Weekend Plug-in 🔌

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Subscribe now to get this column delivered straight to your inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — I grew up in the 1980s, which helps explain the nostalgia I felt watching “Reagan,” a new feature-length film chronicling the life of President Ronald Reagan.

With a few hours to kill Labor Day afternoon while on a reporting trip to New Hampshire, I bought a $12 ticket to see the 135-minute biopic. 

Directed by Sean McNamara, the movie stars Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan and Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan. Jon Voight portrays an old KGB agent — in present day — reflecting on the Reagan years.

My friend David Duncan, a minister in Houston, recommended “Reagan” to me.

“I realize it’s a movie, but it’s great,” Duncan said in a text message. “I had to wipe my eyes with my popcorn-grease-covered napkin.”

I will neither confirm nor deny that I had to do the same. I will acknowledge that I paired Milk Duds with my popcorn.

Largely panned by critics and loved by moviegoers — just see the Rotten Tomatoes ratings — the PG-13 film focuses on the former Hollywood actor’s role in fighting the Cold War and Soviet communism.

But beyond the politics, Reagan’s faith — complicated in real life — emerges as a major storyline in the movie.

The film is based on the book ​​“The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” by Paul Kengor. A political scientist, Kengor directs The Institute for Faith and Freedom at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

In an analysis piece for Baptist News Global, Rodney Kennedy suggests that the movie “resurrects an old question: What kind of Christian was Reagan?”

“While his rise from Hollywood to the Oval Office was fueled in part by the Religious Right, Reagan made no pretention of being a regular churchgoing Christian,” according to Kennedy, a pastor and writer in New York state.

The movie explores the future president’s relationship with his devout Christian mother, Nelle Wilson Reagan, and his alcoholic father, Jack Reagan.

In early scenes, a young Ronald Reagan reads Scripture in the First Christian Church in his boyhood hometown of Dixon, Illinois, and gets baptized in a river.

“Are we God’s people?” the boy asks in a conversation with his mother.

“Well, anybody can be God’s people, so long as they choose him,” she replies.

“You have a gift, Dutch,” Nelle Reagan emphasizes to her son. “You have to look for those talents because God has a purpose for your life, something only you can do.”

Something like — as the movie presents it — become president of the United States.

While a biopic is, by nature, a dramatic retelling of the main character’s life, “Reagan” builds on actual facts.

Ronald Reagan “was baptized, worshipped, and taught Sunday school” in the Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, “where he learned to orate, persuade and become a leader,” Mark Tooley explained in a 2015 article. 

“The church was a refuge for young Reagan and his mother,” wrote Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.

Years before Reagan’s election to the White House, the movie depicts Ronald and Nancy meeting at their California home with a group that includes the Rev. George Otis and pop singer Pat Boone, a conservative Christian.

“If you continue to walk uprightly before me, you will dwell at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Otis, referring to God, stresses to Reagan as dramatic music plays on the soundtrack. “Amen.”

Boone told Crosswalk Headlines that he remembers the pastor’s 1970s prophecy that foretold Reagan’s 1980 win.

Later in the movie, Ronald and Nancy are rowing in a boat when he brings up the possibility of running for president in 1976.

“I know I can’t just let you chop wood for the rest of your life,” Nancy tells Ronald, whose second term as California governor ended in 1975.

“Why not?” he asks with a smile.

She laughs and responds, “I’ve actually been thinking about what that preacher said.”

“You thought he was a kook,” Ronald says.

“Still do,” she replies. “But maybe he was on to something. You just may need to save us.”

“Reagan” opens with the March 30, 1981, assassination attempt that left the new president wounded when a bullet ricocheted off his limousine. Six weeks later — on May 13, 1981 — Pope John Paul II survived an assassin’s bullet of his own.

The shared experience created a bond between the two leaders, as the movie details.

In real life, Reagan met John Paul II for the first time a year after the shootings, religion columnist Terry Mattingly recalled in a 2018 column. “Look how the evil forces were put in our way and how Providence intervened,” the pope told the president.

Speaking of evangelicals, “Reagan” highlights the pivotal “evil empire” speech that the president gave at a March 8, 1983, meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“Let us pray for the salvation of those who live in that totalitarian darkness,” Reagan says in the movie — just as he did in the actual speech. “Let us pray that they will discover the joy of knowing God.”

“Reagan” doubled its box office projections over the Labor Day weekend, bringing in around $10 million, as the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas notes.

I’ll avoid sharing any spoilers, but the movie’s ending won’t surprise anyone familiar with Reagan’s story.

I’m not a critic or a historian, but as an amateur moviegoer, I enjoyed it. I even went back to see “Reagan” a second time in Texas on Thursday to confirm a few details for this column.

Inside The Godbeat

Chris Moody, who has reported for publications including Religion Unplugged, wrote a fascinating piece for the Columbia Journalism Review on how “More journalists are leaving big cities — and finding America.”

Among the journalists Moody mentions is Ruth Graham, Dallas-based religion writer for the New York Times:

North Texas—where churches with several hundred members are considered “small”—provides Graham with unparallelled access to sources on her beat. Story ideas come from everyday life: conversations at the supermarket, billboards she passes on the highway, or the T-shirt brands the young evangelicals wear at the local coffee shop where Graham likes to write. Dallas is also a major thoroughfare for religious leaders, so Graham could ensure face time with the people she covers whenever they visited. “Everyone comes through Dallas,” she said.

It’s a really interesting article.

Check it out.

The Final Plug

I stressed up above that I’m not a movie critic.

But Joseph Holmes is.

He does such a remarkable job providing crucial insight and analysis in that genre for Religion Unplugged.

Holmes’ latest piece is a perfect example, as he unravels “Why Hollywood is making so many exorcism movies.”

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.