God's Warriors

Last night was the final installment of Christiane Amanpour's documentary "God's Warriors". Overall I found the entire series to be very interesting, but I can't say that I learned a lot that was really, truly new for me. Probably I knew the least about the Jewish God's Warriors than the others. That's less because of the issues involved, which I understand, than the fact that I just haven't heard/seen too many of them talking in interviews.

Last night, the Christian God's Warriors seemed to be the tamest of them all. Christiane stuck with Falwell and the people who grew out of the Moral Majority/Christian Right. I was expecting to see Fred Phelps, Branch Davidian-types, David Duke-Christian white supremacist/militia types, but none of those were shown at all. Intelligent Design was very briefly discussed (for about 20 seconds), but none of the extremists that have made death threats for not teaching it (or teaching evolution) in school.

Perhaps she was being shrewd. Perhaps she thought that she shouldn't "go there". And, to her defense, these groups don't have the political influence that the Christian Right has, and it was the political influence that Amanpour was focusing on.

One thing I've noticed in some of the negative commentary about her documentary -- many seem to think that Amanpour was comparing the three groups, that she was somehow saying that they were equal. But she wasn't comparing at all. She was looking at 3 different groups of "God's Warriors" and exploring how they influence politics in the world in order to achieve what they believe is God's purposes. As much as I didn't like Falwell, Amanpour was never comparing Falwell to bin Laden and saying that they were equal. To think so is to miss the point entirely.