"Letter to the American Church" is the film adaptation from a 2022 book of the same name, written by Eric Metaxas. In both the book and the film Metaxas makes an ominous comparison of modern-day America to Germany in the 1930s during the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Metaxas, 60, can be described as an expert of that dark era after authoring a best-selling biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He is the German church pastor whose defiance of Hitler led to his execution by hanging just one month before Germany’s surrender.
After researching Bonhoeffer’s life, Metaxas learned that many – if not most – German churches failed to stand up publicly and fight Hitler, and he sees a similar parallel today.
"The good news,” Metaxas told AFR this week, “is that it's gotten so bad that people who were sleeping are starting to wake up.”
Last year, in a Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters, a whopping 72% agreed with the statement "America is becoming a police state," AFN reported.
After all, it is hard to remain asleep after learning the U.S. Department of Justice tried to send a pro-life activist to prison but has yet to arrest anyone connected with abortion group Jane's Revenge that has fire-bombed churches and pregnancy centers.
Many have likely learned by now the Biden administration is so angry over the Dobbs abortion ruling it is breaking federal law by allowing protesters to march in front of the homes of U.S. Supreme Court justifies.
Some in the church pews may have forgotten their president told 80 million unvaccinated Americans three years ago they are selfish, his patience is “wearing thin,” and they must get vaccinated to keep their jobs.
“This is not about freedom or personal choice,” President Biden famously suggested in his September 2021 speech announcing a policy administered through OSHA.
That jab-for-your-job policy was ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This week, just nine months from Election Day, President Biden announced the U.S. Department of Education is waiving $1.5 billion in student loan debt for approximately 153,000 borrowers. That announcement comes after the Supreme Court ruled against Biden’s loan forgiveness plan last year but the Biden administration said it found a way around the ruling.
“The Supreme Court blocked it,” Biden told reporters Tuesday, “but that didn’t stop me.”
Reiner warns about those racist whites
As that Election Day nears, the other side is also warning its base that losing in November would turn over the country to Hitler-like fascists.
That ominous warning is the theme of the new Rob Reiner documentary, “God and Country,” which uses the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to warn the public their rights and civil liberties are at stake.
“The idea,” Reiner has stated, “is that America was born as a white Christian nation, and these people are virulent about returning to that, and they’ll do it by any means necessary up to and including violence.”
In an AFR interview this week about Reiner and film, Regent University professor Dr. A.J. Nolte said Reiner is redefining nationalism – which is not Nazism – in terms of race and racism, as if violent neo-Nazis want to rule the United States.
“What you often find is ‘Christian nationalism’ is what we would traditionally label social conservatism but relabeled,” Nolte told show host Jenna Ellis.
Reiner is following a left-wing playbook, Nolte says, which is to dishonestly obscure terms instead of defining and clarifying them to his audience.
“Reiner kind of gives the game away,” Nolte concluded, “when he talks about ‘white Christian Nationalism.’”
Meanwhile, Metaxas is urging churches across the country to screen “Letter to the American Church” for free to their congregation.
"If you're going to a church that is not interested in this, I would get out of that church yesterday," said Metaxas.
After all, he learned from Bonhoeffer's life what it looks like when the Church tries to keep the government outside its walls but the government comes knocking at the door.
