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Regardless of what the individual motivations of the evangelical movement's members might be, they are an undeniable force to be reckoned with. “This is the point that I'm making,” Pelosi emphasized. “I was hoping that this movie was going to be received very well by people on both sides of the culture war. I was hoping that people in New York were going to see it and say, ‘Wow — they're really mobilized, really organized,' and have some appreciation for [them].”

If it sounds like this is a wake-up call to the passive left, it is — in part. “Look, if the gays want rights, they have to mobilize to get them,” said Pelosi. “Nobody's going to give them rights; they need to organize and get them. And these people organize in these churches every Sunday to deny gays their rights. You have to understand that and be like, ‘We've got to do something about that' — you've got to see them and appreciate them.”

But in Friends of God, Pelosi set out to present a balanced view of evangelical culture in America, including highlighting its strengths. “I was hoping they [the evangelicals] would see it and think, ‘Wow, we're really organized. look how great we look.' But … now, because of the fall of Pastor Ted … I think now they're suspicious of my intentions. … I mean, he's the main authority figure in the movie.”

After making two highly regarded political documentaries, Pelosi initially envisioned Friends of God as a way to break out of the box. “The irony of all this is that this project was conceived as an attempt to escape politics,” she said. “I walked into HBO and said, ‘Growing up I was told that there are two things you're not supposed to talk about in polite conversation: politics and religion. I've done politics, and now I'm going to do religion.”

One subject, however, didn't make the cut: the evangelicals' ex-gay ministries. She recalled, “I did go to a few ex-gay ministries, but my boss at HBO told me that they get a submission for a documentary about ex-gay ministries about once a month. Yeah — there are a lot of people making that movie.”

As Pelosi saw it, choosing to ignore the evangelicals and their methods could be the left's biggest mistake. She stressed, “You can be offended by their politics, but you have to respect how they get together and their agenda. … If they're mobilized against us — and of course they are — then we deserve to lose. Because as [an Evangelical comedian featured in the film] says, ‘That's democracy — if you can get the most people on your side, you win.' And there are more of them than there are of us.”

Pelosi hopes that Friends of God brings to light a major force within the country — particularly to those who would rather ignore them or dismiss them as harmless Bible-thumpers. “I want them to understand that there's a huge movement out there of politically active people that want to take over the country,” she said. “I want people to know the culture of it. I think that's important. If you want to watch it to see Haggard talk about sex, then that's fine, but I hope that at the end of the movie you start thinking about what the movie's actually about, which is that there's this holy war going on in America.”

Friends of God premieres on HBO on Jan. 25, 2007.

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