Rob Reiner Sounds the Alarm for the Rise in Christian Nationalism

Rob Reiner attends the “This Is Spinal Tap” 35th Anniversary during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at the Beacon Theatre on April 27, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival) CREDIT: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

“Trump is a cult, and people who follow the cult are vulnerable people.”

Celebrated director Rob Reiner is worried about the rise of Christian nationalism—the use of Christian values to push a political agenda—and its impact on democracy. “A lot of people are unwittingly being drawn into this movement.” To highlight this, Reiner teamed up with director Dan Partland to produce the documentary God & Country (February 16). “We have to make a distinction between Christianity and Christian nationalism, because you’ll see that we have conservative Christian evangelicals who talk specifically about how not only is Christian nationalism hurting the country and democracy, but it’s hurting Christianity.” Reiner is direct about laying some blame for Christian nationalism’s rise. “I can criticize [Donald] Trump because he’s the one who’s roping these people into this thinking,” citing January 6 as a prime example. “Trump is a cult, and people who follow the cult are vulnerable.” But he sympathizes with those impacted. “They’re looking for meaning, they’re looking for a direction, and you can get swept up in something [like that].”

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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

What made you want to produce and put your name on a film like this?

Well, first of all, we have to make a distinction between Christianity and Christian nationalism. Because when you watch the film, you’ll see that we have some very, very respected, conservative Christian evangelicals who talk specifically about how not only is Christian nationalism hurting the country and hurting democracy, but it’s hurting Christianity itself. And they believe that it is a terrible attack on Christianity.

What made me want to get involved is I saw a movement happening in the country that was taking us further and further away from democracy. It started for me, the awareness of it, back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when Norman Lear started the People for the American Way [to defend democracy and advocate against authoritarian threats]. And I saw this movement to kind of push a certain agenda down everybody’s throat. I didn’t think much about it at the time in terms of what kind of political power they would attain. But I’ve seen over the years that they’re incredibly organized, incredibly well funded, and have attained tremendous power. And I saw that [with] Trump’s candidacy in 2016, again in 2020, and now it’s really hardened and solidified behind Trump.

To me, this is a dangerous path for this country to go down and for the world go down, which is authoritarianism, the idea that it’s my way or the highway, and that you’re even willing to resort to violence to get your own way. We saw this exemplified on January 6. That, to me, is setting the tone for something that could be much, much worse down the road. So when I saw this, when I was given this book called The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart, I said, “Oh, this is really a great piece of work that shows just how organized and how powerful Christian nationalism [is].” I turned to Dan Partland, I said, “Come on, let’s let’s see if we can make a documentary about this. Because people have to be made aware of what’s happening in this country.”

My father was a Republican but hated the impact the evangelical right had on Ronald Reagan’s election. He felt there was a clear separation between church and state. How do you think Christian nationalism has evolved since Reagan to today?

Well, it’s evolved considerably. The beginnings of this movement happened in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which said that everybody had to be treated equal in terms of where they could access education. And this was not taken well by a big swath of the population, they just didn’t like this idea. So they created religious schools where they could keep Black people from integrating the schools. And it started this movement of bringing religion, or their idea of a religion, in maintaining the separation between Blacks and whites. But it’s kind of ugly, if you think about it, that that would be the basis of a political movement.

[It] really didn’t take root, but then along came Roe v. Wade, and by ’73 this became the galvanizing issue for Christian nationalists. They latched on to that and it became the the thing that drove the movement. And then over a period of time we saw the Federalist Society getting involved in making sure that the judges were put in the right place and getting them on to the Supreme Court, and all the way up to Trump, putting three judges on the Supreme Court and we see Roe v. Wade overturned. So we’ve seen a growth pattern over the decades of how Christian nationalism [has] gotten stronger and stronger.

But your father talking about the separation of church and state, that is in the Constitution; there are three mentions of it in the Constitution. And Christian nationalists will say there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution. They just lie about it. So your father is right in that the separation of church and state allows religions to grow and to give people the freedom to pray and worship however they want. When you impose a religion on a country, it discounts everybody else’s beliefs and thinking. That’s the reason why the first settlers that came to America were running away from religious persecution. They wrote a Constitution that said the state will make no religion, that this country will make no religion.

The Christian nationalist movement is totally antithetical to that—it says that it’s my way or the highway and will resort to violence if we don’t get our way, which is what we saw happening on January 6.

