by Michael G. Mickey

(6-3-06)

While I greatly admire the efforts of anyone attempting to reach out to a lost and dying world in these end times, everything that glitters is not gold as the old saying goes. One of my alert readers recently drew my attention to an article, the title of which was "The Purpose Driven Life Takers." Purpose Driven Life Takers as in life takers? Killers? I'm afraid so.

The article opens as follows:

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. 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.

The game, slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush, has been previewed at video game exhibitions, and reviewed by major newspapers and magazines. But until now, no fan or critic has pointed out the controversial game's connection to Mr. Warren or his dominionist agenda.

The Purpose Driven Life video game? Surely not, I mused.

Interestingly, however, as I read on, I found that the proposed video game has little to do with Rick Warren himself as best I can tell, other than by association. As the article reveals, the connection between Rick Warren and the video game in question is this: The international director of Warren's Purpose Driven Saddleback Church, a gentleman by the name of Mark Carver, serves on the Advisory Board of the corporation created in October 2001 to develop and market this game. The name of the corporation? Left Behind Games. Yes, as in Dr. Tim LaHaye's Left Behind book series! According to the article, the developers of the game which is causing all the concern, LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces, obtained the license from Tyndale House, the Christian publisher of Left Behind - a move which has prompted at least one conservative Christian author to end his relationship with Tyndale.

The words of the author in question, Jack Thompson, are very compelling as to why I don't blame him at all for his decision: "It's absurd," the article quotes him as saying. "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."

Here's some of what Left Behind Games says you can do in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces:

· Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

· Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.  

· Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

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

· Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!

· Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist's Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet!

A Los Angeles Times article on Left Behind: Eternal Forces includes the following, which I want my readers to fully absorb (emphasis added mine):

" 'Left Behind' has the Antichrist, the end of the world, the apocalypse," said co-creator Jeffrey S. Frichner. "It's got all the Christian stuff, and it's still got all the cool stuff."

That's why industry watchers predict that titles like "Eternal Forces" will find a broader audience in the same way Christian houses of worship like Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest have attracted followers — in part by not being overly doctrinaire.

"The reason that I think this game has a chance is that it's not particularly preachy," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "I will say some of the dialogue is pretty lame — people saying, 'Praise the Lord' after they blow away the bad guys. I think they're overdoing it a bit. But the message is OK."

The Tribulation Period isn't going to be anything like a video game nor is the message of this game OK! The Day of the Lord is a time of horrific judgment falling upon the wicked in all instances in the Bible, the descriptions of which are anything but game-like!

Isaiah 13:6-7: Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:

Ezekiel 30:3: For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.

Joel 1:15: Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Joel 2:1: Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

Amos 5:20: Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

1st Thessalonians 5:2-3: For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

During a missions conference held in our church this week, visiting pastor Ray Stuart told us that, even though he likes a good joke, he doesn't tell or even like to hear a joke which includes references to hell. Why? Because the horrors of hell - a burning lake of fire from which there will be no escape or hope of rescue for those who end up there as a direct result of their failure to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior - should never be trivialized, especially by a Christian. I believe the same is true concerning the Tribulation Period.

Not only does trivialization of the Tribulation Period serve no purpose, the imagery of those left behind who accept Christ after the Rapture running through the streets shooting people while saying "Praise the Lord!" likens Christianity to the jihadists the free world is presently in conflict with in the war on terror - people who often kill those opposed to their religious beliefs while yelling, "Allahu Akbar!" Allahu Akbar can be translated as "God is Great."

Left Behind: Eternal Forces, in my opinion, isn't going to do a thing to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. What I believe it will completely succeed in doing, however, is convince more people than are already convinced that the goal of all conservative, Bible-believing Christians is to turn all the governments of the world into theocracies by converting everyone to Christ.....even if it means taking up the sword to do so.

While the Church should certainly hold lofty goals concerning reaching the lost with the gospel, the last thing the Church of the end times needs is precisely what Left Behind: Eternal Forces is going to give the enemies of the gospel - a reason to suggest conservative Christianity is pursuing a dominionist agenda. In fact, as we see in an excerpt from the The Purpose Driven Life Takers article, this is already beginning, even before the game has been released (emphasis added mine):

Could such a violent, dominionist Christian video game really break through to the popular culture?

What are people who are weighing in on the The Purpose Driven Life Takers commentary saying ? Below are a few selected examples of why I say the end times are NOT a game:

• "Am I a bad person if I'm looking forward to playing the game in Antichrist mode and blowing away fundies?"
• "Can I have a variant where - rather than harming these Christian paramiltaries - I can catch them with nets and immobilize them with sticky foam, then subject them to re-runs of "South Park" and "The Simpsons"?"
• Believe me, Right-Wing Fundamentalists cannot discuss theology with any sense of reason.  They see anyone else's religious symbols or hear about anyone else's religious values, and they go off.

