Original subtitles

[no audio]

[somber music begins]

[traffic whoosing]

- [Narrator] When he was in the Birmingham jail,

Dr. King said,

"When I look at all the injustices in the world

and I drive past churches

and I see these high steeples, [crow cawing]

I ask myself, "What kind of people worship there?

What do they care about? [traffic whoosing]

Are they at work in the world

for those things which look like love

and look like justice and look like truth?

What are they?" [flag flapping]

[somber music fades] [car horn beeping]

- I live six blocks from the Capitol

and I was on yet another zoom meeting

and I get a text from one of my staff saying,

"Have you seen what's going on?

Turn on your television." [helicopter whirring]

And then I heard all the helicopters flying around.

- USA, USA, USA... [crowd chanting]

[news broadcaster commentating]

[crowd chanting] [tense music begins]

- I was at home when I got an alert on my computer.

- USA, USA, USA... [crowd chanting]

- I was sitting at home turning on the news

to see the capitol being overrun.

- Fight, fight, fight...! [crowd chanting]

- I could not believe the images that I was seeing.

[protestors clamoring, banging]

[glass shattering]

People beating up police officers.

- You work for us!

[screaming]

- Attacking the capitol itself.

- It felt surreal.

You know, is this really my country?

- [News Broadcaster #1] This scene

that you're seeing right now on television is,

is just, is absolutely stunning.

The idea that these people have come from outside

and broken into the capitol

and decided to take the center floor like this.

- I was at home,

I was watching, [pulsing tense music begins]

and I noticed

on the screen

attackers had finally reached the Senate

and were on the floor of the Senate.

And as I was watching, I saw one of the assaulters

carry a Christian flag [music stops abruptly]

onto the floor of the US Senate.

And it really became obvious to me,

having written books about this threat,

having talked about this threat for years,

that it had been realized. [sinister chord strikes]

- Thank you God.

- Christian nationalists were the primary organizers

of the attack on the United States Capitol.

[crowd shouting]

- We have to understand how

they understand it and how they understand it is,

overthrowing this legitimate election

is part of their calling as Christians.

To see it actually happen,

to watch it live,

as a Christian, I felt

like a 10-pound weight had been dropped into my stomach.

[protestors shouting]

- And I knew that we were fighting

for the fate of democracy from here on out.

[crowd chanting]

[sinister chord strikes]

["Job's God Is True," by Jimmy Swaggart]

♪ Oh I looked

♪ All around me

♪ And His face

♪ I could not see

♪ But I know

♪ That through the lattice

♪ He beholdeth

♪ Even me

♪ Though God slay me yet I'll trust him ♪

♪ I shall then

♪ Come forth as gold

♪ More than gold

♪ For I know

♪ That He still liveth

♪ For I feel

♪ Him in my soul

[film projector clacking] [music fades]

[pulsing music begins]

- I was 16, 17-years old when I became a Christian.

I wanted to be part of a group.

- I got pulled in by some friends into a youth ministry

at an evangelical church.

- I grew up going to church two, three times a week.

- I'd never been in a church and I was curious.

Now, I'm an evangelical minister.

- I can't remember a time when I wasn't going to church.

- I've been a Christian my whole life.

- In the church I grew up in,

there was a Christian flag on one side of the podium

and an American flag on the other side of the podium.

And we often had special services for the 4th of July,

so there was this sense that America and Christianity

are like baseball and apple pie

and we celebrate them together.

[flags flapping]

- What's happened in our country

over the last couple of years,

evangelicalism got married with a political activism,

particularly conservative political activism.

And now, you could argue that

that's eclipsed the original definition

and evangelicalism has morphed

into this cultural and political movement

that some people are now saying is better described as,

"Christian nationalism." [crowd cheering]

- I'm a Christian nationalist.

I have nothing to be ashamed of

because that's what most Americans are.

We're proud of our faith. [crowd cheering, applauding]

- Christian nationalism is basically the idea

that America was founded

as a so-called, "Christian nation,"

and that our laws should be based on the Bible.

- The truth is this... America was founded

as a Christian nation.

- No Christian with half a brain would say,

"We support religious freedom." we support the truth.

- We're taking back our authority.

We're taking back a country that is already ours!

- And the Bible says that we'll take it by fooorce!

That's what the Bible says! [crowd cheering]

- It's not just exclusive to White evangelicals.

You see a lot of Pentecostals involved.

You see a lot of conservative Catholics involved

in Christian nationalism.

- You can have people who don't go to church.

Really, it's an identity linked to who Americans are

and who they believe

Americans ought to be. [crowd chanting]

- God bless each and every single one of you.

[crowd cheering]

- Christian nationalism is a deeply felt

emotional connection between the fate of the nation

and the fate of the church.

So when someone says, "America is in danger,"

at the heart level, people are also thinking,

"The church is in danger, my faith is in danger,

my religious liberties," it's all a package.

- I think there are a lot of ways

to try to get a handle on Christian nationalism.

At a very basic level, it's the belief that America

has a special, God-ordained role in human history.

But here's the big issue, and it's a big issue for America.

If I have decided

that America is irreplaceable

in God's story, has a role to play

that only America can play in God's story,

and democracy gets in the way, democracy has to go.

[music stops abruptly] [traffic whoosing]

[crowd murmuring]

- Elections are about who's gonna hold on to power.

It's a fight over power and I'm pretty sure

that man's lust for power will not end until the last breath

of the last man is taken on this planet.

Do you agree with me? - Yes.

- 100% fact.

The elites are absolutely terrified of you.

- Yeah! [audience applauding]

- They are terrified of God's people

because God's people have woken up.

They're awake, they ain't woke.

They're awake - That's right.

- And they're showing up

in record numbers. [somber music begins]

[audience applauding and cheering]

- The main thing to remember about Christian nationalism is

despite the use of the word, "Christian," in it,

it is largely a political movement.

It's an agenda that seeks to change American society

through politics.

- Exodus 18:21, "Choose from among you, Godly men,

to lead the thousands, the hundreds,

the fifties and the tens."

Unfortunately, we've not done a very good job

at putting those kinds of people into office.

The only way we're gonna fix that

is if every single one of you steps out

and does what God has called us to do.

- [Audience Member] Yeah.

- It's a command, it's not a suggestion.

It's a command

to choose from among you, Godly people!

- So many conservative leaning churches

have been drawn into these networks

where they're essentially being

turned into partisan political cells.

So what unites this movement

is not any sort of distinct theology,

but more like a common political vision.

- I try to be a servant of God and, by the way,

I'm about six weeks away from concluding my service

as a state representative

and perhaps moving into the Secretary of State roll.

[audience applauding and cheering]

I guess that's an endorsement.

God bless you. Thank you for listening to me.

And let's go, Brandon! [audience cheering]

- Christian nationalism, I think right now,

is probably the most powerful it has ever been.

There's just so much going on under a lot of folks' radar

that they're not even really aware of.

- God bless you guys. [audience applauding]

Hello North Carolina! [audience cheering]

I love you so much and I love this state.

There are, today in America,

20 million more evangelical Christians

we can mobilize and get to the polls.

And we're gonna do it. [sinister chord strikes]

[pulsing tense music begins]

- Christian nationalism in America is well-established,

well-organized, and well-funded.

