"Friends Of God" Documentary
Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle has a review of Alexandra Pelosi's "Friends Of God" documentary up and here are some interesting parts.
"The frustrations and virtues of Pelosi's approach can best be illustrated in her handling of Ted Haggard, who was president of the National Association of Evangelicals at the time of filming. (He was recently forced to resign after being outed by a male prostitute.) When Haggard talks about how wonderful it is that there are more "Christians" than ever in the government, Pelosi doesn't challenge him on the appropriation of the name "Christian" for his particular sect. There have always been Christians in government, after all, and Pelosi's own mother, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a Catholic and, therefore, Christian too. Yet you can bet he's not talking about her.
Nor does she press him on exactly what being a pro-war, pro-death penalty conservative Republican has to do with the New Testament or anything Jesus said or did."
Cut.
"Along the way, Pelosi shows a variety of odd curiosities, including wrestling for Jesus and skateboarding for Jesus. She gives a lot of screen time to a motor-mouthed "Christian comedian," who complains that no one has given him a sitcom because he's a Christian. It doesn't seem to dawn on him that he's just not funny. He goes onstage ranting about how great the United States is and how awful Europe is, and a whole audience of people -- who shop at strip malls, eat at fast-food restaurants and don't own a passport -- erupts into applause. There's a lot of anger in this documentary, a lot of insularity and us-against-them paranoia taking the form of fellowship."
More here.
Nothing really new here but just a confirmation that there are some very scary people using religion to short circuit thinking.
I would bet there is even a good amount of economic frustration involved with a good portion of this crowd, but instead of doing something about that, they turn towards a dogmatic philosophy that has all the "answers".
"The frustrations and virtues of Pelosi's approach can best be illustrated in her handling of Ted Haggard, who was president of the National Association of Evangelicals at the time of filming. (He was recently forced to resign after being outed by a male prostitute.) When Haggard talks about how wonderful it is that there are more "Christians" than ever in the government, Pelosi doesn't challenge him on the appropriation of the name "Christian" for his particular sect. There have always been Christians in government, after all, and Pelosi's own mother, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a Catholic and, therefore, Christian too. Yet you can bet he's not talking about her.
Nor does she press him on exactly what being a pro-war, pro-death penalty conservative Republican has to do with the New Testament or anything Jesus said or did."
Cut.
"Along the way, Pelosi shows a variety of odd curiosities, including wrestling for Jesus and skateboarding for Jesus. She gives a lot of screen time to a motor-mouthed "Christian comedian," who complains that no one has given him a sitcom because he's a Christian. It doesn't seem to dawn on him that he's just not funny. He goes onstage ranting about how great the United States is and how awful Europe is, and a whole audience of people -- who shop at strip malls, eat at fast-food restaurants and don't own a passport -- erupts into applause. There's a lot of anger in this documentary, a lot of insularity and us-against-them paranoia taking the form of fellowship."
More here.
Nothing really new here but just a confirmation that there are some very scary people using religion to short circuit thinking.
I would bet there is even a good amount of economic frustration involved with a good portion of this crowd, but instead of doing something about that, they turn towards a dogmatic philosophy that has all the "answers".
posted by Scott at 8:05 AM
<< Home