Friends of God

I watched Friends of God on HBO last week; it's a fantastic documentary that anyone who's interested in evangelical Christianity should definitely watch. Most striking, I think, were the various manifestations thereof which Ms. Pelosi was able to capture on film, a couple of which caught my attention in particular.

She recorded a worship service at an evangelical mega-church; I believe it's the one formerly run by Ted Haggard. I've written about this before, comparing the worship services to a Dionysian rite, but it was another thing to actually see it on tape. There were all these young-ish people moshing/pogoing up at the front of the stage like they were at a concert or something. One gentleman stood out in particular; sort of dumpy looking, with a white, button-up shirt and a tie, jumping up and down like he was having the time of his life. Its probably inaccurate to judge based on a 3 second video clip, but he had a look about him that made me think he'd be a real buzzkill in any other situation. I s'pect that the only time he cuts loose might be at church services. Odd, to say the least.

Though I think my favorite, just in terms of sheer transparency, was the car show. Ms. Pelosi went around asking people what kind of car Jesus would drive, admittedly a silly question, but she got people to answer it very earnestly. As a general rule it seems that Jesus drives whatever the person answering the question drives; absent that, its something manly like a Mustang. Hello, projecting much?

Anyway, check it out if you get the chance.