Stumble it!Left Behind, again
posted in Religion by themaiden |Sometime back I wrote two post about a video game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces. In the first of those posts I wrote that:
It will be the Christians who send this world spiraling into a hell of their own making. Arguably, this won’t be the first time. The religion of love has led to a lot of bloodshed and chaos. This will be the worst time. A destabilized world today is a far more dangerous place than was a destabilized world a thousand years ago. Modern weapons and transportation guarantee that fact. And there are segments of humanity, mostly emanating from within the United States, that are seeking to destabilize the world.
And:
While I defend video games as mostly harmless, I do worry about games where a person is supposed to take up arms against, not aliens or criminals, but Catholics and those defending the US Constitution. That is perverse. Should the KKK take a page from this play book and market “Nigger Killer Xtreme”? I’m willing to bet there would be an outcry. I would participate.
The game’s manufacturers insist that the game is about ’saving souls’ not killing people.
Frankly though, that was the point of the Crusades too, and the point of the Muslim expansions following the founding of Islam, and that has been the point of inumerable expeditions into newly discovered territories around the world. It always ends badly. I don’t take comfort in it, though it is a somewhat more sane incarnation of a very divisive idea. “Christians are persecuted and need to arm themselves against the forces of darkness” is only a marginally better message than “kill the pagans” and it will lead to the same result.
In the second of my two earlier posts, in response to some criticism leveled against my first post, I revisited Left Behind: Eternal Forces, buttressed my case by adding descriptions from several game reviewers and noted that one of the game’s…
… advisory board members, Mark Carver, withdrew from his position and “requested that his name as well as the Purpose Driven name brand be removed from the Left Behind Games web site (which actions followed promptly), and Purpose Driven Ministries has promised not to distribute or promote the game.” Apparently this was in response to the criticisms leveled at the game by the Talk2Action article which provided my description of the game. This leads me to think that perhaps Talk2Action was not quite so far off the mark as some suggested.
Now it appears that Left Behind Games has decided to fight back, and has launched a media campaign to clean up the game’s image. I received the following notice, posted as a comment to Doing God’s Work… with Snipers:
This statement is posted from an employee of Left Behind Games on behalf of Troy Lyndon, our Chief Executive Officer.
There has been in incredible amount of MISINFORMATION published in the media and in online blogs here and elsewhere.
Pacifist Christians and other groups are taking the game material out of context to support their own causes. There is NO “killing in the name of God” and NO “convert or die”. There are NO “negative portrayals of Muslims” and there are NO “points for killing”.
Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.htm
Then, we’d love to hear your feedback as an informed player.
The reality is that we’re receiving reports everyday of how this game is positively affecting lives by all who play it.
Thank you for taking the time to be a responsible blogger.
Well, let me relieve myself of the snark first. Sigh… anyone with any sense knows that typing in all caps means you are up to something.
Secondly, I read through Eternal Forces’s official site when I wrote my earlier pieces. They’ve made substantial alterations to the game’s presentation, and it looks as though the version that will be hitting the streets later this year, and the demo that is out now, might be cleaned up– that is, less violent– versions of the original.
The link provided directs the reader to a list of favorable reviews of the game.
Curiously though, if one digs around for the game’s official site…
Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.
Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City.
Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Worship Leaders to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!
… it still sounds like there is an awful lot of killing. Why else would one need tanks, not just tanks but Battle Tanks? Oh, and the good guys have snipers. To be fair, the same page also stresses that “there is NO killing in the name of God, and NO convert or die missions.” Frankly, though, the whole premise of the game is religious warfare, which to me makes the claim that there is no killing in the name of God a pretty hollow disclaimer.
Of course, the point of Left Behind Games’s media push is the dispelling of the ‘myth’ about the game’s violence. Do the “CREDIBLE unbiased experts” do that?
The game, released in November 2006 on CD-ROM, is based on the same intolerant theology embedded in the adult and children “Left Behind” book series, which features gory depictions of the annihilation of Jews and other non-Christians who refuse to convert at Armageddon.
