Constantine's Sword

One great book with a focus on what Christians do as opposed to what the religion says it is about. Always with the Western world, it is self interest above the professions of morality, righteousness, or love.

I read Carroll's book and thought it was very informative. I bought the DVD hoping to see him expound on some of the themes in the book, but I was dissappointed to see that the documentary mostly looked at a few religious leaders and Carroll's trip to the Vatican.

I loved the book, but the DVD is worth waiting until the price comes down.

This DVD was recomended to me by a friend of a friend, I guess I should have investigated it more before purchasing. I would like to have known that it has very little to do with Constantine and nearly all to do with the Holocaust.
With history used as a model for the story as opposed to seeking accuracy, it is close enough for laypeople to see it as accurate. The story comes across to me more as the journey of a single man going from extreme naivite to understanding that there are bad things in the world...and looking to lay the blame somewhere. If someone is looking for a reason to put down the church this is one to buy, if your looking for history of the church to make an informed decision I would suggest looking elsewhere.

I read James Carroll's book several years ago and felt it was well researched. The movie included much of this research and some more current ways the Christian Church continues to use the sword! It reminded me of what the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian Church: "If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." How many centuries will it take the church to learn it's better to be loving then right!! The film is worth seeing in this time when elements of two great world religious are at war/jihad with each other. Neither is innocent, both need to confess their sins. One down, one to go.

As a former Catholic, I enjoyed the original source material, an exhaustive expose of the Church's historically bloody past. In this documentary, the author expands on the book's subject matter with compelling interviews featuring various "talking heads" to reveal a Catholic Church and a Christian movement that continues to rival Islam in its militant, aggressive response to those who oppose their respective doctrines. I would like to give the doc five stars but Carroll defaults to his wimpy liberal roots when it comes to the nation of Israel. If it were left to Carroll, Israel wouldn't survive. Sorry, James, you can't support the Jews and not support their historic right and Biblical claim to the land that G-d game them.