Having recently read Matt Taibbi's book about John Hagee's church, I was startled to read of what passes for phophetic language.  The conspiracy theory about Al Gore working secretly with global warming folks to take over the Unites States stayed with me.  I was reminded of other religious right conspiracy theories that have brought with them "amens".

Rolling Stone author Matt Taibbi has just published a new book called GREAT DERANGEMENT.  Since Jeremiah Wright occupied so much media attention some were shouting that people needed to look at McCain's spiritual connections. A media conspriacy was suggested.  Thus Taibbi was dispatched to San Antonio, Texas to go under cover pretending to be an interested member of John Hagee's mega church.  The cover of the book claims the author is the funniest angry writer around.  We might also ad profane.  Taibbi takes on the conpiracy theories of Left Behind writers as well as the strange theories regarding the 911 catastrophe which links up President Bush and Dick Cheney with secret plots to deceive the nation. The writer says, "The 9/11 'Truth' and Christian end timer phenomena are both basically crude parodies of the same old left/right canned media Holy War."  pg. 265  Matt believes that both these groups adhere to a beleief that a militant against-them exists and the only folks to be trusted are their own.  A view point I have often witnessed among the religious right that holds you cannot trust the media or any writer outside their own ranks. Thus they reinforce their own phobias.

In what was billed as a conference for Houston pastors, the topic of how minister's freedoms were being assaulted was addressed by Tim LaHaye.  The specifics of this meeting have been posted earlier. In short, these pastors felt as if Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State had picked on pastor Riggle.  Riggle, an Oral Roberts U. grad had allowed his name and the church where he was pastor to be highlighted in an endorsement for a political candidate to take Tom DeLay's place in Congress. The web site is wrong claiming that a Liberty U. law professor would take up the topic.  Tim showed up along with Kelly Schackleford.

The producers of Left Behind: Eternal Forces thought they were going to make a big score last Christmas -- with a new video game based on Tim LaHaye's best-selling Left Behind series of novels. It didn't work out that way. Talk to Action's Jonathan Hutson exposed that the game peddled an ideology of 'convert or be killed' to children and promoted, even rehearsed end-times religious warfare.  Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, among others, agreed; denounced the game and variously encouraged the producers of the game to with draw it; stores not to stock it; and consumers not to purchase it. The controversy generated international media coverage. The game did poorly; got terrible reviews, even from gamers who were not concerned about the content. The company's stock tanked and it appeared that that was the last we would hear from them.

Then, researchers for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation learned that an evangelical Christian group operating under the auspices of the Pentagon was going to disseminate the controversial apocalyptic game to American troops in Iraq. Max Blumenthal exposed their plans in The Nation last week. This week, ABC News asked the Pentagon about it:

Plans by a Christian group to send an evangelical video game to U.S. troops in Iraq were abruptly halted yesterday by the Department of Defense after ABC News inquired about the program.

Operation Start Up (OSU) Tour, an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among soldiers, will not be sending the "apocryphal" video game in care packages as planned, according to the department.

"Left Behind: Eternal Forces" was inspired by about the battle of Armageddon, in which believers of Jesus Christ fight the Antichrist.

Following massive losses, Left Behind Games has embarked on an executive purge:

Officials from controversial Christian game developer Left Behind Games (Left Behind: Eternal Forces) have announced that senior management at the company have accepted the resignation of senior vice president Jeffrey S. Frichner, with CEO Troy Lyndon also demanding the resignation of the company's other three board members.

Two new co-chairs have been installed: Michael A. Knox and Leslie N. Bocskor.

When Left Behind Games launched its convert-or-die videogame Left Behind: Eternal Forces on November 7, 2006, its stock traded at a peak price of $7.44 per share. Breathless boosters at RedChip issued a "strong buy" recommendation and predicted that within 18 months, the stock would soar to as much as $18.70 per share. Really?

In fact, Left Behind Games' stock chart looks like a ski slope. Not a gentle bunny hill, but a World Cup grand slalom course, groomed for a world-beating downhill run. Today, you could buy a share of Left Behind Games for a quarter -- with change left over. On March 21, 2007, the stock closed at 18 cents a share.

A recent issue of Christian Retailing carries an article (22 Jan, p. 10) on the Left Behind: Eternal Forces videogame. As the piece notes, the game has come under attack from various groups (Christian and secular) for allegedly featuring

...teens...killing nonbelievers, teaching teens that most musicians are "singing the praises of the Antichrist" and portraying non-Christian humanitarian aid workers as part of enemy forces.

Talk to Action, of course, has been at the forefront of making these concerns public, particularly in a series of articles by Jonathan Hutson.

