Scary.
Then I turn on "God's Warriors," a three-part investigative report by Christiane Amanpour that recently aired on CNN. The series focused on Jews, Muslims and, on the third night of the series, God's Christian "warriors."
That's far scarier than Jules ever thought about being.
I didn't get a chance to watch the entire broadcast (gotta get TiVo). But I saw enough in brief snippets on the CNN Web site to make me cringe.
One segment featured Amanpour's interview with Jerry Falwell, just days before his death in May. The televangelist decried violence against abortion clinics and the like, but reiterated his belief that abortion supporters were, in part, responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We're killing a million babies a year in this country by abortion," he told Amanpour. "And I was saying then - I'm saying now - that if we, in fact, change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built, we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past."
The idea that America was formed as a "Judeo-Christian nation" is dangerous enough - but that's beating a horse that's as dead as Falwell.
What's really scary about this sort of thinking is the idea that God doesn't concern himself with individuals, but rather nationalities. According to this ideology, thousands of living souls - each one of them viewed by Jesus as worth dying for, according to Christian theology - were obliterated, not simply because we live in a fallen world where bad things happen for no apparent reason, but because God made a deliberate decision to stop protecting the United States of America.
Think about the implications if this were true. Every one of us - even if we're not pro-choicers, homosexuals or any of the other suspects evangelicals like to criticize - could be killed at any moment so God could prove a point.
Another segment featured Amanpour talking to Ron Luce, the founder of the dubiously named organization Teen Mania Ministries. The reporter spoke with the minister before a Battle Cry rally in San Francisco.
Footage from the rally showed Luce using war metaphors to incite the gathered teenagers to be part of an "army" for God.
The conversation was even more horrifying in an on-camera interview during which Luce referred to popular culture figures (those in TV, the movies and so forth) as "virtue terrorists."
His choice of words became even more inflammatory.
"They're raping virgin teenage America on the sidewalk, and everybody's walking by and acting like everything's OK, and it's just not OK," he told Amanpour.
The reported noted that many parents agreed with Luce's assessment of popular culture and said many weren't happy that their children knew more about Paris Hilton than they did about the Bible.
But isn't that, to some degree, the parents' fault?
I acknowledge that I'm a new parent, so I don't have to worry about this kind of thing just yet. My biggest concern at the moment is keeping my 5-month-old daughter from getting interested in Barney, whom I utterly despise.
But when the time comes, it won't be up to TV executives not to put something objectionable on my screen for my daughter to see. It'll be up to me to make sure that she doesn't watch things she shouldn't - and more importantly, to teach her to make good decisions for herself.
And really, that's where organizations like Luce's miss the mark. No matter how vehemently you wage "war" against the culture, you're not going to win all your battles. Someone's still going to be promoting things that don't jibe with your beliefs.
Thus, sheltering children and teens to the point that they're cut off from the world around them only serves to leave them vulnerable when they're finally unsheltered.
Several years ago, a guy named Bob Briner wrote a book called "Roaring Lambs." The book encouraged Christians to take their faith into the culture and effect positive change in the world.
Roaring lambs, or "warriors" in God's army? What an interesting contrast.
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Jarrod Sherman can be contacted by e-mail at trick_ear@yahoo.com
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