Say Anything Blog

That’s the story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.

The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.

“You are fighting a defensive battle in the game,” Frichner, whose previous company produced Bible software, said of combatting the Antichrist. “You are a sort of a freedom fighter.”

Read the whole article, but if you do be sure to also read this entire post over at Junkyard Blog which points out some half-truths and biased reporting in the article itself.

Personally, if I were a church-going man, this isn’t the sort of thing I’d want my church associated with.  Yes, the object of the game boils down to converting the bad guys without killing them, but still.  For people who aren’t evangelical Christians this is pretty offensive.  The idea that you’ve got your kids playing a video game where they go around with guns converting people who don’t agree with their line of religious reasoning just doesn’t sit well with me.  And it’s not just the weapons and the killing either, but simply the fact that the video game classifies everyone who isn’t evangelical as on the team of the “anti-Christ.”

This is America.  Freedom of religion.  I respect your right to worship as you wish, and you respect mine.  Let’s leave the “convert or die” and “if you don’t agree with me you’re one of the bad guys” stuff to the extremists in the middle east.