God & Country, a documentary produced by Rob Reiner that opens around the country on February 16, is both frightening and gratifying at the same time.
It’s gratifying because the film features a wide range of Christian authors and activists who have joined the secular movement in publicly denouncing the Christian nationalist movement; it’s terrifying because of the growing threat that movement poses to our democracy.
Not to say there weren’t some early-bird Christians speaking out before this film. Three of them featured in God & Country—religious studies professor Anthea Butler, sociology professor Sam Whitehead, and author Jemar Tisby—contributed to the report on the Christian nationalist roots of the January 6 insurrection produced two years ago by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
But it’s refreshing to hear a nun acknowledge that the Bible says nothing about abortion and to see folks like Russell Moore, editor of Christianity Today, and evangelical pastor Doug Pagett raise the alarm. It is also important to hear repentant anti-abortion activist the Reverend Rob Schenck explain how the movement works to control its adherents by “ginning up fear and anger . . . It’s out of control.” And to hear conservative commentator Charlie Sykes warn that “We are on the precipice of not just having minority rule but radical minority rule.”
God & Country opens with footage showing the horrors of the January 6 insurrection complete with crosses, Jesus placards, and prayers on the Senate floor. Almost as chilling is seeing an American flag flying side-by-side with a Christian flag. Director Dan Partland does an excellent job homing in on the Christian nationalist ranting of current and historic televangelists: from Jerry Falwell to today’s Greg Locke, and political leaders such as Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, and Michael Flynn.
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
The film’s epiphany comes from Skye Jethani, a pastor who is also the host of the Holy Post podcast, who observes that “Trump is a televangelist,” pointing out the hair, the mannerisms, the pomp. Was it so surprising that a politician who acts like a televangelist received 84 percent of the white Christian evangelical vote in 2020?
Speaking of evangelical voting trends, the executive producer of God & Country is journalist Katherine Stewart, on whose book, The Power Worshippers, the film is based. Stewart points out in the film, “In a country where 40 to 50 percent of the people don’t vote, you don't need a majority to dominate an election cycle. All you need is a disproportionately activated and motivated and organized minority.” And that should be the cue to the “nones” (religiously unaffiliated Americans) to get out the vote. At nearly 30 percent of the adult population, there are more atheists, agnostics, or “nothing-in-particulars” than white evangelicals, and they largely fall on the opposite political spectrum.
Andrew Seidel, an atheist and constitutional attorney and author of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, ably points out the Constitution’s secular provisions. The only mention of atheism in the film, however, comes from Butler, who worries, “What happens to atheists in this society, what happens to secular people?” if Christian nationalists achieve their goal of absolute power. What indeed?
“In a country where 40 to 50 percent of the people don’t vote, you don't need a majority to dominate an election cycle.”—Katherine Stewart
The film’s only fault is that it fails to acknowledge any role that Christianity and the Bible have contributed to the ginning up of all that anger and fear. While it’s vital to differentiate between Christian beliefs and the political movement of Christian nationalism, it’s also important to note that not all is sweetness and light in the history of Christianity and biblical dictates. The Bible is a behavioral grab-bag, yet Kristin Kobes du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne, insists the answer is to “go back to the Scriptures.”
Reza Aslan, author of Beyond Fundamentalism, insists, “This is not a movement about Christian values, this is a movement about Christian power.” But don’t Christian nationalists want that power in order to force their brand of “Christian values” on the rest of us?
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
After all, the anti-LGBTQ+ movement is fueled by Leviticus, which proclaims that homosexuals are an “abomination” and “their blood shall be upon them”? Christian nationalist warriors look to their favorite New Testament passage: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11-18). Christians have “come a long way, baby,” from the sexist biblical injunctions ordaining women’s subservience and sinfulness, but those misogynist texts are still in a book that 20 percent of U.S. Christians believe is literal and about half believe is the inspired word of God. The closest we get to any criticism of religion in the film is Butler’s statement that Christianity at its heart “has always been violent.”
I am kept up at night worrying about the possibility that we lose our democracy and slide into a theocratic nation.
Maybe the film should have been titled “God or Country.” Will we still have a country if Americans choose God over country? One interviewee in the film astutely analyzes: “If democracy gets in the way, democracy has to go.”
Like Butler, I, too, am kept up at night worrying about the possibility that “we lose our democracy and slide into a theocratic nation.”
What we need to work for is a return to the principles of pluralism. “The biggest sin, if you will, of Christian nationalism is that it sees pluralism as a weakness,” says Aslan, “and not what it is: the foundation of what it means to be American.” We should all be able all get along, regardless of disparate beliefs and views, if we leave religion out of our laws and government.
Here’s hoping God & Country will wake up Americans to defend that pluralism at the voting booth this November.