The Christian Retailing piece features input from Jeff Frichner, the president of Left Behind Games (LBG), who responds to the criticisms:

We are honored to welcome essayist and story teller Joe Bageant as a guest front pager. His book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, is due out from Random House in June.  This essay was originally published in December 2005 -- long before the Democratic take-over of Congress seemed possible. One friend said after reading it: "Bageant writes in the tradition of Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth."  -- FC

What the 'Left Behind' Series Really Means

A Whore That Sitteth on Many Waters

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."

-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God."

-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America's all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower.

On Tuesday the mainstream Muslim civil rights group, Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) denounced the hate-based video game, Left Behind:  Eternal Forces. This followed an international media firestorm resulting from a press teleconference by DefCon, Christian Alliance for Progress (CAP) and Talk to Action. These groups called on WalMart to stop selling the game. DefCon reports that more than 30,000 people have contacted Walmart so far.  CAIR also called on WalMart to withdraw the game. Meanwhile, several progressive Christian groups led by Crosswalk America, CAP and the Beatitudes Society had also asked the manufacturer to withdraw the game and consumers not to buy it.  The matter has issue has now escalated in both activism and in media coverage.

Jews on First! a progressive web based organization concerned about the religious right, has posted a report and joined with Crosswalk in petitioning the manufacturer to withdraw the game -- and the AntiDefamation League (ADL) has issued a statement, based on an analysis of the game by their staff in consultation with game experts.  

"The game and the belief system behind it are dangerous, because they teach that Judaism and other non-Christian faiths are not valid," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians are seen as incomplete unless they convert, a concept that is contrary to the American ideal of respect for all religions."

 The game is also the subject of major new articles in Rolling Stone magazine and The Christian Science Monitor.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has joined a growing chorus of groups that have asked WalMart to stop stocking Left Behind:  Eternal Forces, a video game that promotes religious warfare to children.  The recent press conference held by DefCon, (Committee to Defend the Constitution,) Talk to Action and Christian Alliance for Progress toannounce the effort to get WalMart to stop stocking the game made news around the world. [image: detail from a painting depicting the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in which French Catholics slaughtered thousands of French Protestants.

ASSIST Ministries reports on a charity tie-in from the controversial Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game:

Left Behind Games, the company that produces Christian video games based on the books made famous by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, is including an insert in every box that tells purchasers about the Eastern European Outreach (EEO) child sponsorship program.

"What's more damaging are games that show killing and then let the bodies disappear, desensitizing gamers to what's going on," explains Lyndon. "Although seeing hundreds of dead bodies in Left Behind: Eternal Forces at the end of a horrific battle wasn't our original intent, we can't help but stay away from desensitizing gamers. It's our hope that we don't end up with a Mature-rated game...but we might. Ultimately, our argument is that it's more humane to show the reality of death than to desensitize in the name of a lighter rating." - Left Behind Games Company CEO Troy Lyndon

As published on the 1Up Network and reprinted from a story in Computer Gaming World, February 2006, issue #259, entitled "God Mode: Fragging For King, Country, and Creator". The 1Up Network is part of the Ziff-Davis Media Game Group

The CEO of Left Behind Games, who has recently characterized the nature of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" as potentially wholly nonviolent such that "You can actually play the entire game without firing a shot." ( from a Boston Globe review of the game ) said in February 2006 that play resulted in "hundreds of dead bodies" piling up on the lovingly detailed streets of the virtual New York City in his game and that he thought the game might gain a "mature" audience rating for its depiction of mass killing. But Lyndon expressed a concern that making those piles of corpses magically vanish would desensitize gamers to violence.

Then, Troy Lyndon's game was redesigned prior to commercial release so that those dead bodies Lyndon referred to just disappeared... and it was marketed to a 13 to 34 age range that included teenagers.

The website of "Faithful America", a ministry of the National Council Of Churches, has picked a December 13 Boston Globe story on the "kill or convert" video game set in the streets of New York City, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces". The engagement of the wider liberal religious community with the hateful religious ideology expressed in the game seems promising. The New York Times has also just picked up the news of the boycott of the game including Talk To Action's role in an article entitled Grand Theft Christianity

Outbreaks of self contradiction and moral relativism, or perhaps moral atrophy, continue at the powerful "family values" organization Focus On The Family. First came Vice President Tom Minnery's surprising concern - "I fear that we're in a society in which you will be held to the standards which you claim." (see full story). Now, a Focus On The Family website has both enthusiastically endorsed a video game - that lets players command forces to convert to fundamentalist Christianity or kill all the residents of New York - as "the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior" and highlighted findings from researchers at the Indiana State School Of Medicine indicating frequent playing of violent video games can cause parts of children's brains to atrophy.

