An Army of God?

I just ran across a very disturbing bit of news via BTC News. According to Max Blumenthal at TheNation.com, the Pentagon, through its America Supports You program, is promoting a video game based on the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins called Left Behind: Eternal Forces to its troops. If this is true, the Pentagon and the Bush administration are making a huge mistake.

Citizens become soldiers for a variety of reasons. Some choose to enlist for economic reasons or as an expression of patriotism. Some will enlist to be a part of something larger than themselves, others to find direction and meaning for their lives, or the desire for adventure may be the driving influence. Whatever the case, the soldier, airman, seaman or marine had enough motivation to join the military, but the Pentagon is trying to bolster that motivation by adding a religious cause to the case. I have no problem with the military trying to bolster troop morale, but the use of a video game that promotes a message of religious message equivalent to the Islamic fascists they are fighting will likely have the opposite effect.

Apparently the video game in question operates on the premise of the Christian soldier fighting a physical battle against the forces of Antichrist, the UN. The moral of the game is that the U.S. military is on the side of God. The brand of Christianity that this game is promoting is really no different than the fundamentalist Muslim faction that are trying to take hold in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. By promoting one view of God over another, it won’t take long for the troops in the field to ask themselves, “If I am fighting for God and my enemy is fighting for God, then why are we fighting each other?” The only justification for continuing to fight is an absurdity; God likes my country and my people better – or – our side is more righteous in the eyes of God. Eventually, any thinking soldier will understand the absurdity of the message being promoted through this arm of the Pentagon and will have a demoralizing effect on our forces.