I was actually surprised by the role Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade played in this. Was there anything you were surprised by over the process of producing this?

Well, the thing that I was most surprised by was to see conservative Christian leaders talk against Christian nationalism, because they believed it is not only hurting the country, but hurting Christianity. That was surprising to me. We knew we had to include them, they had to be part of the discussion, because we’re talking about Christianity.

As a Jewish person, a lot of people say, “You have no right to talk about this, you’re Jewish. Why should you comment on the state of Christianity?” And I tell people, for those who want to hear it, I’m Jewish, there’s no question about it. But I was raised in a secular household. There was no practice of religion. We were not religious at all. And when I went through a very dark period in my life decades ago, I did a lot of searching and soul searching and reading up on Christianity and Buddhism and Islam and Judaism. I read all of it, and I came away personally with my own beliefs, which is the teachings of Jesus, which is love thy neighbor, do unto others as he would have have done unto you. That’s what I took away.

So I thought, boy, this movement that they have here seems completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was about peace and love and helping thy neighbor and those less fortunate than ourselves. And I thought that was something that we should all aspire to. So to me this movement is going totally opposite the teachings of Jesus.

What do you hope your regular, middle-of-the-road Christians take from this film?

Hopefully, it will spawn a discussion. I mean, a lot of people who are unwittingly being drawn into this movement, it gives them a sense of power, it gives them a sense of belonging. But if they really look at it and they really talk about it with their friends and listen to these very respected people [featured in the film] like [theologian and editor-in-chief of Christianity Today] Russell D. Moore and [VeggieTales creator] Phil Vischer, and so on, they might start thinking, “Wait a minute, I might be getting away from those teachings [of Jesus], I might be moving into a direction I shouldn’t be moving into.”

That’s the hope, that we can spawn a discussion and that it cannot only reach people who are of the same faith and make them understand where their faith is moving, but also people of other faiths to say, we all have to live together in one place. That’s the “E pluribus unum” of it all—out of the many come one. We want everybody not to just accept dogma and go down a path that may be leading to a very, very bad place. We saw the beginnings of it in January 6; it could be a lot worse going forward.

Hopefully people will watch the film and start having discussions with people about what it means to blindly follow something that could lead you to a very dangerous place. I don’t care what Trump says; he calls them insurrectionists, he calls them hostages. They’re law breakers, they did a violent act, they did something very violent, and they should pay a price for that. But we’re going in a very dark place right now, unless we’re careful, I believe that we as people will find a way to let the good part of ourselves come forward.

For many, particularly on the [air quotes] “liberal coasts,” there’s a sense this is just a problem of the South, or parts of the Midwest. Do you think it goes beyond that?

It is, and it’s not as big as many think. We’re talking about 25 percent to 30 percent of the system, but it’s a hardened 25 percent. And anything that is that hardened can cause a tremendous amount of damage. And that’s what we’re looking at.

So you’d say, you can’t win an election with 25 percent. Yes, you can. And the way you do it, is because of the system we have with the Electoral College, all you have to do is flip some votes in five or six states, because there are states that will vote Republican, there are states that will vote Democrat, and they’re off the table, they’re not going to play a role. But in those five to eight states, if you can flip enough votes in those very close states, with the support of 25 percent, you can win, and then you’re going down the authoritarian path. It’s very, very dangerous.

Do you ever worry about your politics getting in the way of people receiving the message of the documentary?

Of course, half the country thinks I’m a “lib-tard,” I’m an idiot for opposing Trump the way I have over the years. That comes with the territory, and that’s fine. But I urge people, don’t have a knee-jerk reaction and really think about what we’re talking about here. It’s tough, there’s disinformation and they’ve got the internet.

But the truth is, I do love the teachings of Jesus, and I believe that good wins out over evil. I think that we’re all decent people, and that even the people who are entrenched in the Christian nationalist movement, we have to have forgiveness, and we have to be [there] when it doesn’t work out, or even if they wind up attacking more.

At a certain point, you have to forgive. I remember when that terrible thing happened at the church in South Carolina, where all the people were killed by this white supremacist person. And all of the survivors of the loved ones, they all forgave that person. I thought, wow, that’s real Christianity. To say that person, as evil and as horrible an act as he committed, [to say] he is misguided and he’s still a part of the human race and God loves him. We still have to pray for him and love him and hopefully he’ll be okay. But that’s the tough part of being somebody who believes in the teachings of Jesus. That’s not the easy part. The real people who believe that, you know, it’s the turning the other cheek. It’s tough, it’s tough to do that, yes, somebody’s attacking you, you got to defend yourself, yes, when they’re physically on top of you, but to force your ideas, your political ideas on somebody at the point of a gun. That’s not the way Jesus taught. He didn’t talk about that.

