Military lets Bible Crusader Send 'Freedom Packages' to Troops in Iraq, includes Rapture Video Game

"Military Crusade in Iraq" is next for the group . . .

August 8, 2007

The Pentagon Sends Messengers of Apocalypse to Convert Soldiers in Iraq

By Max Blumenthal,
TheNation.com

Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.

With the endorsement of the Defense Department, OSU is mailing "Freedom Packages" to soldiers serving in Iraq. These are not your grandfather's care packages, however. Besides pairs of white socks and boxes of baby wipes (included at the apparent suggestion of Iran-Contra felon Oliver North, according to OSU) OSU's care packages contain the controversial Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game. The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' bestselling pulp fiction series about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye's and Jenkins' books, the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven.

Producers of the Left Behind videogame were faced with a storm of controversy after Christian blogger Jonathan Hutson exposed its eliminationist overtones in a series of posts on the website Talk2Action. Statements by the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference on American Islamic Relations, the Christian Alliance for Progress, and others condemned the game and demanded that Walmart pull it from its shelves. Even Marvin Olasky, the evangelical publisher, intellectual author of "compassionate conservatism," and a force behind the George W. Bush Administration's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives," denounced the Left Behind videogame. In a blog post on the website of his World Magazine, Olasky described the game's content as akin to "the way homicidal Muslims think." As a result of the fallout, Left Behind Games fired its senior VP and released three board members.

This controversy has not deterred OSU from encouraging US troops to play virtual rounds of kill or convert after a hard day of house-to-house searches and counterinsurgency warfare against Iraqi insurgents. What's more, OSU's "Freedom Packages" include a copy of evangelical pastor Jonathan McDowell's More Than A Carpenter -- a book advertised as "one of the most powerful evangelism tools worldwide" -- that is double-published in Arabic. Considering that only a handful of American troops speak Arabic, the book is ostensibly intended for proselytizing efforts among Iraqi civilians.

OSU has cultivated support from the Department of Defense for years. After a private October, 2005 meeting between OSU's Spinks and Defense Department officials, OSU was invited to perform inside the Pentagon. This week, Pentagon employees and active duty service members are expected to enjoy a breakfast with Spinks and Baldwin, followed by an OSU performance in which they will receive "spiritual encouragement via a Biblical message." The events will be held respectively in the Pentagon Executive Dining Room and the Pentagon Auditorium.

Spreading the Gospel to US troops is only one of many crusades Baldwin has waged in the name of the Lord. During 2006, Baldwin frequently stationed himself on the sidewalk outside a pornographic video store in New York. There, he photographed the license plates of people entering the store and threatened to publish an ad in a Nyack paper publicizing the names of those who patronized the store. "In my position, I just don't think I'm supposed to keep my faith to myself," Baldwin told a group of Texas Southern Baptists in 2004. "I'm just doing what the Lord's telling me to do."

Soon after his appearance at the Pentagon, Baldwin ships out to Iraq for OSU's "Military Crusade." With its cadre of celebrity entertainers pushing End Times theology, and the overt support of the Defense Department, OSU is hoping to transform Bush's surge into a battle of biblical proportions.


http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/59161/

and willing to share what they say.. great:(

and has been converted

or a Buddhist or Pagan to request the exact same access to our soldiers! I want to see just how quickly the Pentagon starts stammering and stuttering and making excuses. :mad:

That's where it fucking started.

We would get these FNGs come in all beautific and shit and start trying to save us all and asking for us to pray for them. And rhey were Marines, for Dog's sake.

We certainly obliged them on that count.

Prayed for them to get hit right away and leave us alone.

This is bad shit.
The fact that is officially sanctioned is really disturbing.

This is gonna fuck up a lot of people.

I'm sure that the soldiers play the types of video games that makes Jack Thompson have seizures like the Grand Theft Auto games and even other military games, but do we a group sending them games whose purpose is to "get the non-believers," as in non-Christians, since that's essentially who they're supposed to be both defending and fighting in Iraq?

TlalocW

This moran's idea of How To Bring The Unwashed Heathen Soldiers To Jesus As I Know Him is to send guys whose job involves going out into the mean streets of Iraq to shoot people...a video game where you go out into the streets and shoot people.

That's like...y'know, I can't even begin to think of a simile to this one. This is just...like...totally fucked in the head.

Can't these fools come up with something a soldier might LIKE? Something like Instant Food That Halliburton Didn't Cook?

...after all, what could possibly help our image over there more than giving their kids games that encourage them to convert to Christianity? :crazy:

None of this is going to end well.

I mean, not even fun in the least. I loved the review G4...and they were being as impartial as possible: http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/reviews/1367/Left_Behind_Eternal_Forces.html

OK, they ignored the most basic principles of video-game producing but I gather you can play the Demonic forces and the idea of converting a load of fundementalist fuckwits to the side of freedom sounds appealing enough to make me pluck this out of the bargain bins.

That we're some demonic force that meets every tuesday to figure out how to corrupt their little souls (they do that fine on their own...)

I've actually talked to someone who has played this game. It's shit. No really. Content aside, it's a pile of shit.

Forgot about that. I'm a Luciferian and I can just imagine what the Religious Reich is going to think my day-to-day life consists of...

