![]() ![]() But Christians love the fact that they once were fed to the lions, and in America at least, wear that mantle of victimhood and persecution as an ongoing political badge of honor.īut one thing you can say about this genre is that in the time that has passed since “God’s Not Dead” blew up the box office, Hollywood has gotten the message that “Jesus sells” and has served up a couple of pretty good mainstream movies (“Risen” and “Miracles from Heaven”), along with several bad ones (“The Young Messiah,” “Heaven is for Real”).Įither way, for a culture “under siege” in its own fevered imagination, Christian America is certainly making a mark at the box office. In a righteous world, the better-acted, upbeat and faith-affirming “Miracles from Heaven” would eat this angry tirade for lunch. No actor in the movie makes much of an impression on camera, save for Wise. They’re shoehorned in, because none of them are angry enough to carry the picture. That self-regarding, self-righteous smirk just moved to Christian conservative TV talker Mike Huckabee, who makes a blustery cameo.Ĭharacters - the young Chinese man finding Christianity and shunned by his family over it, the curly-mopped Pastor Dave and the lady whose cancer turned her away from the Godless academic played by Kevin Sorbo and into the bosom of the Lord - return from the first “God’s Not Dead” film. “Faith-based” means “Christian Based.” Just so we’re clear. Not that you’d have to explain the reference to this film’s audience. And let’s skip the “politically correct” euphemisms here, in deference to that audience. And that legal overreach died a quick death. Fred Dalton Thompson is the clergyman inveighing against a government demanding copies of every preacher’s sermons - “They tried that in Houston.” That was about preachers politicking their congregations to prevent an anti-gay discrimination ordinance, by the way. Ernie Hudson is the blustering judge who lets opposing counsels sermonize in the courtroom. Jesse Metcalfe of TV’s “Dallas” is the hunky, never-shaves non-believer who sticks up for Grace in court. Ray Wise is the lip-smacking ACLU lawyer representing “the viciousness of the opposition.” His team has a seriously effeminate legal eagle among its members. Actually, it’s the would-be martyrs making these mediocre movies who fit that description. It’s “the progressives” and “humanists” and ” liberal media” and everybody else that is angry, that won’t listen to reason, that seems to accept “no amount of evidence” in making their case. ![]() The “God’s Not Dead” movies are about projection. One easy, slam-dunk argument to make, conceded even by those who profess no ties to Christianity, and Team “God’s Not Dead” blows it. There’s evidence out there, but these movies aren’t about science or research outside the “Make Money Selling Books to Believers” crowd. There musta been a real Jesus, AmIright?”īalderdash. Their evidence? Circular “logic” about “eye-witness testimony in the Gospels” and “Our calendar, A.D., B.C. But the film, as it puts one self-serving author proclaiming “proof” after another on the stand, swings and misses. That’s all this movie sets out to do, make that case, one that most historians agree on. “Jesus may or may not exist,” is the straw-man argument presented here. It’s history class, and Gandhi and MLK both looked to The Bible and Jesus as inspiration. Grandpa (Pat Boone) is down with that.Īnd considering the alleged transgression at issue here, so are we. “I would rather stand with God and be judged by the world than stand with the world and be judged by God,” she declares. ![]() High, and the ACLU hits the fan.Įvery name in that sentence has been known to irk conservative Christians, at one point or another.Ĭhristian teacher Grace (Awww), played by former “Teenage Witch” Melissa Joan Hart, refuses to apologize when the administration (Robin Givens) and school board in this corner of Arkansas flip out when word of this “Jesus” discussion gets out. A high school teacher answers a student’s question about Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi at Martin Luther King Jr. The faithful are taken to court for this sequel to the angriest “faith-based” hit ever. Spoiler alert - God’s still not dead in “God’s Not Dead 2.” Actually, that’s a better title, but let’s not quibble or chase camels through the eye of a needle. ![]()
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