God & Country

God & Country, the documentary about the unfortunate integration of religion, politics, and a little bit of fanaticism in the last five decades, it shows some uncomfortable truths, up to and including January 6th, 2021. One review by a naysayer wants to claim the "users giving a 10/10" haven't seen the movie. To which I ask, what were YOU watching? Without giving too much away, parallels to the past- in American and world history- of other movements and actions "in the name of God" are given just enough focus. All because some people are under the impression that their religious freedoms will be taken away. The phrase "No hate like Christian love" certainly applies.

This film is about the dangers of Christian Nationalism, which isn't Biblical at all, but a political movement to gain more power than Christians already have, at the expense of multiculturalism and other religions (or no religion at all). For those Christians who have negatively reviewed this documentary based on its content, I have two questions. 1. Do you believe that Trump actually won the 2020 election? 2. And did you want to "stop the steal?" If the answer to those questions is yes, then you are part of the problem this film illustrates. Please try to view it with an open mind. Matthew 7:3-5.

Starting in February or March of 2021, I started learning about Christian nationalism from connections on Twitter and seeing horrendous videos from Christian nationalists, so I read several books and watched videos on the topic. This documentary still showed me additional chilling details about this movement. I especially appreciate the information Rob Schenck, the Bonhoeffer Institute director, provided. I appreciate that most of those interviewed are Christian scholars who mourn the corruption of our faith. For a non-believer, director Dan Parkland shows Christians trying to follow Christ in a positive light.

The people behind this documentary clearly do not understand Christian doctrine or who every day Christian's actually are or what they actually think. It's a propaganda piece that comes in the year leading up to an election, go figure. It's a typical situation where you find a group to demonize and make into a scary enemy in order to achieve your political aims. The fact that someone as hyper-political and openly hostile toward Ron Reiner made the film isn't a big shock. This documentary features clips of John MacArthur, who is as main stream a Christian pastor as it gets. If you like to hate other people for their religion and/or for being different, while having no real understanding of what they actually believe or think, then this is the documentary for you.

I watched this film today and struggling to understand what the point was other than to attempt to paint one of the many US religions as a threat. If I had made a film about how Judaism or Islam is a threat to the US, I would be appropriately scolded. Hollywood is only furthering the divide of this country with this film I enjoy a good documentary that is fact based, non political and unbiased. However, this film feels to paint a picture that attacks a religious group on certain values. Good documentaries that I have seen before will support both sides of a subjective topic. This film fails to accomplish that. Can we please stop making extremely polarizing films, films with agendas and just focus on quality?

Probably the worst documentary I've ever seen. Don't waste your time on this one. Anyone who rates a film 10 stars obviously never watched it or are part of the crew who produced the film trying to inflate the rating. Even if someone actually liked this documentary, a legitimate review would be 6 or 7 stars. I gave this 2 stars. 1 because it really is the worst film I ever seen and another 1 for effort. Nice try, but they obviously didn't do their homework when making this garbage. Whoever made this should probably retire and never waste their time producing another useless film. By the way, I'm not religious but attacks on someone else's religion is disgusting.

This is a great movie that is very insightful and comprehensive as it shows us the breadth and depth of white Christian nationalism. It is fast-paced and with the highest production values. The low reviews by alt-right trolls prove the point of the movie! This movie will help all of us see the danger of the toxic mix of political theocratic extremism and big-money organizations that do not want democracy to flourish. The betrayal by the Trumpists of the founding principles of our country is done by falsifying our history. The many voices in this movie are virtually all from conservative evangelicals. When "Bob the tomato" says something is unChristian, we have to listen!

Stewart's book is must read! The film deviates from the book in it importantly examines the effect negative effect Christian nationalism has on Christianity. While this is very important, thought more focus on the impact to democracy. Woukd have be valuable to those wanting to learn more about this movement. That said the thoughts of David French and Russel Moore are important to understanding the film does a good job with the difficult job of revealing the disguise of Christian nationalism'a use of religion to organize a political movement. If you are a fan of the Orange Jesus you will hate this film. If you are confused by how so many devout Evangelicals could support OJ this will help provide a perspective.

I absolutely support the points of this film, but it meanders. The viewer needs more milestones and takeaways. I suppose the lack of a narrator is an attempt by the filmmakers to stand back and let the film speak for itself, but the viewer can easily get lost. I say this as someone who was NOT lost but only because I'm a topic expert, having worked for separation of church and state. Ultimately, who is the audience for this? The film is too hard hitting to convince religious people, and it's not accessible enough to draw in new secular people. So I'll give a 10 for the topic, but dial it down to 8 for the actual impact of this film.