Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Start

Exciting news about the new Left Behind video game, from Raw Story via Pam at Pandagon:

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).

Didn't Christians hate violent video games just a few weeks ago? Do these people even know what they like and dislike any more? What's next, a hardcore Christian pornographic magazine?

"We feel that Fundie Fuckers will be an invaluable resource for reaching out to and converting the perverted, a process we call ConPerving. Likewise, the XXX gay counterpart The Power and the Glory Holes will grant us access to literally hundreds of thousands of Lost Souls who otherwise would never be exposed to the Good News about Our Lord."

But seriously, I know what you're all thinking..."How could any video game be as great as those Left Behind books?"

No, I'm still kidding. But it's just because this is so completely sick and wrong and I don't know how else to react.

The designers intend this game to become the first dominionist warrior game to break through in the popular culture due to its violent scenarios and realistic graphics, lighting, and sound effects. Its creators expect it to earn a rating of T for Teen. How violent is that? That's the rating shared by Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory, a top selling game in which high-tech gadgets and high-powered weapons - frag grenades, shotguns, assault rifles, and submachine guns -- are used to terminate enemies with extreme prejudice.

Well, I guess that makes sense. If there's one thing American fundamentalist Christians like, it's extreme prejudice. They take their prejudice to Mountain Dew levels of extremity. "Dude, that guy's homophobia is totally intense. Almost as intense as slamming this urine-like caffeinated beverage!"

"Dominionist," by the way, is what people have decided to call the crazy radical theocratic weirdos who seem to be controlling our discourse right now. Andrew Sullivan argued for Christianist, which frankly makes more sense to me because it's more direct, but I think everyone was afraid that might be conflated with garden-variety Christianity. You know, the Old Time Religion kind that says you should love your neighbor rather than fantasize about gutting them with a rusty pizza cutter should the Apocalypse arrive during your lifetime.

Could such a violent, dominionist Christian video game really break through to the popular culture? Well, it is based on a series of books that have already set sales records - the blockbuster Left Behind series of 14 novels by writer Jerry B. Jenkins and his visionary collaborator, retired Southern Baptist minister Tim LaHaye. "We hope teenagers like the game," Mr. LaHaye told the Los Angeles Times. "Our real goal is to have no one left behind."

These books are part of a really sick End Times obsessed culture we have percolating under the surface in America right now. This is not just some bizarre little phenomenon a bunch of cult members squatting in a compound in Arizona are discussing, but a legitimately popular series of novels. When I worked at Barnes and Noble, I would have otherwise respectable-looking people look right into my eyes and swear to me that Left Behind was the best book they had ever read, and that I should read it purely for enjoyment.

"No, really, even if you're not Christian, they're just good stories," one woman told me. "I don't really believe this stuff, but it's just interesting to hear about that perspective."

Sheesh. Of course, it's utter nonsense, sub-romance novel writing that continually insisted on flattering the reader. The whole concept of the books is that the Rapture comes, all the good believer Christians are taken immediately up to Heaven, and the rest of us poor schmucks are left behind here on Earth to figure shit out for ourselves. Some convert to Christianity and go around trying to save others while some follow an obvious Devil stand-in. Stephen King wrote this same story, essentially, and his had a bullshit ending as well.

Anyway, the whole thing is meant to celebrate that you, the Reader, know better than all the characters and get to watch them suffer. I mean, you'll already be in Heaven when all this happens. Don't they understand that? Why don't they just accept Christ already? It's been 200 pages and I can't really go more than 300 or so without trading in the novel I'm reading for the latest US Weekly.

And this same attitude seems to pop up in the video game, except rather than dominating the non-believers with a smug sense of superiorty, you get to use a freakin' 12-gauge.

Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon, whose company went public in February, says the game's Christian themes will grab the audience that didn't mind gore in "The Passion of the Christ." "We've thought through how the Christian right and the liberal left will slam us," says Lyndon. "But megachurches are very likely to embrace this game." Though it will be marketed directly to congregations, Forces will also have a secular ad campaign in gaming magazines.

One thing that has been demonstrated, to me at least, over the past few years is that these people hold some sort of cultural sway over a wide swath of Americans. If pastors and churches ar encouraging worshippers to read a book or see a movie, those entertainment products will do extremely well. It's interesting, as well, how much of this kind of stuff can fly under the radar. How many non-religious Americans have even heard of the Left Behind books?

For game enthusiasts, there is also a multi-player mode, in which you can go online and battle to take territory from other players. If you happen to blow away a neutral party - and collateral damage is inevitable in the End of Days - then you will lose "Spirit Points". But you can power back up with merely a brief timeout for prayer, or by converting one of New York's terror-stricken citizens.

Now that's just strange. I have no explanation for this. You're going online to compete against friends in a contest to kill the most people. I'm fairly certain Jesus would have frowned on such behavior. Let's all remember Paul's advice in Dominicans Chapter 12. "Serial murdering contests are to be frowned upon. Also, fuck gay people."

Odd how he's so on the nose about that. Kind of out of character for old Saul. But that's why he's a Saint and I'm just some heretic!

In this way, the game resembles a send-up of Christian-themed video games by "The Simpsons." "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster," is a first-person shooter game in which you fire Bibles at club-carrying heathens to convert them into card-carrying Republicans. (Hint: after you finish reading this blog piece - and eating all your vegetables -- visit the Simpson's official web site and open file drawer F-H, then click on the character of Evangelical Christian kid Rod Flanders to play the game.)

Blogger jhutson's good. I was totally going to bring this up as soon as I heard about a violent Christian video game.

According to Mr. Warren, the establishment of this earthly kingdom requires "foot soldiers." As part of his plan, Mr. Warren said he would encourage laypeople to "adopt" needy villages overseas in order to plant churches, expand business opportunities, educate children, influence governments, and overthrow corrupt political leaders, whom he described as "little Saddams." Mr. Warren said his purpose is to enlist "one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God" in the developing world. And the stadium crowd roared its approval.

Um, help. Seriously, if any of you are overseas and you're reading this, please mail me a couple of plane tickets out of here. I'll totally hit you back one day. But these people are crazy and they outnumber us sane people by a lot.

Let me get this straight...This guy's master plan is to get kids hooked on a violent apocalypse-influenced video game and then use that game to seek out and train the next generation of warrior. Who will then go overseas and tell brown people how to live properly. It's like some warped hybrid of Ender's Game and The Last Starfighter.

Honestly, after reading this article, I've developed my own concept for a game. It's called "Hit Yourself Repeatedly Over the Head With a Ballpeen Hammer." What you do is, you read an article about religious nutjobs who are hijacking your nation in an attempt to hurry up God's cosmic plan and get to the Rapture already because brown people are making them nervous. Then, you hit yourself repeatedly over the head with a ballpeen hammer until you forget all about the bad people and their silly plans and simply pass out from the strain.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to go play a couple of rounds.