Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee calls the newest installment of the "God's Not Dead" film series, "In God We Trust," a story made for this moment in history.
He says the new film is a little like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" — the Jimmy Stewart classic — updated to this modern age when faith in God is not as publicly proclaimed and religious freedom totters in the wake of woke political agendas.
The film invokes Ronald Reagan in his speech more than 40 years ago before the Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas.
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At that event, he said, "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience."
And "without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure."
The film stars David A. R. White, Ray Wise, Dean Cain, Charlene Tilton, Scott Baio and others. Huckabee plays himself in the film. The lead character is a guest on his talk show.
On a recent episode of the "Lighthouse Faith" podcast, he joked about getting his Oscar speech ready.
Said Huckabee, "I'm, you know, the best supporting actor for a role that nobody will remember!"
But in all seriousness, he said it is a powerful film that "couldn't be more timely."
It's about a congressional campaign between a career politician and a Christian minister who's suddenly thrust into a political battle when he's called upon to be the opposing candidate in a special election just four weeks away.
It takes head-on the issues of faith in the public square, religious freedom and accusations of Christian nationalism. They are today the fuel of vitriolic debates and cultural clashes.
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Huckabee said Christians are being maligned and chastised for not keeping their faith a private affair, and they're accused of wanting to impose their values on the rest of the country.
But, said Huckabee, "When a person says these people want to impose their values, I want to say: Doesn't the left want to impose their values? Yes."
He added, "Politics is ultimately about winning an election so that your policies, those things that you hold dear, will become a part of the culture and a part of government. But I don't think it's a faith component. It is a moral component that a lot of Christians would like — so that a child who's eight years old is not [put near] pornography at his school."
Bestselling Christian author Lisa Bevere knows of what Huckabee speaks. A few years ago, she fought against her 14-year-old son's school after the English teacher assigned required reading that she said was not appropriate.
Bevere shared on an episode of "Lighthouse Faith" podcast that in the book, "They were talking about pornography and masturbation. And I was like, what in the — ? What does this have to do with English literature?"
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Bevere posted some passages from the book on her social media page and stirred up hundreds of parents, who demanded the book be dropped from the school's curriculum — which it did.
The film, though, is meant to do more than embolden Christians to get involved in their communities.
It's also a clarion call to inspire the millions who sat out the last election, to make their voices heard not just at the box office but at the ballot box on Nov. 5.
Said Huckabee, "It is a reminder that 40 million Christians in America did not vote in the last presidential election. Forty million ... But a lot of those people think it doesn't really matter. 'My vote's unimportant.' Well, that's not true."
Huckabee, also a Fox News Channel contributor, is a staunch Donald Trump supporter. Why?
"I like his transparency. In him, there is no guile."
And now, after the second assassination attempt on Trump's life, Huckabee is taking aim at the left's rhetoric.
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He told Fox News, "One would think that Democrats would stop calling him a 'threat to democracy,' which only incites violent and threatening behavior. But instead, there is no shame in the continued talk from media hosts all the way to the White House in continuing to essentially blame Trump for his own near-assassinations."
He added, "This is beyond outrageous."
An ordained minister, Huckabee knows that he and other evangelicals have taken a lot of heat for backing Trump. Eighty percent of White evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016.
It was Huckabee who gathered about 1,200 pastors together before the presidential election for a meet-and-greet with Trump to convince them to support him.
What he said then is still true today, he asserted.
Said Huckabee, "I don't pretend that Trump is one of us as an evangelical. I don't … And my introduction [to the pastors] was this: 'Look, Donald Trump isn't one of us. He's probably not going to be sitting in the front row of your church this Sunday … So let's not kid ourselves.'"
But Huckabee said the Trump positives outweigh the negatives.
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"He has respect for us [evangelicals], and he doesn't want to have the government telling us what we can think, what we can preach, what we can say, what we can pray. That's all I want out of government."
Huckabee also said Trump is the most pro-life presidential candidate.
However, in this campaign cycle, Trump is being criticized by some pro-life leaders for shifting on the issue and even accusing him of abandoning the pro-life cause.
At this year's Republican National Convention, the platform committee voted to remove a right-to-life plank, prompting Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, to issue a minority report pushing back against the RNC platform.
Other leaders, such as retired U.S. Navy officer Quinn Skinner, who now works for a pregnancy help organization, lamented in an op-ed that "there is no national political party that champions the sanctity of life."
Still, said Huckabee, Trump's presence on the global stage is what America needs now.
"His position on Israel has been the most remarkable of any American president. Period. So for issues that are non-negotiable for me, it's easy to be supportive."
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Huckabee had plans to travel to Israel this month. Since 1973, he's visited the Jewish state about 100 times, sometimes on his own, at other times taking groups with him. He was there not long after Oct. 7 last year, after the Hamas attack, he said.
"I was having lunch in a restaurant in Tel Aviv, and the sirens went off. So, we had to go to the bomb shelter. And as we got there, you could hear the Iron Dome intercept a rocket right above our heads."
Huckabee's support of Israel is part biblical and part political.
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As a geopolitical example, he imagined a scenario closer to home, saying, "If somebody came across the border in Buffalo, New York, or El Paso, Texas, and slaughtered 1,200 people, including putting babies in ovens, slicing the womb of a pregnant woman in front of her children, violently raping women in front of their families — do you think Americans would say, ‘I just hope we can get a ceasefire?’"
Instead, said Huckabee, "We'd be wanting to absolutely annihilate whatever the force was behind that. So Israel has been far more restrained than I think America would have been in a similar circumstance."
There is the biblical reason for backing Israel, however.
Huckabee said, "I look at Genesis 12: 'Those who bless Israel will be blessed. Those who curse Israel will be cursed.' Look, I'm a simple guy. When I read it that way, I say I'd rather be blessed than cursed. I'm going to stand with Israel."
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Huckabee, who has mounted two presidential campaigns, is adamant that he's through with running for higher office. "I did it twice. I loved it, had a great time."
Now content to be the father of a politician — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Huckabee said, "You know, there comes a moment [when] you say, ‘I gave it my best shot. Other people now will take up the mantle, and I will help them.’"
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