Actually I'll even hate you if you harm a puppy dog.B-)

I actually prefer animals to most humans (insert the Christopher Lee speech here). I'm phobic about large dogs (42 stitches in my face) but I have two much adored and pampered cats: One a blind stray who adopted us, the other was literally dumped on our doorstep as a kitten (and I do mean literally, we opened the door one day to find a small, terrified kitten in a carrycage, no note or anything).

"Finally, some of the animations come off hazy and confusing. Whenever you pray or listen to Christian rock in order to raise your spirit, a spark hovers over your head. With more than four or five disciples at once, you just get a glowing mob."

:rofl:

pagan brothers and sisters I think we may need to buy some flame retardant robes in the near future.

(I'm not a Pagan, I'm a Satanist but I figure that lumps me in with you guys as far as the Religious Reich is concerned)

Let's club together and buy an island somewhere ala The Wicker Man (the original, not the diabolical remake). There's a couple hundred uninhabited or minimally inhabited islands around, I'm sure we'd be able to come to some kind of arrangement with the locals to stay there. Obviously, leave out the human sacrifice but can we keep Christopher Lee?

just a guess.

My guess is that it is someone who believes in Satan and sees Satan as a deity. If that is true, what does one get from that belief or if it isn't so what is it?

I've been a Wiccan but not a Satanist.

There are three main denominations of Satanism:
LaVeyan: By far the most widespread, founded by Anton LaVey and codified in his "Satanic Bible". It's an athiestic philosophy that doesn't believe in any deity but uses Satan as a symbol (and because LaVey liked pissing off Christians).

Luciferian: Dozens of smaller sub-denominatiosn, this is the denomination I claim and by far the least organised or uniform. A form of maltheism which believes that God is a malevolent, evil deity and that Satan (whom we call Lucifer) is the fairer, more reasonable deity. We don't have holy books as such but the general attitude can be summed up as "Aid one's fellow man, resist Jehovah's tyranny". We refuse to give even tacit approval to a monsterous God. If you'll forgive the poetic language, we carry a light into dark places, we stand on the bridge and none may pass. If you want an example, think of Tom Joad or the unknown hero of Tiananmen Square.

Temple Of Set: Aka Setites or Setians. The Temple believes in Satan as a deity but doesn't exactly worship him, rather they seek to emulate him through intellectual enlightenment. They have a very complex philosophy which I'll admit I don't fully understand so I'll direct you to their website: www.xeper.org

You'll notice that none of us worship a "Prince of Evil". Those few who do are referred to by various names, "Dabblers" being a common one. The Christian equivelant would probably be the gangsta wearing a three-inch, rhinestone-encrusted crucifix who doesn't have an ounce of "Christian love" in him. They're the people who take phrases like "everything is permitted" or "death to the world" literally but don't bother to understand the philosophies which underpin those phrases. The occasional criminal who claims to be a Satanist almost always fall into this category.

I am no expert by a long shot. Just a seeker. It is nice to see that we all have to find our own paths and that we don't need to have a holy crusade or jihad against each other.


Buddha is/was not a deity but was/is a human. All living things share in the divine as I see it. I could never believe in the vengeful god or have fear of the lord. I am a recovering Catholic. I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college. I've had Catholic dogma pounded into me to where I ended up renouncing all that I had been taught and started over.

I met a Shinto person in Tokyo and he was taught not to like Christians by his elders as I was taught not to like non Christians by mine. We both liked each other that day and decided our elders were wrong.

A couple of close friends are Buddhists and my father is a Taoist (which isn't the same thing, granted, but does share some similar views).

The idea of a crusade or jihad is antithetical to Luciferianism. The whole point is freedom. "This is the truth for me. Whether it's anyone else's truth is up to them".

I think I need to see a medical professional.

How much snot can you blow out your nose laughing before it's fatal?


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:spray: :rofl:

Have you seen Britt these days? OK, she looks good considering she's in her mid-sixties but it's a far cry from how she looked dancing around in the film (and it was a body double for her lower half then, she was pregnant at the time).

Amusing exchange: On my copy of The Wicker Man, the director and Christopher Lee do a commentry track. They're discussing casting and they get to Britt Ekland. The director says "Can't remember why we cast her". Pause. Lee: "It's because she was extraordinarily pretty, wasn't it?".

You're like that fireman in Get Crazy who walks into Daniel Stern's fantasy with a fire extinguisher.

Both seem kind of cultist to me.

If that's the case, it was the only cult I've ever heard of where, frankly, most of us members would have preferred to keep OUT the prospective new people.

Tickets were hard enough to come by already. :hippie:

The Wicker Man is a classic of British horror/mystery films which involves paganism, philosophy and human sacrifice (the sanctimonious Sgt. Howie ends up locked inside the titular Wicker Man as it's burned).

The Burning Man is a pagan festival which yes, also involves a giant burning figure.

As far as I know, they have no connection except that both were inspired by the same ancient ritual.

brings to the individual something he/she has lost or has yet to get. Isn't that the reason for the sacrifice in Wicker Man

In the film, the point of the sacrifice was to restore fertility to the island by sacrificing a "pure" (i.e. virginal) man of authority. Hence the luring of the holier-than-thou policeman. I have no idea about the festival.

and a failing acting career because he doesn't have the talent of brother Alec. This is the guy that starred with Cindy Crawford in a movie, and she out acted him.

"Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq" How the fu*k would that make you feel?

<snip>
Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.