Rob Reiner, the Hollywood producer best known for his role on “All in the Family,” is releasing a documentary about “Christian nationalism." The film tells gullible liberals their Christian neighbors and elected politicians are nutty, racist and violent, and want to rule and reign over them in the name of God.
'Christian nationalism' is 'Christian fundamentalist' 2.0Billy Davis, AFN.net Just in time for the 2024 presidential election, a left-wing documentary warning about the rise of “Christian nationalism” is coming in February from liberal producer Rob Reiner. So what is Christian nationalism? According to Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham, citing a Reiner interview in Deadspin, the Hollywood producer has not defined it. Instead he gave examples of “Christian nationalism” such as right-leaning justices sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. A second example is the court overturning Roe v. Wade, said Reiner, a fierce abortion supporter. Christian apologist Alex McFarland tells AFN the term “Christian nationalist” is a pejorative meant to “marginalize and demonize” Democrats' political opponents. He compares it to the term “fundamentalist” that was invented by the Left in the 1980s to describe Christian conservatives. After studying the views of Reiner and others featured in the documentary, Basham similarly concludes they “want to shame followers of Jesus from taking part in the very same political activities their secular counterparts do and convince everyone else that there’s something uniquely insidious when they do.” |
"Christian Nationalism is not only a danger to our Country, it’s a danger to Christianity itself," Reiner, describing the documentary, stated on X, formerly Twitter.
To help prosecute that charge, Reiner enlisted help from David French, the former National Review writer, and former Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore.
“Christian nationalism uses Christianity as a means to an end,” Moore warns in the documentary’s trailer. “That end being some form of authoritarianism.”
The two-minute trailer doesn’t say how the documentary makes that case or if Moore, now editor at Christianity Today, really accuses his fellow Christians of being wannabe tyrants in the documentary.
Reacting to the trailer’s premise, Christian apologist Alex McFarland says nobody should be surprised a liberal activist like Reiner opposes religious faith influencing government and culture.
“But some of the voices that want Christianity out of public influence are coming from within the Church,” he says, referring to the appearance of French and Moore in the documentary.
In a second snippet from the trailer, French seems to complain the Church is causing division by not confronting the culture.
“We should be blazing forth as a counter-cultural example,” French says of the Church, “and instead we're leading the charge of malice and division.”
Exactly what French means by that is not explained in the trailer, either, which leaves that quote asking for clarification. After all, the Church would presumably cause “malice and division” if it blazes forth as a counter-culture example on hot-button issues such as homosexuality and abortion.
McFarland is no fan of French, who is now writing opinion columns for the evangelical-hating New York Times, but McFarland reserves most of his frustration for Moore. Moore, who is equating patriotism with racism and fascism in the trailer, once led the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission that mixes faith with politics and culture.
“People like Russell Moore,” McFarland says, “are useless to the country and useless to the cause of the gospel.”
