With God on Our Side

It's rare than anyone takes the time to actually understand or listen to their political opponents. If you're not willing to be converted, what's the point? Well, if you're hoping to get to the bottom of the increasingly religious-minded American government and the unprecedented influence of evangelicals in American life, With God on Our Side is an essential educational tool, whether you're right wing, left wing, both or neither. And hell, if you support the evangelicals, you'll probably get a kick out of it too. This documentary is goddamn interesting!

This is an updated and abridged (101 minutes) version of Calvin Skaggs and David Van Taylor's 1996 mini-series of the same name and they use the research from that film to assemble a dense and comprehensive history of the religious right's role in American politics over the last forty years. Anyone who believes that George W. Bush and his team of like-minded religious zealots just stumbled into office needs to examine the far more complicated relationship between the Republican party and the religious right over the last several decades (previously, the evangelicals turned on both Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. and tentatively supported uber-Democrat Jimmy Carter).

The obvious -- and not particularly interesting -- way to approach this material would be to simply mock and belittle the religious right. While this strategy is likely to comfort secular liberals (and make for some good yucks), it serves no constructive purpose. Instead, the unusually objective filmmakers behind this doc allow all kinds of religious pundits, crusaders, and lobbyists to explain their beliefs and reveal their strategies. While it can grow a little tiresome listening to one evangelical spokesperson after another voice their narrow-minded views, many of their observations offer eye-opening insight into the right wing's political masterplan.

Irritating as they may be, these speakers have a lot to teach us and it's fascinating to see how easily the American public has been manipulated by the religious right's carefully think-tanked strategic maneuvering over the years. Still, you can only listen to ultra-smug Moral Majority founder/inventor Jerry Falwell for so long before your head explodes. This guy clearly loves to be on camera and his arrogant, misguided ramblings comprise roughly 15 percent of the film's total running time. Most of the few dissenting words in the film come from Newsweek's Howard Fineman and even he cuts George W. Bush more slack than necessary (in an effort to appear objective, I guess).

With God on Our Side is presented in an adequate full frame transfer. Since most of the film is comprised of archival news footage and interviews, cinematic virtuosity is neither expected nor granted. The features on the disc are also fairly straightforward but provide an added sense of the filmmakers' perspective, which is deliberately lacking from the film itself (to the point where they almost seem to be advocating the religious right).

For one, we get audio clips of a radio interview the filmmakers did with NPR's Terry Gross, in which they reveal some of their frustration with the religious right's position on abortion and homosexuality. We also get a clip of Christian activist Bill Billing's goofy short film from 1979, Politics: A Christian Viewpoint, which undermines the largely respectful depiction of the religious right presented in With God on Our Side. This is an insulting, idiotic, and hilarious clip (apparently, as of 1979, Christians had "not resisted satan sufficiently" and government in the hands of anyone other than "Godly men" is "evil").

The only other features of note are a 3-minute evangelical history from the With God on Our Side mini-series, some evangelical voting statistics, info on the film's companion book, weblinks for several relevant organizations, and trailers for other First Run Features releases.

With the glut of anti-right wing documentaries taking up space at festivals and video stores, it's exciting and constructive to see a documentary that attempts to dissect the right wing in a fair and level-headed fashion. If you're running for president and you're a Democrat, be sure to give this informative documentary a spin. -- Jonathan Doyle