Getting it Right about Left Behind Games
Frederick Clarkson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu Jul 11, 2013 at 07:58:47 PM EST
A few years ago, Talk to Action led the way in breaking the news and extending the analysis of the video game based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels. Set in New York, members of a Christian militia called the Tribulation Force, comprising people who had been "left behind" after the Rapture, battle it out in the streets of New York City against the forces of the Anti-Christ, who, as in the novels, is the Secretary General of the United Nations.

The plan was to market the game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, to and through evangelical churches during the 2006 Christmas shopping season. Then on Christmas morning, the glowing faces of children gathered 'round the tree would be handed a game to prepare them for a religious war.  It was bad enough that the game taught children the ideology of end-times religious war, but for many the devil was in the gruesome details. Indeed, the game turned on a feature that was best described as "convert or be killed."  

Now Left Behind Games apparently hopes to revive sales of the game. But first they have to revise history, and their first score was the the business magazine Quartz</