And I wanna stress that last statement, especially,

"Well-funded." [cha-chinging]

We are talking about organizations

that have budgets that run sometimes

in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions.

Collectively, when you add it all up,

you're probably talking about an excess

of a billion dollars annually

from these Christian nationalist organizations.

- We put voter guides in thousands of churches.

You couldn't get away from us.

We were in your text message, we were calling you,

we were at the door, we were in your church.

And you know what? We didn't stop until you voted.

And I don't wanna scare anybody here,

but we had 147 different data points

that we tracked on every one of those voters.

Everything from where they lived to their voting history,

to various consumer background on those folks,

like what magazines they read, what TV they watched,

what kind of car they own, whether or not they owned a gun.

If you were one of these 1.8 million

after we contacted you like that,

84% of those people voted,

a 9% increase in turnout.

And they are the reason why North Carolina went red,

and they're the reason why it's gonna stay red!

[audience applauding and cheering]

- These really powerful national organizations,

they're driving the agenda. [audience cheering]

- This feminist movement that's infected the minds

of young women across the country.

- Christian nationalists don't like feminism,

they want to roll that back.

They are appalled at the idea of L-G-B-T-Q rights.

They want to roll those back.

They do not like legal abortion.

They want to end that in all 50 states.

They do not like the idea

that we have a secular public school system.

- I frankly don't think

the Department of Education should exist.

- They think public schools ought to either be Christianized

or they would move to a system of private schools

funded through vouchers.

There's a wave of censorship.

- Critical race theory is state-sponsored racism

and it should be opposed in every school in our land.

- They don't like that there's material in public libraries

that they consider offensive or unbiblical.

They want to remove that.

- Burn it, burn it! [car horns honking]

- Christian nationalist ideas are not very popular

in the political sphere. [beeping]

So majorities of people want to

protect a woman's right to choose.

Majorities of people want gay people to be able to marry.

But what's happening is, if White Christian nationalists

can't win the popularity battle,

can't win the majority of voters,

what they're gonna do is use the levers of democracy

to enshrine minority rule.

So that even if they're not a majority

in our democracy, in our voting,

they can still get their way.

- This is a movement that represents

a minority of the population,

but they have disproportionate influence in our politics,

precisely because they've got this infrastructure

that serves to turn out the vote

in disproportionate numbers.

In a country where 40 to 50% of people don't vote,

you don't need a majority to dominate an election cycle.

All you need is a disproportionately activated

and motivated and organized minority.

- I'm to the place right now, if you vote Democrat,

I don't even want you around this church.

You can get out! You can get out, you demon! You can get out

you baby-butchering election thief!

- Since there's no prospect

that we're gonna do anything about gerrymandering

and the Senate is created in such a way

as to give massive disproportionate power to rural areas,

I think that we are on the precipice

of not just having minority rule,

but having radical, minority rule.

By which I mean, not only is the minority more radical,

but a smaller portion of the electorate

will have greater clout.

- We Christians are standing up

and we are going to impose Christian rule in this country.

- As a White evangelical,

I find that to be a very scary thing,

and yet it's happening all across our country.

[music fades]

- So many Christians are confused by what they're seeing.

They're concerned about the decaying culture.

And they're wondering, "What are we supposed to do?"

Ladies and gentlemen,

we cannot be silent [pounding the podium]

any longer. [audience applauding]

The Joe Biden administration is the most evil

presidential administration [music begins]

in the history of the United States of America!

[audience applauding]

It's time for Christians to stand up,

to push back, to speak out.

That is the responsibility of God's people.

- Socially conservative Christians

who oppose abortion

and who believe in a traditional understanding of family,

that is not, in and of itself, Christian nationalism.

For instance, most conservative Christians

who are deeply concerned about abortion

are because they care about vulnerable human beings.

One can agree or disagree with that,

but that is an impulse that is rooted in something

that I think most people would believe to be

good and healthy for a functioning society.

That's not the case if what is happening

is a valorization of power itself.

[pulsing music begins]

- "Whereas, we, the church, [audience reciting prayer]

are God's governing body on the earth.

Whereas, we have been given

legal power from heaven and now exercise our authority."

- There are people who are quite open about saying

that they, "Yes," they would like to be a theocracy.

"Yes," they are postliberal.

- "This country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles."

- They don't believe in a multicultural, liberal democracy,

in which you have a variety of lifestyles.

They actually say, "Screw that. This is our turn

to impose our values on the rest of the country."

- This is not a movement about Christian values.

This is a movement about Christian power,

raw, rank power.

- "We decree that the blood of Jesus

covers and protects our nation."

- What happens to atheists in this society?

What happens to secular people?

What happens to the people who don't believe this stuff?

- "We decree

that America shall be saved!"

[audience applauding and cheering]

- So I think that where we're going

is a very dangerous place.

- I think we are about to find out how big a threat it is.

- God wants America to be saved.

- Yes! [audience applauding]

- And we're calling for new politicians

to rise up, new school board members,

new legislators. [audience cheering]

- It's very easy to see this

as something that is outside of government.

It's not in power.

That could all change very quickly.

- Our definition of what would never happen

keeps getting pushed out into more extreme places.

- USA!

USA!

USA!

USA!

USA! - The thing that keeps me

up at night is that we lose democracy

and that this country slides

into a theocratic nation.

- Yes...

It's possible. It's absolutely possible.

We're closer to it now than we ever have been before,

and America is on a precipice.

And I personally don't know if we're gonna stop ourselves

from going over the other side.

[music fades]

- [Producer] Is Christian nationalism, "Christian?"

- Is Christian nationalism, "Christian?"

Isn't that cool? That's a great question. Uhmm...

No, it isn't.

- It's not biblical, [gentle acoustic guitar]

it's not Christianity. It's a perversion

of the Christian message.

- Being a Christian is about the values of inclusion,

working for the needs of the marginalized, peace building.

- Christian nationalism is certainly not based on

the values of the gospel.

- Our ethos says, "Love your enemies."

Our ethos says, "Bless those who persecute you."

Our ethos is, "Act justly, love kindness, walk humbly."

This should be our time.

We should be blazing forth as a countercultural example.

And instead, we are leading the charge often

of malice and cruelty, and division and partisanship,

and that is grievous.

- There's no way you can look at Jesus in the gospel

and put him on the side of greed,

on the side of injustice, on the side of wrong.

And oftentimes, what you end up with

is people who are so loud

about what God says so little about. And so, quiet about

what God says so much about. [somber music begins]

So they're so loud against gay people.

They're so loud against a woman's right to have an abortion.

They're so loud in cutting taxes for the wealthy.

They're so loud when it comes to guns.

They're so loud on those things,

but they're so quiet on, "How do we end poverty?

How do we care for the least of these?"

You, in essence, being loud about what God says so little,

and you're being far too quiet

about what God says so much about.

[flag flapping] [traffic whoosing]

[crowd murmuring] [gentle quirky music begins]

- I view the United States and its government

under the values of God, God's law first.

- I believe that we were founded as a Christian nation.

I believe that we should be a Christian nation.

It's literally in our constitution.

- We are a Christian nation. Our entire founding

is based on those Judeo-Christian values.

- I do not believe in the separation of church and state.

You cannot take God out of anything.

