Christiane Amanpour’s CNN series, God’s Warriors, seems to be a well-intended effort at explaining in-depth religious issues prominent in today’s world. Amanpour deserves credit for raising the visibility of international issues. That she has a total of six hours of prime-time television over the course of three days this week to focus on these issues is also a plus.
But based on the promotions, it appears the series engages in a blatant case of moral equivalency between Jewish settlers, Muslims fighting to making Islamic law the law of the land and Christians fighting for “the social, political and religious future of the U.S.A.” Tuesday will be on “God’s Jewish Warriors,” Wednesday is on “God’s Muslim Warriors” and Thursday is on “God’s Christian Warriors.”
The Associated Press’s David Bauder has a rather incomplete write-up of the series that fails to address this issue. Rather, it lavishes praise on Amanpour and tells us little that the press release doesn’t tell us. But the piece provides a good launching point for making my main criticism:
Many people know only stereotypes of these true believers, even the ones in their own country, she said.
Yet it’s vital to be familiar with their thinking given the growing importance of these movements in the war on terrorism, the never-ending conflicts surrounding Israel and conservative politics in the United States.
“I’m not interested in drumming up false fears, or falsely allaying fears,” CNN’s chief international correspondent told The Associated Press by phone from France, where she added last-minute touches to the series. “I just want people to know what’s going on.”
I know it’s unlikely that Amanpour was involved in promoting the show, and it may be true that the piece tries to shatter stereotypes. But based on what I’ve seen, for instance on the series’ website, the overall approach engages in a blatant stereotype: anyone who takes their religious seriously is on the same moral level as anyone else who takes their religious seriously.
Lumping the three groups together all as “God’s warriors” also clouds the issues and gives people a false image of all groups that take religious seriously. I would be more comfortable with this if there were only Muslims who wanted to make Islamic law the law of the land, but that’s not the case in the world.
Rightfully so, the promotion says an “extreme fringe” uses terrorism as a weapon and I think it is very wrong for CNN to compare terrorism with anything but terrorism. It cheapens the act of the terrorism and lowers the moral standing of political efforts of groups trying to affect society.
Consider this post a preview for the show. I have major issues with equating terrorism with settlers’ movements and nonviolent political battles, but the show may surprise me. I have been recently blessed with a DVR. I plan to watch each episode and do my best to report back after each show airs or soon after.
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Comments (8) |
August 20, 2007, at 9:16 pm
But, unfortunately, the secular world view (which reigns in most of the media) is that there are no essential differences between religions. I will be interested to see how Amanpour portrays Christian saints —who are the real “God’s Christian Warriors” (the vast majority of whom were as non-violent as St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa). And, although Christians usually fall short of their example—it is the saints who are the recognized models for Christians of true Christian behaviour and not more than 1% are of the Joan of Arc type. In fact the Christian saintly ethos is one of the cross— of martyrdom as personal sacrificial witness for the sake of others -a type martyrdom totally different from the attack martyrdom to accomplish murder ethos that brought 9-11 to fruition.
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August 20, 2007, at 10:15 pm
It’s “funny” that in your comments about the upcoming show you did not mention the stated purpose:
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I did not recognize the show that CNN is promoting in your preliminary comments. We’ll see. But I do thank you for bringing the show to our attention.
I do have one immediate criticism of the show - it ignores the Eastern religions: Buddhism and Hinduism.
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August 21, 2007, at 1:28 pm
The AP article is a prime example of why so many Americans distrust the press when it comes to religion. With regard to Christians, the AP article makes it sound as though Christiane Amanpour dons her pith helmet, and courageously descends into the Bible Belt to interview the natives. We can assume of course that Geraldo Rivera is waiting in the wings to swoop down and save her if things get too dicey.
“To the West, martyrdom has a really bad connotation because of suicide bombers who call themselves martyrs,” [Amanpour] said. “Really, martyrdom is actually something that historically was quite noble, because it was about standing up and rejecting tyranny, rejecting injustice and rejecting oppression and, if necessary, dying for that.”
Ms. Amanpour, speak for yourself. I for one know how to distinguish suicide bombers from the great Christian martyrs (most of whom, if asked, would say they died for Jesus Christ, rather than to stand up to tyranny, injustice and oppression) and for me martyrdom does not have “a really bad connotation.”
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August 21, 2007, at 1:58 pm
I thought the A.P. story makes clear that Amanpour has an anti-religious agenda. First, we get the spurious claim of objectivity:
That doesn’t pass the credibility test. Why call a series “God’s Warriors” if you’re not trying to drum up fear (all in the interest in boosting ratings, of course)?
I thought this quote was particularly indicative of Amanpour’s faux objectivity:
Right. She’s just giving us the facts, but everyone knows that “we” don’t want to see religion in politics and culture.
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August 21, 2007, at 2:34 pm
I saw these adds while stuck in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and wondered what the borg at GetReligion would think of it.
I am not disappointed; I figured about what I’ve read here. Of course, this is BEFORE the show has even aired…..
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August 21, 2007, at 5:15 pm
I will take a “wait and see” approach on this one, but when I saw the ads, I also had the reaction that Daniel had: another biased hack job suggesting moral equivalency among extremists, and perhaps stretching to find it where it doesn’t exist.
From the promos, and that’s all we have at this point, we’re led to believe that something evil lurks in religion, and that this same evil can be found in Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the same amounts and in the same ways.
Clearly, as a Westerner, I’ll disagree on that one, Christiane, even while admitting that there are extremists in ALL religions (and yes, I also wonder where the Eastern religions are in all this. I guess they’re all pure and peaceful, eh?)
Blowing oneself up is not “noble” nor is sending your child or wife to be blown up in the name of religion. How outrageous to suggest this. But again, this is all about pushing the equivalency agenda.
If she’s going to be constrasting the Muslim extremists with Christianity - I’m assuming they’re going after the fundies - then no, speaking in tongues, rejecting evolution and dunking oneself in a tank of water to be saved is not the same as suggesting that suicide bombers are proper role models.
There is a lot wrong with all three religions in how they are expressed by their more extreme followers. I hope no one thinks that’s not true. That is an entirely legitimate discussion I’d love to see happen in the media. I’m hoping that’s where this series is going.
We’ll see if she accurately and fairly portrays these issues, or soft-pedals some aspects of extremism while hyping others, as the ads imply will happen. We’ll see. But I’m not optimistic.
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August 23, 2007, at 3:42 pm
As a Gnostic Christian, I find the practice of theocracy and imprecatory black magic amongst the fundamentalist orthodoxy of christianity to be pretty disgusting. The abrahamic faiths need to stop sacrificing their children to Jehova-Allah the Saklas on the battlefield. I’m not excusing terrorism, I’m just cursing authoritarianism, monarchy and theocracy. Its terrorism too.
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August 27, 2007, at 10:56 pm
Now that you have seen the three series of God’s Warriors I recommend you see the movie “September Dawn”, which came out a few days ago. It’s about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. As a coincidence, Sept. 11, 2007, will be the 150th anniversary of the tragic event…a massacre of about 120 innocent men, women, and children who were passing through Utah. The Mormon participants who murdered the people were carrying out orders of the church…they were God’s Warriors!
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