Constantine's Sword

On the heels of The DaVinci Code, interest among Catholics and conspiracy buffs alike has focused on Constantine, and the cruel bargain he struck in order to maintain power, while making Christianity the state religion of Rome.

This bargain has not been scrutinized closely enough and, to his discredit, Carroll did not explore this topic closely enough in the screenplay of this film.

We understand the central premise, but the tie between the Air Force Academy and the Holy Roman Empire was not made clear enough. Perhaps that is because there isn't a strong case to be made for that proposition.

We also understand that the Religious Right and their sponsors in the Republican Party would make their brand of Christianity the state religion in the U.S., but the reality is that the First Amendment is alive and doing quite well. Yes, it is under siege, but setting up straw men like Rev. Haggard actually cuts against Mr. Carrol's point.

A more interesting comparison would have been between Constantine and the current President Bush, both of whom have struck Faustian deals. For this film to really shine, it should have made the threat from the religious right come to life.

The documentary "Constantine's Sword," directed by Oren Jacoby, grapples with the age-old question of why, throughout the course of human history, so much bloodshed and violence have been committed in the name of God.

In this case, the person making the inquiry is James Carroll, a former priest turned author who wrote the book on which the film is based. Raised a devout Roman Catholic, Carroll came to question aspects of his religion during the height of the anti-war movement of the 1960s – a movement which the Church officially condemned – and when he began to research the role the Church itself had played in fostering and implementing anti-Semitic violence in the almost two thousand years of its existence (he doesn't go much into the Catholic-on-Protestant/Protestant-on-Catholic violence occurring at the same time). He cites the conversion of Constantine as the moment when Christianity turned into a violent religion and notes how the portrayal of the Jews as "Christ-killers" set in motion centuries of Church-sanctioned and Church-fueled anti-Semitism. He points to the crusades of the early 1000s, the widespread persecution and extermination of Jews during the Middle Ages, and even the far more recent cozy relationship between the Vatican and the fascist dictators of the 1930s and '40s – and the Church's lack of effort in halting the Holocaust - as evidence of his thesis.

Interestingly, Carroll focuses almost exclusively on acts of violence perpetrated by Christians on Jews and Muslims and ignores acts of violence perpetrated by those groups against others (i.e., the Hebrew genocide of the Canaanites found in the Book of Joshua, modern-day Islamic jihadist attacks on Israel and the West). Perhaps, due to his papist background, Carroll simply feels more personal responsibility for Catholic-approved atrocities and doesn't feel comfortable examining the other side of the religious-violence coin. However, even if that is indeed the case, it still results in a strangely unbalanced look at the subject. Then again, since when is it the job of every documentary to cover every single aspect of the subject it's documenting? Plus, he does make the case that, until Christianity owns up to its violent history, conflicts with other religions will only intensify in the years to come.

Currently, one place in which Carroll sees religion and military power coming together is in the United States Air Force, where officers and cadets – including Jews, Muslims and nonbelievers - are being coerced into becoming Evangelical Christians. He travels to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to document that situation. Carroll feels that a military defined by this kind of sectarian religious zeal will only further convince the other side that we are indeed engaged in some kind of modern-day holy war with Islam, a Twenty-first Century crusade. At great personal risk to themselves, a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Air Force for the right not to be proselytized to – an act for which they've received condemnation from the powers-that-be and even death threats. This, in many ways, is the most disturbing and eye-opening section of the movie - not least of all because an obviously pre-scandal Ted Haggard gets quite a bit of air-time commenting on the subject, since it was he who filed a counter-lawsuit on the part of evangelicals to be allowed to continue preaching the evangelical gospel to a captive audience of military personnel.

Carroll ends his film with the four sobering words, "No war is holy" - and with a title card revealing Haggard's eventual fall from grace for consorting with a male prostitute and snorting crack. I guess sometimes the good guys do win after all.

This was an excellent documentary by a former Catholic Priest into the actions of his Church, the evangelical movement, and politicians over the years to discriminate and kill in the name of Jesus.

It starts with an overview of the indoctrination of Air Force cadets at the military academy and the resulting bigotry and discrimination against Jews and those who will not accept the views of Ted haggard (the preacher who was caught in a sex scandal) and other Christo-fascists. The film ends with another visit and the attempts of the Academy to cover up what is going on and dismiss the report on the takeover by the evangelicals.

James Carroll spends the time in-between visiting Germany and Italy and other places he had seen in his youth as a military dependent. he reminisced on holy sites and relics. he gave a good history of the Catholic Church and it';s relationship with the Nazis and how they contributed to the persecution and death of the Jews.

Those wanting to see how Jews were persecuted and how our political leaders are infusing religion into politics would be well served by this film.

"I also lost a bit of respect for Mr. Carroll due to the way that he portrays the persecution of Jews as a phenomenon entirely unique to Christianity. As if religious minorities aren't oppressed all over the world."

But only Christian Europe built gas chambers for the declared purpose of eliminating an entire people.

Carroll is the only Christian I have read with the decency to admit and express remorse for his faith's 1,700 years of brutal, bloody persecution of the Jews.

Let's hope his book, and possibly his film, spur more Christians to the same remorse.

I loved this documentary. I think, though, this film is playing to the choir and should be seen by those who really need to see it. May I suggest offering it for sale at the Air Force Academy and anywhere where fundamentalist religiosity in its extreme has us by our throats influencing Washington policy. It is an existential threat to our existence as a free republic and certainly a threat to our founders determination to keep religion and state forever separate. The cross in the form of a sword as James Carroll has said, has meant death to millions and continues to morph itself into different forms which still mean murder. I love ALL of James Carroll's work. He speaks for us. Run do not walk to see this film.