- We're one nation under God.

And if we can't be a Christian nation,

the light into the world,

then the evil will reign,

darkness will reign. [sinister chord strikes]

- One of the things that I kind of

specialize in is the myths and disinformation

that make up the Christian nationalist identity.

It's things like, "The founding fathers prayed

at the constitutional convention."

And that, "Our laws are based on the Ten Commandments."

And that, "George Washington knelt in the snow

at Valley Forge and prayed."

None of that is true, but it's accepted gospel.

And these are in the talking points and the dog whistles

that Christian nationalists can use

to communicate with each other.

[somber music begins]

- If we are gonna have one nation under God, which we must,

we have to have one religion,

one nation under God and one religion under God.

- Christian nationalists say,

"We really were founded as a Christian nation

because, 'In God we trust,' because, 'So help me God,'

because we have a, 'National Day of Prayer.'"

But actually, we've seen waves

of Christian nationalism throughout American history.

[children reciting the pledge of allegiance]

In the 1950s, we had, "Under God," added to the pledge,

"In God we trust," adopted as the motto,

a prayer room put in the Capitol,

the, "National Day of Prayer," imposed.

During the Civil War, we saw,

"In God we trust," added to our coins.

And all of these artifacts then become

ways to justify future waves of Christian nationalism.

- We have to think of ourselves as pilgrims.

It was their children and their children's children

that gave birth to America.

- When the pilgrims and the puritans came over,

they established their tiny little theocracies

and suffocated everybody's religious freedom.

"You have to believe! You have to act like this!"

They imposed theocratic law,

and we're essentially failed societies.

And when the founders got together and were looking at,

"How are we gonna create the US constitution?,"

they looked back at that and they said,

"We don't want any part of that.

That's the wrong way to do things."

[music fades]

- The church is supposed to direct the government.

The government is not supposed to direct the church.

That is not how our founding fathers intended it.

And I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk

that's not in the Constitution.

It was in a stinking letter,

and it means nothing like what they say it does.

- Amen. [audience applauding]

- Whoo!

[soft instrumental music begins]

- If you look at the Constitution,

the really unique contributions are secular. The founders,

when they were writing the Constitution in Philadelphia,

they didn't invoke the Bible,

they didn't turn to religious principles.

And we know this because we have the records.

It's very, very clear. It was secular by design, by choice.

In fact, that actually pissed people off at the time.

It begins, "We the People."

Our Constitution was the first to do that.

It was the first to draw power from the people

and not a deity.

No other country had done that before.

It was the first in the history of the world

to ban religious tests for public office.

And it did so in language that was very clear and emphatic.

It says, "No religious tests shall ever be required

of any office or public trust under the United States."

And even all of that was not enough for the founders.

So that's just the original document.

Then, later on, they came along and said,

"We're actually gonna amend this

and we're gonna add in more protections."

And so, then you get the First Amendment.

"Congress shall make no law

respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

And in that, you have the founders

separating state and church

in an effort partly to protect religious freedom.

They understood that there's really, it's impossible

to have true religious freedom without a secular government.

There is no freedom of religion

without a government that is free from religion.

[dramatic music begins] [flags flapping]

Is the United States a Christian nation

in the sense that we have a lot of Christians here? Sure.

Is the United States a Christian nation in the sense

that Christianity influenced our culture? Sure.

Was the United States, our government,

our constitution, our laws,

founded on Christian or, "Judeo-Christian," principles?

The answer to that is, "No. Absolutely not."

["Faith of our Fathers," by Frederick William Faber]

♪ Faith of our fathers living still ♪

♪ In spite of dungeon

- Through different eras of the US,

around times of social upheaval,

when we're trying to figure out,

"Who are we? What are we about?,"

we see that Christian nationalism is going to tell

religiously, politically conservative Americans,

"We need to return to these moral roots

to be the greatest country in the world again.

And if we don't, we're going to fall away."

[60's rock music]

[protestors chanting]

- We pray for some young people

who are caught up in the things of the world,

hooked on drugs, and liquor and sin, immorality.

Help us today to get the message

of God's love so clearly to them.

- In the 1970s, preachers like, "Jerry Falwell,"

began arguing that the answer to the problems

we're having in society, what they consider to be problems,

could be found through politics.

[music fades]

- Thousands of ladies were marching in Los Angeles

and New York for their rights,

"E-R-A."

All the rights any dear lady needs

is the right to be married to a Godly husband

who is under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

- Jerry Falwell is [gentle quirky music begins]

a pastor at, "Thomas Road Baptist Church,"

a church in Virginia.

He's on the radio and he's on television.

He's reaching and influencing

conservative Christians across the country.

And so, he founds the, "Moral Majority."

- [News Broadcaster #1] It's a political action committee

registered as such,

just like those of labor unions or any other organization.

- And he ends up really playing a critical role

in binding together conservative Christianity

with this kind of newly crystallized, political vision,

particularly around [music fades]

the issue of abortion. [pulsing tense music begins]

- Abortion is a moral issue. It is a theological issue.

It is a human rights issue,

an issue that concerns the human rights of unborn babies

who, by the hundreds of thousands, are being murdered.

- From the perspective of the 21st century,

when we look at the religious right as a political block,

it looks like they mobilized around the issue of abortion

and overturning Roe v. Wade.

When you looked the historical record, however,

when Roe v. Wade first passed in 1973,

White evangelicals had a mix of responses.

Basically, a lot of the responses were,

"It's the law of the land. Follow the law."

- A lot of people think the movement was born

in response to Roe versus Wade

because movement leaders want them to think that

and have promoted this idea.

But the reality is a lot more complicated,

and frankly a lot uglier. [music stops abruptly]

- What really catalyzed the religious right

in the early to mid-1970s

was the so-called, "Right,"

of private Christian schools

to maintain racially segregated institutions.

- Roe versus Wade became

a convenient, chosen wedge issue.

But really, modern Christian nationalism was born

out of the fight to desegregate schools.

[somber music begins] [air whooshing]

- [News Reporter #1] Did you like it at school today?

- Yeah.

- [News Reporter #1] What's difference was there

in going to the Hoffman-Boston School?

- Well, school's bigger. It's easy to get lost in.

- [News Reporter #1] Did you feel as if

you're going to like it there?

- Yeah. [camera shutter clicking]

- "Brown v. Board," legislating that schools

had to desegregate, was passed in 1954 and many people

were up in arms. [protestors chanting]

- Regardless of what they've decided,

we will have segregated schools.

- And are you going back to school?

- No sir.

- And why did you come out of school?

- Because I'm not going to school

in [audio censored]. - Uh-huh [affirmative].

- And do you feel that the majority agree with you

or with the, thee...

- The majority of people here in Arkansas agree with me.

- Uh-huh. Well, what are you gonna do for an education then?

- Well, St. Mary's isn't integrated.

We can go there, [somber music begins]

we can go to a private school.

- Many Christians, and evangelicals in particular,

thought they could keep religious schools

segregated and not have to listen to the government.

[somber music fades]

- One particular example is with, "Bob Jones University."

Bob Jones University was started by, "Bob Jones, Senior."

He was this famous preacher and evangelist,

and segregationist. [somber music begins]

So Bob Jones University was a segregated school,

didn't allow black people at all.

