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Media Taking Note of Religious Warfare Vid for Kids Email Print

By Frederick Clarkson
12/12/2006 03:32:24 PM EST

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.

Jonathan Hutson's ground breaking series on the game from last summer, while it was still in developmental stages is here:  

Chip Berlet's series on the hate-based ideology of Tim LaHaye is here:

Statement of Frederick Clarkson and Bruce Wilson from the press conference sponsored by CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, Christian Alliance for Progress and The Center for Progressive Christianity annoucing a petition effort to get the game withdrawn from the market.

Bruce Wilson discusses the "prayer button."

Bruce Wilson discusses Focus on the Family's endorsement of the game.

Frederick Clarkson reports on the announcement of DefCon's campaign against WalMart to pull the game from the shelves.

Frederick Clarkson discusses the game as an instructional video for children in the ideology of religious warfare.

Update [2006-12-12 18:31:45 by Frederick Clarkson]: Here is the just posted">Associated Press account of the controversy and the news conference.


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Media Taking Note of Religious Warfare Vid for Kids | 3 comments (3 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
This is happening because (none / 0)
Of the efforts of a lot of people over many months. The Talk to Action bloggers led the way in framing the analysis, and eventually concerned progressive Christian groups and DefCon began to organize campaigns to press the manufacturer and the retailers to withdraw the hate-based "game."

During this time, almost all of the media slept.

by Frederick Clarkson on 12/12/2006 03:35:12 PM EST

Congratulation! (none / 0)
Hey Mr. Clarkson, Congratulation!

We subscribe to the Chronicle, and I was also quite
thrilled to see this article on the front page.

I just sent off a letter-to-the-editor (very likely
not to get printed), but it should be interesting
to see what letters do get printed tomorrow.

Here's a link to the article:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/a rticle.cgi?file=c/a/2006/1 2/12/MNG8TMU1KQ1.DTL

and here's a link to their letter page, which hopefully
will be filled with outraged letters tomorrow:

http://www.sfgate.com/opini on

It's great to see the momentum growing!

Escape the Matrix! Turn off the Tube !

by TerryS on 12/13/2006 01:50:00 AM EST

[ Parent ]
2 Letters to the Editor (none / 0)
Regarding the San Francisco Chronicle
article, two days after it ran, the Chronicle
printed 2 very eloquent letters (neither mine)
condemning the game. For some reason, on the day
they were printed, no letters were posted to
their internet site.

Here's a quote from one of the letters:

"Lovely. Now when I send my kids to play
at the home of a new friend, I not only
have to make sure there are no firearms
in the house, but also no Christian-jihadist
electronic mayhem for entertainment."

As for the Amazon reviews, the other day
there were 14 reviews (mostly negative),
and now there are only 5. So for some
reason 9 reviews (including mine) were
deleted. Not all the deleted reviews were
negative, so it could just be a computer
glitch.

But again, I would urge anyone with an
Amazon account to post a negative review
of this creepy game.

http://www.amazon.com/Left- Behind-Eternal-Forces-CD-RO M/dp/B000JWY7SU/sr=8-1/qid= 1165695627/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/ 102-0894320-0493746?ie=UTF8 &s=videogames

Escape the Matrix! Turn off the Tube !

by TerryS on 12/16/2006 03:49:56 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Media Taking Note of Religious Warfare Vid for Kids | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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