I dropped out of the videogame scene a few years back, so it’s only through Jonathan Huston’s Talk To Action article that I’m just now hearing about the game based on the Left Behind series. The article has a heavy liberal bias, so Left Behind: Eternal Forces is described as “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 stateespecially moderate, mainstream Christians.” LA Times reporter Dawn Chmielewski offered a somewhat tamer description when she discovered the game at E3 earlier this month:
“The game is set in New York City, where the Tribulation Force clashes with the Antichrist’s Global Community Peacekeepers in a tale that makes the United Nations a tool for Satan. Each side attempts to recruit lost souls in the battle for the city… Tribulation squads unleash the usual arsenal against the Antichrist: guns, tanks, helicopters. But soldiers lose some of their spirituality every time they kill an opponent and must be bolstered through prayer. The failure to nurture good guys causes their spirit points to drop, leaving them vulnerable to recruitment by the other side.”
Some see the game as a great evangelizing tool to reach the kids—Huston sees a conspiracy with Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren in the driver’s seat—but as Chmielewski points out, not all Christians are happy with the deal. Jack Thompson, an outspoken critic of video game violence, even severed his connections with Tyndale House, the Left Behind publishers, after they granted the license for the game.