… While the Left Behind books portrays a world beset with violence, and the final installment of the series is full of gruesome scenes of destruction and the killing of Jews and others, the video game avoids such stark portrayals. If the game had stayed true to the level of violence in the books, it would probably not have been able to keep the “Teen” rating it garnered.
However, the inclusion of a “Left Behind” book in the package for “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” creates a direct link between the two. Together they promote the overall message of an exclusivist religious system that considers the proselytization of Jews to be an imperative.
…The game, like the rest of the Left Behind franchise, mirrors another troubling aspect of the Christian Supremacist movement in the United States by portraying Christians who believe in their specific brand of theology as a put-upon minority who are being persecuted by larger and better equipped evil forces.
…Another insidious aspect of the game being used as a way to promote a particular fundamentalist view of Christianity occurs at the end of each level, where there are optional “clues” that serve as informational pieces designed to promote the evangelical beliefs of the makers of the game.
…Topics of these pages include themes such as questioning evolution or giving descriptions of historic Christian sites in Israel (and links out to further materials online about the topics).
Hmmm… I’m not convinced. The ADL does note that the violence within the game is rather toned down, but the ultimate focus, the message, does still seem pretty damned bloody, and, in fact, it is bloody in precisely the apocalyptic, millenarian, “fundie kills everyone else” direction which has draw so much controversy onto the game.
Indeed, I kept wondering when the game was going to throw it down and truly embrace the apocalyptic Christian vision. This story line isn’t merely of armageddon, but Armageddon. Thus, the last Left Behind book — Glorious Appearing — concludes with the ultimate triumph of Jesus in a phantasmagorically gruesome holocaust. As predicted in Revelation, the savior returns to Earth, chides Satan for defiling the planet (and for inventing Darwinism), then proceeds to slaughter all unbelievers, dissolving their tongues and bursting their bodies like overstuffed sausages. As millions die in transports of agony, the ground becomes a swamp of blood and mud, and some extremely unpleasant things happen to the Jews who refuse to convert. As for the born-again? They stand around watching and cheering.
Nope. Not violent.
I tried to read the book. I thought it would be helpful for me to know the source material for the review, and it might give me a little insight into the series as a whole. I put it down in disgust after the first fifty pages. The writing is just horrible.
The fact that 65 million hojillion people bought these books and enjoyed them scares the hell out of me. When you start longing for the florid prose of a dime-store romance novel, you know that, stylistically, what you’re holding in your hands is pretty bad.
OK. Cheap shot. Couldn’t help it. Nicholai Carpathia made me do it. Yeah… or the rock singers…
… but the one thing you’ll want to know from the start is that this game is pushing an agenda.
…In other news, Left Behind has gunfire.
…There are some creepy things going on here, such as the conversion of people on the street who are sent to the camp you just built to turn them into soldiers. Given the current political climate, I thought that was a questionable design decision. It certainly made me uncomfortable to turn someone into a good Christian simply to give them a gun.
Ars technic, I should note, gives the kindest review to the game, concluding that it is “a relatively harmless and well-done piece of propaganda”.
Reuters published a less flattering piece in which was a curious exchange with Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc.
“The reality is that our game perpetuates prayer and worship and that there is no killing in the name of God.
“There is killing of course, it is a video game. But the basis of the game is spiritual welfare,” said Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc.
“The antichrist is the main bad guy and so you are dealing with his henchmen. Both sides are trying to win the hearts and the minds of people who are not on either side,” Lyndon, who describes himself as a “follower of Christ,” told Reuters.
There is no killing in the name of God, but of course there is killing? Interesting distinction, and interesting defense.
The game makers have made considerable efforts to distance themselves from the charge that Left Behind: Eternal Forces has a “convert or be killed” dynamic to it, but think about this; Doesn’t picking up a weapon and walking through the streets trying to convert armed and hostile characters automatically set up a “convert or be killed” dynamic? If I marched through Riyahd with an AK, and with a few hundred armed compatriots, preaching the Gospel, wouldn’t the rest of the world more or less assume a gunfight? Probably. If I marched into Riyahd with an army and the inhabitants attacked my innocent party of missionaries, would anyone really buy the idea that we were just minding our own business, trying to preach the word, but, sadly, we were attacked and had to start shooting in self defense? Left Behind puts players in the same position, and seem to hope to wiggle out of some of the nastiness by claiming that players only shoot when they have to shoot. And yes, killing does cause scores to drop, but praying makes things all better again– just like in real life.
