The Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking Wal-Mart to take the controversial religious game Left Behind off the shelves and out of its stores. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, in a letter to Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., asserted that the game promotes "religious intolerance ... i[its] enemy team includes people with Muslim-sounding names."

Cited in the letter is a quote from Left Behind Games President Jeffrey Frichner, who told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that "'Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ' -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game ... That is so obvious." Awad reminds in his letter that "Muslims do in fact revere Jesus as one of God's prophets."

Left Behind: Eternal Forces has come under fire from a large assortment of groups from all parts of society, including the Christian Alliance for Progress and the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (not to mention the Alliance for Gamers Against Rotten Gameplay, AGARD). In fact, nothing in recent memory has brought so many disparate groups together like this game. In an odd sense, might this controversy spawn unity in some fashion?

[Via Game Politics]

[Update 1: Judging by the first 20 comments we've received on this post, there's a good chance that half of the comments left will be off topic, in the sense that their sole purpose is express intolerance towards a religion or defending a religion against someone else's intolerance. In lieu of staying up late and constantly monitoring the post, we're going to keep comments closed for now and get some sleep.]