Then you get a series of court cases in the 1970s,

where the federal government said, "No, you can't do that.

That's a violation of constitutional rights.

It's a violation of civil rights.

And if you maintain this stance on racial segregation,

you will lose your tax exempt status."

You lose your tax exempt status,

which means you have to pay more money.

And it was the combination of those two, race and money,

that got many church leaders into politics.

- It's time for God's people to come outta the closet,

outta the churches and change America! We must do it!

[audience applauding and cheering]

- This is what pulled the religious right together.

It was essentially saying,

"If the federal government is going to tell us how

we can run our private, essentially, segregation academies,

we need to be afraid that

they could come after us in any other sphere of life."

And so, it was really around race

that we see the religious right pull together,

- The new right leaders

were looking for an issue to organize.

"Stop the tax on segregation!" This wasn't gonna be

an effective rally and cry for their new movement.

It was just so ugly.

So, they looked at things like school prayer,

the women's movement, communism,

and the gay rights movement.

But abortion turned out to be a great issue for them

because they were able to unite

disparate elements of the rank and file.

- The Bible doesn't say a word about abortion.

[protestors chanting]

For me, as a Catholic sister,

I think it should not be in the public square,

but it has been an effective political

way of raising money and controlling an electorate.

- How many of our Christians have what I call,

"The goo goo syndrome," "Good government?"

They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote.

Elections are not won by a majority of people.

They never have been from the beginning of our country,

and they are not now. [soft tense music begins]

As a matter of fact,

our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up

as the voting populace goes down.

- Behind the scenes, there were people like, "Paul Weyrich",

conservative strategists,

who were looking to take the kind of small government,

low tax, libertarian wing of the Republican party

and juice it up with conservative evangelicals

whose main concern was social issues.

- I call again on Congress

to pass a constitutional amendment,

restoring voluntary prayer to our classrooms.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- It was a coalition,

it was coalition politics.

And you had your Chamber of Commerce conservatives,

you had your neoconservatives,

you had people who were focused on foreign policy,

the Reagan conservatives.

And then you had the Moral Majority, Christian right.

And they were an important

and valuable part of this coalition,

but they were not the dominant part of the coalition.

- In terms of the abortion issue, I am pro-life.

There's no question that we ought to ban

partial birth abortions in America today.

And no question... [audience applauding]

- In retrospect, I think part of the problem was,

there was this culture of Republicans

who overpromised and that underdelivered.

[somber music begins]

- By the early years of the 21st century,

a lot of conservative Christians had this sense that

the politicians weren't really coming through for them.

They believed that they were owed more.

- You work for us! [protestors chanting]

- And you see that in the Tea Party movement,

this kind of insurgency.

The idea that Democrats and Republicans

aren't all that different and you can't really trust them.

- Thy kingdom come! [protestors chanting]

- You have to take the power back.

- Thy will be done! [protestors chanting]

- And give the power to the people

and then force your agenda.

[camera shutter clicking]

- Evangelicals said, "For 40 years,

we tried to get this done the nice way,

and we're not gonna do that any longer."

It's, "No more Mr. Nice guy.

It's now time for us to really start to fight."

[crowd applauding]

- Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.

I am officially running [audience cheering]

for President of the United States

and we are going to make our country great again.

[audience cheering]

- When I was a young evangelical minister,

we used Donald Trump [music fades]

as a sermon illustration

for everything a Christian should not be.

- We're going to protect Christianity.

Two Corinthians right? [audience cheering]

- Initially, among churchgoing evangelicals,

Trump's support was not very strong.

Many Christians saw Trump as deeply flawed.

[suspenseful music begins]

- You know, I'm a, I'm a true believer.

Is everybody a true believer in this room?

[audience applauding and cheering]

Christianity is under tremendous siege.

But you know, the fact is

that there's nothing the politicians can do to you

if you band together. You have too much power.

But the Christians don't use their power.

They don't need your, they don't use your power.

And honestly, you have by far, it's the strongest.

I mean, you talk about lobbies,

you have the strongest lobby ever,

but I never hear about a, "Christian lobby."

Thank you everybody.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- Before the 2016 election,

he invited evangelical leaders to come to New York.

And I was invited, I declined,

but a lot of my friends were there.

And the reports I got out by text, you know, people

who were literally texting me in real time from the meeting

saying, "This is our guy.

This is the guy who's gonna get it done.

We may not like him, but it looks like he's God's man."

- Donald Trump today, came and had a conversation.

Now, we don't agree on everything.

But one thing he did,

he acknowledged the concerns that evangelicals have

and he affirmed those concerns.

And he said, "It won't happen when I'm president."

- When Trump gave a list

of potential Supreme Court nominees,

that was is reassuring to many evangelical leaders

who are deeply concerned about abortion.

They started to believe

that they would have influence in a Trump White House.

- Appointing a Supreme Court justice

that would overturn Roe v. Wade, do I have it?

- I will appoint judges that will be pro-life.

- By the time I got [audience cheering]

to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland,

when Trump would be declared

the official RNC candidate for President,

my colleagues were telling me that, "He was

ordained by God" to lead the country.

That was a far cry

from the sermon illustration we used to use,

but it spoke to how much American evangelicals

had really abandoned our core principles

and really made an exchange.

We were now all about exercising political power.

[audience cheering]

- Friends, delegates,

and fellow Americans,

I humbly and gratefully

accept

your nomination for the Presidency of the United States.

[audience applauding and cheering]

[music building]

[music fades]

- In 2016, we looked at the exit polls

and it came back that 81% of White evangelicals

pulled the lever for Donald Trump.

[gentle pulsing music begins]

- That was a record.

That's more White evangelicals than voted

for George W. Bush, who was a White evangelical.

He could not have been elected

without the 81% of White evangelical support.

He might not have been elected at 80%.

He needed to squeeze every last drop

out of the evangelical base. And he did.

- Donald Trump fits all the marks of a televangelist,

right down to the crazy hair.

He's this larger than life ego

who promises you the world, right?

"No one can fix it but me. I can solve all the problems.

I'll drain the swamp, I'll build the wall."

And he flies around in a private jet.

He's got gilded toilets and everything else.

He is a televangelist.

But instead of preaching gospel,

he's preaching Christian nationalism.

He's preaching this, "America First,"

"Make America Great Again," gospel,

which a lot of people were ready to hear.

- As a Christian, I was surprised to see so many Christians

just fall in line behind a man who has had multiple affairs,

who will cheat and lie and steal to get his way.

- He is the sort of incarnation of the seven deadly sins.

He is about as, you know, far from

Jesus as a person could possibly be.

[distant audience applauding and cheering]

And yet, 81% of White evangelicals voted for him.

You cannot forget the, "White," part.

We are moving very rapidly towards becoming the very first

nation state in the world to be majority minorities.

And that, for a lot of people,

is a cause for celebration, as it should be.

It's truly it extraordinary when you think about it.

But for others, it scares the shit out of them.

- Get the hell outta my country!

[protestors shouting]

- The more that Americans embrace Christian nationalism,

we find over and over that

they're much more likely to hold racist values and beliefs.

[gentle rhythmic music begins]

In our survey research, we find that

they're more uncomfortable with racial integration

and more likely to view racial minorities

as somehow less American.

