God + Country (2024)

I have been very quick to knock any film for having a preaching-to-the-choir narrative, whether it is on the right or the left.  It’s hard to both-sides an issue anymore and keep the public’s attention.  Everyone, it seems, wants to hear what they want to hear.

The struggle comes in making that narrative at least soft enough that it seems to come off as informative rather than inflammatory.  For ten years I’ve been all over the right-wing Christian films for trying to shovel an angry one-sided message of being victims in a world of devilish left-wingers who what to take their bibles away and burn down their churches.

But it goes both ways.  In a culture hell-bent on demonizing the other side, nobody seems to want fact.  And that’s part of the problem that I had with the new documentary God + Country traces the rise of the most angry militant Christian right, the forces that rose out of the social changes in the 1960s and 70s to oppose those things that challenged their traditional values: minority rights, immigrant rights, gay rights, women’s liberation.  The message of which came: “I’m as Mad as Hell and We’re Not Gonna Take this Anymore.”

The movie was directed by Dan Partland but the main selling point is that it was produced by Rob Reiner.  It’s not especially thoughtful.  It tries to trace the path of the extreme Christian right; it’s rise to power and its distortion of the Constitution and of Christianity itself.  What happens when the Christian faith, based on the message of Jesus Christ about love and understanding is sharpened into a weapon.  In this case, how the rise of the Christian right in the 1970s was butted into politics by the efforts of people like Jerry Falwell and how, in the 21^st century, it was reinforced into a near-military action by the candidacy and presidency of Mr. Donald J. Trump leading to the insurrection on January 6^th.

GOD + COUNTRY is a clever trick of editing.  It’s easy to sell this idea to the already converted using scary images of angry preachers demonizing Democrats and Leftists, and angry Evangelicals waving cross-bearing flags and screaming in the streets.

What I wanted was a voice from that side.  What do ordinary Christians think about this?  What is the opinion of someone who is a Christian conservative and sees the shouting and flag-waving?  What are their thoughts?  It’s easier, in my opinion to do a lot of fast-editing of violent images that stir and provoke.  GOD AND COUNTRY is professionally made but it’s not exactly fair and balanced.