First posted on Talk to Action

When Left Behind Games launched its convert-or-die videogame Left Behind: Eternal Forces in mid-November 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.

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.

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.

At a press conference today in Phoenix, Arizona, a coalition of progressive Christian groups called for the recall of the hate-based video game Left Behind:  Eternal Forces. Talk to Action's Jonathan Hutson's ground-breaking series posted at Talk to Action, Political Cortex, and elsewhere, remains the definitive critique of the game. Chip Berlet's series on  Tim LaHaye, the author of the series of novels on which the game is based, explains the games' underlying ideology.

CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, Christian Alliance for Progress and The Center for Progressive Christianity will also urge consumers to boycott the video game, which is being released "just in time for the holidays," according to the manufacturer.

Talk to Action co-founders, Bruce Wilson and me, issued a statement at the request of the organizers of the event; posted below.

The countdown to the launch of Left Behind:  Eternal Forces into minds of evangelical youth to prepare them for the coming religious war, is now underway.

While many will no doubt play the new video game, like any other game, others in the game's target market will unwittingly  experience an indoctrination in the idea that the failure to convert the targets of religious prostylitization justifies killing them.

Nevertheless, the game's release is tied to the Christmas shopping season, suggesting that the evangelical Christian commercial marketplace is being harnessed to drive a dangerous form of Christian supremacism: Dangerous to religious minorities, as well as members of incorrect sects. Arguably, it undermine and prepares for aggression against constitutional democracy itself and basic ideas of religious equality under the law.

Originally posted on Talk to Action

Talk to Action's three-part series on the Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game, in which Christian militias wage physical and spiritual warfare using the power of prayer and modern military weaponry to convert New Yorkers and kill those who resist, has set forth some provocative positions and boldly stated views. And for that, a web site on Christian apologetics, called Christian Cadre, has organized a campaign against Talk to Action and its series. In this piece, Talk to Action researches and rebuts criticism from the leader of this campaign, a blogger who uses the handle Layman. But first, let's review how the series has been received elsewhere in the media.

"Sit down, pour yourself a cup of Holy-CRAP-These-People-Are- Insane and read this," advises Father Dan, in a post titled "Schlock Fiction Left Behind Series Now a Bigoted Video Game." The San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford read it and spread it through his column, "Jesus Loves a Machine Gun."

Talk to Action, the blog site about the religious right and what to do about it I co-founded, has not sought media attention since our initial press release last November. We focused primarily on making the site a must-read, and we would worry about the media later.

But this week, a project that has been in the works for some time comes to fruition -- and some other media attention serendipitiously came our way.

Regular readers know that three Talk to Action writers (John Dorhauer, Mainstream Baptist, and Andrew Weaver), will appear on State of Belief, a national radio show hosted by Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, and broadcast on Air America -- this Sunday.

I was interviewed for an article about the antigay, and anti-mainline Protestant politics of the rightist Institute on Religion on Democracy some time ago.  It finally appreared in, the Washington, DC weekly, The Washington Blade. A somewhat different version appeared in Southern Voice.

As notable as all this may be, it can't hold a candle to Tanya Erzen's Talk to Action piece on the Christian Right and immigration -- that was cited by the Associated Press and appeared nationwide, including (among many, many, others),in the online editions of New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, ABC News, as well as BeliefNet.

I am sure that the story will also appear in many print editions of newspapers across the county over the next few days as well.

The religious and secular right have have been gunning for the mainstream Protestant churches in the United States, and around the world, for a generation. Through front groups -- mostly associated with the Washington, DC-based Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), they have sought to foment internal division and generate external pressures, in order to neutralize, divide, and conquer the historic churches of mainline Protestantism that had become increasingly powerful and influential advocates for Christian notions of social justice.

Unfortunately, it has been as difficult for mainstream religious leaders to come to terms with this strategic assault, as it has been for most Americans to come to terms with the rise of the religious right in American politics.

But we may have reached a turning point, thanks to Air America and a dedicated group of bloggers who also happen to be veterans of research and writing about the religious right.

On Sunday, May 21st, Air America's nationally syndicated radio show State of Belief, "In conjunction with the website Talk to Action... takes an unprecedented look into the takeover of America's churches, revealing the ugly truths, personal experiences, and exhaustive research of four leaders."