When they see and believe

and think about who the ideal American is,

they really do envision

a White America. [music fades]

- I did not grow up a Christian,

but I became a Christian in high school

in a White evangelical context.

And so, there's always been these questions around race

and religion for me. [soft tense music begins]

I am in White evangelical spaces.

I'm in their seminaries, I'm in their churches,

I'm in their denominations. I am trying to

be part of moving the ball forward on these issues,

only to turn around and see those election results.

What that 81% number said was,

all of my concerns,

all of the issues that are pertinent to me

because of our racialized society,

those fell on deaf ears.

It really didn't matter much when it came

to actually pulling the lever to vote for someone.

It was completely confounding to me

that other Christians would proudly support a man

who plays on racist tropes,

that this man would be their champion.

And it felt like a betrayal.

[music fades] [birds singing]

- Around 2018, 2019, I'm sitting in church.

We'd have about a half hour time

between Sunday morning worship and Sunday school.

And this sweetest lady, the sweetest lady comes up

and she's like, "David, why don't you like our President?"

And there are a lot of things, but I sometimes,

you know, especially when I was talking with somebody

who I knew wasn't that engaged in politics.

I would just say one or two things.

And I'd say, "You know,

I just wish our Presidents lied less."

And she looked at me and she said, "Donald Trump lies?"

And, you know, at that point, what do you say?

[pulsing violins playing]

She was so immersed in that cocoon,

she couldn't see the man for who he was.

And, you know, all kinds of people

have asked me to explain, "MAGA Christianity."

And I've said to a lot of folks,

"If you were immersed in the world they're immersed in,

you'd be wearing the red hat also."

[music stops abruptly]

- I grew up as a Christian.

I attended a Christian school all through childhood.

[pensive piano music begins] [crow cawing]

And it was fairly isolated from popular culture.

I mean, I grew up only listening to Christian music.

I thought that secular music was sinful.

[upbeat hip-hop music begins]

I'm still pretty ignorant of a whole lotta popular culture.

Anything that went down in the 1980s and 1990s,

there's a good chance that I missed it.

It was possible to be almost completely immersed

in this separate Christian subculture.

[gentle upbeat music begins]

Christian media is a massive industry

that is almost completely invisible to most Americans.

- "TBN," biggest Christian TV network,

is one of the largest station groups in the world,

in terms of number of stations.

"Salem," and, "K-LOVE,"

are among the largest radio station groups in the world.

- If you are a good churchgoing-Christian,

and you go twice a month, that means you're maybe hearing

30 to 60 minutes of Bible teaching,

from your local church, a month.

But you're probably marinating in hours,

and hours and hours, [static crackling]

of Christian radio, [static crackling]

Christian television, [static crackling]

Christian websites and podcasts.

That's what's shaping a lot of people's faith.

- Very little of it is explicitly political,

but it shapes a community,

shapes a sense of identity. [static crackling]

And when it does turn political,

it is according to one playbook.

It is a conservative Republican agenda.

- I'm, "Alex Clark,"

and this is, "Poplitics." [theme music]

If your state decides to make abortion illegal,

these mega corporations

want to help you kill your baby anyways.

Yeah, this sounds like a work trip from hell.

The expense report would literally read,

"Work coffee, work lunch, murder." So evil.

- To borrow a term

that you'll hear in a lot of churches,

they're discipling Americans

to see the world in a particular way. They're helping them

say, "Hey, this is what happened

and this is how you can interpret what happened,

through this cultural framework of Christian nationalism."

[pulsating theme music]

- The founding fathers

always believed that Christians deserved

to be counselors to the king. Not deserved...

They needed to be counselors

to the king. - That's right.

- The people whispering in the ear of the leaders,

counseling them, "Do this and don't do that."

- Conservative talk often,

is better for the ratings than Christian preaching.

So there's been an intermingling

of conservative talk and Christian preaching

that for a certain amount of the audience,

they can't tell the difference anymore.

What is conservative versus what is Christian.

- This idea of the separation of church and state

still seems to come up,

even though it's not in the Constitution,

it's not in the Bill of Rights.

- No, it's not in any of those foundational documents.

- The majority of conservative Christians

are not extreme Christian nationalists,

but it makes great television. [rockin' theme music]

- We are running straight at Satan, both swords drawn...

- And as fringe voices that tend to do best on media

because they say outrageous things.

- The gender wage gap is a lie,

that a man can become a woman is a lie,

that a baby in the womb is just a clump of cells is a lie

that the rich don't pay any taxes...

- Outrage is shaping millions of American Christians

more than church, and that's a problem.

- They're told over and over and over again

that you're in danger and you need to be more afraid.

The enemy is wokeism, it's CRT, it's liberals.

It's all these things that are dismantling America.

And it's a really clear narrative,

"Join us and you'll have purpose and here's your enemy."

- Here's what I've been telling folks.

Pray for our enemies. Okay? Pray for...

'Cause we're going medieval on these people.

- The church is just being outflanked

by better storytellers and there are media figures out there

who know exactly what they're doing.

They are lying and manipulating,

and stoking the fears of these people,

using religious rhetoric to make a lot of money.

- I want Jesus to come. The reason why Jesus hadn't come

is 'cause people are not giving the way

God told 'em to give. - Mm.

- If people would call this number

and put this victory all over the world,

on every available voice, every available outlet,

the Father, he would say,

"Jesus, go get 'em." [soft tense music begins]

- Evangelical enterprises raise billions of dollars.

We're not talking about millions

or even hundreds of millions anymore,

but billions of dollars,

in mostly $10 to $25 contributions.

Well, the way you get those contributions is by

ginning up fear and anger.

[protestors chanting]

When I was an activist on the religious right,

I would meet with fundraisers. I would hear from them,

"You've gotta give me plenty of fear and anger."

I need to make your people as mad as hell

and frightened to go to sleep at night.

Because when they're that afraid,

they're gonna send you a lotta money.

If you want Armageddon,

then that's precisely what will be delivered.

This is the fight.

I was kind of stricken in conscience about that,

but over time, you kind of learn to engage

in a sort of modus vivendi, just a way of being.

We need the money

to fuel our work

and the only way to get it is more fear and more anger.

- If you're not willing to give up your nation

to a woke agenda that's not left, it's liberal.

It's so far liberal, it's out to destroy

the very fabric of this nation.

We're taking our nation back.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- Well now, it's out of control.

30 years into that, 40 years into it,

we have Christians who are terrified of the external world.

- They want to educate your children.

They want to take your kids from you.

They don't want you to do anything

that resembles Christianity or stand up for what's right,

or stand up for what's truth.

And if you believe that and you're gonna stand with me,

I need to hear it right now.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- Christian nationalism has these two centered ideas

that are really in contrast to one another,

and it's quite a conundrum.

One is, that the United States is a Christian nation.

And the other is, that Christianity

is always under assault in the United States

in adherence to Christianity are persecuted people.

And both of those are proclaimed all of the time,

that it is Christian in it's default religion.

And Christian people can't get a break in this country

and are persecuted by the authorities of this country.

- Undermining Christianity [pulsing tense music begins]

is thee central project of the left,

'cause it stands in their way.

- We may have to be in prison and suffer a great persecution

as a result of our commitment to biblical truth.

