THE BIRTH OF A NATION (2016)

THE BIRTH OF A NATION (2016) is a politically correct, pagan, heretical, fictionalized historical drama about the life of Nat Turner, who led a small slave rebellion in 1831 in Virginia that murdered at least 55 white people, including women and children, before it was violently squelched. Full of false revisionist history about Nat Turner and his biography,THE BIRTH OF A NATION is an abhorrent, politically correct, pagan diatribe that tries to turn Nat into some kind of Christ figure, but that plays like a despicable defense of Islamic-style terrorism.

The movie opens in 1809 on a Virginia plantation with a mystical pagan ceremony for Nat as a boy. The shaman pronounces that Nat will be a leader among his people.

Cut to scenes of Nat frolicking with one of the white boys on the Turner plantation, Samuel Turner. Samuel’s mother takes an interest in Nat’s delight in learning to read. She makes Nat a house slave so he can teach him to read and study The Bible. A year later or less, however, her husband, Benjamin, objects (a historical falsehood; in reality, Benjamin encouraged the boy’s reading according to Encyclopedia.com), and Nat goes back to picking cotton in the fields.

Years pass, and Samuel Turner takes over the plantation with his own wife. By now, Nat is frequently preaching to the slaves on the Turner plantation, imparting to them the Christian message of love, repentance and forgiveness. Nat convinces his friendly owner, Samuel, to buy Cherry, a slave woman, for Samuel’s wife, who’s been longing for someone to help her around the house. Soon, Cherry and Nat are getting married and having a baby girl.

A terrible drought starts hurting the Virginia area where the Turner plantation is located. Samuel’s debts start piling up, and he starts drinking. However, the local, hypocritical white reverend comes to Samuel. The reverend tells him the surrounding plantation owners will pay Turner money if he comes with Nat to let Nat preach to their slaves to turn them into more docile Christians. Samuel and Nat agree, but on their travels, they see how brutally the other slaveowners treat their slaves. Both Nat and Samuel chafe at this brutality, but they keep their mouths shut.

One night, however, Samuel holds a party for some of the richer, more powerful plantation owners in the area. Nat is recruited to help serve the guests. That night, one of the male guests takes an interest in one of the other young slave’s wife. He demands that a drunken Samuel bring the woman to him so he can rape the poor woman. Her husband objects, and the other male slaves object, but Samuel is angrily adamant about this having to be done. So, the slaves, including Nat, reluctantly decide to carry out their master’s orders and bring the woman to the guest.

After this, another injustice visits the slaves, this time one affecting Nat and his wife, Cherry. Some white hunters of runaway slaves find her walking through the woods to meet Samuel’s wife, who’s visiting some relatives. That night, Nat rushes to the side of Cherry, who’s been horribly beaten, not just raped. Nat is devastated and his anger grows.

Shortly thereafter, a white man comes to the Turner plantation while Samuel is away on business. The reputation of Nat’s preaching has gone far and wide, and the white man wants Nat to baptize him in the nearby river. Nat agrees, figuring that it’s his duty to offer forgiveness to all men for their sins, black or white.

However, word gets around of Nat’s violation of local laws. So, when Samuel returns, he orders Nat to be whipped and also orders him never to preach again. The whipping leaves giant open wounds on Nat’s back that must be sewn up.

At this, point Nat Turner finally decides to strike back. He organizes a murderous slave rebellion that includes beheading one white slaveowner and murdering the wife of the white overseer on the Turner plantation. Nat also personally kills his former friend, Samuel.

Nat Turner’s rebellion doesn’t end well, but it inspires one young slave, who’s later seen marching with other blacks in the Union army during the Civil War.

Despite its Non-Christian pagan opening, the first half of THE BIRTH OF A NATION is dramatically powerful and often inspiring. It’s clear that the hero, Nat Turner, is a committed Christian, who has positive effects on all the people around him, including his owner, Samuel, and his family.

Then, however, the demeanor of Nat’s owner, Samuel, suddenly changes for the worse, even though it’s clear he too was bothered by the brutal treatment of slaves by other slaveowners. The movie provides no explanation for this change. Even worse, however, this depiction of Samuel Turner is apparently libelous. Not only is there no historical record that Samuel Turner became so mean, it’s a historical fact that the real Samuel Turner died in 1822 or 1823, a full eight or nine years before Nat led his violent rebellion in 1831!

Once the Samuel character turns mean,THE BIRTH OF A NATION turns from being a tale of love and redemption into a tale of hate and revenge. Thus, in the second half, Nat Turner becomes more like a vengeful Muslim jihadist rather than a Christian. Like the white men in the movie who misuse the Bible to brutalize their slaves, Nat misuses the Bible to brutalize the slaveowners. One of his co-conspirators even beheads one slaveowner, much like the Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq. In addition, both the filmmakers and their fictional portrayal of Nat Turner forget Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19, where it says, “Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, saith the Lord.”

Furthermore, no one really knows what harsh treatment caused Nat Turner to plan his violent rebellion. In fact, in his own confession to his lawyer in 1831, he said his last owner, Joseph Travis, treated him kindly! Also, in that same confession, Nat says he was moved to plan his rebellion from alleged violent visions he received from God to “slay my enemies with their own weapons (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html).” Of course, if Nat Turner were really a Christian, he would have checked such a violent vision against the words of Scripture in the Bible, which contains the two verses mentioned above about leaving revenge to God.

Thus, contrary to what the second half of this movie suggests, the Nat Turner depicted in the second half acts nothing like a Christian.

Another huge historical error in the movie is the ending, where Nat Turner gives himself up and acts like Jesus Christ going to the Cross when the white judicial authorities hang Nat until he is dead. In reality, the real Nat Turner never gave himself up but hid for a couple months and had to be captured. Thus, which it’s true that, at the end, he apparently seemed to be resigned to his fate, to compare this fellow’s final days to Jesus Christ is not only wrong, it’s totally abhorrent.

Also, contrary to what this movie suggests, Nat Turner’s Rebellion was not a noble act of freedom. It actually made things much worse for black slaves and even free blacks all across the South. Though some blacks were acquitted and let free when charged with any crime or act of rebellion, many blacks were beaten and murdered in the wake of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Also, laws supporting slavery became even stronger throughout the South.

Finally, THE BIRTH OF A NATION and its theme of brutal vengeance isn’t the only Anti-Christian heresy in the movie. So is the pagan mysticism and shamanism that opens the movie.

All in all, therefore, THE BIRTH OF A NATION (2016) is just another radical call for a race war. It’s a vile movie that reflects the loathsome chants and lunacy of Anti-American extremists like the ones behind the “Black Lives Matter” group. Nate Parker, the man behind this movie, may indeed be a Christian and a man of faith, as he says, but he is a seriously misguided one, who heretically distorts the Christian message.