James Carroll goes on a crusade of his own, exposing the hypocrisy of politically motivated religion and the violence of the evangelical Jihad in our own Colorado Springs
Jim Carroll at the Vatican. Credit: Bob Richman
This film consists mostly of a story by James Carroll, a national Book Award winner and columnist for the Boston Globe. Carroll is a former priest and practicing Catholic who has made questioning the church his lifelong goal. He doesn’t limit this questioning to the Catholic Church, either. Any established religious orders are fair game. In this film the protestant evangelicals get it as solidly as anybody.
The crux of the film is an investigation of why the sword seems to have taken over from the cross as the symbol of Christianity. The symptoms are statements of intolerance across the USA and around the world. The specific situation in this film is the evangelical proselytizing of the cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO.
The film starts by tracing a brief history of the Catholic Church and the foundations of the Crusades; eventually linking the Crusades to anti-Semitism. Carroll is only about half successful in this, partly because he is not clear and thorough enough in his logic and partly because 99% of the rest of the world is not as smart as he is. After all, he has devoted himself to this topic and very few of us are going to catch up in 93 minutes.
Nonetheless, the story of his life, the Crusades, the Air Force Academy and the film, “The Passion of Christ,” is a good one. If you don’t think those four things have a common thread you will be surprised, and engaged, in this interesting trip through time and theology.
Although the film starts out as an apparent frontal attack on the Catholic Church, it subtly widens its perspective to look at a much larger and more important picture. The real issue becomes the genesis of hate replacing love as the central doctrine of organized religion. The present day microcosm is the Air Force Academy’s apparent obsession with evangelical Christianity, which has reached the point of obsession based on the documented reports of anti-Semitic slurs and harassment by the cadets. Remember, these cadets are the guys who will control your nuclear weapons in a few years.
The cadets are not doing this by themselves, they are being “converted” by charismatic local fundamentalist ministers whose fire and brimstone rhetoric has hit a soft spot in the brains of at least some impressionable youths. Maybe not the majority, but it doesn’t take a huge number of Nazi Youths to make life hell for the small minority of Jewish cadets at the school.
Is this one of hundreds of simple reactions against a minority religion throughout history? Or is it the sum total of Moslem terrorism and simple fascist brain washing that has gone out of control in Colorado Springs.
Compounding the interest of the story, but not adding anything to the logic, is Carroll’s own story of how his father joined the FBI and soon became the virtual founder of the Air Force’s security service. This story, alone, is worth hours of food for thought as one ponders the rifts that developed later between the idiosyncratic younger Carroll and his father, one of America’s ultimate symbols of like-it-or-leave-it authority.
In the end the film provides more questions than answers. Although it offers fascinating insights into the potent brain deficit being cultivated at our military centers, and the current news on the latest evangelical homo outing, it does not offer any striking answers about why religion seems so easily converted into an argument for drawing and quartering at will.
Release: April 18, 2008
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