(RNS) — In the dead of night, a team of seven races across the midwestern U.S., risking their lives to smuggle rare contraband: The Holy Bible.
In this version of America, depicted in the new film “Disciples in the Moonlight,” Christians are persecuted, the Bible is banned hate speech and the government has issued its own “inclusive, welcoming” and censored version of the Bible.
The film, set to hit theaters July 17, isn’t set in an unrecognizable dystopia, but in an eerily familiar not-too-distant future. Though its Christian filmmakers describe the movie as a thought experiment — what if the Bible were illegal? — and not a prediction, director Brett Varvel, who also stars in the film, said it depicts a reality that’s not entirely implausible.
“Christian persecution is very much a reality that a lot of people live in in other countries,” Varvel told Religion News Service. “We haven’t seen it near that level here in America, and we’re not saying that’s the case right now, but I believe that we are headed that direction.”
Varvel pointed to the burning of a trailer of Bibles in Tennessee on Easter this year, a Houston mayor’s 2014 subpoena of sermons dealing with sexual orientation or gender identity and the Supreme Court case involving football coach Joseph Kennedy, who was restricted from praying on the field after his public school team’s games. In 2022, Kennedy won his case.
Brett Varvel. (Courtesy photo)
The movie has earned an endorsement from former Vice President Mike Pence, who called the film a “cautionary tale” that should “inspire people of faith to do even more to protect religious freedom in America.” But not all feedback has been positive, according to Varvel.
“Even with the trailers that we’ve released and the clips that we’ve released online, we’ve already seen a tremendous amount of hate and mockery and pushback from people online claiming that we’re Christian nationalists, claiming that we are hypocrites, claiming that we have a persecution complex, and we like to victimize ourselves,” Varvel said.
Josh Strychalski, a screenwriter for the film who also stars in it, said stoking a persecution complex isn’t at all the intent of the filmmakers. He wants Christians to exit the film empowered by the freedoms they do have and inspired by the hope they have in Christ.
“I’m not a political guy at all,” Strychalski told RNS. “From day one, I have never attempted to say I believe this is what is happening in the U.S., or this is what will happen.”
Still, Diane Winston, the Knight Center chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said the film speaks to longstanding Republican fears. She referenced a 2004 Republican mailing campaign that said “liberals” would try to ban the Bible, and some Republican politicians’ claims that the Antisemitism Awareness Act voted on earlier this year would censor the Bible. She also pointed to a 2020 survey that found 1 in 5 Americans believe a Democratic president is likely to ban the Bible.
“This is something that’s been going on for 20 years now, pushing this fear that really touches Christians, that their holy book will be taken away from them,” said Winston, author of the 2023 book “Righting the American Dream.” “I’ve never seen a liberal or Democratic politician ever speaking about banning the Bible. In fact, many of them are Christians or Jews or Muslims who see the Bible as part of their holy books.”
“Disciples in the Moonlight” film poster. (Courtesy image)
If the film’s trailer struck audiences as a Christian action film, that’s intentional. Strychalski first developed the concept for the film in 2013 and said part of his goal was to create the kind of Christian movie he would want to watch.
“I felt like guys like me were a bit of an underserved audience. I like action and thinking movies, heist-type movies, comedies. I didn’t really see that within faith-based spaces,” he told RNS.
Featuring a stirring soundtrack, “Disciples in the Moonlight” is darker than your typical family-friendly Christian fare, with car chases, night missions and interrogation scenes aplenty.
Though Varvel and Strychalski, who are longtime friends, spent years shopping the idea around to different studios and distributors, it wasn’t until 2022 that a group of roughly 20 private investors came together to fund the movie, which was largely filmed in Indiana that same year. Fathom Events, which helped bring the wildly popular Jesus series “The Chosen” to theaters, and Pinnacle Peak Pictures, the faith-based production and distribution studio behind “God’s Not Dead” and “The Case for Christ,” have since come onboard to bring the movie to more than 1,000 theaters.
Given the runaway success of “The Chosen,” Winston said, it’s perhaps not surprising that the movie’s marketing seems to target theologically conservative Christians, specifically, rather than enticing a broader audience. English scholar and Christian film critic Kenneth Morefield, editor of “Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema (Volumes I, II, and III),” noted that many faith-based films have attempted to replicate the success of Mel Gibson’s 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ,” which “demonstrated to studios and observers alike that Christians were worth targeting in marketing,” Morefield told RNS via email.
The heroes in “Disciples in the Moonlight” hold to familiar evangelical Christian beliefs, such as that “all men are sinful and in need of a Savior” and “there’s one way to heaven, and that’s through the person of Jesus Christ,” per Varvel. The film’s “disciples” are willing to risk it all to prevent the Bible from being corrupted, as they view it, by those in power.
In one scene, the U.S. president is heard saying, “We saw the consequences of unchecked religious zealotry … We have purified this country from the archaic, hateful words of the Holy Bible and replaced them with an inclusive, welcoming text that reflects our current values and beliefs.”
Though the film isn’t entirely clear as to what motivates the U.S. government’s censorship, when asked about the worldview of the antagonists, Varvel said many would call themselves Christian.
“Disciples in the Moonlight” film still. (Photo courtesy Pinnacle Peak Pictures)
“What I’m seeing happen, with progressive Christianity, with different denominations, is they are so inclusive of lifestyles, belief systems, that it doesn’t look like the call to be a disciple anymore,” he said. “It just looks like, let’s have everything that we want, plus Jesus … So I viewed a lot of the government and the opposition in that way.”
According to Morefield, when a Christian feels comfortable saying another believer’s differences disqualify them from the faith, “you’re in a very, very dangerous place, theologically and politically.”
This plays out in the movie, with the heroes questioning tenets of their faith at times — the reality of hell, for example, or the notion of sin — and being corrected by their fellow disciples.
Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, told RNS that, based on the trailer, the film reflects our current political climate, where “both sides” are taught that their opponents’ political victory will mean an end to their way of life.
“‘Disciples in the Moonlight’ is unrealistic in part because it ignores the fact that people from both sides of the political divide read the Bible, and it is a text that can be understood in more than one way,” she said.
But many of those who were part of the film say they want it to sow hope, not division. For them, the yearslong effort to bring the film to life was a spiritual process that reignited their love of Scripture; and the film’s release date — months out from a presidential election — is providential.
“The timing of this is such a God thing,” said Micah Lynn Hanson, a Christian actress who plays the character Rachel in the film. “I think it’s clearly something that will resonate with a lot of people, and I hope it challenges people to appreciate what we do have, and that we will fight to maintain those rights.”