WE THE PEOPLE

Here is a documentary that knows exactly what it wants to do and does it well. In fifty-seven engaging minutes, WE THE PEOPLE tells the story behind the United States Constitution — its writing, its ratification, and the biblical convictions that shaped it. The result is clean, rousing, and worth your evening.

It gathers well-chosen, eloquent voices — Os Guinness, Judge Darrell White, the late Dr. Walter E. Williams, Dr. Alveda King, and the Native American pastor Rev. Billy Falling among them — to make one argument with clarity and warmth: that Christianity and the Bible indelibly shaped the American republic. There is nothing here to shield the family from — no language, no violence on screen, no sexual content.

So the practical answer is simple. If you want your family to understand the faith beneath the founding, gather them and press play — just keep a parent near the youngest when the film turns, honestly, to slavery and the Trail of Tears.

From Providence Forum comes the story of one remarkable document: the Constitution of the United States. How was it written? How was it ratified? And what convictions animated the men who produced it?

WE THE PEOPLE sets out to answer those questions — tracing the Founding Fathers, the heart and making of the Constitution, and the hard questions of slavery and Indian affairs — and, above all, asking what it truly means to be an American.

Four stars, and they're earned. This is a documentary with a single aim, and it accomplishes it. Compared with GEORGE WASHINGTON, an earlier Providence Forum film on similar themes, WE THE PEOPLE is far less rushed and repetitive; its pacing is better and livelier throughout.

The speakers who drive it forward are its great strength — well chosen, eloquent, and, in the cases of Dr. Alveda King and Rev. Billy Falling, uniquely positioned to offer a narrative of the nation that is rare indeed. The music and narration are rousing and more varied than in other Providence films. In fifty-seven brisk minutes, it tackles weighty issues from a perspective too seldom heard today. This is a film that puts some much-needed perspective back into our time.

WE THE PEOPLE has a strong Christian, biblical worldview. It is an unabashed attempt to show the Christian roots of America — its Founding Fathers, its Constitution, and its people — with many positive references to Scripture, prayer, humility, and biblical morality.

The film's account of the Founding Fathers and their tutelage under Rev. John Witherspoon, a strong Scottish Presbyterian, is central. The biblical conviction that man is fallen and sinful stood opposed to the spirit that fueled the French Revolution of 1789 — which is why, the film argues, two such revolutions could not share an ethos. It notes that Benjamin Franklin, considered the least religious of the founders, called for prayer amid the Constitutional Convention's deadlock, confessing that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." The documentary does not flinch from the incongruity of those same founders and founding documents in relation to slavery; it holds it up honestly.

Perhaps its most important note is one of hope: that twenty-first-century America, if it returns to its Judeo-Christian foundations, can expect to be better than it was before. Franklin's own words name the film's conviction — that "God governs in the affairs of men." Scripture says the same: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD" (Psalm 33:12).

Some films entertain; this one equips. WE THE PEOPLE is brisk, eloquent, and clean — a rousing look at the faith beneath the founding, told by voices worth hearing. Gather older children and adults alike, and keep a parent near the little ones when the hard history arrives. Our answer is the one we opened with: worth the trip.