God's Not Dead

Year:  2014

Filming:  Color

Length:  113 minutes

Genre:  Christian/Drama/Inspirational

Maturity:  PG (for intense thematic elements)

Cast:  Shane Harper (Josh Wheaton), Kevin Sorbo (Professor Jeffrey Radisson), David A. R. White (Reverend Dave), Benjamin Ochieng (Reverend Jude), Trisha LaFache (Amy Ryan), Hadeel Sittu (Ayisha), Marco Khan (Misrab), Cory Oliver (Mina), Dean Cain (Mark), Paul Kwo (Martin)

         

Director:  Harold Cronk

Personal Rating:  1 Star

***

    I’ve been hearing advertisements for the new Christian independent production God’s Not Dead since it first came out this year. The title certainly caught my attention, and I had hopes that this might be a constructive that would make people think about the possibility that a Prime Mover does indeed exist. Perhaps it would move hearts towards the love of God, with gentleness and reasonability. Sadly, not only did the film fall short of these expectations, it actually set a perfect stage to turn non-Christians further away by contrived characture, constant proselytizing, and haughtiness totally contrary and detrimental to the Christian message.

    Our tale of woe begins with one Josh Wheaton, played by Shane Harper, a Christian college student who finds himself a very nasty mess indeed. His philosopher professor, Jeffrey Radission, is a rabid atheist who wishes to dispense with formalities by having all his students scribble “God is dead” on scraps of paper before the beginning of the course. Although all the other students do as they are told in order to avoid the time-consuming study of theism, Josh refuses to comply. In turn, his professor challenges him to prove to make his case that God’s not dead to the class. If they vote in favor of his argument, he will receive a positive grade. If not, he will be failed.

    Josh’s blonde and thoroughly annoying girlfriend tries to discourage him from taking up the challenge, playing the Eve role she was meant for, and threatening to leave him if he risks his grade on such a fool-hardy venture. But Josh remains undeterred and makes his case in a series of presentations before the class, making Radisson grow more and more obsessed with beating his student at his own game. He even goes so far as to seize him by the arm in the hall and threaten him (cheesily, of course) to destroy his chances of becoming a lawyer if he does not abandon his debate. As if there isn’t already enough going on to keep the viewers focused, we are jostled amidst a slew of awkwardly interlocking sub-plots.

    One of them involves a Muslim girl, Ayisha, who eventually is thrown out of the house by her traditionalist father for converting to Evangelical Christianity. Another subplot involves a liberal journalist, Amy, her struggle with cancer, and ignoble break-up with her big-bad-boy-friend, Mark (who is bigger and badder than we can credibly believe; I mean, even the meanest people I know would not respond to someone telling them about their cancer, “Couldn’t this wait?”). Yet another deviation involves Radisson’s girlfriend, Mina, who happens to be a sister of Mark (making the connection now?) and inner turmoil about staying with Radisson; and last but not least in ridiculousness, we are introduced to these two preacher guys with a busted car, supposedly introduced for comic relief purposes.

    To cut to the chase, Josh and Radisson eventually have a final show-down in the school room, and there is an attempted rehash of the conclusion of Twelve Angry Men, whereby it is revealed that Radisson really does believe there is a God, but he hates Him because his mother died when he was still a little boy. Needless to say, his students aren’t particularly impressed by this reasoning, and unanimously (quite a bit overdone on percentage, I would say) vote Josh to be the winner. But there is a final twist that allows us to meet the Christian Rock sensations “The News Boys” (all shouting and spinning lights on stage, making them anathema for someone who suffers vertigo!) and “The Duck Dynasty” (sorry, I’m with the liberal journalist on this one; how can they go through life with a clear conscious knowing they’ve killed all those innocent ducks?), and leaves Radisson flat on his back…er…literally?

    God’s Not Dead is an independent Christian film, and the genre pretty much has to be taken for what it is. And most of the time, it’s below sea level, if you take my meaning. Now, some are superior to others, but sadly the majority would be laughed out of town by a non-Christian audience for poor production quality and miserably preachy plots. Visually, this film was pretty average, with a certain desperation to be hip in setting. It lacked the innovative camera angles of October Baby, and was mediocre to the max. Acting ability was sketchy, with some moments revealing some ability, and the majority revealing nothing more than actors acting, which is exactly what actors should not look like they are doing!

    The initial plot premise was intriguing. There definitely are instances of atheistic heavy-handedness in our modern culture and the world of academia, and this story was supposedly loosely based off of a true one. Executed properly, this movie could have been portrayed as an exhilarating high stakes battle with full-bodied arguments on both side. There were a few scenes where Josh did make some impressive statements that do indeed prove helpful for Christian apologetics in showing that our faith is not irrational. But the tension and realism ultimately fell by the wayside for a number of reasons.

