It’s easy to make fun of corny billboards proclaiming the power of Jesus, a Bible study session at a truck stop or an anti-evolution lesson for kids that shows people hanging out with dinosaurs.
It’s not difficult to mock a drive-through church, a Holy Land theme park, biblical mini-golf or a skateboard ministry.
There’s no challenge in casting a cynical light on teenagers who claim they’re “high on Jesus and ain’t comin’ down!”
Really, it takes more subtlety, understanding, and empathy to make a film that goes beyond pointing fingers and laughing. A better filmmaker could have made much more headway in trying to seriously capture the state of America’s cultural-
religious divide.
“Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi,” premiering Thursday on HBO, takes the easy way out.
With smug narration and a condescending tone, the filmmaker – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s daughter – finds plenty to gawk at outside of her hip metropolitan comfort zone. Nobody sounds more provincial than a New Yorker set adrift in the heartland.
Pelosi, a former NBC News producer, did better on her previous project, “Journeys With George,” a documentary about George W. Bush’s presidential campaign.
This time her cynical, knowing attitude manages to undermine her project.
An introductory note says the film was completed in November 2006, a few days before the humiliating revelations regarding Ted Haggard brought new, unwanted attention and embarrassment to the evangelical movement.
Haggard is prominently featured in the film, talking about truth, immorality and the “pressure on godly people to be godly.” His failure in that regard is a key point in the drama of the documentary.
Smiling broadly, he shows off his New Life Church megachurch in Colorado Springs. Haggard plays the part of the hale fellow, sure of his righteousness.
“Evangelicals, we’re everywhere!” he says. And evangelicals in general are particularly happy people, he agrees, because “we’ve settled some core issues,” like everlasting life.
“All the surveys say evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group,” he volunteers. “Let’s just find out.” He turns to a couple of men among his flock and asks, “How often do you have sex with your wife? Every day? And how often does she climax? Every time?”
They josh and laugh. It’s the natural order of things, he and his congregants agree.
Later Haggard stands before his congregants, preaching that “moral purity is better than immorality, and telling the truth is better than telling a lie … that’s why secular people are so concerned when the church doesn’t fulfill it’s own moral standards. Like when a pastor falls into corruption or becomes dishonest or greedy. It’s heartbreaking.”
This, we now know, was at the time of his liaisons with a male prostitute in Denver. The on-screen graphic updates viewers on the specifics of the Haggard heartbreak: Haggard admitted to his congregation, “I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.”
Haggard’s need to bring up the subject of sex on camera is baffling in light of the revelations about him that followed this production. Critics of the evangelical church won’t be able to resist feelings of glee. Still, Pelosi’s attitude is equally distracting and disturbing for viewers.
Talking to members of Cruisers for Christ, who show their vintage cars while proselytizing, she blurts a typically demeaning question: “So, do you think the Holy Spirit is here in this Burger King parking lot?” It’s too cute, too loaded. Her attitude is annoyingly superior.
Still, the facts are chilling. A pompous Jerry Falwell attests to the political power of the movement- 78 percent of evangelicals supported George W. Bush. Falwell asserts, “Hillary (Clinton) will find out in ’08” that no candidate can win without them.”
The Rev. Mel White, a former Falwell ghostwriter turned gay Christian activist, notes sadly, “They’re declaring war on gay people.”
The war continues, with little desire for understanding on either extreme.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
Deeper look
Here are four more documentaries exploring aspects of religion.
“School Prayer: A Community at War”: Slawomir Grunberg’s 1999 film follows Lisa Herdahl, a Mississippi mother of six, who sues her public school district to have the Bible removed from her childrens’ classrooms.
“Shape of the Moon”: Leonard Retel Helmrich’s 2004 look at t Christians trying to live in Muslim-dominated Indonesia.
“Marjoe”: This 1972 Oscar winner follows former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the lucrative Pentecostal tent-revival circuit.
“The God Who Wasn’t There”: Director Brian Flemming’s 2005 film poses a provocative question – did Jesus exist? – then goes on to examine Christianity as a whole.
