Constantine’s Sword

Based on James Carroll’s National Book Award-winning Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews—A History, Oren Jacoby’s film studies anti-Semitism through the lens of the evangelical “infiltration” of the U.S. Air Force Academy. In an intriguing combination of memoir and documentary, Carroll traces Christian anti-Semitism from Michael Weinstein’s lawsuit against the Academy back through the ages to the gospels themselves and the birth of church traditions. This unraveling of the lengthy relationship of Christianity, ethnic persecution and militarism aptly illustrates why it’s reasonable to cite Constantine’s vision of military conquest under the sign of the cross as the source of modern Christianity rather than the teachings of a peaceful first-century itinerant rabbi.