Analysis of HBO's Friends of God: A Road Trip

Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of the first woman to become Speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, has a documentary that is currently circulating on HBO. Friends of God: A Road Trip is a documentary that takes an inside look at the Evangelical Christian lifestyle and culture.

I am a Christian but admittedly these evangelical Christians scare me---they really scare me and watching a glimpse of their daily life peeked my curiosity while making me a bit nervous. I have encountered evangelicals before when I was an undergraduate a Florida State. At Florida State a few men would hold huge signs that would read "Dikes on Bikes" or "Hell for Sinners" and would yell out at the university students about coming to Christ.

What I view as borderline radical hate speech has affected my view of evangelical Christians and what I perceive as their mostly negative force in American culture and government. But questions remain--have I given them a fair chance, are these Christians really so radical or am I close minded?

In part, I watched Friends of God to help me address these nagging questions.

One of the first scenes in the documentary show Pastor Haggard, the head of the National Evangelical Association, speaking to some of his congregation about dealing with the media. In more or less words he told them not to act as if some jolt of divine revelation was hitting them when speaking to the press. In short, "do not act bizarre." This statement confirms that the 80 millions evangelicals do know that some of their behavior can appear bizarre to the remaining 220 million Americans.