We are there, my friend, That's not hyperbole.

I mean, the writing is on the wall.

- They don't want the gospel preached anymore.

In fact, the the governor of New York said,

"We don't want you kinda people."

- Wow.

- In other words, "We don't want you pro-life people

in our state!"

- Right. - Wow.

- There is a biblical narrative of persecution

where throughout history,

if you are faithful to Jesus Christ, you'll be persecuted.

So there's this built-in instinct

in some American Christianity to say,

"If you're really faithful,

you're gonna suffer and struggle.

And so, that validates your faith.

- Because the Bible ends with the most exciting stuff

and it's about us being persecuted.

We're almost excited about being persecuted,

'cause it means we're getting down to the good stuff.

- Christians in the West are now experiencing

just a small taste of what their brothers and sisters

living in restricted countries [protestors clamoring]

have experienced for years. And guess what?

It's likely to get worse.

- There are a lot of voices who are telling Christians,

"You're one election away

from losing your Christian school.

You're one election away from losing your church.

You're one election away from the total takeover of

your local public school by far left ideologues."

- Who pays your salary? Shame on you!

- So, you have millions of people

who are in a state of deep anguish,

where they feel like something that they love is being not,

"Lost," is almost too passive. "Destroyed..."

And, "Destroyed," is too mild.

"Maliciously destroyed,"

"Intentionally and maliciously destroyed,"

something that they love,

an idea of what America is

that is deeply connected

to their faith. [music fades]

But when you dive in and you say,

"How have you lost liberty?," for example,

really, there isn't an answer to that

because people have not lost liberty.

In fact, First Amendment jurisprudence has never been

more robust in the whole history of our country.

[audience applauding]

- We are stopping cold,

the attacks

on Judeo-Christian values.

[audience cheering] [somber music begins]

- Donald Trump jumped on that message of,

"America's falling apart,

and you need to fight if you don't wanna lose your country."

- It wasn't as though Trump created Christian nationalism

or in any way brought this onto the scene.

It had been with us for decades before.

But what Trump gave it was a megaphone.

- In America, we don't worship government, we worship God.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- Now, we were hearing this rhetoric much more often

and much more loudly than ever before.

- We don't wanna see God forced out of the public square,

driven out of our schools or pushed out of our civic life.

We wanna see prayers before football games

if they want to give prayers.

[audience applauding and cheering]

[music begins]

- Donald Trump understood something

that was untapped out there about resentments,

about us versus them, about being part of the tribe.

And once you add that religious element to all of this

and you think of Christianity as the sword and the shield,

you can see how that ramps everything up.

- There were people in that rally,

and I looked the night before. They were people

protesting very quietly

the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.

[protestors chanting]

- I'm a national reporter.

My beat is the intersection of religion and politics.

When I cover certain events,

I have to be concerned about whether or not

violence could occur there,

and that wasn't necessarily true a few years ago.

[protestors chanting, screaming]

Political violence has just been a part

of the last few years,

covering Christian nationalism.

- We are in the midst of a civil war between good and evil.

The good is all the folks you see here.

- We pray that each of us...

- We even have people arming up now.

I know plenty of pastors who go

into the pulpit now armed with a semi-automatic handgun.

My own spiritual family sees violence

as perhaps an effective tool.

- One of the key questions

when we look at Christian nationalism is,

"How does it condone violence and political violence?"

The Bible is full of commands

to not just love one's neighbor, to love one's enemies.

Christian nationalism is going against

the core teachings of Christianity.

- Do you think he looked like this effeminate picture

that we always see of him that...?

He didn't look like that. He was a tough guy,

and that's the Jesus that I wanna be like.

That's the side

that I want to be like. [pulsing music begins]

- Over the last decades, in these devotional books

that millions of Christian men and women read,

we see the rise of a more muscular Jesus.

You see a Jesus who is a warrior Christ.

- I don't serve a dead Jew in a Palestinian tomb.

I serve a risen savior with power and glory

that victoriously came up out of a grave.

And he took the keys of death and hell.

And the Bible says, in Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15,

that, "The serpent would bruise his heel,

but the heel of that man would bruise Satan's head!"

- Christian nationalists will hold up some teachings

and neglect others.

When the Bible is brought in, it's the book of Revelation.

- Revelation 19 [high-pitched pulsing music]

shows us a Jesus you can't control.

This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild.

This is giant Jesus, mighty and riled.

- The Bible does depict a warrior Jesus,

just with a very different kind of warfare.

The warfare takes place spiritually

through the means of the gospel,

not through physical violence.

In the New Testament, Jesus repudiated that

when his own disciple, Peter, pulled out the sword

to defend him from being arrested.

And Jesus said, "Put away your sword.

Those who live by the sword will perish by the sword."

But there are people who will translate

spiritual warfare categories

into literal political violence.

- Get the [audio censored] outta the way, bro!

What the? - You want some trouble?

- There is a righteous use of force in a fallen world,

a righteous use of weaponry in a fallen world.

- Yes, Jesus will bring peace,

but only after he slays his enemies.

The enemy is ruthless.

And so, to protect the church, to protect God's people,

you need to engage in violence.

- One of the biggest fallacies

about religion, and especially Christianity in particular,

is that somehow it's gonna make you meek

and docile and understanding,

when as a matter of fact, we can look throughout history,

whether we're talking about American history,

or we're talking about Roman history or anything else,

that Christianity has also always been

associated with violence.

It's not just Islam, it's Christianity too.

You don't get wars of religion without people believing

that the cross is gonna go before them

and fight their battles.

- Of all symbols they could have chosen,

the Ku Klux Klan chose the cross of Christianity,

but they perverted it

and used that cross as a symbol of terror.

For them, [protestors marching]

to be Christian is to believe that the society

is quote unquote, "For the White man."

Other people are supposed to be subordinate,

not just as a matter of politics,

but as a matter of religion.

And that's where Christian nationalism goes off the rail

is because what it tends to suggest most often

is that God

ordains injustice. [dramatic music begins]

- Trump is going in and trying to take America by the hand

and say, "We can be great again."

I'm coming to you as a prophet, as a man of God,

and I'm telling you, it's time to pray for the President.

- Yes. - Amen. [audience applauding]

- But here's what the Holy Spirit said to me last night,

and here's what he said for me to tell you. Oh my God.

There's gonna be an attempt

to take him out of power. [congregation gasping]

Let's stand and pray right now.

Come on, help me out right now.

I want you to lift your voice. Everybody help me pray.

Keep him Holy Spirit!

- Christian support for Trump

had an extra degree of fanaticism to it

that much of the mainstream media just missed completely.

And that fanaticism was supplied by prophecy.

- Somebody had to do it. I am the chosen one.

- I said, "Mr. President, I know there are people that say,

you said you were the chosen one."

And... And, I said, "You were."

- I think God calls all of us

to fill different roles at different times.

And I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president

and that's why he's there.

- A lot of it was centered around a feeling

that they were participating in this tremendous move of God

to save the United States of America

through this unlikely hero. - Go, Trump!

- Somebody who's gonna deliver God's people,

even if he wasn't necessarily a believer himself,

a, "Cyrus," figure,

[News Broadcaster #2] One evangelical leader,

"Lance Wallnau," believes Trump

is like the Persian king, "Cyrus the Great."

