"It's an incredibly violent video game… Sure, there is no blood. (The dead just fade off the screen.) But you are mowing down your enemy with a gun. It pushes a message of religious intolerance. You can either play for the 'good side' by trying to convert nonbelievers to your side or join the Antichrist." —Clark Stevens, co-director of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, speaking about the PC game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, in which players can convert or kill non-believers.

The game is based on the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which takes place in the apocalyptic post-Rapture world, in which Jesus has raised true believers in him to heaven while non-believers were left behind to face the Antichrist. Over 60 million copies of the books, which are ostensibly based on the Book of Revelations, have sold since 1996.

Those who play Left Behind: Eternal Forces may choose to join the Antichrist’s minions and play for his team, which includes fictional rock stars individuals with Arab and Muslim-sounding names.

Jeffrey Frichner, president of Left Behind Games, blithely dismissed accusations of racism and religious intolerance with the statement that, "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ." The ramifications of being a non-believer in Frichner’s scheme, then, is that they ought to be slaughtered if they cannot be converted.

Mimi Hanaoka