God's Warriors
Encyclopedia
CNN Presents: God's Warriors is a three-part CNN Presents
documentary
produced by Christiane Amanpour
in which she examines the rise of religious fundamentalism as a political force in the world. The documentary was filmed in the United States
, Europe and Middle East. It focuses on the three major monotheistic
religions of the world, Judaism
, Christianity
, and Islam
.
The three chapters were titled God’s Jewish Warriors, God’s Muslim Warriors, and God’s Christian Warriors. The first describes the Jewish settlement movement in Israel and the fund-raising in the United States that supports it, while the second presents issues of radical Islam and Sharia
law. The final segment focused on the United States and the political influence of Christian religious leaders.
“God’s Warriors is an investigation of religion
, at a time when religious activism is a signature cultural phenomenon of our times,” said Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN
Productions. “This project’s global scope is ideally suited for the skills of someone with as impressive of a journalistic pedigree as our own Christiane Amanpour.”
For this documentary, Amanpour reports that during the last 30 years, each faith has exploded into a powerful political force comprising followers who share a dissatisfaction with modern society, and a determination to place God and religion back into daily life and to the seats of power. “There are millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is being ignored – pushed aside – and they are certain they know how to make the world right,” Amanpour says. “We cannot and should not ignore them. And, with this report, we’ve tried to explain them.”
This part covered, among others, a Jewish group that planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock
in Jerusalem, in order to sabotage Israeli-Egyptian peace talks and the Jewish extremist Yigal Amir
, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.
It also covered Christian Zionists in America who have raised money to support the activities of the settlers and how the pro-Israel lobby
’s clout in Washington has supposedly helped religious settlers remain in the West Bank.
Amanpour interviewed Theodor Meron, who in September 1967 was the Foreign Ministry lawyer, and wrote a top secret memo saying that "civilian settlement contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects people living under occupation." Meron still believes this is true. Shimon Peres, who supported the settlements, said that, while he didn't know whether Meron was right from a legal point of view, he was wrong "from a pragmatic point of view," because Israel was under steady attack.
God’s Jewish Warriors was filmed in the West Bank
, Israel
, the United Kingdom
and the United States
.
This part covers Ayaan Hirsi Ali
, as well as Ed Husain
, a young Muslim who describes himself as having been radicalized as a youth to accept an extremist Islamist ideology that seeks to return peace to the world through a restoration of a governing caliphate—an ideology he now rejects.
God’s Muslim Warriors was filmed in the United Kingdom
, Egypt
, Iran
, the West Bank
, the Netherlands
and the United States
.
In God’s Christian Warriors, Amanpour reports on evangelicals
trying to influence American politics and society from a faith-based perspective. The report covers Rev. Jerry Falwell
, and his organization, the Moral Majority
. The report contains Falwell's last interview, conducted with Amanpour just one week before his death. Amanpour also traveled from Washington State to Washington, D.C., meeting conservative Christians engaged on the front lines of a battle against what they see as a faithless, valueless popular culture that has turned away from its Biblical roots.
God’s Christian Warriors was filmed in the United States
.
, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Noa Rothman and Kamal el-Said Habib, a reformed Islamic jihadist who was part of the violent militant group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
A companion Web site to God's Warriors offers excerpts from the documentary, an audio podcast and an exclusive video diary that goes behind-the-scenes with producers as they traveled in Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East for principal filming. The online content is available at http://www.cnn.com/godswarriors/. The podcast will also be available for download from iTunes
.
The managing editor of God’s Warriors is Kathy Slobogin. Andy Segal, Michael Mocklar and Ken Shiffman are senior producers; Cliff Hackel and Dave Timko are director–editor–producers; Brian Rokus, Jen Christensen and Julie O'Neill are producers. Jody Gottlieb is the executive director of CNN Productions.
said of God's Warriors in an interview on Fox News, "I think another thing that this documentary does in a very bad dishonest way is that it comes up with the very stale, I think, inappropriate accusation or insinuation that religion is the real cause for all the evil in this world."
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(CAMERA), a pro-Israeli American media monitoring organization based in Boston, took out a newspaper ad attacking the documentary, accusing it of, among other things, "equating the extremely rare cases of religiously-inspired violence on the part of Christians and Jews with radical Islam's global, often state-supported, campaigns of mass killing" and "presenting highly controversial critics of Israel and the so-called Israel lobby and doing so without challenge". MSNBC host and general manager Dan Abrams
called the documentary "the worst type of moral relativism
" and "shameful advocacy masked as journalism.".
Christiane Amanpour has responded that the documentary is not meant to compare religions, but rather to show "that each faith has their committed and fervent believers, and we're showing how each of those are active in the political sphere in today's world."
CNN Presents
CNN Presents is an American documentary program on CNN weekends. The program used to be replaced with CNN Special Investigations Unit, which features the same documentary format, but differs from it in a number of ways and is shorter in length....
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
produced by Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour, CBE is anchor of ABC News's This Week and formerly chief international correspondent at CNN, where she worked for 27 years. She is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Early years:...
in which she examines the rise of religious fundamentalism as a political force in the world. The documentary was filmed in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Europe and Middle East. It focuses on the three major monotheistic
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
religions of the world, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
.
The three chapters were titled God’s Jewish Warriors, God’s Muslim Warriors, and God’s Christian Warriors. The first describes the Jewish settlement movement in Israel and the fund-raising in the United States that supports it, while the second presents issues of radical Islam and Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law. The final segment focused on the United States and the political influence of Christian religious leaders.
