Christian Nationalists made a movie about “anti-Christian bias” by the government

“By Dawn’s Early Light” turns minor inconveniences into a full-blown fantasy of anti-Christian oppression

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About a month ago, when the White House’s ridiculously named “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias” released its final report summarizing all the ways Christians are persecuted in America, I wrote about how the whole thing was a joke because there were no serious examples of persecution in it.

But in case you didn’t read that article, don’t worry! Christian Nationalists are already releasing a documentary based on the report’s findings.

It’s called “By Dawn’s Early Light” and it’s yet another attempt to link the founding of the country to the fictional attacks on Christianity today.

On February 6, 2025, Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14202, establishing a federal task force to identify and address anti-Christian bias within government agencies. By Dawn’s Early Light examines the origins, findings, and actions of this Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, presenting its work as a modern effort to confront perceived threats to religious liberty. Through interviews, historical context, and investigative storytelling, the film explores both the challenges identified and the measures proposed to strengthen protections—framing the effort as part of an ongoing pursuit to ensure that the freedoms fought for in earlier generations endure into the future.

The trailer alone looks like a grotesque distortion of “God’s Not Dead,” which was already a grotesque distortion of reality. (I’m not even joking. In this version, Kevin Sorbo’s wife makes an appearance.)

That movie was famous for exaggerating something that never happens in a classroom: A professor openly mocking a Christian student for his beliefs until eventually (spoiler!) the professor embraces Jesus. This film takes snippets from the Task Force’s final report and blows them out of proportion the same way.

Here’s how the right-wing ACLJ describes one of those incidents:

One of the featured stories in the film centers on the ACLJ’s landmark federal lawsuit against the Smithsonian Institution after Catholic students attending the March for Life were told they could not enter the National Air and Space Museum while wearing “Rosary PRO-LIFE” hats. Security officers mocked the students, spewed profanity at minors, and informed them that the First Amendment “does not apply here.”

The ACLJ took the case to federal court.

The result was one of the largest publicly reported settlements against the federal government in a First Amendment case.

Let’s suppose all of that is true. That means, at worst, this example of outrageous persecution involved some security guards who didn’t understand that people are allowed to wear clothing that features religious or political speech. When the Smithsonian settled the case, they specifically admitted no fault and said their goal was “avoiding the expenses and risks of further litigation.”

That’s apparently the sort of “anti-Christian bias” that’s strong enough to make it in the film. It’s no different than if Jeff Bezos whined about “anti-billionaire” discrimination because people made fun of his dumb yacht.

If there were serious examples of government bias against Christians, they might have had a compelling movie. But because that’s not a real problem in our society, they don’t. It’s the same reason Christian “victories” in the Supreme Court tend to involve situations like a baker having to sell a cake for a same-sex wedding or a public high school coach demanding a special right to pray in the middle of a football field where everyone can see him because it won’t count if he prays silently or privately.

Imagine watching a documentary about how tough it is to be a white male in America, and you probably have a sense of what this move will be.

There are people who are systemically, repeatedly, and currently persecuted by the government. They’re not the white guys and they’re not Christians. But some Catholic students were told by a couple of misguided cops not to wear their anti-abortion hats at a federal museum this one time... so it’s the same thing, really.

And because Trump’s Cabinet doesn’t have real work to do, nearly all of them sit down for interviews in this piece of propaganda:

The film was screened at the Kennedy Center earlier this month, but it’ll be released online on May 31. And then, because there’s no actual story worth listening to here, it’ll be quickly forgotten by the following week.

Christians in America aren’t going to jail because of their beliefs. They aren’t banned from seeking public office. They dominate Congress, the Supreme Court, state legislatures, local governments, and virtually every major institution of political power. Christians have it so damn good that Trump literally created a federal task force devoted exclusively to protecting the Christian majority from the tyranny of not getting every single thing they ever want (something no genuinely oppressed group would ever receive from the most powerful government on Earth).

And yet these people still want audiences to believe Christians need to huddle together as part of some underground resistance movement because some museum guard made rude comments one day.

There’s a reason movies like this keep getting made. It’s not because Christians are persecuted, but rather because Christian Nationalism requires a permanent sense of victimhood. If you can convince ignorant people they’re always under attack, that makes it much easier to dominate public life. Taking over school boards isn’t an act of aggression; it’s necessary defense against Christian persecution! Posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms isn’t about pushing faith on others; it’s reminding the country about our religious origins! They’re going to keep pretending Christians are victims of persecution until they’ve erased church-state separation entirely.

But if you examine any of this below surface level—something the conservative Christian crowd never does—you realize how thin the premise is.

The people who claim to be persecuted by the government held the film’s premiere at the Kennedy Center, which the government, staffed almost entirely by conservative Christians, took over. That alone should prove they have no basis for the film.

It’s no surprise they’re doing this, though. More Americans are rejecting the idea that Christianity deserves special treatment from the government, and when you think religious neutrality amounts to oppression, you’ll do anything to pretend you’re victims.

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