According to the Bible, Cyrus ruled over ancient Babylon

and made a decree that the Jewish temple should be rebuilt.

- Trump has the, "Cyrus anointing," to navigate in chaos.

- They speak of Donald Trump as a new Messiah.

They speak of him as a Godly person

who is directly communicating with God.

- God spoke to me.

Alright, what's gonna happen in 2020?

I think President Trump is going to be reelected handily.

- We thank you for this nation that was born in 1776.

We pray in 2020 it would be born again.

- By 2020, the election is Donald Trump's divine destiny.

- [News Broadcaster #3] Here is the long

and winding road to 270.

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,

Joe Biden, the projected winner tonight.

In the state of Maryland,

Joe Biden, the predicted winner tonight.

- This is a fraud on the American public.

This is an embarrassment to our country.

We were getting ready to win this election.

Frankly, we did win this election.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- The president came out,

claimed he won something that he has not won yet.

And neither has Joe Biden, to be clear,

because we are still counting ballots.

And the President also threatened legal action,

even though there's nothing to challenge yet,

because ballots are still being counted.

- If you count the legal votes, I easily win.

- The Fox News Decision Desk can now project

that former Vice President, Joe Biden,

will win Pennsylvania and Nevada.

- Donald Trump will be denied a second term.

- Facts don't matter.

What you see with your own eyes doesn't matter.

"I have access to a secret source of knowledge

that tells me, this election was stolen."

- If you believe that Donald Trump

was anointed by God to be president, if you believe

that America was founded as a Christian nation

and that we need to get back to those Godly principles,

if you believe those things,

then how could the election not have been stolen?

- The media said,

"Joe Biden's president." Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

[continues laughing]

- If you viewed Donald Trump as, "Cyrus,"

the pagan king that God had anointed to save his people,

then you were looking for

what was gonna happen next

that would make it all make sense.

- It was billed, "The Million MAGA March."

Today, thousands of President Trump's supporters

gathered in the nation's capitol,

many of them refusing to accept that President-elect,

Joe Biden, won the election.

- I believe it's a blessing.

God's got his hand in all of this.

Donald Trump, because he got so many votes

and they had to backfill,

now we all know it was, it was fraud.

Donald Trump will be our president for four more years.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- The whole idea

that the election was stolen, [protestors chanting]

became just widely accepted among Christians.

- Whoo!

I hear an army of angels coming from heaven

to help our beautiful president

win this battle of good versus evil.

- You started to hear rhetoric about

spiritual warfare. - One nation under God.

- This is an epic battle

of good versus evil. [protestors chanting]

- God raised up an army. - [Audience] Yeah!

- And I'm telling you right now, with all of my soul,

with all my heart, I've not lost one moment's sleep

over what's gonna happen on the sixth!

I declare unto you that God Almighty is about to get glory!

He's about to show up! He's about to step off his throne!

He's about to do something in this nation

that's gonna be so glorious! [audience cheering]

- And so, you basically,

had a group of people who believed

that God had called them to Washington DC

and to storm the Capitol.

[pensive piano music begins]

- "For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power,

and the Glory forever. Amen!"

- On January 5th, there was a religious rally,

before the event on January 6th, what they call,

"Jericho Marches." [somber music begins]

- We know this battle belongs to you, Lord.

And I thank you for every single one of these warriors

who have come out today.

- The idea to bring Christian people together

to march around the capitol,

in imagery that's supposed to conjure up

the nation of Israel, marching around the walls of Jericho.

- Go out to face them tomorrow.

Amen. [audience applauding]

- And if you know that story, it's the story

where the walls of Jericho come crumbling down.

- [News Broadcaster #4] Still, these demonstrators

keep believing that some revelation

could possibly change the election outcome,

and they insist their concerns and hopes shouldn't be

ignored or belittled. [pulsing tense music begins]

- The church is not a bear that they should have poked.

- They went to march around the US Capitol

in order to send the message that the structure

of our government would come collapsing down

and would reinstate Donald Trump as President.

- Come to the big DC marches

on the 5th and 6th of January.

I'll see you there. God bless.

- This was not a secret. They were advertising it.

- People didn't just show up.

They went to churches and got on buses

and drove across the country

to be at these rallies on January 5th.

- We thank you Lord.

You are gonna bring the exposure that needs to take place

for all of us that have friends and family members

that think we're crazy. [audience laughing]

- When you were primed to believe

that you've been under siege by secular society,

quote unquote for quite some time.

Then it's not a huge leap to say,

"Well this is the apocalypse, this is the end times,

and we have to do whatever we can

to stop that from occurring."

- This struggle God has put us in to test us

and God is on our side, and incredible things

are coming! [audience cheering]

- This is nothing less than an epic struggle

between the Godly and the Godless,

between good and evil. [crowd whooping]

And we will win this fight,

or America would step off into a thousand years of darkness.

- I'm telling you, Jesus is the lamb

that takes away the sin of the world.

But he is not just a lamb!

He is the lion of the tribe of Judah!

And he's about to roar again

in the United States of America!

We're gonna take our nation back!

- Christian nationalism provided the permission structure

to attack the beating heart of American democracy.

[air whooshing]

- So in graduate school I,

I was an American historian by training,

American religious historian,

but I had an outside field,

20th century Germany,

with a focus on

the German Christian movement. [somber music begins]

I had a fascination with, "How could Christians

participate in a movement like the Third Reich?

And how could they do so

not kind of neglecting their Christianity,

or at least not to their mind, but as Christians,

twisting their Christianity in such a way

that it was compatible with Nazism.

- When Adolf Hitler ascended to the chancellorship,

he didn't seize power. [crowd cheering]

It was given to him by a very Christian electorate

who declared him in 1933 to be,

"A gift and miracle from God."

And I remember quite well,

when I was being trained as a minister,

we were told never prepare a sermon without

consulting the Dictionary of New Testament Theology

edited by, "Gerhard Kittel,"

a good German evangelical Bible scholar.

Nobody ever told me that Gerhard Kittel

was Adolf Hitler's resident theologian

that gave him the theological justification for genocide.

Why didn't we ever know

that one of the theologians we consulted most often

justified genocide? [music fades]

Boy...

That was an eye-opener. [suspenseful violin playing]

- One doesn't derive one's values from scripture.

One inserts one's values into scripture.

[sinister chord strikes, echoing]

[indistinct chatter] [footsteps]

- Let us pray.

[crowd rumbling]

- Let us pray.

Lord, let your plans stand forever,

and may your purpose for this nation stand strong.

- Almighty God,

have compassion on us

with your unfailing love,

as our lawmakers

prepare to formally certify the votes.

[crowd rumbling]

- Guide our legislators with your wisdom and truth.

- 1776! [protestors chanting]

- People thought that they were there to defend God,

to defend their faith,

and to defend democracy while they were trying

to overturn our democracy.

[protestor shouting]

[trumpets blaring, drums beating]

[protestors yelling]

[distorted music echoing in slow motion]

[air whooshing]

[protestors yelling]

[distorted echoing prayer]

[flags flapping]

- You had crosses,

you had Bible verses, [protestors shouting]

[gunfire]

pictures of Jesus.

- We love Jesus.