Well, not really.
Its true that soldier lose some ’spirituality’ everytime they kill, but prayer makes that better. I’m fairly sure that if an Islamic Jihadist whacked a Christian, then went to the mosque, few would argue that his ’spirituality’ was recovered thereby.
I’m rather sure that most, if not all, of the radical Islamic terrorists around the world do a fair amount of praying– four time a day, in fact. That ‘fixes’ all the bloodshed and violence and killing. One bullet + one kill + one prayer = Sanctified. Right?
As for not bashing other religions, we have as Peacekeepers– the bad guys– Pontificus Maximus who looks curiously Catholic. We have Follower (Level 1 Recruiter) who looks curiously Mormon/Jehovah’s Witness. Conversely, our heroes– all with porn star names, strangely–, like Buck Williams, Rayford Steele, and Bruce Barnes are painted pretty Protestant, complete with the pot belly on Rayford.
And since Left Behind kindly drew my attention back to their product, here are a few other bothersome things about the game.
There is the UN.
I’ve never quite figured out the demonizing of international cooperation, but this game has it and the attitude worries me.
How about the sexism? There is Hattie Durham, the uppity woman with a good job– obviously evil. The nurses and medics are (mostly) female, the doctors are male. There is the Widow, who is apparently lost without her man and thus can’t do a damn thing. On the side of good, there is Chloe Williams, who description in full is that she grew “up with a full-time mom and a pilot for a father was something Chloe took for granted.” Gee… how Leave It to Beaver. There are the Prayer Warriors– perfect little nonviolent caring women. There are the neutral civilian men who question their manhood because “The vanishings challenged a lot of men’s sense of providing for and protecting their families.” Well, that is the ‘daddy’ job now isn’t it?
There is the hunched over like a madman Dr. Samuel Kline. Educated people are like that you know.
I’m not sure what the Nurse, whose special power is ‘prayer’, is doing on the list of bad guys. Perhaps she prays to the antichrist. Several other characters are a bit confusing as well.
Given that the entire game is propaganda, it is supreme irony that the propagandists– the Secularists– are placed with the bad guys.
Finally, I’m not actually advocating that this game be banned. I am almost universally anti-censorship. it is, though, a nasty piece of work and it strikes me as a dangerous piece of propaganda that preaches a worldview bordering on the psychotic.
There is a lengthy discussion of the game at BloggingBaby, for those interested.
There is another thread at DefCon, where one commenter, Clark, really sums up the problem:
Dale. I’ve played the game. The difference between the game and other violent video games is that the killing you do in this game is steeped in morality. For one, players actually run around yelling “Praise the Lord,” secondly after killing someone players must kneel in prayer to recharge their “Spirit Points.”
Lastly, the games makers distributed it to supposedly thousands of kids through churches. The implicit message being “this game is good, what you do in it is right, this is the message of God.”
Grand Theft Auto etc are very violent, but no one ever pretends that what happens in the game is moral.
As I wrote in Armageddon, this is not combat in some distant and abstract world against imaginary enemies. It is combat against clearly defined and very real living groups of humans. It is, as no one seems to contradict, about religiously motivated warfare. That warfare is between very identifiable groups of humans, and it drips with morality. Picking up a gun is the right thing to do, and that gun isn’t aimed at the Kilrathi, or the Borg, or the Nazis. It is aimed at the people next door.
Sure if a couple of billion or so people magically vanish and demons start to walk the Earth, maybe strapping on some guns is a good idea, but that isn’t going to happen. The ‘demons’ are going to be abortion supporters, homosexuals, atheists and women with short skirts.
The game is frightening because it is too close to reality, much like this one where players get to take “the roles of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they shoot up their high school.”
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