"It's finally here! Just in time for holiday gift-giving," advertises the web site of the wildly-bestselling "Left Behind" series of novels of the end times. The "It" is a new video game, based on the books, called "Left Behind: Eternal Forces," in which players compete with the Antichrist and his United Nations peacekeeping force by battling their way through photorealistic New York City and either converting or killing those they encounter.
[..T]his represents a new medium for the ideas of Tim LaHaye, who co-authored the books with Jerry Jenkins (a successful ghostwriter and former writer for the "Gil Thorp" comic strip) and provided the theological substance.
[..]LaHaye's battles against what he called "secular humanism" led him to interrogate the "religious persuasion" of Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O'Connor, to revive the ancient theory of the Four Humors (see this pamphlet), and to lead his followers to political activism. "Next to your salvation the most important day of your life will be election day 1984," read one ACTV mailing. (LaHaye resigned as co-chairman of Jack Kemp's 1988 presidential bid after past statements were made public in which he declared Catholicism a "false religion" and noted "Brilliant Jewish minds have all too frequently been devoted to philosophies that have proved harmful to mankind.")
Gotta love those "Christian" morals. C&Ler Gregory forwarded on a Guardian op-ed: "It's been a rotten year for Jesus Christ, American" that posits that the fundies are their own worst enemy:
Alongside the November congressional elections that put George Bush's manhood in a lockbox for the next two years, the most encouraging development of the past year has been the American electorate's ferocious rejection of the primary tenets held by the fundamentalist godfathers of his administration. It's been a rotten year for Jesus Christ, American. Merry Christmas!
