The American Miracle: Our Nation Is No Accident is a Christian movie that offers an affirmative answer to the question, “What if God’s divine hand guided the steps of the Founding Fathers, due to their faithfulness to him and belief in his providence?”
The film stars Pat Boone and Kevin Sorbo and is based on a book by Michael Medved, a conservative Jewish radio host. It plays in theaters this Monday through Wednesday.
The American Miracle portrays God supernaturally protecting George Washington and changing weather patterns to help both the Mayflower pilgrims and the Continental Army. It premiered Friday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which is being remade by President Donald Trump to offer patriotic entertainment.
Michael Medved
“There are no accidents in history,” says a featured scholar in the film’s trailer. “Americans of our day should regain our bearings that our nation is no accident,” says Medved, who wrote the 2017 book The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic.
“I wrote The American Miracle because I had become convinced, studying American history, that the country was different and special,” Medved says.
The new film is the first from Heroic Pictures (which produces “true stories of God acting in history”) and Patterns of Evidence Foundation (which produces movies about Moses, the Exodus and Mt. Sinai that provide archeological “evidence supporting the biblical accounts”).
The film has been endorsed by former GOP leaders (Mike Pence, Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann) as well as Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and radio host Eric Metaxas.
At times, Americans can be generous with their attributions of the miraculous, from the “miracle on ice” when the U.S. hockey team beat U.S.S.R. at the 1980 Winter Olympics, to the “miracle on the Hudson” in 2009, when a veteran pilot landed a plane on a New York river and all the passengers survived.
But the filmmakers make clear they’re not being metaphorical. They aim to show God supernaturally guided America, just as God supernaturally guided the nation of Israel.
“Both were born out of oppression by another country,” says Patterns of Evidence Foundation. “For Israel, it was the bondage of slavery in Egypt. And for America, it was the bondage of England’s tyranny.
“And both Israel and America looked to God for their deliverance. At Mount Sinai, Moses was commanded by God to tell Pharaoh to let his people go, and it took 10 plagues before Pharaoh reluctantly gave them their freedom. For Americans, the Declaration of Independence was declared on July 4, 1776.”
The filmmakers won’t say whether God has made similar interventions in nations other than Israel and the U.S., and their movie fails to properly acknowledge the role secular Enlightenment ideals played in the nation’s founding. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who created a “Jefferson Bible” that eliminated all the supernatural parts, would reject the supernatural claims the film makes about America’s founding.
The American Miracle press materials promise an “edifying motion picture” that’s “woven of countless instances of improbable, unimaginable success,” including:
- “The supernatural protection that surrounded George Washington – the Father of our Country throughout his life”
- “The mysterious weather conditions that favored the movements of the Continental Army at critical battlefield junctures”
“It is difficult, nearly impossible to explain the outcome of any of these, and so many more events like them, without allowing for divine intervention,” the publicity asserts.
Promotional resources include a music video by Nicole C. Mullen, who stars in the film, and a video clip of Black pastors’ endorsements.
The filmmakers also offer resources from a partner, Patriot Academy, which trains conservative leaders and offers “liberty-building events and products.” Patriot Academy is supported by Turning Point USA, Flash Point, American Family Association and other pro-MAGA organizations.
Medved, 76, hosts the syndicated Michael Medved Show and is perhaps best known as a bestselling co-author of the 1976 book, What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, and his 12 years as a cohost of the PBS movie review show Sneak Previews.
Among his previous books are The 5 Big Lies About American Business: Combating Smears Against the Free-Market Economy and The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation.
His writing in The American Miracle book depicts key moments in American history as divine appointments:
- The “miraculous convention” where the U.S. Constitution was approved
- Buying the Louisiana Territory was “a providential purchase”
- The discovery of gold in California was “golden timing”
- “The miracle of Lincoln” can be seen in his “supernatural success”
This passage from the book reveals its style and intent: “The eerie events of that epochal Independence Day suggested the intervention of supernatural forces, mixing death and dedication in such powerful ways that observers of all faiths, and of no faith, saw evidence of destiny’s direction in American affairs … recollections of that ‘Glorious Fourth’ can compel the most skeptical scholars to acknowledge weird, wonderful aspects in the rise of the Republic, and to reconsider the disconcerting old idea that God shows special tenderness toward the American experiment.”