“Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” is one of the most terrifying films I have watched in recent times. It is a documentary that focuses on the growth of Christian Nationalism, and what it portrays towards the metamorphosis of the Christian Right towards a movement that has no qualms in trashing democracy has been redundant in the mass media for some time now. This time around however, the film’s directors, Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones, delve deeper into the history of this phenomenon and what I find new and disturbing is that this can all change with the ongoing presidential race. In light of the expected scenario of a Trump win which most liberals I know do not expect (I think they are hopelessly naïve), the growth of the Christian Nationalist movement acquires a different perspective altogether.
In the year twenty seventeen, Trump in his new position of power was restrained by the law and other institutions of power in the country. Only at the 2020 elections did he turn into what he is now: a power that does not disguise his aggressive stance against democracy – with the audacious claim that it was him, and not Joe Biden, who won the elections, which subsequently became one of the pillars of his brand of politics. During this period, Trump has been trying to develop an image of a dictator in charge of the United States, and it fits well with the aims of Christian Nationalists: a movement that seeks to recreate America as a Theocracy, a country where Christianity represents the true power above the Constitution – white Christians’ interpretation of God’s will.
The January 6 insurrection was fueled by the Christian Nationalist movement and what we witnessed there was merely the show of what they stand for an incendiary hatred for the US government along with the readiness to resort to violence. Russell Moore, editor of Christianity Today, is on record explaining how this new form of Christianity is “a church growth movement, but for angry people. Constructed rage or anger appears to some as simply being headstrong.” Yet on Jan. 6, it was easy to forget these self proclaimed patriots or “rebels”; the cosplaying Trump pompously carried out, was something that still had boundaries. “Bad Faith” articulates what many have begun to recognize: That Christian Nationalists may well provide the daggers aimed at the heart of America during a second Trump presidency.
Perhaps the most intense bond that Brexit and trump has had with ideologies has been the bond that has been formed and established with the two strongest words that resonate ‘Christian Nationalism. Such a phenomenon creates a progressive focus, near obsession, with the contradictions in the alliance the fact that such men and women who profess devotion to Jesus Christ could upholding a sinner and a law breaker such as Trump; who exemplifies everything they should be standing against. It is almost automatic that the documentary provides further context to their long held belief: that it’s always been about Trump’s picture as a new age Cyrus: a heathen who God used for His purpose towards His people. Using this opportunistic logic, it is perfectly valid to argue that Trump doesn’t have to be a righteous American who goes to church every Sunday; the very fact that he is reckless provides him a role in a grander scheme. Trump is viewed by his working class poor nihilistic supporters exactly the way working class of the US has always viewed him, as a divine demolition expert.
No, of course it is a context then why Trump remains successful in politics why his supporters were right to provide such a title, what Christians considered as a law to be broken for the better relation argument is another such rhetoric. “Bad faith’ demonstrates remarkable level of intricacy with which trump addressed christians segment just like certain republicans did in the past but to the betterment of both.
To secure their support in 2016, he pledged to endorse judges appointed on their behalf and to shift his stance on abortion issues over to their side. Christian Right played a key role in Trump winning the elections of 2016 as they did for Reagan in regard to his election in 1980. But now he offers them something different, the dismantling of the American system they covet and have always craved.
In terms of revealing the culpabilities associated with the dream of a theocracy within America, the charter of the Christian Right as presented in the film is perhaps the most the things that “Bad Faith” does remarkably well in executing numerous tasks. When the year was 1980, the so called “Moral Majority Political Action Committee” was just getting off the ground. The figure in question, Jerry Falwell, founded the her group and, naturally, received a lot of the attention. (A weird aspect of it is that when affluent television preachers like Falwell or Pat Robertson also in time became household names, their financial success was viewed as evidence that god had endorsed their leadership over the country). Such statements can be made even today Falwell grabbed most of the title headlines, yet he was not the person who designed the strategies necessary for success with the Moral Majority.
