God’s not dead – Jesus wept

God’s Not Dead

Director: Harold Cronk

Writers: Hunter Dennis, Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon

Starring: Willie Robertson, David A. R. White, Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo

Runtime: 113 minutes

Certification: PG

This film has prompted huge discussion amongst Christians and non-Christians, so, first things first, this is where I stand on the whole religion debate, so you can spot potential bias. I was brought up Catholic, I was christened and confirmed and was Catholic until I was 18 – 19. Around then I became an atheist.

For the past 4 years or so I would say I am agnostic. I don’t believe that any religion that has ever existed has been correct about the existence of a higher power because I feel ultimately they were made by humans, who are flawed, however I’m not saying there isn’t something behind it all.

To put it bluntly, I don’t really care either way, as long as no one imposes their views on anyone else. I have been both a self righteous God praising Catholic and an arrogant sneering atheist so I will try my best to be unbiased but I have to state here that I do not believe in a Christian God at all.

The film I’m reviewing today came to my attention from a set of huge posters on the tube. Press quotes ranged from proudly exclaiming people’s outrage – “ban this sick filth”, to great reviews “Impeccably Brilliant” and finally to bizarre statements “an atheist’s horror movie”.

Unfortunately this is not a slasher film involving a constantly evolving Archaeopteryx. Instead the film follows a young christian, Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper), who signs up for a philosophy class. The lecturer, Professor Radisson, starts the class by declaring that God is dead and as this is an absolute truth, all the class should sign in agreement so that they can move onto “real philosophy”. As a good Christian, he challenges this view and thus it is decided God will be “put on trial” with Wheaton as the defence, the lecturer as the prosecutor and the rest of the class as the jury. Josh will present arguments and the lecturer will challenge him (warning this article contains spoilers).

To me this sounded like a really good premise for a film, even if it will ultimately side against what I believe. However, unfortunately I can’t find a single aspect of it that I liked. There are plenty of good Pro-Christianity films (e.g. The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur), and there have been some horrible pro-atheism films. I personally found Religulous a terrible documentary, poorly researched with hugely flawed arguments and presented with angry rhetoric by Bill “I am so much better than you” Mayher.

Back to God’s Not Dead; as a piece of cinema, it is crap. Subplots appear and disappear each trying to hammer in their message, and it looks like a Channel 5 movie made using the money people had left in their pockets after a coke fuelled bender. Stereotypes are played up to an insulting degree with the simple message that Christians are great and anyone with any kind of differing view is evil, wrong or both. I wouldn’t have minded them presenting non-Christians as wrong in their views, but every one of them is nasty.

The professor is repugnant, arrogant, cocky, and threatens to destroy the protagonist’s future. The depiction of a Muslim father hitting his daughter because she reads the bible is Fatwa-worthy. One atheist ACTUALLY breaks up with his girlfriend because she has cancer!!! And he also refuses to see his mother with Alzheimer’s, because if you are going to piss off God, in for a penny in for a pound...

As an impassioned piece on Christian Faith, it is actually a huge insult to the religion. Whilst one aforementioned Christian get’s cancer, another subplot culminates with a constantly broken car finally starting after a priest prays for it, hardly a fair use of resources! At the end (SPOILER ALERT) the evil professor gets knocked down by a car and dies, yes, he ACTUALLY dies, but only after the same car-healing priest lets him renounce his evil ways. Are we meant to cheer for that? His soul is saved but he’s dead! We don’t get much time to dwell on this though because there is an awesome Christian music concert to watch and his death is all forgotten. Also every non-Christian changes their mind, because, you know, God.

I think the most insulting thing about the film I found was this constant message that Christians in modern day America suffer constant persecution and hate crimes. We see them get beaten, shouted at, humiliated and singled out. I am not saying that there is no current prejudice against Christians at all, as a non-Christian I can’t describe accurately what it is like because I don’t know. But watching a white, middle class, healthy, male, with the money and resources to go to an American College to study philosophy! A subject well known for its excellent career opportunities and financial incentives! Whining that life is just so, so hard for him because of all these evil non-believers who happen to not believe in the exact same God as him is absolute horse shit.

Look at the World! Sudanese Muslim Mariam Ibrahim has been sentenced to death for converting to Christianity but instead you think this is the fight we should be worrying about!

If you are a Christian and think that this film, as many have claimed, will strengthen your faith then please go to Church instead. If you want to bolster your anti-religion arguments then this film is probably for you, but please don’t lower yourself to that. To borrow a quote from King of the Hill – “You’re not making Christianity better, You’re just making cinema worse”.