As the 2024 political season starts going full swing, a new documentary is scheduled for release on Feb. 16 titled “God & Country.” What makes this movie starring mostly obscure evangelical leaders different is that it is produced by an avowed atheist: Hollywood actor and director Rob Reiner. Reiner is best known as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic, from the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family.”
The focus of the movie is the left’s new favorite term and obsession, “Christian nationalism.” As best I can understand, if you are a follower of Christ and you are patriotic and love America, you qualify as a “Christian nationalist.”
Name-calling is right out of the left’s playbook.
“[T]he Democrats’ politics is designed to dehumanize and delegitimize anyone who disagrees with its leftist agendas,” David Horowitz wrote in his 2019 book, “Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America.”
“Stigmatizing one’s opponent is a classic radical tactic,” Horowitz explained. “It is the thirteenth rule of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: ‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.’ Attack your opponents personally and cut them off from any possibility of sympathy.”
The movie first came to my attention when two close personal friends of mine, Pastor Gene Bailey, host of the television show “FlashPoint,” and Lance Wallnau, a regular guest on the same program and a highly regarded Christian speaker and teacher, were prominently featured in the film’s trailer.
Both of these men have my highest admiration. I respect their honesty, their clarity of teaching and their adherence to biblical orthodoxy. Yet they are to be pilloried by Hollywood in this documentary.
Traveling coast to coast with these men and other Christian leaders slurred with this label, I have had an up-close view of the movement and its followers. These men believe in America’s founding principles and documents that are based on Christian beliefs, and these men — and millions of other Christians like them — stand in the way of the left’s transformation of America.
The movie trailer ends with this line: “Christianity at its best is committed to love and truth and justice. If we do this right, what a country we will be.” I agree with this line, and while I don’t want to speak for them, I believe Gene Bailey and Lance Wallnau would also agree with it.
Is the left a threat to Christianity?
So what do the film producers dislike about Bailey and Wallnau? The obvious truth is their unpardonable sin is their support for former President Donald Trump — who also stands in the way of their Marxist revolution.
The irony here is rich — the voices in the movie purport to support democracy, yet Wallnau and Bailey are not free as Christian leaders to support Trump?
When interviewed by The Washington Post about his movie, Reiner concluded by saying: “You can either choose democracy or you can choose this other way, which is authoritarianism, fascism. … He’s made it very clear [that] that is the fight that’s facing us. We’re definitely at a crossroads. And America is going to have to make the choice.”
Interestingly, I doubt Wallnau or Bailey would disagree with this point made by Reiner; they just see history unfolding from a radically different point of view.
The movement Bailey and Wallnau are leading grew out of the overreach by zealous, fascistic American government leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. It isn’t freedom when you tell Christians they can’t go to church (and the First Amendment clearly guarantees religious freedom.)
The real fascism is on the left, and I believe leftists are projecting their sins on Trump supporters.
The evangelicals in the movie are mostly on the political and theological left, and they include writer David French, “VeggieTales” co-creator Phil Vischer, pastor and podcast host Skye Jethani and Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore. I actually hadn’t heard of most of this collection of evangelical leaders. They mostly are not well known.
Why are they allowing themselves to be used by Reiner? What motivates their desire to foster division with other Christians is unknowable to me. Why they would join forces with a famous Hollywood atheist is also a mystery.
So let’s go back to the “love, truth and justice” these leftist evangelical leaders profess despite their open hatred of Donald Trump and their love for those who oppose Trump.
At its core, Christianity is about truth, and this movie is full of lies — and not just lies but slander of fellow believers.
In the trailer, Wallnau makes the bold prediction, “America will be saved.” I pray with all my heart Jesus will answer this prayer.
Those of us slandered as “Christian Nationalists” believe Jesus is alive and still involved in the affairs of men. We believe in the authority of Holy Scripture, we look to the Bible for our wisdom and direction, and we believe that Jesus is Lord.
Evangelical Christians were a big factor in Trump’s 2016 win because of his love of America and sharing of similar concerns. This is why radical leftists want to demonize, divide, weaken and silence Christians — to stop Trump from winning in 2024.
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