Dennis Quaid on Playing Ronald Reagan and Faith Returning to Culture

Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great film about the 40th President of the United States. We have a movie that's going to tell you the story of this man who changed the world.

Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in Jesus Christ. You're going to be inspired by it in this brand-new film starring Dennis Quaid. It's called Reagan, and it's our gift to you for your gift of any size.

Available on DVD and digital download at harvest.org. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here with my friend Dennis Quaid, and guess where we are? We're in the coolest place ever. Dennis, tell folks where we're sitting. We're at the Reagan Ranch, or what was known as the Western White House back in the day when Reagan was President. He bought this, I think it was after he was Governor of California, and it's up here at the top of the hill. You could, just over there, you could see the ocean, and I came up here when I was deciding whether I was worthy to play Reagan or not, and when I came through the gate and came out on this field here, I felt like I could really feel him, and I realized that Reagan was, he was a humble man.

He was. When I came through here, and it really gave me a feeling and a glimpse into who he was inside. Yeah, you really sense it. You think of some of the things that Reagan said. I don't have the quote exactly, but it was something to the effect that all the truth that we need in life is found between the two covers of this book, speaking of the Bible, and such a strong believer in the Bible, in God, in absolute truth, and he would weave it into his speeches, but in a very beautiful way, in a thoughtful way, but in a very direct way as well, and that seemed to just permeate his life in general.

I totally agree. That's the thing of the year that Jesus, to me, Jesus came here to tell us about heaven, and the promise of heaven, but he also came here to tell us how to live in a way that we can have a little piece of heaven here on earth. I think half of sin is what we do to ourselves, and the way we think about ourselves, which is not the way God wants to see ourselves, and I think it's very important to remember that. The kingdom of God is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it, and Reagan was kind of the same way. You're looking at something, and the way you view it, this nation was in decline in the late 70s, and we were going downhill, and people, it seemed, sometimes had given up, that it was just inevitable, and Reagan came along and said, no, we're not falling there. We're going ahead here, and we believed him.

We believed him. Yeah, well, a lot of people think that Reagan coming into the presidency is directly connected to the last great spiritual awakening that happened in America, which was the Jesus movement, which happened in the 70s, and it changed the culture. I mean, Time magazine actually dubbed it the Jesus revolution. You know, while people were talking about a sexual revolution or a drug revolution, God sent a Jesus revolution, and it changed the culture, and in all of these young kids.

Almost overnight. Yeah, yeah, and it changed a lot of people who thought liberally and had a different worldview to a more conservative, I would say, biblically based worldview. Many of us were young. We're getting married.

We're having families. We're raising our children, and Reagan comes on the scene. You know, President Carter didn't have a great presidency, good man, you know, a man of faith, but we needed someone like Ronald Reagan. First thing that happened after Reagan was elected and went into office is the hostages are finally released, you know, because his philosophy was peace through strength.

Yeah, that's what it was, and then it became we win, you lose. He said that to them, but, you know, I'd like to just kind of like point out that, you know, Reagan, not that 20 minutes after he was inaugurated, they were released the hostage. Why do you think they've been gone for four and four?

Why didn't they go? The Iranians had too much respect for Reagan. They believed at least 30% that he just might bomb Tehran, and what would happen, there would be consequences from it instead of appeasement, and that was a big thing that was in a way wrong with us back then, but you can't believe it. America, in a way, in the world is innocent. We're a young nation. We're a young nation.

We're 200 years old. We want to believe in goodness in this world, and, you know, we didn't grow up like you would have in Soviet Russia back in those days or in Iran or, you know, where there's brutality, Afghanistan, with the brutality all around you at the time, and, you know, it's appeasement. That's what, you know, happened in World War II. They gave you, you tell the bully, okay, I want to give you what you want this time, but this time we're good, right? Yeah, and he says, yes, right, and then all he does in the back room is laugh at you because he's gotten his way, and it was Reagan who said, well, you know, you can appease a bully, but there's going to come a time when you're going to have to stand up to him, right? We had a little, when he was a little boy, he had a bully, you know, bothering him, and his mother told him, go face that bully.

