What do you do when the promise of eternal salvation isn’t enough to sucker kids into attending church? Set up free Halo.

Tomorrow’s New York Times is running a great article about how leaders at Protestant churches, including those from evangelical branches who’ve actively opposed video games, are using ‘Halo nights’ to induce kids to come to church.

I suppose the pastors, “desperate to reach young congregants,” have come to the realization that the mind-numbing and immoral 2000 year-old preachings of near illiterate peasants stuck in the middle of some desert are not filling America’s youth with enthusiasm. The pastors have got a hard job; the miracles of Moses and his laughable burning bush pale (rather a bit) in the face of the achievements of modern science and medicine (not to mention those of Bungie Studios).

Echoing the mantra of fellow religious fundamentalists all over the world, a young evangelist explains Halo’s appeal:

It’s just fun blowing people up.

The Southern Baptist denomination sent 50,000 e-mails to kids about how to bring faith into their playing of Halo 3: use the game’s themes to discuss good and evil.

The New York Times article amusingly points out that the game’s hero is battling religious eschatalogists: the enemies are part of a religious cult that sees the destruction of Earth as necessary to bring about their ascent to heaven.

That sounds strangely familiar.