Saturday, December 16, 2006

Left Far Behind

The Oracle just read Terry Frank's defense of the "Left Behind" video game and found himself repulsed by the concept.

The repulsion did not arise from agreement with the anti-evangelical critics with whom Frank, mostly correctly, disagrees. Rather, it came from reading the descriptions of the co-founder of the company responsible for creating and marketing the games. Jeffrey Frichner says:

Players can engage in battle, fire guns, even kill innocents in the game, but there will be severe consequences. In fact, you can win this game without ever firing a shot, using weapons of spiritual means, such as prayer and worship.

Frank may be correct that opponents of this approach are expressing their own commitments to pacifism and opposition to the series' expression of dispensational theology. Even so, can not an evangelical Christian be offended at the way that this game trivializes and demeans faith?

The Oracle admits that, though an evangelical, he does not have much sympathy for the theology behind the Left Behind series: my own theological underpinnings derive from Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, and the English Puritans. However, it would seem that even someone who accepts LaHaye's novel but popular concepts could still be concerned when a game reduces faith to, well, a game.

Hat Tip: NIT

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