This was Paul Weyrich, a rather hawkish religioso who went on to establish the Council for National Policy, which was instrumental in binding the rightist and Christian elements in a structural manner. It is he who went over to Falwell and Robertson and brought together their followers to create a Christian political movement which was able to be greater than the sum of its individual parts. One of the tentacles of the machine comprised a vast network of 72,000 preachers, it has reached in the first decade of the 21st century the peak of its sophistication in microtargeting, and it intends to do so in order to change the shape of Evangelical Christianity into a movement focused on politics. The G.O.P. became the “party of faith” while the election of Reagan was the first triumph for the Evangelicals. At this stage we hear a quote from Reagen on how “He is going to make America great again,” this is only scratching the surface regarding how much inspiration Trump got with regards to playbook strategies during the elections.
George Weyrich can be best described as an ideological Steve Bannon a behind the scenes strategist who has a ‘strong arm’ philosophy. Such a person who was behind the theory of using guerrilla warfare against any there is fully developed a strategy in his manifesto of seizing the government. From the very first moment Weyrich’s influences were used to provoke a culture battle, and perhaps one day a civil war, about what the future of America should be. It might have been Unionist’s dream to win the Civil War, but in poetic forms, the slogan of these people, who sought to Wipe out Otto von Bismarck’s belief completely, is clearly stated in his or her manifesto: ‘Our strategy will be to bleed this culture dry,’ ‘Make no mistake about it: We are talking abount Christianizing America,’ ‘We will weaken and destroy the existing institutions’ etc In essence, that’s what the Americans have been saying for the last 200 years and even more than that. However, Keith Olbermann, during his time with Current TV, would refer to it as crackpot worship. Anyone would wonder how such insanity could be mainstream. Well, you are in the right place because that is where the agenda of the Republicans stands today.
The Ivy League George W. Bush biographer who authored “Bad Faith” Randall Balmer takes part in the documentary and explains this, very interesting: There is a mythology that the Christian Right got stirred up in 1973, because of the Roe v. Wade fight which, in fact, is not correct. It is not correct that Jerry Falwell started preaching against abortion before the year of 1978. A seemingly more plausible explanation is provided by Balmer who says that it was the lower courts ruling in 1971 on the issue of school desegregation which stated that any organisation practicing racial discrimination or segregation shall not be regarded as a charitable organisation and thus shall be ineligible for tax exemption which led to the galvanisation of the American religious right or Christian right.
This had an incendiary effect. Churches like Jerry Falwell’s were not integrated and didn’t want to be; yet they also wanted their tax exempt status. It was this law that touched off the anti government underpinnings of the Christian Right, much as the sieges of Ruby Ridge and Waco became the seeds of the alt right. And it sealed the notion that Christian Nationalism and White Nationalism were joined at the hip, a union that went back to the historical fusion of the two in the Ku Klux Klan’s brand of Christian terrorism.
As the documentary ‘Bad Faith’ argues, Christian Nationalism is predicated on an untruth: the shibboleth that America was founded as a ‘Christian Nation.’ It is much honest to say that the ‘Fathers’ were influenced by the moral traditions of the Judeo Christian heritage. The freedom of religion provided in the First Amendment was put there specifically to avoid the persecution of one religion by another. It was a revolutionary notion at the time: that the people would decide how and what God they would like to worship. As a matter of fact, it is Christian Nationalism that, not only restricts the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution but utterly denies the very principle of free will that forms the basis of the Christian theology. The tenants of Christ cannot be embraced willingly if they are forced on someone.
Be that as it may, such is the society that Christian Nationalists seek to create. Based on the film, this movement or those sympathetic to it form almost a third of the country’s population that is American. If this is correct, then it is quite a gigantic number. Nevertheless, as the true adherents claim, even as the Christian Nationalists have been seemingly true believers, they peddle a politics of money and power. It was during the Reagan era in the United States that Paul Weyrich first brokered an agreement with oil and gas billionaires like the Koch brothers. He would advocate on behalf of these wealthy individuals and their companies to abolish corporate taxation and restrictions in return for their backing of his cause. This has always been the Trump agenda since it has been a cocktail of corporate tax incentives, populist stirring, and a campaign against any controlled systems. If the Christian Nationalists actually do manage to provide the requisite muscle in order to catapult Trump back to the White House, he will be indebted to them. What a marginal improvement over the situation in which they hate each other. Their objectives are now completely compatible: the annihilation and control of democracy. What we are observing is most definitely a bargain with the devil though it is difficult to determine who the most menacing beast is in this instance, Trump or the lunatic Christian totalitarianism that he embraces.
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