“God’s Warriors is an investigation of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, at a time when religious activism is a signature cultural phenomenon of our times,” said Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
Productions. “This project’s global scope is ideally suited for the skills of someone with as impressive of a journalistic pedigree as our own Christiane Amanpour.”
For this documentary, Amanpour reports that during the last 30 years, each faith has exploded into a powerful political force comprising followers who share a dissatisfaction with modern society, and a determination to place God and religion back into daily life and to the seats of power. “There are millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is being ignored – pushed aside – and they are certain they know how to make the world right,” Amanpour says. “We cannot and should not ignore them. And, with this report, we’ve tried to explain them.”
God’s Jewish Warriors
- First aired: August 21, 2007
This part covered, among others, a Jewish group that planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
in Jerusalem, in order to sabotage Israeli-Egyptian peace talks and the Jewish extremist Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir is the Israeli assassin of Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place on November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv. Amir is currently serving a life sentence for murder plus six years for injuring Rabin's bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, under...
, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.
It also covered Christian Zionists in America who have raised money to support the activities of the settlers and how the pro-Israel lobby
Israel lobby in the United States
The Israel lobby is a term used to describe the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and as groups, seek and have sought to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Zionism, Israel or the specific policies of its government...
’s clout in Washington has supposedly helped religious settlers remain in the West Bank.
Amanpour interviewed Theodor Meron, who in September 1967 was the Foreign Ministry lawyer, and wrote a top secret memo saying that "civilian settlement contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects people living under occupation." Meron still believes this is true. Shimon Peres, who supported the settlements, said that, while he didn't know whether Meron was right from a legal point of view, he was wrong "from a pragmatic point of view," because Israel was under steady attack.
God’s Jewish Warriors was filmed in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
God’s Muslim Warriors
- First aired: August 22, 2007
This part covers Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
, as well as Ed Husain
Ed Husain
Mohammed Mahbub Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain also helped to create, with Maajid Nawaz, the counter-extremism organisation the Quilliam Foundation. He is currently at senior fellow at the...
, a young Muslim who describes himself as having been radicalized as a youth to accept an extremist Islamist ideology that seeks to return peace to the world through a restoration of a governing caliphate—an ideology he now rejects.
God’s Muslim Warriors was filmed in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
God’s Christian Warriors
- First aired: August 23, 2007
In God’s Christian Warriors, Amanpour reports on evangelicals
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
trying to influence American politics and society from a faith-based perspective. The report covers Rev. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
, and his organization, the Moral Majority
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying...
. The report contains Falwell's last interview, conducted with Amanpour just one week before his death. Amanpour also traveled from Washington State to Washington, D.C., meeting conservative Christians engaged on the front lines of a battle against what they see as a faithless, valueless popular culture that has turned away from its Biblical roots.
God’s Christian Warriors was filmed in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
About the documentary
The God’s Warriors series includes interviews with former President Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Noa Rothman and Kamal el-Said Habib, a reformed Islamic jihadist who was part of the violent militant group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
A companion Web site to God's Warriors offers excerpts from the documentary, an audio podcast and an exclusive video diary that goes behind-the-scenes with producers as they traveled in Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East for principal filming. The online content is available at http://www.cnn.com/godswarriors/. The podcast will also be available for download from iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
.
The managing editor of God’s Warriors is Kathy Slobogin. Andy Segal, Michael Mocklar and Ken Shiffman are senior producers; Cliff Hackel and Dave Timko are director–editor–producers; Brian Rokus, Jen Christensen and Julie O'Neill are producers. Jody Gottlieb is the executive director of CNN Productions.
Criticism
Fr. Jonathan MorrisJonathan Morris (priest)
Fr. Jonathan Morris is a Roman Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of New York and a news contributor and analyst for the Fox News Channel. He currently serves as one of several parochial vicars at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City . Before joining the archdiocese, Fr...
said of God's Warriors in an interview on Fox News, "I think another thing that this documentary does in a very bad dishonest way is that it comes up with the very stale, I think, inappropriate accusation or insinuation that religion is the real cause for all the evil in this world."
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is an American non-profit pro-Israel media watchdog group. The group says it was founded in 1982 "to respond to the Washington Post's coverage of Israel's Lebanon incursion", and to respond to what it considers the media's "general...
(CAMERA), a pro-Israeli American media monitoring organization based in Boston, took out a newspaper ad attacking the documentary, accusing it of, among other things, "equating the extremely rare cases of religiously-inspired violence on the part of Christians and Jews with radical Islam's global, often state-supported, campaigns of mass killing" and "presenting highly controversial critics of Israel and the so-called Israel lobby and doing so without challenge". MSNBC host and general manager Dan Abrams
Dan Abrams
Dan Abrams is an American television host, legal commentator, web entrepreneur and best-selling author. He is currently Legal Analyst at ABC News Good Morning America , and a substitute anchor for the network. He formerly served as Chief Legal Analyst for NBC News, as General Manager of MSNBC and...
called the documentary "the worst type of moral relativism
Moral relativism
Moral relativism may be any of several descriptive, meta-ethical, or normative positions. Each of them is concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures:...
" and "shameful advocacy masked as journalism.".
Christiane Amanpour has responded that the documentary is not meant to compare religions, but rather to show "that each faith has their committed and fervent believers, and we're showing how each of those are active in the political sphere in today's world."