I’ll periodically here be reaching into the proverbial back catalogue and taking a look at some worthwhile off-the-beaten-path cinema in
a section called Old Made New, and
with the Mark Foley Congressional Page scandal exploding all around and the Republican Party's long-held grip on morality as a political billy club seemingly waning, what better time than now to delve into
With God
on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right?
Those seeking a clear-eyed portrait of what’s been pegged as the inexorable rise
of evangelical influence on the American political machine would do well to
spend some time in the company of this utterly engrossing documentary. A
fascinating portrait of the dance between Big Religion and politics, With God
on Our Side sheds interesting light on the two big supposed dinner party topic no-nos, and
tangentially raises questions that independent thinkers of all persuasions
should be considering.
Despite its name-dropping, somewhat baiting title and opening credit
sequence, With God on Our Side is less filtered through the prism of one
man than one might expect. Its 100 minutes, in fact, are roughly evenly divided
between a chronology of the evangelical movement’s ascendancy in modern day
politics — dating back to Barry Goldwater’s resounding defeat at the hands of
LBJ in 1964, intensifying the at-that-time “moral minority’s” sense of loss, and
of the country somehow slipping away — and a look at what many insiders view as
their prodigal son, current President George W. Bush. The former portion is
actually just as fascinating, if not even more so, perhaps because its bird’s
eye view comes with some divorced distance from the sort of white hot emotional
response the current administration often provokes.
In tracking the presidential elections since 1964, and the partiality of what
was up until that time the largest tract of virgin timber on the American
political landscape, interesting patterns emerge and battle lines come into
focus — especially in the wake of Jerry Falwell’s creation of Moral Majority, a
non-denominational, politically motivated group. Particularly interesting is the
manner in which evangelicals grapple with their personal joy over Jimmy Carter’s
self-described status as a born-again Christian and the realization that, for
some perhaps, his political sensibilities were more liberal than their own.
The Carter presidency actually comes across as among the least, shall we say,
calculating or self-serving administrations to court or embrace the evangelical
bloc. Taking a realistic look at the evidence here, it’s interesting that the
evangelical Christian movement is so closely identified with the Republican
party, because time and time again there is a clear pattern of candidates and
those in governance paying a certain lip service on culturally conservative
issues only to then “abandon” or sell out (the common mass mailing rallying
cries) the stated goals and visions of those to the far right. From the
championing of voluntary school prayer — which President Reagan half-heartedly
touted exactly once before letting it be stillborn in Congress — to the cyclical
rumblings about sanctity-of-human-life or anti-gay marriage constitutional
amendments (cough, cough, Dubya?), the bait somehow remains ever fresh.
As With God on Our Side segues into its second half, then, one could
reasonably raise questions about the motivations of George W. Bush’s religious
conversion. After all, as a failed businessman and professionally adrift
man-child of entitlement, he oversaw outreach toward evangelicals in his
father’s presidential campaign of 1988, which included a bruising primary slate
against televangelist Pat Robertson. Could “#43” be nothing more than a
charlatan, a poser using religious contrition and identification as a
springboard to power? Ultimately probably not, but the movie does — almost
subtly and subliminally — present Bush as someone for whom a unique fusion of
faith and ambition occurred.
Regardless of political stripe or religious affiliation, one thing viewers are guaranteeed to come away with after watching With God on Our Side is an adjusted sense
of perspective. Current reportage may dote on a perceived evangelical rise, but
co-directors Calvin Skaggs and David Van Taylor (A Perfect Candidate)
show how it has been a consistently upward-trending force in American politics
for at least four decades now. The only thing that's changed is an increasing sophistication and the success of the evangelical movement’s
grassroots campaign to turn out the vote in substantive blocks and affect public
discourse (if not policy) through political advocacy. Of course, they may be staging their version of a sit-in come this Election Day.
