"God's Not Dead 2" is the newest film distributed by faith-based entertainment company Pure Flix and is a "continuation" of the story that was set up in the first film of the "God's Not Dead" franchise.
This film focuses on a teacher (played by Melissa Joan Hart) who is accused of proselytizing in her classroom when a student asks a question about Jesus, and then must go to trial to not only defend her job and innocence, but also (apparently) her faith.
While I myself am not a "believer", as this film refers to it, of the Christian faith I do know a little bit about it as I grew up in a home with parents who did support this faith. Having said that, I do appreciate that this film is trying to appeal to a Christian audience (more specifically, an Evangelical one), but I can't help but feel that this film while trying to sincerely make a point, is purely constructed on Strawman arguments and "the feels." This film, while no where near as offensive and hate-filled as the first "God's Not Dead," this film continues in the latter's footprints of painting all Evangelical Christians as victims who are constantly trying to be taken down by 'The Man' as well as "Non-believers", and everyone who doesn't share their brand of religion are just generally terrible people. In the first film, all "non-believers" were rude, demeaning, combative, and insanely sarcastic, this film paints a slightly different view of these people that is no less insulting; apparently, everyone who doesn't believe are self-centered, sneaky, soul-less automatons who want to bring down and snuff out anyone who believes in Jesus.
The film starts off by introducing us to the character of Brooke Thawley (played by Hayley Orrantia) who is having a hard time getting over the death of her brother 6 months prior to the film's opening. Her parents, however, have completely gotten over his passing and push Brooke to do the same so she can focus on getting into college. And when I say they've gotten over the brother's passing, I don't mean that they're putting on their brave faces for their daughter, or they've gotten therapy to cope with their son's death- no, I mean these people are treating their son's passing like that of a fly buzzing out the window. Honestly, while I watched scenes with the mother and father going about their day to day life, I started to question whether or not they had murdered their own son. I have seen quite a few real-life crime shows and a majority of the people who are found guilty of murder go about their lives like nothing ever happened until they get busted. The movie also tells us that he died in an "accident", though it's never reveled what sort of accident it was- was it an automobile accident? Did he drown in a canoeing accident? Did his parents "accidentally" shove him into a wood chipper? Who knows. At this point, it's anyone's guess.
Anyway, then we're introduced to Melissa Joan Hart's character Grace Wesley, who teaches American History at a high school. In the middle of a lesson where she is covering famous peaceful leaders such as Gandhi and MLK, Brooke (who has been getting more into Christianity), asks a simple question about the similarities in what Jesus and MLK preached in their practices and whatnot. When MJH answers her with a bit of scripture, some of her students started texting about it, and the next thing you know, Grace is being punished for having a sermon in the classroom.
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| [found on Google Images] |
Now, this is the point of the story where I start to have a real problem with the message of this film. I really believe there needs to be a separation of church and state, and I do not follow or believe any of the gospel. Having said that, I can honestly say that this exchange between Hart and Orrantia is in NO WAY pushing any sort of boundary. I really don't think that mentioning Jesus in the context of their exchange to be in any way forcing religious beliefs on her students. Even when she started quoting the scripture, she was not pushing Christ's divinity or his claims of being a savior, but rather it was more about how to treat fellow man. Nothing wrong with that. And that's the sort of thing that logically, most people would see as being a ridiculous charge- all Hart would have to do when brought before the school board is just explain the conversation that she had with the student as best she could, and then have the student recount the same thing. However, this did not happen and the Victim Card is played when NO ONE asks her to do that. No one. They just ask "Hey, did you mention Jesus in the classroom?" "Yeah." "Scripture too?" "Uh huh." "Well, you're going to be disciplined for that you naughty, naughty Christian". Of course I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically how it went down. Trust me on that one.
