With friends like these who needs enemies

I watched this documentary the other night:
When it first came out I read an angry editorial in USA Today about it. The author bitched about how Ms. Pelosi, and yes her mom is the Nancy Pelosi, only put interviews with nut job evangelicals in it and that she did not bother to put in any interviews with "normal" believers. I felt as I read it that the author was a whiny Christian complainer who would not be happy with any film about his religion, and after seeing the film last night I was indeed correct.

The film is far from being a "hit job" on religious believers, Ms. Pelosi goes out of her way to be even handed and to allow the people she interviews to say exactly what they want to say. And her interview subjects take every opportunity to sound like the extremist right wingers they are. The late Jerry Fallwell hangs himself with every word that escapes his greasy lips and the footage of her interviews with Ted Haggard are truly creepy and sanctimonious in the light of the double life he was living. It's almost too easy to laugh at him as he spouts that he and his evangelical brethren have the moral high ground when you know he was getting hand jobs and gawd knows what else from a male escort. My favorite line of his from the movie was when he was going on about how many upstanding evangelicals were in the government of George W. Bush, when he said that I thought, "Hmmm, no wonder Chimpy's reign has been such a disaster."

The other thing that got to me as I watched was how many times the people interviewed kept saying they were looking forward to when Jesus came back and oh how hap-hap-happy everything will be for only the true believers then. Well folks, I got news for you, Jesus already came back. He's been back many many times and you people keep killing him over and over again. He came back in the form of Sojourner Truth as she led people to freedom. He came back as Mohandas Gandhi as he helped his people become free of their colonial oppressors. He came back as Steven Biko and he got killed in South Africa. He came back as Martin Luther King, Jr and he got shot in Memphis. He came back as the Cantonsville Nine and you put them into prison for a time. He came back as the nurse who helped your dying brother/sister/cousin in the AIDS hospice. He came back as crack addled woman who had sense enough to give her children to her mother to raise so they'd have a shot at a somewhat normal childhood. He came back as the undocumented Mexican woman who got hired to be a nanny to some rich person's kids and who ended up loving and caring more for those kids than their biological parents. He came back as the guy who picked you up hitchhiking that hot day when your car broke down. He came back as the guy who held my gashed to the bone and bloody left forearm together while we waited on the ambulance to take me to the hospital when I was 18. He came back as the Afghan woman who disobeyed the Taliban and taught her daughters to read. He came back as the South American priest who practiced "liberation theology" in his parish. He came back as the war of terror protestor that got locked up for having the audacity to cross the powers that be. He came back as the Rawandan baby who got hacked to death in the Hutu/Tutsi conflict. He came back as the gay teenager who started a support group for other gay teens so they'd all have at least one place where they'd be free from hate and intolerance. But the evangelicals in this movie were too fucking blind to see all those times when Jesus came back and they'll have hell to pay when they have to face their final judgement for not helping out Jesus when he was here all those times.

I highly recommend you see this short documentary. And if you are a Christian, I hope you see this and do the opposite of what these people do.