Review of Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi (2007) by Paul N — 15 Oct 2009

This is an HBO show. There is really little to it other than footage of various signs, worship services, and conservative mega-church leaders. It's pretty obvious that Pelosi prefers to allow her topics to speak for themselves, though the included clips definitely lead to a derogatory depiction of evangelical Christianity.

Sound bites and video montages are interesting to watch, but they aren't very informative beyond the bare minimal message that Alexandra Pelosi wants to convey - evangelical Christianity takes itself seriously, and sees it's role as recovering America's Christian roots. To a non-Christian, or someone who considers themselves a liberal Christian, this is undoubtedly a rather horrifying, or perhaps just amusing, notion. I'm sure that Pelosi feels that one of her interview subjects summarizes the evangelical mindset well "You're a winner if you love Jesus", he asserts. "What if you don't love Jesus?" Pelosi asks from off-camera. "You're a big loser if you don't love Jesus!" the man responds.

Anybody can make pretty much anyone look stupid, and the evangelicals are a popular target right now. While I'm not an evangelical, I wish that some of these little productions would showcase some of the more intelligent members of that community. But that would defeat the purpose, I suppose, of making the film in the first place.