Shoot-'Em-Up- for Christians!

[Genetic Mishap]

It was inevitable.

Wait, actually, I don't think it was. But it happened anyway.

www.talk2action.org/story/2006/5/29/195855/959

www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/1/82458/92817

"You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on 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 state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life."

Even I, the jaded nonbeliever, was taken by surprised. I can't tell if they're being progressive in their marketing strategy or sliding backwards in their faith. Or both.

Assuming if Rick and the Left Behind guys had any kind of faith in the first place outside the almighty $.

[Hucklebubba]

Wow. Rick Warren and the Left Behind crew, together at last. It's the ultimate dream team of fraudulent mainstream pseudo-Christianity.

I've always wondered what it would take to get me on the same side as Jack Thompson, and now I know. And knowing is half the battle. The other half is, apparently, executing people who don't believe the same way as you.

It'll be interesting to see how this gets rationalized. By which I'm referring to post-release, mid-outrage rationalization, not the rationalization that's already happened.

Personally, I hope this game proves to be a financial and public relations kick to the cookies for Mr. Warren. That'd do him good.

--Likes to keep his videogame slaughter casually agnostic.

[TheLuckyOne]

How is this not exactly like that "Bible Blaster" video game Bart once played at the Flanders'?

"Quick, convert the heathens!"
"Got 'im!"
"Nah, you just winged him... now he's a Unitarian."

And life imitates The Simpsons once again. As always, it's hilarious and just a little bit frightning.

-D

[blinkfan]

Speechless. As a christian I do not know how to feel. I agree with Drew though.

[Hucklebubba]

Hmmmmmm.

It seems the more I think about that Talk to Action article, and the more I compare it with not-totally-agreeing information from other sources, the more things start to smell.

For instance, nowhere else have I found mention of the wanton execution of non-Christian characters. As near as I can tell, it's set up to be a standard RTS; guys with guns on both sides. Granted, it's still killing in the name of God, but that article makes it sound like you send fanatical stormtroopers out to murder random civilians.

Don't get me wrong. I still don't expect the game to be anything but hackneyed and crappy, but I can't shake the feeling that the T2A folks have indulged in a naughty bit of limited-info scandalizing with a subjective cherry on top (Delicious!).

I can't prove this, of course. Just a hunch that I am limited to due to the fact that all of the info I can find on the game is either plainly skimpy and vague, or skimpy and vague with wiseass garnish.

[Spiderdancer]

Wait... The article says it's based on the Left Behind books. Has this person ever READ those four books??? Because I have, and I would summarize Christian participation in books 1-4 as "gradually being converted due to supernatural worldwide events, then running and hiding from evil Antichrist minions while fortuitously avoiding having to kill anyone."

I mean, I am not arguing for the literary quality of those books, but they ARE based somewhat on the book of Revelation, specifically based on the conservative Evangelical interpretation which goes like this:

a)People who are already Christians are sucked up to heaven in the rapture.
b)Some other people (who have been "left behind") are converted as a result of these events.
c)Most of those people are horribly slaughtered by the Antichrist and his minions. Natural disasters kill lots of other people.
d)The world more or less ends, and Jesus establishes a new kingdom on earth for a thousand years.
e)That ends, too. Some people go to heaven. Some people go to Hell.

I'm sure I would have noticed if "Christians establish a theocracy by running around shooting people" had been part of that equation at any point.

[Al]

An RTS based on the last few Left Behind books could be plausible. By that point, the battle lines are pretty clearly drawn. The Christians are holed up in their base whose name I can't remember (it's the place where the Grail Knight was in Indy 3, if I recall right), and the rest of the world has taken the Mark of the Beast and committed themselves to the armies of the Antichrist. It could work, sort of.