Constantine's Sword; part autobiography part indictment of organized religion

This is not a subtle film. In writer and journalist James Carroll's and filmmaker Oren Jacoby's documentary based on Carroll's 2001 book of the same name people - who throughout history have professed to know the will of god - are malicious sons of bitches. From depictions of the crucifixion straight through to modern warfare and attempts to convert cadets at the Air Force Academy Carroll and Jacoby trace the influence of organized Christian religion on western civilization. They do not like what they find: thousands of years of oppression of Jews; the crusades - with it's destruction of Jews Muslims and anyone considered impious from Spain all the way to Palestine; the Vatican's embrace of Hitler in the 1930's and virtual silence during the Holocaust and of course George W. Bush and his religious justifications for the "war on terror." And then there's Ted Haggard the disgraced former leader of the Colorado Springs-based megachurch New Life Church. Carroll and Jacoby give him plenty of film time to explain why it's anti-American to stop Christian evangelicals from proselytizing on the campus of the Air Force Academy also based in Colorado. Personally I became ill staring up at Haggard's unctuous expression (and those gleaming white teeth) and his disingenuous explanation about evangelicals carrying on a "discussion" with the people they are trying to convert. As Carroll (a former Catholic priest and frequent contributor to the Op-Ed pages of the Boston Globe) points out in his role as host and narrator the process is hardly a discussion. Ministers from New Life - who seem to have total access to the Academy despite denials from a military spokesman - tell cadets they will burn in hell if they don't join the evangelical church. They repeatedly offer the very old myth that Jews killed Christ. Michael Weinstein who is Jewish and a former lawyer in the Reagan White House himself a graduate of the Air Force Academy and more recently the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation had two sons and a daughter-in-law graduate from the Academy. They were constantly badgered and threatened by other cadets and local evangelical Christians. It got so bad that Weinstein - a "devout" Republican - brings a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense. But it's not as though anything about the historical evolution of religion in Europe and the United States has been about having a cordial discussion. Using as his framework a trip that takes him from Colorado to Italy and Germany Carroll shows us places where people (mostly Jews) are persecuted and killed in the name of the Church. In fact it was the Roman General Constantine who discovered he could mobilize followers by equating the power of his sword with the symbol of the cross. Ever since marching on Rome around 324 A.D. the Catholic and later Protestant hierarchies (and their political minions) have consolidated power by finding scapegoats to first demonize then prosecute and eventually destroy. From the Inquisition to the Holocaust to the current crusade against Islamic extremism it's an eerily consistent timeline. A crucial bit of information - explained to us by Carroll and Jacoby and conveniently left out of Christian dogma - is the fact that the cross wasn't used as a symbol of Christianity until more than 300 years after the death of Christ. Before that natural symbols such as fish and the lamb represented the faith. Not until Constantine establishes the "holy roman empire" does the cross become a tool for marketing and advertising and of course proselytizing. As Carroll draws his historical and thematic circles one question remains unanswered. Why is the Pentagon holding hands with the evangelical church and allowing such behavior at one of it's primary institutions? Is it simply because Bush and his sycophants wish to get into heaven with as many converts on their resume as possible? That's one explanation. But I wonder as warfare increasingly is conducted from the skies whether or not Bush and Cheney and Gates worry they will lose the enthusiasm of the pilots who are responsible for the bombing. Is religious fervor for them just another way of establishing an unbreakable bond to the hearts and minds of our young soldiers? These politicians have a long memory and they haven't forgotten that the Vietnam War turned in part when soldiers stopped buying the lies about how well that conflict was going. I hope when he publicly speaks about the film Carroll addresses this question. Overall I found "Constantine's Sword" a deep and comprehensive documentary; expansive in its research and insight. Carroll makes a point of telling the audience that he remains a believer; he is not anti-Catholic. But when religious leaders become entangled in politics he says almost nothing good can come of it. As the film's logo points out "there's nothing holy about war!" Currently "Constantine's Sword" is playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline and the West Newton Cinema in Newton MA. http://constantinessword.com/Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati