Amid the constant chaos of world politics, one trend seems consistent.

"To quote someone else, 'God is on a winning streak,' " says CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

She views that streak in "God's Warriors," an ambitious documentary miniseries. On consecutive nights it sees changes made by Jewish, Arab and Christian zealots.

The title shouldn't be taken literally; this is rarely about actual warfare. "Only a ... tiny minority uses violence or terror," says Mark Nelson, head of CNN Productions.

Most zealots stick to rallies, schools, protests and elections. Their religious views have made an impact.

In Egypt, Amanpour was surprised to be in the minority as a woman not wearing a head scarf. In her native Iran, she wore a scarf, then switched to a more-traditional headpiece before one interview.

This is not just an overseas or Muslim phenomenon, though. Amanpour also saw signs of U.S. religious expansion.

In Europe, Christianity is approached casually, Amanpour says. "It's much more of a living religion in the U.S."

That can start in the earliest years. "There are the academies and the home-schooling," she says. "I didn't know it existed in the numbers that it does."

In Lynchburg, Va., she saw one end-point of a Christian education — the first graduating class of the Liberty University law school.

Those Liberty lawyers want to challenge things at the top. Their school includes a replica of the Supreme Court's hearing room.

Like many things involving the Christian right, Liberty has grown quickly. Started by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971 as Lynchburg Baptist College, it has become a 20,000-student university.

Amanpour interviewed Falwell in May.

"He seemed in good spirits, very robust," she says.

A week later, he died at 73, of an apparent heart attack.

Her interviews spanned the globe and a range of views and actions. That included occasional glimpses of violence.

Amanpour talked to a Jewish man convicted of planning (unsuccessfully) to blow up the Dome of the Rock, considered the third-most-holy place for Muslims. She talked to a Muslim man convicted of being in the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat, the peacemaking Egyptian president.

And she talked to Noa Rothman, granddaughter of another slain moderate, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.

"He was stopped in the middle of the way," Rothman said of Rabin's peace efforts. "And we can never know how the end of the path would have been."

Such peace failures have happened often in the four decades since Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, Amanpour says.

"After the war there was an opportunity to recover and move forward," she says. That didn't happen. Often, there seemed to be a "need for true leadership" on both sides.

Some people have resisted their religious colleagues. Amanpour talked to an Israeli lawyer who prepared an opinion piece for the government saying there is no legal justification for Jewish settlements on land captured in the war.

The opinion was kept secret. Despite official disapproval, the film says, more than 200 settlements sprang up, housing a quarter-million people.

As the settlements continue the two sides harden. Each cites religious views.

There are some people who wish the religious aspects could be removed from the debate, Amanpour says. "Many people feel that it's (time) to step back a little bit and to keep faith where it was originally destined, which is in the mosque, in the synagogue, in the church."

That's not the current direction, though. Religion has moved to the streets and beyond, Nelson says.

"The most interesting thing: The power that these faiths are getting (is) political power."