‘God & Country’ is a conversation-starter, but not the final word
Documentary examines Christian Nationalism.
On Jan. 6, 2021, I wasn’t in the mood to hear about another protest. I was aware Congress was certifying the votes of the November election, but I was so burned out on the anger and paranoia permeating the national conversation that I was happy to ignore the news and focus on my work. When a Facebook friend asked if I’d seen the disturbance happening at the Capitol, I rolled my eyes and said I wasn’t interested in hearing about another round of Trumpers making a scene.
As we all know more than three years later, it wasn’t just another round of angry MAGA acolytes screaming and causing empty ruckus; it was a full-on insurrection, accompanied by some of the most chilling and depressing images I’ve seen. Angry white people storming the Capitol. Men dressed as animals standing on the Senate floor. People snapping pictures of themselves in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Police being beaten. Several people dead.
And, probably the most disturbing: crosses and Bibles. Lots of crosses and Bibles.
It was distressing to see icons of my faith used by rioters and terrorists, but it wasn’t surprising. For years, the American church – a community in which I’d grown up – had been infected by a gospel that worshiped America as much as – or, I might argue, more than – Jesus Christ. Many of the same people who’d introduced me to the faith as a child and helped nurture my beliefs as a teenager happily spouted hate speech, openly championed racist and xenophobic policies, and equated the fate of our nation with the health of our faith. Was I sad to see it finally explode into all-out anarchy and treason? Unquestionably. But it also felt like the inevitable end of the marriage of faith and politics. If you’d been paying attention since 2015 – or, let’s be honest, for the last forty years – American Christianity was long on this path.
But not everyone grew up in Christian community, and they were shocked to see signs of “Jesus saves” and the sounds of hymns accompanying the chaos. Many were left wondering how a faith founded on love, mercy and compassion suddenly became the face of fear, hatred and insurrection. For others, this was all they’d known of Christianity, and what they saw was a faith whose public practice looked no different than any other fundamentalist religion that turned to guns and bombs to demand its way.
How did we get here?
These are the people who will likely benefit most from God & Country, the new documentary directed by Dan Partland. The film is bookended with images from the Jan. 6 insurrection, focused squarely on the Christian hymns being sung and prayers being offered amidst the violence, and examines the question of how it all got to this point. Talking to a variety of scholars and personalities from within and without Christianity, Partland examines the long history of American evangelicalism’s pursuit of power through politics, and how that led people claiming the name of Jesus to partner with Donald Trump and, eventually, led to the Jan. 6 chaos at the Capitol.
It’s a long and complicated history, one that has been written about by many respected theologians and historians – including several of the men and women profiled in this documentary. And God &Country’s attempt to fit the story of American evangelicalism, the church’s complicitness in segregation and racism, the rise of the Religious Right and the Moral Majority, and the current battles over abortion and same-sex marriage into 90 minutes leaves it feeling a bit breathless; perhaps a longer, multipart streaming series would have been more appropriate. Just wrapping arms around a definition of Christian nationalism is tricky, and something that could deserve its own hour-long episode, along with asides about the importance of Christian media and other related topics, which are also dealt with briefly here.
As a movie – and a fairly brief one – God & Country can’t be much more than a conversation starter, a primer that will hopefully inspire discussion and prompt viewers to seek out more material and, more importantly, examine their own faith communities. Many of its points are helpful ones, and it’s a topic that feels urgent in an election year where many of the same issues that dogged the 2016 and 2020 votes are rearing their heads again. And, perhaps most reassuringly, this is not an attempt by those outside the faith to discredit Christianity; this is a movie featuring many people from inside Christianity who are just as saddened and appalled at what is being done in Jesus’s name.
Sane voices
While much of the conversation pre-release has revolved around the involvement of producer Rob Reiner – an open atheist – the majority of the voices in the film come from those inside Christianity who have either studied evangelicalism’s shift into nationalism or been attacked for coming out against the far-right leanings of their own faith communities. When I felt adrift in my faith post-2016, it was people like Russell Moore, David French, Robert Schenck and Phil Vischer whose work helped me realize I was not going crazy and that the beauty of our faith was indeed being traded in for worship of outrage and power, and the film spends a great deal of time listening them talk about their experiences. Likewise, Jemar Tisby’s book The Color of Compromise and Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne were instrumental in helping me “see the Matrix,” as I’ve described it, and understand how much of the culture I was brought up in was informed not by the teachings of Jesus but by an American pursuit of power and white patriarchy.
The presence of these experts allows the meat of the movie’s criticisms to come from those within the faith who know and love the scriptures and history of Christianity. Reiner’s name might be the most popular in the credits and might cause some to raise eyebrows regarding whether this is just an attack from the Left. But Russell Moore and David French are most assuredly not liberal, theologically or politically – I often disagree with their stances on political issues, but I respect their conviction and have admired the ways they’ve advocated for the faith with kindness, compassion and intelligence, and they continue to do so here. Schenk, who’s also the center of the fantastic documentary The Armor of Light, was formerly one of the nation’s preeminent Pro-Life activists and preachers. Tisby and Du Mez are accomplished historians and writers, and also are open about their Christian beliefs, as is Bishop William J. Barber. Their presence allows the movie’s critiques of American Christianity to be honest, but also tinged with familiarity; these are not outsiders lambasting the “crazy Christians,” but rather people of faith who have seen something they hold dear become warped and misused.
