A Military Crusade in Iraq brought to you by...

the Department of Defense. Operation Straight Up and their upcoming crusade - tour - is one of the newest members of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program. In the name of our Blessed Creator and with the humble blessings of the Department of Defense of the Apocalypse, they will spread their message that it's not the extent of brain injury or mental health disorder your soldier suffers from, but whether he or she is saved:

On the most dangerous soil in our world, we’re taking a team of performers, professional athletes, and evangelists on a mission that will be both entertaining, as well as lend tremendous solitude to our men and women stationed in this war torn country of Iraq. We are most excited about this crusade and yes we are willing to go to the front lines with a very encouraging word straight from God, to our troops. We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region... At no greater time is our military acceptant of the principles of God and prayer, than when under extreme danger and concerned about their loved ones at home. No one can give lasting meaning to the heartache these troops are suffering than can Jesus Christ. Only our God can give back the sanity of our brave men and women, that risk coming home with mental issues because of what they have witnessed on the battle fields of Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, and Fallujah.

Now if you would please peel your eyes off the Flying Wallendas and Stephen Baldwin for just a moment. Because proselytizing with the overt support of the Defense Department is only the tip of the iceberg. Feast your eyes upon the Freedom Package OSU mails to frontline soldiers. These consists of:

Greeting card
75 Minute Phone Card
White Socks
Baby Wipes (suggested by Col Oliver North)
Gideon’s pocket size New Testament
Extreme Sports “Livin It” Witnessing DVD
“More than a Carpenter” book by Josh McDowell” Double printed in the Arabic language
PC Game – Left Behind Game by Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins
and an assortment of snacks.

Skipping over why Oliver North thinks baby wipes are important, I want to comment on the Josh McDowell book and the PC game. You can buy More than a Carpenter at amazon.com by the six pack. It's plugged there as "the most powerful evangelism tool worldwide." What's interesting is with this version you can read it through frontways in English and then turn it over and read it through in Arabic. Ooops, you don't know Arabic? Apparently neither does our military. So obviously the book is meant for proselytizing our Muslim friends in Iraq. You know, the ones whose religion we're just so tolerant of and stuff. But why read a book when there's a video game!?! Now there's some lessons for how to evangelize your nonChristian friends.

The goal of the game is to kill or convert all the non-believers left behind after the rapture. It hit the shelves just in time for Christmas and I blogged on No War Toys for the Prince of Peace. It was exposed for it's dominionist and eliminationst tone by Talk2Action. And as Alternet notes, "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."

The OSU thinks this game of convert or kill is the perfect end to a day of fighting the evilddoers in Iraq.

And the Blessed Department of the Defense of the Apocalypse is giving its full support to this new military crusade in Iraq by training up a generation of crusaders who will believe that killing in the name of Christ is right and good.

After all, you wouldn't want to spend all eternity in that damn fiery lake would you?