"The Southern Baptist Convention was lost," State of Belief host Welton Gaddy ruefully notes regarding the fundamentalist takeover of his own denomination, "not because of those trying to take it over, but because of people arguing that it wasn't a big deal." The program will air on about 40 stations around the country, XM Satellite Radio, and over the internet via streaming audio, as well as via podcast. Visit the State of Belief web site for details on how to hear the show.

In my more-or-less weekly round-ups of interesting and important posts about the religious right from the Greater Blogsophere, I have highlighted posts with which I generally agree in substance and tone.  

But sometimes, there are disagreements worth highlighting -- even among our friends.  And this week, a few have surfaced. What we disagree on, and how we go about disagreeing, can be at least as important as the things on which we agree and how we come to agree on them.

This past weekend, I spoke on a conference panel titled "Resisting the Right," at the always excellent, annual reproductive rights conference sponsored by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and the Population and Development Program, at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. There were about sixty-five people in the session; mostly young; almost all women. Some worked for reproductive rights organizations around the country. As always, it was an interesting and informative set of presentations, and a thought provoking question and answer period.

But one moment stood out for me that I want to try to describe.

Mark Twain once wrote, in response to a premature obituary that "reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

The way too many in the media and the blogosphere write about the religious right in general, and Pat Robertson in particular, one would think that the movement was death warmed over.

Wishful thinking not withstanding, the religious right remains a powerful faction in American politics, and Pat Robertson remains a wealthy power broker with daily television audience that is one of the largest on cable television. True, he has become an embarrassment to many in his movement, who are now seeking to distance themselves in various ways. But this is more complicated than it may seem at first blush, because Robertson is also an embarrassment of riches for televangelism, for the religious right and for the Republican Party.  

My colleague Jonathan Hutson lays it out in detail at Talk to Action.  

Every once in awhile, I am going to pop-up with a sampler of some of the more interesting posts at Talk to Action. It's the only place in the world where you can come to learn and talk about the religious right and what to do about it: and only that. As narrow as that may sound, we cover a lot of ground.  

Some of this stuff is not for the uninitiated in thinking and discussing the religious right. The three writers I mention below are worth taking the time to understand, and to consider in formulating your views about the politics of the future.

Once upon a time, the member denominations of the National Council of Churches maintained a vigorous social witness. That's what such mainline Protestants as the Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, the Methodists, and the Episcopals called their stands for social justice including such things as civil rights for African Americans, equality for women -- including ordination, and opposition to the excesses of American foreign policy from Vietnam to El Salvador. While there was some conservative opposition to these advances over the course of the 20th century, including some schisms, the direction of mainline protestantism was clear.

The Chalcedon Foundation, the seminal think tank of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, founded by the late theologian of theocracy, R.J. Rushdoony, has a blog - new this month. The blog's early posts include some tart observations about my new site  Talk to Action -- and even tarter responses to John Sugg's article on Christian Reconstructionism in Mother Jones magazine. Among other things, blogger Chris Ortiz, says the article is "amateurish" -- although he does not say how.

Friends, Colleagues, Cortexans!

The bloggers are taking on the religious right.

Our first signficant effort is a national e-conference with Mother Jones magazine -- it's is now underway! And you are invited. The occasion for the event is the publication of a special issue of Mother Jones magazine which includes several important articles about the religious right. Think of it as an opening plenary panel discussion. A discussion that will explode across the blogosphere like a big bang of enlightenment. Well, Ok. The mixed metaphor may be a bit much. But then again, so are the stakes.

Yesterday, a project I have been involved in developing for months, finally came to frutition. Talk to Action became the first national blog site to focus on the religious right -- and what to do about it. Next week, Talk to Action is partnering with Mother Jones magazine to break further new ground.  We will be hosting the first -- but certainly not the last -- national e-conference on the religious right. The occasion is the publication of a special issue of the magazine which "examines the contentious debate over the role of religion in government. "It's been more than 200 years since the founders established the separation of church and state," observe the editors in introducing the package. "The assault on that principle now under way promises to alter not only our form of government but our concept of religion as well."