“God and Country,” actor Rob Reiner’s documentary film on “Christian nationalism,” has flopped at the box office.
“Here’s the good news — ‘God and Country’ is a bomb,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said. “It took in a whopping $38,415 in its first weekend — over four days — playing in 85 theaters.
As one movie critic put it, this means it averaged $451 per theater, a stunning achievement, even for the Meathead.”
“Meathead’ was Archie Bunker’s nickname for the character that Reiner played in “All in the Family.”
Reiner is no stranger to controversy, “having said many White Evangelicals & White Supremacists have made a pact with Putin.”
The documentary “looks at the implications of Christian nationalism and how it distorts not only our constitutional republic but Christianity itself,” according to the film’s description. The summary also noted that the film features “prominent Christian thought leaders” and “asks this question: What happens when a faith built on love, sacrifice and forgiveness grows political tentacles, conflating power, money and belief into hyper-nationalism?”
The movie demonstrates the pervasive phobia about religion in Hollywood, Donahue said.
“’God and Country’ is about an alleged threat to American democracy posed by so-called Christian nationalists,” he said “The Meathead would have the audience believe that we are on the verge of a theocratic takeover, though few outside of Hollywood and other secular subcultures pay any attention to this fable.”
Donahue also argued that the Founding Fathers “did not want the establishment of a Christian nation, but it is also true that they recognized, and indeed applauded, the founding of a Christian-inspired nation. Time for Hollywood to award an Oscar for Best Performance for Religiophobia. Call it reparations to the faithful, especially Christians.”
Shortly after the film’s initial release, “The Christian Post” also blasted it.
“The premise of the film is schizophrenic, demonizing Christians with inflammatory insinuations that invoke the Third Reich, while at the same time deriding them for having a persecution complex because they fear a growing cultural hostility,” it said. “By stringing together disjointed, out-of-context clips that lump together John MacArthur and Billy Graham with obvious charlatans and screeching fringe preachers, the filmmakers reveal either their profound ignorance or their cynical desire to assign the pejorative Christian nationalist label as widely as possible.”
The term Christian nationalist was created by the left and at one time only referred to a group of people on the extreme right based around white nationalism. The term was expanded and eventually was applied to any Christian who opposed the banishment of faith from the public square. Many evangelical pastors have been accused of careless using the term from the pulpit and fueling the left’s attempt to paint all Christian conservatives as extremists.
Reports the Heritage Foundation, “If ‘Christian nationalism’ referred to those who endorse the integration of church and state power, racism, and white supremacy, then we should reject it. But not one national figure endorses that platform. The term, as used in the media, is mostly a rhetorical tool to smear and silence conservatives.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice