God’s Not Dead Review
God’s not Dead is the Christian small budget film that shot to #3 in the box office during it’s limited release opening weekend that features a college student named Josh Wheaton who refuses to write the words, “God is dead” on a slip of paper during his philosophy class, forcing him to stand up and make a series of speeches proving that God is alive if he wants to pass the class.
I was so psyched for this movie, as in, buying the soundtrack and blabbing about it over every social media site I was on before seeing it on opening night. The movie features four storylines: the first one features Josh vs the atheist professor Radisson, their back stories, and what happens in their personal lives outside the classroom showdowns. The second storyline follows a highly liberal reporter who is dating a jerk of a businessman (this is one that got sad fast.)The third storyline featured a Christian girl living inside a traditional Muslim household, and the fourth was more or less the comic relief storyline, and it was about a pastor who wants to impact people like his best buddy who is a Nigerian missionary. Each subplot brushes against another one at some point in the movie, so even explaining one gives away a giant spoiler for another.
The movie was EXCELLENT. The movie was balanced with funny moments, sad moments, and moments that made the tension in the theatre so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Even characters you went in hating (i.e. Professor Radisson) you left having a lot of sympathy for, or at least relating to. There were moments where the entire theatre starting to murmurs and people around me were whispering around me; “shots fired.” During two points in the movie, people got up and started clapping.
Most importantly, the movie didn’t pull any punches from either side during the debate in the classroom. The professor used arguments from Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, and other scientists that are cited often in anti-Christian arguments but the answers to the professor were well researched and were backed by a lot of science. While I won’t spoil the end of the debate for anyone, it was clear that the writers put a lot of thought into the arguments used and the movie.
This movie wasn’t just a good movie, it was an important movie. The similar events like the ones portrayed in the movie happen all the time, and cases and descriptions about said cases were in the credits at the end. People gets in fist fights all the time in philosophy classes, and this movie, no matter what anyone thinks about it, brings up arguments people actually use, and the responses to them.
