St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church has announced the screening of the new documentary “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” on Thursday, May 30, 7 p.m. in the church’s North Hall. The documentary, which explores the rise of Christian Nationalism in the U.S., features religious leaders, historians, journalists, political activists, and sociologists. The evening will include a brief discussion of “Bad Faith” and information on the June 29 Poor People’s March on Washington.
The documentary has a Ridgefield connection in the on-screen presence of Randall Balmer, a prize-winning historian and Emmy Award nominee who holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth. Rev. Balmer lived in Ridgefield and attended St. Stephen’s in the early 2000’s. The documentary’s title is from his book, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right.
A panelist at a Brookings Institution discussion of its 2023 survey on Christian Nationalism defined Christian Nationalism as an “ethno-cultural ideology that uses Christian symbolism to create a permission structure for the acquisition of political power and social control.” The survey found a high correlation between Christian Nationalism and white supremacy, anti-immigrant views, belief in patriarchal gender roles and the use of violence to achieve political ends. In the words of the Most Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church: “Lift up the text of the New Testament, specifically the four Gospels. . . and let Jesus talk. Anything that claims to be Christian, if it doesn’t match up, then we say, ‘Well, that’s not Christianity.’”