Bad Faith

Bad-Faith
Bad Faith

The documentary ‘Bad Faith Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy’ appears to be the fiercest war film I have watched in a while. The film focuses on the growth of the Christian Nationalist movement, and much of it is not even new, as many of you are accustomed to what the mass media has been documenting in recent years on how the Christian Right has evolved. But their directors, Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones, start these narratives much further back in time, and what is novel and unsettling is the context of the current presidential campaign. As the Trump re-election looms (a scenario that most Western liberals I know consider improbable I believe they may be deeply misguided) when Christians are seen to be getting increasingly nationalistic, it is entirely different in its implications.

After ex-president Trump assumed office in 2017, he was restrained by the Constitution, the law, and the other departments. He did not become the vehemently, actively anti-democratic person he is currently until about the time of the 2020 elections when he proclaimed he was the winner of the election, and the new central tenet of his beliefs was that Joe Biden had hijacked the victory from him. In the meantime, Trump has planned himself as a president ruling indiscriminately over the American people and that is perfectly in line with the objectives of Christian Nationalism which is a movement designed to make America a theocracy which is a Christian state run by the one power that is above the Constitution God’s will as determined by His white Christian followers.

It is apparent that the Christian Nationalist movement was prominent during the January 6 incident, and it was also possible to see a glimpse of their aspirations and style of work encompassing hatred for the U.S. government and readiness to use brute force. Russell Moore, editor of Christianity Today, speaks of a type of Christianity that is emerging, where ‘It’s a church growth movement, but for mad people. For some, there’s a kind of simmering and performative zeal that gives the impression of great conviction and resolve.’ Long before now, however, on the sixth day of January, these ‘rebels’ as they would perceive themselves in another twisted action-movie role-reversal which Trump encouraged to a certain extent, were also restrained. Christian nationals are going to be the shock troops in a second Trump presidency which is far more destructive than the first one. What “Bad Faith” documents have this potential?

The cooperation between Trump and Christian Nationalism is more than an embarrassing partnership, it is thorough, even solid. The alliance gospel sounds quite strange, at least for progressives how can Christians, people devoted to the redeemer’s teachings, support a sinner and a scoundrel, as they describe Trump, and do so as this person is a personification of everything that they should represent? The documentary helps to fill the blanks that were uncrossed for quite a while that for many, the Trump of today is the deity Cyrus, the God after Alexander who was possessed by pagans, for pagans had a worthy cause and many of them supported God. Applying this opportunistic modus operandi, Donald Trump doesn’t need to practice Christianity his indiscretion per se elevates him into an all-encompassing masterplan. For some, and many Christians are included those nihilists supporting the stumped (working class) Trump, have always deemed him, his followers viewed him quite differently, as a sacred demolisher.

Or, of course, that’s merely a pretext and nothing more. Bad Faith shows how Trump, like some before him, has made a bargain with the Christian Right that is advantageous to both.

In return for their support in 2016, he agreed to endorse a list of judicial nominees they would be happy with and to switch his position on abortion to theirs. Once again, like Reagan in 1980, his victory was secured by Christian right backing. However, what he promises them this time is the dissolution of the American political framework that they have wanted forever.

It shocks even the most hardened viewer to learn, in Bad Faith which is a documentary about the Christian Right, how deep the roots of the dependence on theology run within the movement. In 1980, Jerry Falwell, who became its leader, shrouded himself in the attention of the nation during the formative years of the Moral Majority. (A malignant inversion of the movement is that the more wealth, fame, and accolades the televangelists such as Falwell, Pat Robertson, and later Joel Osteen acquired, the more it was devoutly claimed that God raised them to lead.) But Falwell, regardless of the headlines he captured, was not the founding leader of the Moral Majority’s founding structure.

That was Paul Weyrich, the wise owl of the Christian right, who established the great Council for National Policy that initiated the organizational integration of Christianity with the conservative movement. He is the one who went to Falwell and Robertson and amalgamated all their backers into a Christian political machine that could be greater than its components. Such a machine consisted of 72,000 preachers, and utilized advanced micro-targeting techniques, to turn Evangelical Christianity into a mainly political movement. The G.O.P. became ‘God’s party in the flesh’, and Reagan’s election was the first success of the Evangelicals. We are shown a film fragment of Reagan announcing that he would do everything possible, which is just the tip of the iceberg on how much of the Trump playbook came from him.

Weyrich was, so to speak, the head-banger-by, a Steve Bannon-esque figure who had all the explosive ideas but chose to work with them in secret. He unhesitatingly wrote a manifesto calling for the destruction of the government by guerrilla warfare. From the start, he pushed the notion, first of a culture war, and then perhaps even a civil war, to determine the character of America. He made lots of quotes throughout his manifesto including “Our strategy will be to bleed this culture dry”, “Make no mistake about it. We are talking about Christianizing America”, and “We will weaken and destroy the existing institutions”. But 15 years ago, so USA’s Weyrich organization sounds all too familiar. There is nothing extraordinary about what that has all become. It is now the cutting edge of the mainstream Republican Party.

An interview with Randall Balmer, the author of ‘Bad Faith’ and professor of the American religion at the Ivy League garners interest as he makes the claim that there is a mythos that the Christian right was rallied in opposition to Roe v Wade of 1973, however that is not the case; according to him, Jerry Falwell didn’t even begin speaking against abortion until 1978. Balmer claims that the event that solidified the Christian right was a lower court ruling of 1971 that proclaimed any institution that discriminates or segregates based on race was not a charitable institution and thus had no grounds for tax exemption status.

This was also something that reacted a spark igniting gasoline. As it stands, churches like Jerry Falwell’s were non-integrated and desired not to be, but at the same time, desired their tax-exempt status. The roots of anti-government sentiments of the Christian right can be traced back to this law. The same pattern can be observed when the sieges of Ruby Ridge and Waco became the cornerstone of the alt-right. This also cemented the notion that Christian nationalists and white nationalists, a merging of which can be traced back to the church-backed terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, were one and the same.

According to “Bad Faith” rather succinctly, the entire concept of Christian Nationalism rests on an error namely, that “the phrase contentedly embedded itself in the American mindset and became an indisputable shibboleth America was a nation founded as a Christian nation” is true. While it’s correct that the Founders borrowed from the moral precepts of Judeo-Christian civilization, a very specific restriction was included in the First Amendment – the freedom of religion so as to prevent any religious oppression. Back then, when the citizens would be the ones to define the manner and the God to be worshiped in themselves, it was considered a very outlandish concept. As a matter of fact, Christian Nationalism robs the people, first of all, of the freedoms that are guaranteed by the Constitution and, more importantly, of the idea of free will at the core of Christian belief. When the idea of being a follower of Christ is forced upon people, it ceases to be a choice.

This society must be Puritan in all aspects because that’s how the Christian Nationalists envisioned it. As the film states, Americans who either belong to this movement or sympathize with it make up almost thirty percent of the population of the country. If that’s true, then this is a scary statistic in America. But then again, these Christian Nationalists may sound like true believers, but they do not cater to any kind of politics but that of money and corruption. Weyrich made a deal back in the Reagan times with oil and gas billionaires including the Koch family, why? WoW, no one would believe that a ‘Christian Nationalist’ selling his money movement. Moving forward many would also wonder what Christian Nationalists, a lot? To be honest, there are a lot of Christian bathers who don’t care about God or ethics, they only care about corporate tax relief, and like many others, they sold their souls to the USA for a comfortable life. Time will tell whether or not this type of extremist Christian ideology will be the moral foundation of Trump’s supporters and whether or not he will break the collar of corporate America and get his country back into shape.

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