I took a lot of hits over my condemnation of the Left Behind video game. People accused me of rumormongering because I passed along what a newspaper had reported on their website. I understand their skepticism because we have learned that we cannot trust what the MSM reports. When it comes to Christianity, they are usually either ignorant or biased and sometimes both.
I had promised that I would look into the story and would refute what I wrote if it turns out that the game was being misrepresented. I went to the website and found this response to the published reports:
Recently, much controversy has ensued due to published articles in the media which discuss the violence in our upcoming game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces. However, references to “praise the lord and pass the ammunition” or “kill in the name of God” or others were made by journalists spreading misinformation, which is absolutely not true. And for this reason, I have published this statement.
There is no blood or gore in Left Behind: Eternal Forces. The game is designed to be a classic battle between good and evil, but it does not gratuitously depict violence or death.
Others are concerned about the pre-trib religious doctrine believed by the Left Behind authors. Left Behind is not the Bible, it is a fictional story and accordingly, situations resulting from the stories’ post-apocalyptic time-frame are used to encourage gamers to think about matters of eternal significance, a topic largely ignored by modern games.
Because our game is a ‘strategy’ game, never does a player click a key or press a button to actuate a first-person violent act. Instead, control is managed by the player in much the same way as an animated chess game would be when pieces fight for position, except that in ‘real-time’ strategy games, many pieces fight for position at the same time.
In Left Behind: Eternal Forces, the players’ objective is to find ‘tribulation clues’, which include Bible mysteries, codes and fascinating and eternally relevant information. In the initial missions, there is little emphasis on physical warfare and gamers are introduced to powers of influence which result in a battle for the hearts and minds of people. As missions progress, there are no ‘objectives’ to cause war physically. However, physical warfare results when the player is required to defend against the physical forces of evil; led by the Global Community Peacekeepers.
Several months ago, there was a news story with erroneous information about the game. Unfortunately, some readers accepted the misinformation as being factual, and then the rumor mill and the blogs were off and running.
If you hear someone making negative statements about this game, we encourage you to ask if they have personally reviewed the game. If they are merely passing on hearsay, it is false and misleading information.
OK. So I can’t report what is published in the news until I’ve purchased and played the game? Yes, that makes sense. I will run out and use our hard earned money (my husband would really love that) to buy a video game and spend weeks playing it so that I can report to you whether this game actually advocates shooting those who refuse to convert to Christianity.
I think it’s the responsibility of the makers of the game to clearly state what happens in the game because here is another report and the CEO of the company talks about killing but not killing:
“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.
I think the question remains, at anytime in the game do people shoot those that they tried to convert? If someone associated with the game answers that question, I will post it here and will certainly apologize if I misrepresented the game by believing the published reports about it.
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