
Pastor Ken Peters stands with a microphone at Patriot Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. “Do I have any soldiers in the house this morning?” he says. Among the congregation is a young boy wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” shirt and a man in a red “Trump 2020” hat. People nod as Peters describes being at what he refers to as the “Capitol incident” on Jan. 6, 2021 – the day a violent mob, armed with weapons and with Bibles, forged an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Peters is just one of the voices in “Bad Faith,” a documentary film that explores the rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States and exposes it as a dangerous threat to America’s democracy. In 2018, Stephen Ujlaki, the film’s director and a screenwriting professor and former dean of LMU School of Film and Television, sought to understand how a man like Donald Trump could come into power. The answer lies well beyond the man himself, in a political movement masquerading as a religion.
“Bad Faith,” which calls upon secular and interfaith leaders, traces the origins of Christian Nationalism back to Paul Weyrich, a theocratic zealot and Republican political strategist, who capitalized on racism to develop the religious right. “One of the most durable myths is that religious right galvanized as a political movement in direct response to the Roe v. Wade decision,” Dartmouth Religion Professor Randall Balmer said. He identifies another court case, Green v. Connally, as the movement’s real catalyst. The 1971 ruling said racially discriminatory private schools are not entitled to the Federal tax exemption provided for charitable, educational institutions. This gave Weyrich fuel needed to rally fellow angry evangelical leaders who led segregation academies. However, by the late 1970s, he needed to identify a more palatable cause. Balmer explains that though abortion wasn’t originally considered an evangelical issue, Weyrich invented a crusade against it to encourage grassroots participation. First, he was motivated to infiltrate the Republican Party, but when he realized the party wasn’t aligned with his theocratic vision for America, he took a more radical approach. Weyrich developed the Council for National Policy, a clandestine network of influential donors with one shared goal: authoritarian rule.
Voices in the film, such as former Republican campaign strategist Steve Schmidt and investigative journalist Anne Nelson, explain how the CNP spent exorbitant resources to groom Tea Party candidates, subvert the church with their messaging, and develop highly targeted political campaigns in critical swing states. Touting a pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-America agenda, they co-opted evangelicals to create a powerful voting bloc.
“If you bring the sacred into this argument, then you can justify just about anything,” sociologist Samuel Perry says. According to the film, this thesis is essential to understanding the polarized state of our nation. It showcases how one party is having a political debate and the other is waging a holy war.
By bringing the sacred into this argument, Christian Nationalists in the Republican Party have justified income disparity, voter suppression, curriculum censorship, anti-immigration, forced pregnancy, an attack on the LGBTQ+ community, and domestic terrorism. By bringing the sacred into this argument, they have justified Donald Trump, Nelson explains. As an imperfect leader chosen by God, he is merely a vessel, and as such, Christians don’t need to identify with him at all.
As Trump sets out to be elected again in 2024, Weyrich’s manifesto reads as a signal for dark times ahead. It claims a Christian elite will take power by waging an insurrectionist war. This is the kind of dangerous outcome filmmakers behind “Bad Faith” hope to help prevent with education. Ujlaki worked closely with LMU School of Film and Television alums co-director and co-producer Chris Jones ’15 and editor Alec Baer ’16. Their approach focuses on presenting a clear history and letting each subject speak.
“Documentary can function as a real help when you have a national media that has abdicated its responsibility,” Ujlaki said. He criticizes the national media’s obsession with being objective, which he says resulted in the normalization of Trump’s refusal to recede power peacefully when he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Urging people to pay attention, Ujlaki highlights the closing words spoken by Schmidt: “This moment requires an ability to orient to reality. And reality is the Republican Party is more extreme, more dangerous, and more committed to the autocratic project of gaining power right now than it was on Jan. 6 of 2021, and this has to be confronted. There is no issue that supersedes it.”
“Bad Faith” is streaming on AppleTV+, Amazon, and Google Play. It had a limited theatrical run in Los Angeles (Laemmle Santa Monica, March 29 – April 4), New York (Cinema Village NYC, April 5), and Washington DC (Filmfest DC, April 18 – April 28).
The film was funded in part by LMU School of Film and Television. Executive producer Michael R. Steed ’71, JD ’74, also provided a substantial donation as well as creative input. It wouldn’t have been possible without the many LMU community members who made up the crew: director/ producer and LMU SFTV Professor Stephen Ujlaki, executive producer Michael R. Steed ’71, JD ’74, co-director/ co-producer Chris Jones ’15, co-writer/ co-editor Alec Baer ’16, cinematographer Billy Yates ’16, production sound recordist Jameo Duncan ’16, and composer Eric Van Thyne ’20.