WWJBUOHXB? Who Would Jesus Blow Up On His X-Box?

The Wild Hunt is quickly becoming one of the first blogs I check in the morning. Here's a particularly chilling post:

"Killing for Jesus: the Video Game

Left Behind Games recently announced that Left Behind: Eternal Forces, the first of their Left Behind RTS games, will be released in October, positioned for Christmas sales. Other Left Behind products, from books to movies, merely made me roll my eyes. This one is simply jaw-droppingly, stomach-churningly bad-wrong. It reminds me of the Billy Graham's Bible Blaster game from the Simpsons. 'Keep firing! Convert the heathens!' Except in this game, you control Prayer Warriors who blow away non-believers and shout: 'Praise God!'

Quotes from the creators' game description:

Conduct physical & spiritual warfare

Wield modern military weaponry

Command your forces through intense battles

Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

Gameplay elements include sending units to evangelize ordinary folks wandering the streets, then sending those new converts to military training to make them foot soldiers in your Jihad. Sure, you lose 'spirit points' for killing innocents in your military missions instead of just your righteous heathen targets, but hey, collateral damage happens. It's nothing a little prayer and maybe building a church won't cure."

Unfortunately, this game is likely to be a huge hit this xmas. As Wild Hunt goes on to note: "One harsh critic of the game is Jack Thompson, Born-Again Christian and anti-game-violence advocate, who severed his ties with the publishing company Tyndale House over its allowing the licensing of the game. He is quoted by the L.A. Times as saying: 'We're going to push this game at Christian kids to let them know there's a cool shooter game out there. Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game... You can be the Christians blowing away the infidels, and if that doesn't hit your hot button, you can be the Antichrist blowing away all the Christians.'"

Go read the entire post, but don't do it on a full stomach. The war on xmas is starting to sound like a better and better idea to me.