In ‘Disciples in the Moonlight,’ US Christians Are Persecuted and the Bible Is Banned

(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.

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“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.

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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.