UPDATE:
Crooks and Liars has frontpaged this story. The scandal continues!....
NOTE: for those of you coming over from Atrios / Eschaton, the full 5 part series which has provoked this growing scandal is located at :
Talk To Action
Also, we're working on arranging a radio show on this - check back in a few days, at this post or at Talk To Action, for details. Cheers, Bruce Wilson
"Dear Dr. Dobson ....Tyndale House Must Be Broken"
The "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" videogame that lets players simulate converting to Christianity or killing the citizens of New York City has become a dead cow in the living room to leaders of the Christian right. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and The Southern Baptist Convention have not denounced the game and have refused to even comment on it (see June 7 Washington Times story). But, ignoring the stink will only allow it to grow worse.
[ left: Jack Thompson's letter to James Dobson. Jonathan Hutson will post the full size verion of the letter momentarily at
Talk To Action ]
Talk To Action's Jonathan Hutson has now posted the 5th installment of his running series on the videogame scandal that has already led Mark Carver, a top aide to "A Purpose Driven Life" author and mega-church pastor Rick Warren, to resign from his role giving business advice to Left Behind Games. Now an infuriated Christian conservative attourney and activist, Jack Thompson, has moved aggressively to challenge the moral complicity of major Christian right leaders and organizations trying to ignore the stench of the game:
Tyndale House, which licenses "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" also publishes a book, by Thompson, against videogame violence ! Is it any wonder Thompson is furious ?
"My words cannot fully describe what a betrayal this has been by Tyndale," Mr. Thompson wrote in a letter dated June 9, 2006, that he faxed to Mr. Dobson, "not just to me but to all of the Christian families out there who are trying to protect our kids from the corrosive, violent effects of violent media. A Christian organization has now become one of the mental molesters of minors for money." ( emphasis mine )
Now, many people get distracted by the issue of video games and violence. No, says Jonathan Hutson : that's not the important point here. The central issue is indoctrination:
( Hutson ) Comparisons to Grand Theft Auto
and other such video game titles are irrelevant to this discussion. It is not the level of violence that is at issue, but the Christian supremacy. This game immerses children in an environment that copies present-day New York, and indoctrinates and rehearses children in the mass killing of New Yorkers. This is religious indoctrination that forms children's identities and teaches that they must be prepared to do a deadly deed to defend their creed. That message is unAmerican and unChristian; patriots and Christians alike should oppose this game.
"Left Behind: Eternal Forces" habituates those who play it to a violent religious supremacist ideology that demonizes an entire societal group, the "unfaithful", as targeted for destruction. That's the sort of demonization, of one or more societal groups, which in history has often preceded acts of mass political violence.
( from my recent post, Enough Hate Speech To Stun An Ox )Recent research and scholarship suggests that ordinary humans have the capacity to carry out mass violence and that this capacity can be conditioned. Whitworth University professor James Waller, author of Becoming Evil : How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing has been one of the leaders in investigating the factors which seem to precede episodes of mass violence. Waller argues that the capacity for mass violence is a normal one and that it can be conditioned, or brought out, by various environmental factors including societal polarization and also the use of demonizing and dehumanizing language, and other forms of hate speech
This is not a minor scandal : it has the potential to open a deep rift among factions of the Christian right...
The scandal is not merely located in the violence of the game - which the makers of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" note is much less graphic than "Grand Theft Auto". That is true, but there is a deeper and far uglier form of ideological violence underneath : the indoctrination and conditioning of children towards religious warfare.
"Left Behind Games" has stated, on its website, its hopes of winning either a "suitable for ages 13 and up" or even a "suitable for ages 6 and up" rating for "Left Behind: Eternal Forces".
Marketing this game to 6 year olds ? - "molesting minors for money" indeed.
Writes Jonathan Hutson :
One need not agree with Mr. Thompson's legal strategy in this case, whatever it may turn out to be. However, he does raise a valid point: it is no good for conservative Christian leaders to preach against video game violence on a Sunday, and invest in it on Monday - and then distribute 1 million sample discs through the pews of mega-churches on the following Sunday. Nor does it serve Christian leaders well to stay conspicuously silent about a video game that indoctrinates and rehearses children in the mass killing of New Yorkers. Mr. Thompson should be given credit for severing ties with his publisher, Tyndale House, and for calling them to account for their hypocrisy in publishing Mr. Thompson's book against video game violence while at the same time licensing Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which is not only violent, but Christian supremacist.
The Purpose Driven Life Takers (Part 1)
Violent Video Marketed Through Mega-Churches (Part 2)
Revelation and Resignation (Part 3)
Christian Cadre's Layman: 'A Whopper of Being Wrong' (Part 4)
Apocalypse, Now a Lawsuit (Part 5)
below : I've added a little photoshopped blood to this clip from an image released to promote "Left Behind: Eternal Forces". Children have active imaginations, so I think that is fair.