The media is beginning to sit up and take notice of citizen concerns about the first Christian instructional video on religious warfare for children. This morning the San Francisco Chronicle had a front page story describing citizen concerns about the video game Left Behind:  Eternal Forces, which is based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels.  The story is titled: 'Convert or die' game divides Christians: Some ask Wal-Mart to drop Left Behind. This was followed today with a well-attended press and blogger teleconference hosted by DefCon, (the Campaign to Defend the Constitution) which featered comments by Clark Stevens of DefCon, Tim Simpson of the Christian Alliance for Progress, and Frederick Clarkson of Talk to Action. The Associated Press ran a story on the controversy and the news conference.

Beginnning with Jonathan Hutson's ground breaking series exposing the hate-based agenda of the game, Talk to Action has done considerable reporting on and in-depth analysis of the game and its underlying ideology.  Here is a brief anthology of Talk to Action posts that can serve as a back grounder on the game.

Modern Christian Right Print Culture
as an Apocalyptic Master Frame

by Dr. Brenda E. Brasher and Chip Berlet
Copyright 2004-2006, All rights reserved, crossposting online of this text is prohibited. Presented at the conference on Religion and the Culture of Print in America, Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America, University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 10-11, 2004
[Read Part One] - [Read Part Three]

A social movement is "a collectivity acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside of institutional channels for the purpose of promoting or resisting change in the group, society, or world order of which it is a part."~25 Social movements interact in a strategic way with political movements, which have an electoral and legislative focus.~26 To be effective, a social movement has to construct an internally coherent ideology, identify grievances, set goals, and instill a sense of purpose, optimism, and collective identity among followers. Movement leaders help accomplish this by skillfully framing their ideas and proposed actions.~27 Stories, whether they are narratives of personal experiences or fictional accounts, help build social movements.~28

At various times throughout history social movements have employed apocalyptic frames and conspiracist narratives, moving them from the margins of the society into the mainstream where they have affected public policy.

What's wrong with a video game that depicts a "defensive" religious war set in a real, contemporary US city that's been recreated in loving detail - at least in terms of the physical features of the city - and which features game characters that look nothing like the real city residents they are supposed to depict and who do not bleed when they are killed, at close range, by assault weapons and whose corpses simply fade away from where they lie on the city streets ? What's the big deal if the game is based on a bloodthirsty pop-culture series that's been read by upwards of sixty million people ? So what if the game suggests that "secularism" is satanic and depicts a total war in which there can be no noncombatants ?

So what if this game sidesteps the moral and religious injunctions against killing by enabling players to do rote penance, when the game characters they command kill, by repetitively pressing a "prayer button" on their gaming joysticks ? ( note: this piece has been excerpted from a longer piece of writing entitled Religious Warfare Stocking Stuffer.

Religious warfare is now on store shelves in time for holiday shopping. Nothing like a video game depicting religious warfare against an existing, modern US city to bring out the true Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho.

Public concern about the video game based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels is growing. It is the only video game that indoctrinates children in an ideology of religious warfare. And people are beginning to take action.

Our friends at DefCon today sent an e-mail to their national list, calling on WalMart to stop selling Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

This development comes just a week after a coalition of American progressive Christian groups called on the manufacturer to recall the game, and for Christians to boycott it.   Mainstream Baptists were soon urged to join the campaign. And The Muslim Association of Britain, called the game "evil":

This game is irresponsible and highly racist. It demonises every other religion which isn't Christianity. People must boycott this violent game. "Games like this poison the minds of young people."

"Eternal Forces is the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior—and use to raise some interesting questions along the way" - from a review in "Plugged In Online", a website published by Focus On The Family

The violence depicted in "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, and the inherent ideology, which suggests all religious beliefs except for fundamentalist Christianity are invalid and casts public education as satanic, has prompted a coalition of Christian groups to denounce the game and call for a consumer boycott, and the game has also prompted a lawsuit from one conservative critic of video game violence.

James Dobson, founder of Focus On The Family, has used his prominent position to inveigh against the alleged threat of homosexuality and, in 2005, accused that a children's television cartoon character representing an underwater sea-sponge*, "Spongebob Squarepants", was being used to promote a supposedly "pro-homosexual video". Yet, as depicted in the eponymously named cartoon series, Spongebob Squarepants seems to promote what most would tend to think of "family values", by displaying exceedingly high moral and ethical standards and taking great pains to avoid hurting anyone's feelings let alone causing any sort of physical injury.

In sharp contrast, the powerful "family values" advocacy organization Dobson founded, Focus On The Family, apparently approves of pop-culture products depicting religious warfare, at least when waged on the right sort of people - such as New York City residents. The organization also seems to have endorsed the "satanic role playing" the game affords players, who can command the forces of the "AntiChrist", as family-friendly and kid-safe.

Modern Christian Right Print Culture
as an Apocalyptic Master Frame

by Dr. Brenda E. Brasher and Chip Berlet
Copyright 2004-2006, All right