And, speaking of January 6 and many of Trump’s supporters who have mentioned they were swayed by his rhetoric, regardless of their past actions, finding a way to forgive is never a made thing.

Of course you do. Everybody talks about a cult of personality, and Trump is a cult, and people who follow the cult are vulnerable people. There are people who are lost, they’re looking for something, they’re looking for meaning, they’re looking for strength, they’re looking for a direction, and you can get swept up in something. So you have to have sympathy for those people. And you have to say, I’m sorry you feel empty, lost, or whatever, and you chose this direction because it seemed like the right thing to do. A lot of those people did say, I was wrong, I did the wrong thing here. So you gotta love them. You gotta love them.

And you’re never going to win over votes or persuade them if you completely shut them out.

True. I mean, the people who are following Trump right now, I would say they’re very hard to convince. But down the road, they may say “I was wrong about that.” You get older and you go, “Gee, I shouldn’t have done that,” or “That was the wrong thing to do.” But you know, you’re right. I can criticize Trump because he’s the one who’s roping these people into this thinking. He’s using language like vermin and poisoning the blood of the country and all that stuff. And it’s wow, this is scary stuff. Especially if you’re a Jew.

Many of your films have had a very clear message, or even political statement. What role do you think Hollywood has in adding their voice to political issues like this?

I think it’s up to the filmmaker. The first thing is to entertain when you’re making fictional films. So that’s your first order of business. If you want to bring issues into it, to talk about specific things, that’s fine as long as you can do it in the context of entertainment. That’s why this film, God & Country, is a documentary. It is entertaining on a certain level, which is it’s informative and interesting and you’re engaged in it, but it’s not it’s not there to take you on a Barbie ride or something like that. It’s a different kind of thing.

I like to blend comedy, drama, satire issues together if I can in some way, but I certainly don’t want to hit anybody over the head with any messages. That is up to the individual filmmaker.

If you look at Hollywood over the years, they have certainly reflected the culture. But in terms of making any kind of significant change, very few films by themselves do that. I think I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang did change the criminal justice system a little bit, but very few films do that. Mostly they spark conversation and maybe that leads to something.

The one thing I learned from [screenwriter and producer] Norman Lear was that you could take your celebrity or your fame, whatever from what you’ve done, and use that as a platform to push certain ideas that you had. And in one case, that was for me marriage equality. Earlier than that I did the thing for early childhood, which I cared a lot about. But I would do that separate from the work I do in a film, although I have done films that are politically based like Ghosts of Mississippi and Shock and Awe.

Well, there is one political film of yours that is one of my favorites, The American President. It’s the film I watch when I’m sick of the news and want to live in a happy political world.

Sure, it’s called divertissement and getting away from things, but you also aspire to something with it. It may not be exactly how it is, but you aspire to a reduction in fossil fuel emissions, you aspire to meaningful gun safety legislation, you aspire to these things, and maybe they can happen. And even in God & Country, at the end, you have Reverend [William] Barber talking about what Christianity can do for the world, what it has done, and it’s very hopeful. It can be uplifting, even when you’re talking about a very serious subject.

Now, I can’t talk with you and not bring up one of your films, because it’s one of my top 10. Misery. I quote it all the time. And it does seem out of the norm from most of your other films.

On the surface it would seem so because I haven’t made horror films, and it’s [the only] thriller I’ve made. But the core of that film is about a guy who has gotten very successful writing a certain kind of book, who wants to break away from that and write something more personal and something more out of his himself. He’s worried that if he does that, his fans will not just desert him, but actually kill him. After I left All in the Family, I wanted to become a director. I had directed my own improvisational group when I was 19, I directed a theater here in Los Angeles and that was always what I wanted to do. I got stereotyped as a sitcom actor, and I wanted to do something else. Nobody wanted to take a chance until I eventually got [This Is] Spinal Tap off the ground. But the idea of doing something different than what you had done and worrying that you’re destroying yourself, or you’re going to ruin your career, whatever that was at the core of Misery, that’s what I could relate to. That somebody would really get mad at you if you did something other than what they expected you to do.

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