Yeah, he did. Ronald Reagan's mother now wrote in the margin of her Bible, Second Chronicles 7 14, and then she added this little note, a wonderful passage for the healing of a nation, and Ronald Reagan put his hand on that Bible when he was sworn in to become our president, and Second Chronicles 7 14 says, God speaking, if my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. So the part that applies to a nation is God says, I'll heal your land, but first he wants us to turn from our sins and pray and seek his face, but it reminds me that your mother wrote something in the margin of your Bible. Yeah, it was her Bible, it was actually the family Bible, you know, that was there. You have that Bible still?

Oh yeah, for sure. I had my grandfather's Bible too, you know, going way back there, but you know, kind of we were talking about the Jesus revolution, you know, she wrote in the margins, you know, became a Christian in 1946, and then in the Jesus revolution, which is around the same time, she felt a hunger around that time, and to getting baptized a second time, you know, renewing that, and that was going on a lot back then, in fact. So when did she become a Christian? Because then she said, I became a born-again Christian when? Born-again Christian in 1982. Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah. What are you hoping when someone sees this film, Reagan, and boy, this is such a long overdue film. I'm so glad it's been made, and I just couldn't think of anyone being cast in the role apart from you. I mean, you are so perfect for this role in so many ways, but what are you hoping that someone will take away from watching this film?

Number one, I hope they're entertained. I really do, and you know, people born before 1980, they, this movie is inspiring, and it's a chance to remember what our country was like during these times, and how far we could go when inspired, how united we could all be. And it wasn't that long ago. Yeah, and for those that were born after 1980, yeah, they'll get to see what this country could be, and still could be.

Good point. So it seems they have a really important message for America right now. Yeah, it does. Reagan, he wasn't afraid of his faith. No. To show it, it's not that he wore it on his sleeve or anything, but it was, you know, it definitely had a lot to do with the way he governed. Yeah. And he was a man, he had principles, and I think sometimes that's what's missing from today, because if you have principles, and if you're governed by principles, it doesn't matter if you're Republican or a Democrat. These are things that, you know, go beyond a party. They're truths. If you live by, we'll bear fruit.

Yes. Well, George Washington, and Reagan loved to quote this, said that religion and morality are indispensable supports for our country. You need them.

You need them both. And it seems like these are two things that we've pushed away. First, we started with religion. Oh, you can't have the Ten Commandments on the wall of a classroom. You can't pray in school.

And we look at the country, and we look at the way it's gone downhill. We push God out of the culture. We push God out of everything. Well, morality is directly tied to those foundational beliefs. And so George Washington believed that. Reagan loved to quote that. And that was something his presidency was built upon. And I think that's something we need to return to.

I totally agree. Something that we all have in common. I mean, I'm sure you remember, too. We used to say the Lord's Prayer in school, in the morning. And we say the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning. And, you know, one by one, those things have been taken away. I'm even surprised they play the Star Spangled Banner before games today. And thank God we have that.

It's a simple return to it. And why can't we have prayer in the morning in school? And if there's Muslims, they could pray their prayer. Christians pray their prayer.

If you're an atheist, you can pray whatever prayer that is or not pray the prayer. That's freedom of religion, isn't it? That's right. Because all those things have separated us. And religion and morality, those are the things that bind us together.

Right. Yeah, you know, there was a spiritual awakening in the colonies that came as a result, to a large part, to the preaching of George Whitefield, a British evangelist. Thousands and thousands of people were coming to Christ. What years was that? This early 1700s.

Yeah. So it's before we became a nation. In fact, Benjamin Franklin went and heard Whitefield preach in person and had great admiration for him. So this sort of tilled the ground and prepared the soil for what would become America.

So our nation was built in the soil of revival. It is such a simple message. And sometimes I take for granted that maybe everybody's heard it.

But no, they haven't. The other night at your crusade, it was like, it hearkened me back to the days of Billy Graham. And when I was such an incredible feeling, there's such a hunger out there now, that hole that needs to be filled that only Christ can fill. That's right. That's very true.

It's an inspirational film, a movie that you're going to be touched by. But it's not just history. It can be our future as well, if we can learn from this man, not just his presidency, but the man Ronald Reagan and the impact he had on the world, which was based so much on his faith in God that was passed on to him from his dear mother. Right. So much of that too. You know, the people that he inspired that were young men and women, they still carry that torch today.

Like you. His influence on his influence on today, you know, is so great. And he's, he is an example of how we should be as a people and how we should our president should govern.

Yes. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest. You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this. We want to know God and we want to make him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the great commission, you can support us with whatever you can give at harvest.org slash donate. Again, that's harvest.org slash donate. And thanks so much.