“God & Nation,” which is produced by Rob Reiner, opens right this moment. Earlier this week, I spoke to Partland by way of Zoom, curious to probe the troubling implications of his movie. Under, Partland discusses his personal spiritual background, why he thinks these on the left want to seek out frequent floor with average spiritual conservatives, and what’s up with Christian Nationalists’ insistence that Jesus was buff and difficult.
Earlier than we speak about “God & Nation,” I needed to ask about your personal spiritual background.
I come from a secular, interfaith household. I used to be raised largely secularly as a result of, on the time, my mother and father have been from totally different faiths, and it precipitated slightly little bit of strife for the 2 households to determine how one can get collectively — so I believe my mother and father felt like there was an excessive amount of divisiveness. They needed to lift the youngsters to seek out their very own religious path and never think about it a deep a part of their identification.
So did you dabble in numerous religions or philosophies?
I did, and I studied lots. I grew up in a really conservative, largely Christian group — northeast United States, principally mainline Protestants and a few very conventional Catholics — and, truthfully, I all the time felt slightly not noted. I needed to grasp what it was all about, and so I studied faith and Jap philosophies and different issues like that in school.
The fascinating factor is that, in my grownup life, I actually have numerous shut pals and necessary filmmaking collaborators who’re deeply religious individuals and who characterize the most effective qualities of spiritual devotion — they do good works and are about kindness and spreading compassion. So after I was requested if I needed to tackle this venture, I talked to them first — I positively was seeking to them for steerage, as a result of I acknowledged that I had an outsider perspective.
One in all my closest collaborators, after I mentioned I used to be contemplating this venture about Christian Nationalism, his whole demeanor modified. He was stricken and I used to be fearful — I didn’t know if I had mentioned the flawed factor or possibly he felt like that this was a mistake. However when he gathered his composure, he mentioned, “Thanks for taking this on. It’s tearing aside the nation, it’s tearing aside the Church, and no person’s speaking about it.” That was an incredible entry level for me to acknowledge that I used to be coming at it from the attitude of my concern for what it’s doing to American democracy — however I spotted that the deeply religious are additionally actually involved about what it’s doing to their religion.