Righteous Anger Toward “Left Behind: the Game”

“Combines Tom Clancy-like suspense with touches of romance, high-tech flash and Biblical refrences.”

That is how the NYTimes describes the mind-numbing bad idea that is Left Behind: Eternal Forces. This game first raised my eyebrows when I read about the Christian video game market in Time Magazine a few months back. I shook my head and forgot about it. That is until today.

After reading a hilarious parody on Radical Conguency, I made an off-handed remark about the game and the comments rolled in.

Justin went above and beyond writing a stark and brutally honest critique of this abomnible “game” where unbelievers are slaughtered in the streets of New York.

Here is an excerpt:

The idea of religious video games that celebrate the death and eternal destruction of non-adherents – worse yet, that makes their annhiliation the primary task of the Christian community – raises my abhorrence for the Left Behind phenomenon to a level of utter disgust that I previously reserved only for racism and genocide.

Left Behind is to Christianity what terrorism is to Islam. Both are narcissistic and destructive distortions of otherwise (mostly) benign religions. Believing in hell or something like it does not require us to take pleasure or desire to participate in the destruction of others. If God wants to kill certain people at a certain point in history, that’s his business. And he can damn well do it himself. He doesn’t need any help from a bunch of self-righteous, overcaffeinated adolescents with bad theology in one pocket and ammo in the other.
If someone released a jihad video game, right-wing bloggers would waste no time denouncing it and pointing out what a terrible idea it is to teach young minds that it’s a good idea to murder people who don’t share your beliefs. I fear that this will not happen with the Left Behind series of game, though; the blogosphere’s reaction is likely to go no farther than scoffing and incredulous eye-rolling.

Please check out the rest of the article. Let these video game developers know that these kind of games are unacceptable.

Left Behind Video Games: Possibly the Single Worst Idea Ever