The media is beginning to sit up and take notice of citizen concerns about the first Christian instructional video on religious warfare for children. This morning the San Francisco Chronicle had a front page story describing citizen concerns about the video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which is based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels. The story is titled: 'Convert or die' game divides Christians: Some ask Wal-Mart to drop Left Behind.
The Chronicle surfaced an excellent example of the delusional disingenuosness of the gam'es developers::
Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia's side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics. Every character comes with a life story.
When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, [company president] Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game.
"That is so obvious," he said.
This was followed today with a well attended press and blogger teleconference hosted by DefCon, (the Campaign to Defend the Constitution) which featered comments by Clark Stevens of DefCon, Tim Simpson of the Christian Alliance for Progress, and Frederick Clarkson of Talk to Action.
Beginnning with Jonathan Hutson's ground breaking seriesexposing the hate-based agenda of the game, Talk to Action has done considerable reporting on and in-depth analysis of the game and its underlying ideology. Here is a brief anthology of Talk to Action posts that can serve as a backgrounder on the game.
Jonathan Hutson's ground breaking series on the game from last summer, while it was still in developmental stages is here:
Chip Berlet's series on the hate-based ideology of Tim LaHaye is here:
Statement of Frederick Clarkson and Bruce Wilson from the press conference sponsored by CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, Christian Alliance for Progress and The Center for Progressive Christianity annoucing a petition effort to get the game withdrawn from the market.
Bruce Wilson discusses the "prayer button."
Bruce Wilson discusses Focus on the Family's endorsement of the game.
Frederick Clarkson reports on the announcement of DefCon's campaign against WalMart to pull the game from the shelves.
Frederick Clarkson discusses the game as an instructional video for children in the ideology of religious warfare.
I am not going to reprise all of the remarkable reporting on the revolting aspects of this game, but for those who are unfamiliar with the game, suffice to say that the target audience for this game is evangelical Christians who are familiar with the Left Behind series. (For those who are not familiar, the game comes with a copy of the first book in the series.) Thus unlike other video games that are, whatever one thinks of their contetnt, entertaiment products. This is different for several reasons. It is being marketed primarily through churches and recommended to parents and young people in this way. Thus it comes with the authority of the church. (It is personally recommended by Tim LaHaye and been endorsed by Focus on the Family as well.) Thus the game, set in contemprary New York City, is more of an instrucitonal video about life in the End Times, in which you will be required to convert or kill fellow New Yorkers. There is no neutrality.
Rather than a game, it is more like a rehearsal for religious warfare that the players are tught to expect will happen in their lifetimes. Maybe soon. And this is the gift that evangelical Chrsitian teens all over the country will pull out from under the Christmans tree in a few weeks.
Merry Christmas, America, from Tim LaHaye and all the gang at Left Behind Games.
Update [2006-12-12 18:27:52 by Frederick Clarkson]: The Associated Press has just posted a wire story on the controversy and today's news conference.