    The first one is the confusing style in which the plot was constructed. Instead of focusing exclusively on the debate between Josh and the Professor Radisson, the plot hops all over the place, and the characters connect far too late to make any sense out of it. The second truly unfortunate flaw in the movie is the underlying arrogance and triumphalism that will give non-Christian audiences a very shoddy picture of the essence of Christ’s teachings. The plot writers typify atheists as warped individual struggling with inner demons and personal tragedies that cause them to hate God. Christians, on the other hand, are shown as being consistently confident, somewhat obnoxiously straight-laced holy-rollers, who never seem to go through any personal doubts or dry spells in their spiritual life.

    Also, not enough quality time is spent with Josh to get to know him. What are his likes and dislikes, frustrations and heartaches, strengths and weaknesses? We don’t know. We don’t even get to follow his thought pattern as he pieces together the material for his debate, and are never allowed access to his true self at all. Not knowing him as a real person beyond his clean-cut, Christian cardboard image, it’s quite hard to feel for him. Besides, he doesn’t seem to go through much suffering at all. I mean, his girlfriend ditches him, but he doesn’t make much of a fuss over it, especially because it’s indicated she was pretty much of a shrew and didn’t really love him anyway.

    But there is something even more sinister at the root here: in the midst of all this intellectual debate, there is a noticeable lack of love in sharing the Christian message. Josh fails to show a visibly caring spirit towards his professor, even after it becomes evident that Radisson is suffering from various personal issues. Josh never even expressed his condolences for the death of his mother, whose loss propelled the professor down his atheistic path. The only real love shown to this guy in the film is revealed in a letter he finds from his late mother. But that’s it. Is it possible that we as the audience were never meant to feel compassion or kindness towards him at all?

    In contrast, there is a sense that we are supposed to want the professor to be run out of town on a rail, to beaten down and showed up in front of his class because he is the big-bad-atheist and therefore almost sub-human. We are also supposed to want him to be stripped of all earthly comforts, including his fiancée, who he actually does seem to genuinely love in spite of his selfishness. While I would be the first to agree that sometimes a person really most go through being emptied out before they can experience a spiritual awakening, all of that is in God’s hands. It’s not something that should be wished on anyone.

    The most shocking scene has to be at the end, when the professor is killed by an oncoming car as he tries to find his girlfriend who recently left him in a lurch. Lying in a rainy street, dying, the two itinerant preachers with the bum car get him to say The Sinner’s Prayer before he conks off. This is contrasted by the garish scene of all the Christians, including his ex-girlfriend, partying at the News Boys concert. Frankly, that is the one point in an otherwise extremely predictable film that I didn’t see coming. It was a mix of unexpectedly brutal and laughably hoaky, making the whole thing surreal and hard to swallow.

    What exactly are we supposed to take away from this? A sense of victory that “the bad guy” met a miserable, lonely fate only to be coerced into heaven at the last minute by “the good guys” so they can get another merit badge from God? The whole scene felt utterly repulsive, as it was so unnaturally enacted. If I ever came upon a man grievously injured, my first thought would be to try to do what I could to get him help and ease his pain, not proselytize him to death! If I thought he would die, I might ask if he were of any particular religion so that I could get the appropriate minister or pray with him, but I would not start rattling off Scripture verses in an attempt to shove my beliefs down his throat!

    Perhaps my main point is that the true sign of a Christian is the love that he/she shows for the people around him/her, as a natural flow of goodness and divine grace from one to another. It is not our mission to save as many people as we can just so we can make up a cute little list to present at the Pearly Gates. Also, it is extremely unfair to atheists and non-Christians of every stripe to paint them as monsters. Some atheists I am friends with are the kindest, most sensitive and considerate people I know. And this, I believe, is very much a proof of God and the soul made manifest through them, because they are indeed made in His Image and Likeness. Plus, to assume atheists secretly believe in God but hate Him is not always (although certainly can be) the case. There can be intellectually honest conclusions on both ends of the spectrum.

    The movie also makes a supposition that science speaks so clearly in favor of Christian perspective, that people who don’t embrace it are just plain dumb. This really is not the case. The fact is science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, nor should it be able to. If there is an Omnipotent, Omnipresent Being, how on earth would we mere mortals be able to measure Him as a quantity with our scientific instruments? Let’s get real! But by presenting the case as if there is anything more than indirect indication for the existence of God, Christian apologists are bound to get a walloping. Josh himself does say this in the early stages of the debate, but by the end, it is extremely watered down. 

    So my case in point: God’s Not Dead was a good idea, but received a bad treatment. Actually, a worse than bad treatment; with a touchy subject like this one, harm is the only thing that could come from some of the blatantly un-Christian attitudes and ideas laced through the movie. To put it bluntly and definitively, it is one of the worst “Christian” films I’ve ever watched. Now it’s our job as living, breathing Christians to do damage control, and act like normal human beings instead of proselytizing robots. The very best way to evangelize is through example; it’s all about relationships, not shiny stickers we are trying to earn. We should want to help people, physically and spiritually, because we care about them. It should come naturally, and never be forced.

Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper) faces down Professor Jeffrey Radisson  (Kevin Sorbo)