More and more, the conservative, Bible-believing Christian is being demonized in the eyes of a wicked world where good is increasingly being considered evil and evil is increasingly being considered good. This game is only going to serve the purposes of darkness, in my opinion. Besides, it isn't even Scriptural to suggest that tribulation saints have any potential whatsoever of overtaking the Antichrist militarily, as seen in Revelation 13:7: And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

One has to wonder why the game maker, if Left Behind Games has any hope whatsoever of delivering anything close to a Christian message to those who would play the game, would build into the game an Antichrist mode, allowing players of the game (who may well be left behind in the not-too-distant future) to practice in advance the horrific persecution of tribulation saints which is going to take place in the Tribulation Period to come?

Maybe the staff of Left Behind Games thinks the Tribulation Period makes for good gaming subject matter, but I don't for all the reasons stated above. The end times are NOT a game! Those of us who understand this fundamental truth need to be doing everything we can to convict the hearts of those we know who are presently living in sin without hope of avoiding an eternity in hell to come to faith in Jesus Christ and soon! Time is running out for the lost to be found and saved on this side of the Rapture, in my humble opinion, based on all the signs in the world around us pointing to the return of Jesus Christ coming soon, as revealed in Scripture. There are so many in need of Christ yet so few who are actively striving to win souls to Christ!

Matthew 9:37:38: Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

Christians, get busy for the Lord! Find someone who is lost without Christ - ANYONE - and tell them how they can come to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior before it's too late! If you don't have the confidence to speak to a lost soul, write them a letter, send them an e-mail, leave a gospel tract in their mailbox, or just invite them to church. Jesus Christ is coming soon and we have way more work to do, I fear, than we have time to do it!

GAME ON!

Addendum: On 6-5-06, I received the following message from Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Ministries in response to the commentary and the stories linked above that led to it:

Left Behind: Eternal Forces June 6, 2006 - Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, and Purpose Driven Ministries have no connection to the development of the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game. We have not endorsed the game and have no plans to promote it. One of our staff members, Mark Carver, sat on the advisory board for Left Behind Games, and a blogger took that information and jumped to a conclusion that Pastor Rick was involved with marketing the game. That simply isn’t true, a fact the blogger could have verified had he contacted Pastor Rick, Mark Carver, or Left Behind Games. Using the same form of faulty logic as the blogger, a reporter viewing some of the casual links of the blogger could form the assumption that he endorses astrology and witchcraft; however, journalistic ethics would require any reporter to verify this assumption and clarify the confusion with facts. In order to avoid any confusion about the fact that Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, and Purpose Driven Ministries have no involvement with Left Behind Games, Mark Carver resigned from the board of advisors on June 5, 2006 and asked that the reference to him be removed from Left Behind Games website. Carver, who has used his business skills to help plant and support thousands of churches around the world, joined the advisory board of Left Behind Games at the personal request of Jeffrey Frichner, president and co-founder of the company. Frichner and Carver became friends during work they did related to the Jesus Film. The advisory board also included Helmut Teichert, who is the executive director of the Bright Media Foundation, a creation of Campus Crusade Founder Bill Bright and his wife, Vonnette. The game, according to Carver, has an evangelistic thrust with the goal of transforming a technology (video games) that is saturated with gratuitous sex and violence into a tool that can lead young teenagers to Christ. In our conversation with Jeffrey Frichner (Left Behind Games), he told us the game is not a “first-person shooter game,” where a player pulls a trigger to kill someone. This is how it has been characterized by its critics, but Frichner also told us that no one contacted him to verify the content of the game. What the game is, Frichner says, is a “real-time strategy game,” where a player, by managing physical and spiritual resources, learns about the importance of such things as prayer, Scriptures, churches, and God’s protective angels. At this point, we have not seen the game; however, we would encourage you to direct your questions to the developers, or to visit their website: http://www.leftbehindgames.com/. We have always encouraged fresh and inventive methods of evangelism, and we make no apologies for our concentrated efforts at fulfilling the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. We also applaud efforts to develop wholesome video games that engage young people, and we deplore games that mesmerize young players with gratuitous violence and sexuality. Having said that, we reiterate that Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, and Purpose Driven Ministries have no connection to the development of the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game; we have not endorsed it, have no plans to promote it, have not even seen it. The baseless criticisms of Pastor Rick in connection with this game that are now circulating on the Internet are uninformed prejudgments. While we are always willing to answer any questions put directly to us, we believe it serves no one to engage in an inflammatory Internet debate that has little foundation in the truth.