Featured photo: said Rev. Matthew Hogue- Smith, senior minister at Peoples Church of Flint. Photos provided by Rev. Hogue-Smith
Written by Tanya Terry
To help get people within and outside of the church to look at social justice issues, Peoples Church of Flint is having a public showing of the movie “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy.” The showing will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 14. This will be a free event, but donations will be accepted, and light refreshments will be available.
“We know that we are in the heat of an election cycle, and with the rhetoric that is coming forth in Christian nationalism, we deemed that this is a priority to educate and bring some attention,” said Rev. Matthew Hogue- Smith, senior minister at Peoples Church of Flint.
He continued: “Here at Peoples Church…we’ve always been committed to nurturing freedom, honesty and diversity.”
Quoting from a sermon he had preached, Hogue- Smith said: “What I really want to stress from this film, and to speak on Christian nationalism is that while Christian nationalists publicly champion moral values and religious traditions, they simultaneously support policies and fund policies that contradict the spirit found in the teachings of Jesus.”
Hogue-Smith told the Courier this is along the lines of why the church is showing the documentary.
He added: “For the last few years, the old right Christians have been able to name what is Christianity, what Christian values are, and this is a call to educate and a call for us progressive Christians to say: ‘No, you don’t get to name what Christianity is and what our values are when there’s over 400 branches of Christianity.”
The film highlights the fact that Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated public schools, yet it was opposed by the southern United States. Particularly, Christian religious groups continued to practice segregation in religious schools until the 1970s.
Hogue-Smith said by focusing on Brown vs. Board of Education, the film creators helped expose how White Christian groups, aligned with white supremacy, often use theological justifications to defend racial segregation.
Hogue-Smith stated one of the markers of Christian nationalism is distorted under the belief that dominance and inclusion is the way forward and become the “moral superiority” of Christianity.
Hogue- Smith has read books on Christian Nationalism, including “The Power Worshippers Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart and “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States” by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry.
Hogue-Smith first saw the “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” on August 7 when Bishop William Barber, the creator of the documentary, showed it at a conference for the The Fellowship for Affirming Ministries in Las Vegas.
The film also highlights the funding of the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Secretive Council for National Policy (CNP), as well as the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
“What I found surprising in the documentary is when the faith and politics began to align when the preacher said: ‘Give me a million dollars and I’ll get you over 700 pulpits.’ He said he would begin to train the preachers on how to preach for these policies…He began to preach about the importance of the oil industry.”
Hogue-Smith said he believes the film shows how money coming from the Christian nationalist pulpits are influencing lawmakers, policy decision makers and judicial appointments.
There will be a question-and-answer session after the film so that film viewing attendees can further explore for themselves matters that come up during the film.
The social justice committee, Outreach Social Action,meets monthly at the church and decided the film should be shown there.
“We are going to continue the series quarterly, and we’re going to be showing documentaries along the same lines of these social justice issues…This isn’t just for us progressive folks, or even for Christians. It’s for people to come together that might have questions about it, that want to learn about Christian nationalism, that might not even think Christian nationalism is a thing. It’s for us to come together as a faith tank to learn about this issue, and to come together as a beloved community to see where we’re at with it.”
