Kristen Irving - Director

Even before I was old enough to vote, I was a Republican, and the first time I voted it felt like a holy experience; I was living out my faith in the voting booth. It was the year 2000 and unlike his father and Reagan before him, George W. Bush would finally be the President to overturn Roe v. Wade. Like millions of other young Americans raised in white evangelical churches in the 80’s and 90’s, I was taught that defending unborn life was my responsibility and one of my highest callings. What I did not yet understand was that I had unknowingly been recruited into a political army disguised as Jesus–the Religious Right–whose strategy and patience would prove to be triumphant 50 years after its inception. 

There is an invisible and direct line that connects the true history of the Religious Right and pro-life movements to the chaos of our current moment, and to the overturning of Roe; it’s a history rooted in the same patriarchal white supremacy and violence that rests within our country’s core. Up until now, in both religious and secular communities, this history has gone largely unknown, and the implications of this remaining the case aren’t ‘just’ more lost presidential elections, but a complete severing of our humanity as a nation, the total undermining of our democracy, and the continued decline of every social, environmental and human rights issue we hold dear.

I started making TRUE BELIEVER seven years ago as an effort to understand what had become of my faith community at the time. I didn’t want to leave, but it no longer aligned with my values. I was still attending an evangelical church and going through the motions of religion with one foot firmly out, but with the hope that it could be reformed if only it could be reminded of the principles of Christ. Shortly thereafter I learned the true origins of the pro-life movement, which eventually called every part of my Christianity and identity into question. I discovered that what I had built an entire religious, political, and communal identity upon had been a lie, a dark betrayal and like millions before and after me, I had been a political pawn. Not only that, but I was unknowingly complicit in doing harm–through my early votes and in the ways I was indoctrinated to ‘other’ everyone else–just by having been born into the community.

TRUE BELIEVER will answer the questions neither the right nor the left knows to ask. It will offer non-Christians insight into a community they don’t generally have access to and to a history that is not widely understood but is shaping their everyday lives. TRUE BELIEVER does not exist to exploit or condescend those within my former religious community. That won’t lead to the kind of self-examination necessary for reform and healing. TRUE BELIEVER will also connect the past to the present and caution where we are headed should there not be long overdue reckoning within the white evangelical community, something we are all getting an unfortunate glimpse of now, but it won’t end with Roe. And lastly, TRUE BELIEVER will provide a proxy in me for the many, many people sitting in churches conflicted like I was seven years ago. It will provide them a path out of a community and institution that has betrayed them and caused them to do harm in the name of Jesus.

www.truebelieverfilm.com
Facebook - Instagram