The inclusion of Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, and Skye Jethani, Vischer’s co-host on The Holy Post podcast, initially seems curious, as neither are historians or academics, although Jethani does have a pastoral background. But The Holy Post has been one of the liveliest and most helpful Christian resources for stepping back and conducting a sanity check about topics such as the intersection of faith with race and politics, and the duo’s experiences in Christian media make them ideally positioned to discuss the way that many evangelicals’ echo chambers and limited media channels served to amplify bad messaging.
The subjects’ warmth and sincerity demeanors keep the film from turning into a fear-mongering hit piece; their calm in discussing these issues is an antidote to the images of angry, frothing, armed men and women fueled by outrage and using their faith as a way to force political change. The film likely leans a bit too hard on these images, as well as the dread-inducing score underneath, and without Christian voices in the center of the film reassuring that this is not what the faith stands for, it would be easy for the film to turn into another “sky is falling” bit of hopelessness. To that end, the film sometimes strays into that territory at some points, as commentators fear what an evangelical uprising could do to rights in the nation and one talking head worries that it is very possible that America could turn into a theocracy.
It’s not that I don’t share these concerns, and I don’t want to downplay the reality of what we’re seeing. But I also worry that the constant images of violence and unrest at the hands of Christians will be all some people take away, and they will respond in similar anger. The rise of Christian nationalism has shown just how effective fear and outrage can be in marshaling people to a cause, and I am concerned that the images speak louder than the words in this movie and, despite the best intention of all involved, the takeaway for many might be that Christianity itself and all its adherents – not just those following this bastardized, political imposter – are threats. That’s not the intent of the film, and I think the interviewees do an admirable job of setting context; but at 90 minutes, that’s a lot of terrifying images, and I know those images often stick around longer than measured words.
Because here’s the thing: I don’t think this movie is going to wake up people in the thralls of Trumpism and Christian Nationalism. And I don’t think that those who are longtime Christians who have studied this divide will find much new. But there are other audiences this film might reach, and I hope they’ll be open to the conversation.
Who is this for?
Like I said, I don’t think this film is going to cause MAGA types to drop their red hats and shake the hands of a progressive. To be honest, I’m sure those on the far right who know about this film aren’t going to set foot in a theater showing it; the response to the film’s trailer and the prominence of noted liberal and atheist (I’m not sure which is the bigger offense to these people) Rob Reiner in the advertising has probably already soured them. And I”m sure many would find a way to argue against the Jan. 6 footage and claim they’re being misrepresented by the godless Libs – even though some of the strongest words of condemnation come, as I said, from longtime outspoken conservative Christians like Russell Moore and David French. Hoping this movie will be the smelling salts that rouse them from their stupor is probably a lost cause.
And for those who have long been entrenched in Christianity, have studied the faith deeply and have an awareness of the history of American evangelicalism, this movie is going to preach to a choir that has already heard it all. Many of the people interviewed in this film have written at length about these topics – and done so very well. This film will be a bit too familiar and surface level for these folk, I’m sure. I know I could almost predict when the film was about to drop the “bombshell” that the cause that initially rallied the Moral Majority was not abortion but school integration, and the film only skims the surface of the work of people like Jerry Falwell, without a single mention of the influence of Liberty University (again, an entire episode of a streaming service could be devoted to this).
But I do think God & Country can be helpful for those in Christianity who might not be aware of the history of their faith communities and might reassure them that, no, they’re not going crazy; there is something wrong in American evangelicalism. The information provided is solid, and I hope this film serves as the start of a conversation that might lead viewers to books like Tisby’s The Color of Compromise; Vischer and Jethani’s The Holy Post podcast; Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne; and Tim Alberta’s excellent recent book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. The work of the people profiled in the film is beyond solid, and if this movie encourages a few people to do some deeper digging, I’m all for that. I do think, again, when the film strays from those interviews, Partland shows a bit of tone-deafness; the film accepts it as a given that access to abortion and legalized same-sex marriage are good things to all by the far Right. I think some acknowledgement that there are Christians who are not part of the crowd but still unwilling to support those policies would be helpful; it could help clear up some impasses in conversation that might appear down the road (Vischer and Jethani hit on this in a recent podcast episode with Reiner and Partland).
And I do think God & Country might be revelatory to some who only see Christianity in its current, very ugly form. What the presence of these men and women allows for a celebration of the faith and what it can be. The film talks about the good contributions of Christianity in our society – the creation of universities, hospitals and orphanages – and serves as a reminder that the reason this is all so mind-boggling is because followers of Jesus have traditionally been identified by their love and compassion. This form of American evangelicalism is a perversion of Christ’s teaching, and the movie goes to lengths to remind viewers that it is a twisted Gospel, not the real thing.
I don’t think God & Country will magically heal the divide in our nation, nor will it stop Christian Nationalism. But it could start an important dialogue, and I appreciate its intentions and am thankful there’s a tool to bring into the conversation. And I look forward to talking with others about it as they see it.
God & Country starts Friday in select theaters.