NASHVILLE — In 1934, British anthropologist J.D. Unwin studied dozens of civilizations across recorded history and found a striking pattern: every culture that abandoned sexual restraint collapsed within three generations. A new documentary puts a date on the clock. That date is 1973, and by Unwin’s math, the current generation is the last one.
That is the provocation at the center of The Last Stand: Christ or Chaos — The War for the West, a feature documentary from The White Rose Resistance presented by founder Seth Gruber. Directed by David Coonradt and produced by Fieldwork Media, the film is screening in churches and on campuses across the country.
The film’s argument is that the culture war is not new. The same battle over the family, the vulnerable and the unborn has been fought in ancient Rome, revolutionary France and Weimar Germany, and the church has stood against it on every occasion throughout history. What has changed, Gruber contends, is the church itself.
“While the enemy and his schemes are not new,” Gruber writes in the companion book, “the silence and forgetfulness of the blood-bought bride of Christ is. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that the first 1,900 years of Church history stand as an indictment against the last 100.”
Gruber doesn’t ask audiences to take Unwin’s specific number on faith.
“You don’t have to agree with every detail of a 1930s anthropologist’s math to see the pattern,” he said. “Every civilization that has walked away from the family has paid for it. The only question is whether we see it in time to do something different.”
As for the screening tour, it is not a fallback to a wider release, Gruber says — it is the strategy. Rather than a theater run or a streaming premiere, The Last Stand is built, he says, to be watched together and answered together, in sanctuaries and lecture halls where an audience can walk out and do something.
“This film isn’t just a documentary. It’s a call to stand,” Gruber said. “Every screening we host is proof that people are ready to engage the culture with courage rather than retreat from it.”
Gruber has set a steep goal for the four-year-old organization, which he has built into a flagship leader of the pro-life movement: more than 2,000 church screenings and 100 university screenings, paired with new curriculum and the launch of White Rose chapters in cities nationwide.
Churches, schools and ministries can request to host a screening at thelaststand.com/film, where the trailer is available to watch and share.
The Last Stand is not Gruber’s first film. He served as executive producer of The 1916 Project, the 2024 documentary investigating Margaret Sanger and the founding of Planned Parenthood, and is the author of the companion book, The 1916 Project: The Lyin’, the Witch, and the War We’re In. He also hosts The Seth Gruber Show, a twice-weekly podcast on major audio and video platforms.
Gruber’s closing appeal? Less an invitation than a verdict.
“Once you see where you stand in history … doing nothing is no longer an option.”
