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I am Mike Noakes.
That is was my pipe.
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"Before the beautiful-no, not really before but within the beautiful-the whole person quivers. He not only 'finds' the beautiful moving; rather, he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it."
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- Flannery o'Connor

"Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world. It is time, in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds, stewards of the new day that is dawning."
- NT Wright

"When we think our brother or sister has sinned against us, such an affront is not just against us but against the whole community. A community established as peaceful cannot afford to let us relish our sense of being wronged without exposing that wrong in the hopes of reconciliation."
- Stan Hauerwas

"Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments."
- Thomas Merton

"All the believers were of one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possesions was their own, but they shared everything that they had."
- Acts of the Apostles

"For evil men account those things alone evil which do not make men evil; neither do they blush to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if it were man's greatest good to have everything good but himself."
- St. Augustine

(reading)

The Eucharist of the Early Christians

The Collected Short Stories, Flannery o'Connor

The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy

(have read)

Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II

God is Near Us, Pope Benedict XVI

Heretics/Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton

Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barret Browning

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Friday, August 18, 2006

Left Behind - the game from hell

If there truly be such a place, surely this is where it came from. As many of you are aware, dispensationalists have made a ridiculous amount of money off of the "Left Behind" series and various paraphanelias (Underground devotionals, rapture revivalists, movies, soundtracks, college courses (!) etc... ) As anyone with half a brain and a bit of church history under their belt (I'm not even talking a lot, folks... ) will know that this eschatological "theory" has had no position of any merit in the entirety of the church's existence (That is, dispensational premillenialism) And now there's a game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

That is my position on this particular theology - but I take issue with a different aspect of this game, beyond it's eschatological short-comings.

(I am usually not this blunt with my positions but I feel this ought to be said. Please don't hate me)

Obviously this will have no major impact on the gaming world as a whole. As a former gamer, I know I wouldn't spend any money on this. If I felt like killing people in the streets I could just as easily play Grand Theft Auto, Hitman II, or some other similar title. I would have more fun also, not having to worry if God was happy with me or not. I would already know he's not happy.

All christians can hold to this - our faith does not advocate the killing of innocent people. Many of us would go on to say that our tradition does not allow killing at all, but that is not a universally agreed upon position. Regardless, "Jihad for Jesus" is not something the majority of us aspire to.

That is quite a statement, I know. But is it without merit? Read this excerpt from the Washington Post article:

The object of the game is to recruit the members of New York's remaining "neutral" population to the side of God during a seven-year reign of the Antichrist. Players have to win over the remaining agnostics and unbelievers of New York City or kill them -- either before or after they are pulled to the forces of evil.

Yes, kill those who are not Christians and make everyone else "christian." That's the object of the game. But it gets even better, "In multiplayer mode, players can choose to command the Antichrist's armies." Yes, you can even choose the side of satan, if that tickles your fancy.

What have we allowed christianity to become?

Well, my thoughts are thrown out there. What do you think?

::Petition is located here::

posted by -mike- at 8:42 PM

 

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