God Gameth, and God Bloweth Away
Click here to read a story titled "The Purpose-Driven Life-Takers". It's on Talk To Action, a site about resisting religious Dominionism. This is their synopsis of the new video game based on the Left Behind books:
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.
This game immerses children in present-day New York City -- 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards children for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian. The game also offers players the opportunity to switch sides and fight for the army of the AntiChrist, releasing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on conservative Christians and their panicked proselytes (who taste a lot like Christian).
Is this paramilitary mission simulator for children anything other than prejudice and bigotry using religion as an organizing tool to get people in a violent frame of mind? The dialogue includes people saying, "Praise the Lord," as they blow infidels away.
Comments
raendrop on May. 31, 2006 6:50 PM
*gapes*
*is scared*
cosette-valjean on May. 31, 2006 7:13 PM — Please tell me this is fake
Please...please
I'm amazed this ever got made let alone sold????? I'm disgusted at the very thought of it.
matt-arnold on May. 31, 2006 7:31 PM — Re: Please tell me this is fake
It's not yet sold. I myself am not quite willing to completely believe this article's synopsis of the game until I see it with my own eyes. Are players intended to literally target non-combatants for failing to convert? Or is the game going to depict homosexuals, buddhists and other groups of non-Christians taking up arms to kill Christians for their beliefs? I'll find out when the game is released.
zifferent on May. 31, 2006 8:45 PM
So I spent some time online trying to prove that this a spoof site.
I checked a Whois lookup:
Domain Name: LEFTBEHINDGAMES.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS1.TIERRA.NET
Name Server: NS2.TIERRA.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 26-feb-2006
Creation Date: 08-jan-2002
Expiration Date: 15-apr-2007
Nothing odd there except that the account was originally created on the 8th of January 2002.
That jives because later I found that the company was started in October of 2001.
But I also saw in another article that the company supposedly went public earlier this year, and I was thinking "Gotcha" in that a stock ticker symbol would be almost impossible to fake. Well they exist even if they did change their ticker symbol recently:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LFBG.OB
It all seems to checkout. Except the checkout. Using a spamgourmet email address, impersonating Spuds McKenzie and using a previous job's street address I tryed to buy something. Now if I picked something free, it just spits me back out, but even if I select a non-free product the site NEVER went into secure mode,
My gut says it's a fake, but everything else seems real.
blzblack on May. 31, 2006 10:52 PM
I can't imagine Christians buying it--paramilitary whackos, sure; kids who want to blow people away, sure.
mjwise on May. 31, 2006 11:38 PM
The actual site for the game alarms me a little less than this review - it looks more like a real time strategy game a la warcraft than a FPS from their screenshots. I think the article on that site is a tad shrill. The trailer for the game is almost funny - it tries to be actively religious but manages to only be quite generic in references to "God" with nothing more specific said.
I don't view this as any bigger a threat than Doom was in 1994, and people got all horribly up in arms about that too about what it was going to incite and what prurient interests it was going to serve. And then violent crime incidence decreased dramatically. So go figure. This is cynical salesmanship with religion slapped on the cover to make more people buy it - those that would usually condemn such a game. Not very Christian, but hey, these sorts of business decisions rarely are.
I tend to worry more about actual theocratic states that really do exist now and are actively pursuing nuclear weapons programs.
paranthropus on Jun. 1, 2006 5:03 AM
I'm of two minds about this. On the surface of things it is disgusting and terrifying. If we make the assumption, though, that Grand Theft Auto does not turn people into drug dealing carjackers, then why should this game be any different?
Whenever Christianity makes inroads into popular culture, I believe that it is stripped in some way of the hold that it has over the minds of its followers. The Rapture is now nothing more than the plot of some trashy novels and games. It's got to share shelf space with Splinter Cell and The DaVinci Code. The Passion of the Christ has to compete with Hellboy for box office dollars. Kinder, gentler Christianity is just another self-help brand along with Dale Carnegie and Deepak Chopra.
We enjoy watching "Men in Black" in the theater, but we laugh at people who really believe that aliens are among us. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I think that the people who really BELIEVE this stuff will one day be viewed as kooks.
matt-arnold on Jun. 1, 2006 1:36 PM
I agree with you. I'm still not all that comfortable about the megachurches, particularly those who are as brazen as Rick Warren about their designs on us. But I think they're at the peak of their power.,They're so blinded by their belief in God's inevitable blessing on their movement that they'll over-do it, burn out, turn everybody against them and fall from power.
rachelann1977 on Jun. 2, 2006 1:00 AM
I am intrigued by the opportunity to fight on the side of the Anti-Christ, killing the Christians who are trying to convert/kill everyone else. Could be fun....at least for 15 minutes. Hey, it's just a game, right? lol
overthesun on Jun. 4, 2006 8:14 PM
Yay! Rah! Im with you. I will take up arms against any christian willing to shoot me for not converting, especialy in a video game!
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