Though I know I'm a little late in discussing this topic, I have just a few thoughts on the three-night documentary.
GREAT:
1) What was covered on all three fronts was covered very well. I especially was impressed with night one, "Jewish Warriors", for the scope and breadth of the analysis of facets of present-day Judaism, complemented by comments and views from those quite orthodox.
2) Amanpour. No one is perfect or completely unbiased, but she's about as close as they come, and having her do this made perfect sense. No one else in news comes close when it comes to credentials. Not even Anderson Cooper (insert tongue in cheek here).
3) Greg Boyd. God bless Greg Boyd!!! The point of the feature with him I absolutely cannot agree with more! STOP the marriage between evangelical Christianity and conservative American politics! I think I said this in a post a LONG time back, but if we had taken all the money spent on political causes, et al from Christians and spent it instead on feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and loving people no matter Red State or Blue State, we'd see alot more people lovin' Jesus. Let the Holy Spirit change hearts!! We focus on Jesus. Deal? Deal!
GOOD:
1) The first two nights, "Jewish", and "Muslim" Warriors. I learned much and appreciated the opportunity to do so, rather than seeing another night of Larry King bumbling through an interview on the latest with Paris Hilton/Lindsey Lohan/insert name of irrelevant person here.
2) Overall span of interview subjects; wide ranging that I could see, at least on the first two nights.
3) Rehan Seyam. Not deterred by the majority of Americans who would look at her in traditional Muslim wear (with headscarf) thinking she was a homicide bomber, she lives her faith, all the way. Her frank comments about never wanting anyone to see her body in a revealing way other than her husband was, frankly, a welcome breath of fresh air to hear a Muslim woman in America make that statement. Granted, I know, I know, if she were in an Arab nation, her story would not exist, for she wouldn't be able to be outspoken in the first place.
FAIR:
1) Night three: "Christian" Warriors. While doing a good job in discussing present day evangelical Christianity in America, it actually overdid it. How many "Religious Right White Guy" stories did we really need? Other than John Hagee's "Christian Zionist" drive, the others (Falwell, Johnson, et al) were repetitive.
2) Ron Luce and Teen Mania--much, too much emphasis on Luce looking like a Taliban leader raising the next generation of homicidal warriors....and catching them in San Fran was a nice backdrop to it all. One of the few cheap shots in the entire series.
BAD:
Did anyone else notice what few commercials were in the first night's two hours regarding the Jews, and very little additional commercial time on night two? Then, the night of the Christian Warriors...EVERY time you turn around...commercials! But first, five promos on Soledad O'Brien, Spike Lee, and the fourth airing of a Diana retrospective.
Guess which night they thought they'd get the most viewers?
VERY VERY DISAPPOINTING: Instead of talking to multiple white guy leaders of the Religious Right, why not investigating the post-modern church movement beginning a groundswell in Europe, Christian persecution around the world, and what's it like to be a Christian in a country like China? Having the whole two hours on Christianity in America actually distorted the real worldview and current world experience of the Christian Church.
On the whole, 4 out of 5 stars. It was a huge undertaking, and I applaud CNN for that. :)
2 comments:
Excellent work by Christiane Amanpour! More than anything else this documentary reveals a deep human search for God and a quest for what is the truth. There appears to be a veil over the faces of everyone including Christiane that makes everyone unsure of an answer to the deep spiritual questions that drives all three religious groups. I have thought a lot about this mystery. The Jews expect a messiah to come and remove this veil so they can see the truth. The Christian say the messiah has come and is removing this veil and is showing us the truth. The Moslems say there is no veil. We can see the truth clearly.
However, the Moslems have the witness and account of only one prophet to believe while the Jews and Christians have the account of several prophets down the history lane that kept account of these things. Also it appears to me that the Moslem holy book mentions some of the notable Jewish prophets and the message they conveyed but there is no mention of the prophet that inspired Islam in both the Jewish and Christian holy books.
In life the witness of three is often referred to as stronger than the witness of one person. I wonder whether this is also true in this case. Between the Jews and the Christians though the witnesses of the prophets appear somewhat consistent about what this messiah would do. The Jews hold to the literal text and see every fulfillment of prophecy by these prophets as very physical but the Christian read a lot more means into every word. Jews tend to focus on a given time that spans from Abraham to somewhere around the prophet Daniel while Christians tend to be a little broader by examining also the events during the time of Jesus and Paul the converted legal prosecutor.
By examining these events the Christians say it sums up the prophecies and brings greater light into these secret and mysterious things. The Jews agree that a final piece of the puzzle is required to sum up the mysteries and bring understanding to the messages of the prophets but disagree strongly about examining the events surrounding the person known as Jesus Christ rather they prefer to look beyond for another prophet.
The Moslems say to the Jews beyond Jesus there is no other prophet but Mohammad, look no further. While the Jews question the fact that no other prophet they know has spoken about or mentioned the name Mohammad. They also question the fact that the Message of Mohammad does not align with the rest of the prophets they know.
I find all these very interesting. I think Christiane’s documentary, God’s Warriors, helps me see how far every religious camp is willing to go in defense of things they hold so dear to their hearts. However, the issue I find more fascinating, controversial and worthy of far more examination and attention is the person of Jesus Christ. Everything about these three great religions appears to somewhat revolve round this single individual.
I have not watched "God's Warriors" in its entirety. I stay tuned until the Christian right expose; I watch, listen & then become so disapointed. It appears that religion in this country aspires to anoint itself as a petty tyrant to rule over society. I see cultismn when I see the religious right. These people want to decoupage this country into what they think society should be. It's not what Jesus thinks, what Jesus would do. Jesus wouldn't exclude people from faith, from worship, just because they were different. I see the religious right as people who are fear & hate mongers cloaking themselves in the name of God; what a perverse and shameless lie to perpetrate upon fellow human beings. I'm disgusted in this type of religion. Get back to feeding the poor; get back to Jesus. Jesus was not a politician. One comes to religion on their own accord. Leave it to the "right" and we'll all be coming to religion in shackles & chains, made to pray; we'll all be decoupaged paper cut outs so the right can sterilze society into what they think is the life we should all live. Sound familiar, sounds like a funny little man, with a funny little mustache who turned out to extinguish life that was branded "different" from his pure line/blood; sounds like Hitler.
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