We're here storming the gates of the government.

[thudding]

- They're praying in the name of Jesus Christ.

[protestors shouting]

They were using religion as a way to justify

overturning democracy.

[thudding]

- One nation under God...

- Christian nationalism

uses Christianity as a means to an end,

that end being some form of authoritarianism.

[gentle chiming music begins]

If there's a religious basis for one's authority,

one is able to say, "You're not just wrong,

you're on the wrong side of God."

- The body of Christ is the one

that's gonna make America great again.

- One of the things I am afraid of is that

I see the erosion of democratic norms and institutions.

I see a shocking lack of commitment

to American democracy among many American Christians.

And it's not clear to me where that will stop.

- Jesus Christ! We spoke again!

- This threat of what I no longer even pretend

is evangelicalism,

this White,

religious nationalism

may present one of the greatest dangers ever

to our democratic experiment.

[protestors trashing]

It is an ugly exercise to try to imagine

what America might do as a fascist state.

- Amen! [protestors shouting]

[echoing]

[fabric flapping]

[traffic whoosing] [suspenseful music begins]

- After January 6th,

there was a brief moment [pulsing tense music begins]

where Christian nationalism came into the limelight.

- The problem isn't Christianity,

one of the world's great religions. No!

This particular brand of Christianity

that has linked up with the Trump movement

is a different kind of thing, "Christian nationalism."

- It seemed like the country was gonna notice

and wake up to this threat,

and that didn't happen.

- Don't believe what you see on the press.

It was, there's, it was a, it was over a million

wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people

who were singing worship songs and loving Jesus.

They didn't break into anything.

- They let 'em in. - They let 'em in.

- Not only did they let them in,

it's paid for by tax dollars.

- That's our problem. - Yeah, they were Americans

and they were innocent.

- Something that makes me fear for the future

is that we see Americans

reevaluating what happened on January 6th.

- You know, if you didn't know the TV footage

was a video from January the sixth,

you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.

- They wandered freely through the Capitol

like it was their building or something.

They didn't have guns,

but a lot of 'em had extremely dangerous ideas.

They talked about the Constitution

and something called, "Their rights."

- So my colleague, "Samuel Perry,"

gathered data in February of 2021.

And found that three quarters of ambassadors

and accommodators of Christian nationalism said,

"Those that engaged in the riot should be prosecuted."

When he asked the same question, six months later,

that number had dropped to around 50%.

And so, as time continues to move on,

are we gonna continue to see them

reevaluate the insurrection and move from,

"This was a crime," to, "Well maybe,

this was a necessary evil," to possibly moving towards,

"Well, this was necessary,

and it was actually good that we attacked the capitol."

I think that's a real possibility

and something that should concern every American,

but especially American Christians.

- Now, what we're seeing is Christian nationalists

more emboldened and more entrenched

in their disinformation and their ideology.

- Without the Bible, there is no modernity.

Without the Bible, there is no America.

Our biblical inheritance is at the center of our politics.

It is the question of the age. [music fades]

- Welcome back.

We are following the historic ruling from the Supreme Court.

The conservative majority has overturned

the landmark Roe versus Wade ruling.

- For the first time [people wailing]

since 1973, abortion is no longer a nationwide right.

- You have now freed us from the shackles

of Roe versus Wade.

We thank and we praise you. [whooping]

- Yes. It's going to be hard.

I know, as a working mom of four,

it's not easy working and being a mother.

And I'm married, right?

I can only imagine if I were a single mother.

It's hard work, but you can do it. And guess what?

The pro-life movement stands with you

every single step of the way.

- In a world without Roe v. Wade,

American Evangelicals will face

the greatest ethical crisis we have ever faced,

which is...

Will we take all the hundreds of millions of dollars raised

to end abortion? Will we now take that same amount

of resources and marshall them

to help women who are facing unwelcome pregnancies?

The children that are born to them?

Most of the people I knew in the pro-life movement

were quite sincere in their belief system,

but none of us had played out the unintended consequences.

- I will say that my attitude about abortion was,

you know, and I'm a Catholic sister.

It wasn't my issue.

So it was like, "Okay, I oppose abortion."

But then, when I was practicing law in Oakland,

I got appointed by the court to represent a 13-year-old

who had been raped by her uncle and was pregnant.

And so, my responsibility as her lawyer

was to walk with her and help her make choices.

That forever shifted my approach

because what I realized is that it's not

this antiseptic

removed decision.

They're human beings struggling, struggling. So...

I became much more nuanced about the reality.

- Roe v. Wade has got to go! - We did it!

[protestors whooping]

- I've been working and praying

for the past five years for this day.

And we still have a ton of work to do

to get all the states to ban abortion,

but this is a huge step.

[protestors chanting]

[echoing] [somber music begins]

- I think this is a really good time for Christians

to engage in really careful reassessment,

to go back to the scriptures.

And to read those with fresh eyes and see

what God's teachings are,

to look at the life of Christ.

And to look at what Jesus calls us to do

and who Jesus calls us to be.

And then, to take a look at your political views.

- The United States as a political entity,

its future is uncertain.

We don't know what might happen.

We hope for the best. [gentle pulsing music begins]

- The United States of America is a people movement,

and we will be

however the people of this country choose to be.

That's what we're gonna be as a nation.

- I make a very sharp distinction

between patriotism and nationalism.

Nationalism is something that is usually idolatrous

and self exalting. [distant audience applauding]

Patriotism, I think, is gratitude

for being in a country as magnificent as this one.

- This was an accident of history.

We are fundamentally a nation of immigrants,

so we came from all over the place,

speaking different languages, worshiping different gods.

However you think about this country,

the one thing that cannot be denied

is that at the heart of it is the idea of pluralism.

"E Pluribus Unum." That's the whole shebang right there.

"Out of many, one."

The biggest sin, if you will,

of Christian nationalism,

is that it sees pluralism as a weakness and not what it is,

the foundation of what it means to be American.

[upbeat orchestral music begins]

[whooping]

- This is what puzzles me.

Christian nationalists treating multiculturalism

as a threat to America,

even though that is America.

- There's a version of American nationalism.

It's trying to camouflage itself as, "Christianity."

And it's doing a whole lot of damage,

not just to our democracy, [protestors shouting]

but to the reputation of our faith.

- Faith ought not to be reduced to an ideology,

certainly not an ology of hate or exclusion.

And we need to work together

and really fight for a better life for everybody.

[protestors chanting]

- Christianity at its best,

committed to love and truth and justice,

has and always will be a powerful, powerful force.

In the face of sickness, the church created hospitals.

In the face of people needing to be educated,

the church created universities.

In the face of Jim Crow and racism to church,

marched from churches into the street,

across bridges, went to jail and forced non-violent change.

Everywhere you look, when the church has been at its best,

it protects people regardless of their race,

their creed, or their sexuality.

[protesting]

Jesus' last sermon, he was talking about,

"I'm gonna judge the nations by these things.

Not gonna judge you by your skyscrapers.

Not gonna judge you by your tax cuts.

Not gonna judge you by your military.

When people were hungry, did you feed 'em?

When people were sick, did you care for them?

When people were immigrants, did you welcome them?

When people were at their least,

did you as a nation lift them up?"

If we do this right,

what a country we will be. [music fades]

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