The Context
The movies God's Not Dead and God's Not Dead 2 have become very popular in the Christian culture. These films have perhaps filled a void in the Christian movie genre. This movie genre has existed for a long time, but certainly found a revival in the success of 2004's The Passion of the Christ, which set off a decade-long run of faith-based filmmaking. Other notable successes were 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia, 2006's Facing the Giants (written and produced by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick of Sherwood Pictures), then 2008's Fireproof and 2011's Courageous (both also written/produced by the Kendrick brothers). Many other films have been made in the past decade, but were not as successful as the Kendricks' films. So when God's Not Dead debuted in 2014, it found a familiar audience who seemed hungry for more Christian-themed movies.
God's Not Dead was very successful, earning almost 61 million
dollars in box-office revenue in the United States in 2014. The popularity of God's Not Dead sparked a sequel (God's Not Dead 2) in 2016.
The Critique
My goal in this blog entry isn't to tear down the God's Not Dead films—my goal is to offer a different, more theologically-sound perspective of them. Sadly, I think most of the Christian public simply ingest whatever the movie and Christian industry put before them. And much of it, to be blunt, is rubbish.
While God's Not Dead and God's Not Dead 2 have redeemable qualities (messages of hope, faith, and redemption are prevalent in both movies), these films do the very thing that they feel has been done to Christianity by the culture-at-large. The whole premise of these two films is that Christianity in America is under attack. The films suggest that being an outspoken person of faith is not well-received in today's culture, and that many efforts are in place in our world to silence those who profess faith in God. And while they build their premise from documented cases of persecution against Christians in the U.S., those cases are relatively small and most never made it to court.
Both films have multiple storylines (and pop-culture cameos) occurring throughout, which is not problematic in and of itself. However, these storylines become problematic when they don't add to, or even connect to, the primary storyline. But the deeper problem of these two films is the theology. Because theology is kind of an academic, "seminary" word, it might be helpful to define it. Theology simply means "the study of God." However, in a modern context it really means the way a person, or set of persons, interpret God.
The God's Not Dead films promote a very fundamental, evangelical Christian theology. This theology would be in line with the post-Billy Graham wave of Baptist and non-denominational Christian theology that endorses a "decision-based" form of faith in God. In this version of Christianity, a person becomes saved by making a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ into one's life. And this version of Christian theology comes to the fore in these films, as they become vehicles of promoting this way of thinking. This theology is significant in the films, as in both God's Not Dead and God's Not Dead 2, when times of personal crisis arise (serious injury / mourning / family crisis), the Christian characters use these opportunities to evangelize those in crisis, rather than to simply listen or offer a word of concern.
Even with the questionable storytelling and theological issues aside, the main, blatant problem with both of these films is the straw-man argument that both present. Again, a definition here might be helpful. A straw-man is a common form of argument that gives the false impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while the opponent's argument was never made in the first place. In the context of the God's Not Dead films, the issue at stake is how the movies portray Muslims, atheists, and agnostics. They build a straw-man out of these persons, falsely stereotyping them as people who hate Christianity. While this is not only untrue, it paints a very harmful image of people that Christians are called to love. The films' premise, again, is that Christianity is under attack by everyone who is not a Christian. However, the films discharge the very same form of attack on Muslims, atheists, and agnostics (supposedly forgetting all about that "Golden Rule" passage in the Bible). These films make Christians look like cute, innocent hamsters...and non-Christians look like ravenous foxes waiting to pounce and destroy the hamsters.
A Final Word
This blog entry would never need to be written, but for the success of the God's Not Dead films. It's concerning because Christians are eating this stuff up, applauding in theaters and believing that this version of Christian theology is true and healthy. To those who read this blog, I encourage you to engage these films with a critical mind. And why? Because the point of the Christian faith is not to condemn others and to build up your own tribe (as the makers of these films would have you believe). The point of the Christian faith is to love others ... especially those who don't think or act like you do.
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