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| Mr. Burns = Ray Wise's Character |
Hart eventually gets a union-appointed lawyer who is a "non-believer" and then they go to court and have to go up against Ray Wise playing an atheist lawyer stereotype. Also, when talking to her lawyer about why people are reacting to Hart's protection of her faith, the lawyer goes so far as to say that they want to make an "example" of her, and treat her "kind" like a disease that needs to be stomped out. Yeah. That happened too. And then you have Wise's character Pete Kane. Honestly, Mr. Wise gives a great performance, but through the entire movie I was expecting him to start rubbing his hands together and laughing in a menacing way every time he had a line. But really, that's how all of the "non-believers" are portrayed in this film as I said earlier; Ray Wise is just a good enough actor that he's entertaining to watch while he's doing it.
As the case goes on, Hart and her lawyer get the great idea to prove to the court that Jesus was a real person, therefore making him a relevant historical figure that she can freely talk about in class without persecution. So her lawyer wrangles up a couple of authors who wrote books about how Jesus was a real person.
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| [found on Google Images] |
Let me be honest here for a second and say that I have a problem with this again because both authors supplied answers that were nothing short of being strawman-like. They boasted that Jesus was a real person, but they never provided any solid proof or evidence that he was real. One author, who is/was a homicidal detective who specialized in cold cases said that he had studied the gospels and had come to the conclusion that Christ was real. He said he had come to this conclusion because of the "different accounts of the same situation" all said the same thing, even though there were slight differences. Really. Yeah, that was the argument. He never once went further into explanation of this, but kept insisting the same thing. And they kept saying that "non-believers" wouldn't be able to deny those facts. Riiiiight. While these witnesses are touted as providing "facts", all of the information they give is still speculative from the viewer's prospective. And instead of producing any ounce of logic, reason, or (like I said) facts, the case trudges onward until Hart is found innocent by her jury. Of course we all knew that was going to happen in the end, but how does it happen in a court drama where there is very little actual evidence to help prove her case? The power of prayer makes it happen. Yep. When things go South in the case, a whole bunch of people pray and miraculously, she's found innocent. If prayer has enough power to sway a jury into finding someone innocent in a court case, I'm sure things like a cure for cancer, ending world hunger, and stopping war around the globe would be totally within our grasps, right? Well, I hate to say it but apparently God finds helping a teacher who, if the accusation was handled in a logical way from the get-go, could have handled the case without going all the way to trial is more important than stopping any of those other issues.
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| [found on Google Images] |
This film is nothing more than a propaganda film created to foster a false sense of victimization as well as make the target audience feel good about themselves. While I have no problem with movies that appeal to a specifically Christian audience, I do have a problem with ones that paint a whole group of people in such a negative way, and fosters a sense of "us versus them" among the viewers. "God's Not Dead" 1 and 2 have both been fairly big successes with their target audiences; the sequel alone garnishing $7,623,662 on it's opening weekend which more than makes up for it's $5,000,000 budget. However, I feel that Christian films like this are nothing more than exploitation films. At the end of the movie, several court cases are shown via text crawl that helped "inspire" the story of God's Not Dead 2. While this isn't the first time that cases like this have inspired a film; afterall, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Silence of the Lambs" were both heavily influenced by various crimes and murderers- this film takes these different court cases and stitches them together to make a cinematic Frankenstein's monster that not only tries to make the point to the audience that their faith is the only valid faith and everyone is out to get them, but also show the rest of the world that a movie doesn't have to actually be good as long as it gives someone a warm fuzzy feeling afterward. I think it's time that Christian films be held to the same standards as general films, and audiences stop falling for this type of toxic storytelling. Films like "The Prince of Egypt", "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" are all Biblical films that are also amazing to watch and witness. I know not all films can be masterpieces, but what's wrong with striving to make an actual work or art instead of making a film to not only exploit a group of people to gain their money, but also to tear apart human connection based on differences in faith.
If I had to grade this film, it would be get 1 star. I feel that is more than generous for this propaganda film.
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