against an existing, modern US city to bring out the true Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho.

Public concern about the video game based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels is growing. It is the only video game that indoctrinates children in an ideology of religious warfare. And people are beginning to take action.

Our friends at DefCon today sent an e-mail to their national list, calling on WalMart to stop selling Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

This development comes just a week after a coalition of American progressive Christian groups called on the manufacturer to recall the game, and for Christians to boycott it.   Mainstream Baptists were soon urged to join the campaign. And The Muslim Association of Britain, called the game "evil":

This game is irresponsible and highly racist. It demonises every other religion which isn't Christianity. People must boycott this violent game. "Games like this poison the minds of young people."

"Eternal Forces is the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior—and use to raise some interesting questions along the way" - from a review in "Plugged In Online", a website published by Focus On The Family

The violence depicted in "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, and the inherent ideology, which suggests all religious beliefs except for fundamentalist Christianity are invalid and casts public education as satanic, has prompted a coalition of Christian groups to denounce the game and call for a consumer boycott, and the game has also prompted a lawsuit from one conservative critic of video game violence.

James Dobson, founder of Focus On The Family, has used his prominent position to inveigh against the alleged threat of homosexuality and, in 2005, accused that a children's television cartoon character representing an underwater sea-sponge*, "Spongebob Squarepants", was being used to promote a supposedly "pro-homosexual video". Yet, as depicted in the eponymously named cartoon series, Spongebob Squarepants seems to promote what most would tend to think of "family values", by displaying exceedingly high moral and ethical standards and taking great pains to avoid hurting anyone's feelings let alone causing any sort of physical injury.

In sharp contrast, the powerful "family values" advocacy organization Dobson founded, Focus On The Family, apparently approves of pop-culture products depicting religious warfare, at least when waged on the right sort of people - such as New York City residents. The organization also seems to have endorsed the "satanic role playing" the game affords players, who can command the forces of the "AntiChrist", as family-friendly and kid-safe.

Modern Christian Right Print Culture
as an Apocalyptic Master Frame

by Dr. Brenda E. Brasher and Chip Berlet
Copyright 2004-2006, All rights reserved, crossposting online of this text is prohibited. Presented at the conference on Religion and the Culture of Print in America, Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America, University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 10-11, 2004
[Read Part Two] - [Read Part Three]
Within the subculture of the contemporary Christian Right, an entire genre of literature flourishes that suggests sinister conspiracies are behind high profile current events. One of the most popular contributions to this literary stream is a series of twelve books commonly referred to as the Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Each book explores Christian apocalyptic themes and motifs via the fictional device of a modern setting.

The following is a short compendium of research into methods and processes by which human instinctual inhibitions can be bypassed or dampened such that average human beings can be socially conditioned to carry out acts of genocide and mass violence against fellow members of their own species, even against their neighbors.

The subject material is not pleasant, but those concerned with the question of how it is that genocides and mass violence can occur will want to confront this body of research, knowledge of which has the potential to avert future tragedies.

I've extracted the following writing and references from a post I made at Talk To Action, June 4, 2006 entitled Enough hate speech to stun an ox, to serve as a reference for upcoming posts on this forum but I do not intent to suggest that such material relates specifically to the Christian and religious right ; this research does not concern any one identifiable human group of any sort but applies, rather, to the shared nature and behavioral potential of all humans.

Mainstream Baptists are being encouraged to join Crosswalk America's boycott of the Left Behind:  Eternal Forces video game.

Winning the game requires players to either convert or kill any character in the game that does not convert to fundamentalist Christianity.  Advocates of church-state separation as well as Catholics, Jews, gays and Muslims are targeted for extermination.

Sunday morning at 11:00 CST Dr. Bruce Prescott I will interview Jonathan Hutson on the "Religious Talk" radio program.  Jonathan Hutson first discovered the violent, sub-Christian nature of the Left Behind video game last May and exposed it in a series of blogs on the Talk to Action website.  His expose led Rick Warren to disassociate himself from the project and two staff members to resign from his organization.

A podcast of the radio interview will be posted to the Mainstream Baptist podcast archive Sunday afternoon.

This statement was distributed at today's press conference by Christian groups calling for the recall of the video game, Left Behind:  Eternal Forces.  -- FC

Last May, our colleague Jonathan Hutson posted a groundbreaking and shocking analysis of the then, forthcoming video game, Left Behind:  Eternal Forces. In the game, he reported, players control an end-times Christian militia that roams the streets of New York City, seeking to convert or kill New Yorkers. He also reported that the game indoctrinates children and young adults into an ideology of religious warfare, which may be expected in their lifetime.

We believe that the manufacturers should withdraw the game and apologize to their fellow Americans for the spreading, however unintentionally, of a base and dangerous brand of religious bigotry.

On Tuesday, November 28th, CrossWalk America in conjunction with the Christian Alliance for Progress (CAP) and other groups including Talk2Action will hold a press conference to condemn the Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game "that explicitly encourages 'Left Behind Christian Converts' to convert or kill a host of people deemed unfit for the Kingdom of God."

According to the press release:

"In the video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces would be rapture survivors are issued high tech military weaponry and instructed to engage the infidel in New York City. The mission? Convert or kill anyone not adhering to a Fundamentalist view of Christianity. This could include Catholics, Jews, Gays, Muslims and anyone who advocates the separation of Church and State, whether they are Christian or non-Christian."

Sign an online petition here.

Talk2Action was in the forefront of exposing this game, and we encourage our readers to spread the word about this press conference. Links to Talk2Action posts on this topic follow below:

At a press conference today in Phoenix, Arizona, a coalition of Christian groups will call for the recall of the hate-based video game Left Behind:  Eternal Forces.  Talk to Action will contribute a statement for the event.  Talk to Action's Jonathan Hutson's ground-breaking series remains the definitive critique of the game. Chip Berlet's series on  Tim LaHaye, the author fo the series of novels on which the game is based, explains the games' underlying hate-based ideology.

CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, Christian Alliance for Progress and The Center for Progressive Christianity will also urge consumers to boycott the video game, which is being released "just in time for the holidays," according to the manufacturer.  The press release is reproduced in its entirety on the flip.

Here at Talk to Action we observed from early on that the new video game Left Behind:  Eternal Forces is premised, among other things, on the idea of converting or killing present day New Yorkers; and that the game serves to indoctrinate children in an ideology of religious warfare.  We have noted that other reviwers see it this way too.  Most recently, a reviewer at the Toronto Star newspaper joins us in recognizing the essential character of the game.