Yeah, you read that right. There’s a booth at CES 2011 where the entire message the representatives are pushing is the idea that a 21st century Jesus Christ would be a gamer.

GameChurch, in the North Hall on the fringe of the Game Lounge area, is not trying to sell or push anything (except maybe a more modern version of The Good Book).

Texas was the first state to be a test market for Left Behind games. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon said the company is moving forward with the Walmart partnership. Left Behind’s Christian-themed PC games will soon be available in “a limited number of Walmart stores covering a broad area of states,” whatever exactly that means.

Digital Praise, the company responsible for the music games Dance Praise and Guitar Praise , has announced a planned merger with Left Behind Games Inc, most well-known for games based on the Left Behind best-selling series of books.

The two companies have had a friendly working relationship in recent months, as in December 2009 Left Behind gave Digital Praise a no-interest short term loan of $50,000.

In its latest press materials, Left Behind Games vows to move past the PC and focus on the Xbox 360 and Wii for future development (although it doesn’t mention the PlayStation 3. Maybe there are just too many heathens playing that console).

The company has also entered an agreement with videogame representative firm SMP Communications to help get Christian-themed games into more retail outlets.

Electronic Arts’ upcoming game, Dante’s Inferno, is using an unlikely ally in its latest publicity stunt. Instead of going with the Xbox or the PlayStation, they are using a Church’s game system. Well, sort of.

In a controversial move, the latest game trailer is “hidden” in a web page promoting a video game console called Mass: We Pray. This imaginary console comes with stools and cross shaped controllers that look like WiiMotes and supposedly simulates the experience of attending mass. When any of the links in the page are clicked, the page changes to the latest trailer for Dante’s Inferno.

Is the Christian market for games being underserved? Is there, in fact, a market for Christian games? Walmart and Left Behind Games will try to answer those questions with a test in 100 stores in the Houston and Dallas areas. These stores will stock back catalog PC games based on the best selling Left Behind book series.

Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind business unit Inspired Media Entertainment, said in a recent press release that the company picked Texas because that state has the highest number of evangelical Protestants in the United States (it has more than 23,000 churches statewide)…

Every once in a while someone creates a game that stirs the controversy pot and drives back the movement to make games an acceptable art form in mainstream media. The most recent game is titled Muslim Massacre in which the main goal is to “wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world’s most destructive weapons.” The tagline for the game is, “The game of modern religious genocide.”

Some people who have played the game posted their satisfaction on the Something Awful forums but not everyone there feels that way…

Christian rockers who may not have been satisfied with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band tracklists will have an alternative by the end of September, 2008. Digitial Praise has announced that Guitar Praise, a Christian version of Guitar Hero is on the way. Guitar Praise is designed specifically for computers and features over 50 Christian rock songs from artists like Casting Crowns, David Crowder Band, dc Talk, Flyleaf, Reliant K and Newsboys. The game will also come with a specially created guitar controller which plugs into any USB drive.

Click through for the official Guitar Praise song list…

Will Wright’s latest project Spore puts players in control of their own destiny by controlling a lot of the aspects that help make up life. Starting as a single-cell organism, your choices help determine the type of creature you will become. From there it’s a matter of building up a civilization which include traditions, customs and religion.

Wright had a feeling that the religion creation mechanic in Spore might stir up some controversy from various religious groups but ironically enough, it was a segment of Atheists that had a problem with it…

September 2006, Afkar Media, a Syrian game company, released a PC Real Time Strategy (RTS) game to positively portray Islam during the first hundred years of its existence. Called Quraish (according to the official website; the Christian Science Monitor calls it Al-Quraysh), players can choose to be one of five powers, including the Romans, the Persians, and a fledgling Muslim empire.

Afkar Media isn’t a new company, having also released Under Siege, a first/third person shooter that follows the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a Muslim point of view. Both of these games are intended to show Muslims in a more positive light, portraying them as protagonists.

Radwan Kasmiya, executive manager of Afkar Media, believes that …