God's Not Dead (2014)

Many of the reviewers spout self-righteously this is Christian propaganda. They are so smart and have such prejudice in favor of the world view they've been fed that that they forgot to listen carefully to the movie's dialog. Not one of the Christians demands that people abandon their own beliefs because the Christians say so. In fact, just the opposite, one of Josh's main points is that we all have the free will to choose to believe in God or not. All the rest just flows from that.

Even the atheists and agnostics believe something, as Josh points out, to include the professor requiring students to believe there is no God. So if there's something you can't see that you have to believe in, then I fail to understand how human logic can declare that believing in God is either pointless or irrelevant. The opposing diatribe in these IMDb reviews is basically the kind of bigoted anger that many non-Christians like to believe all Christians display. But the reality is different. Look up Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and tell me what is hateful there.

This movie has a few fairly trite lines of dialog, but that's about it. The rest is well-communicated by the actors/actresses, and there are a ton of reminders that so much in life happens for a reason, such that in that way it preserves fidelity to a life based upon faith. I have watched non-Christian movie and TV content at the urging of friends; they don't demand it, and then crow about how this "proves" that faith and Christianity and God are wrong or nonexistent. Instead they just ask me to keep an open mind, usually. What I find in the end is that when I apply my free will and logic to the great questions, I end up right where the character John is. I have considered in my own quiet thinking times just what makes most sense to me as a human being, and I have to say that declaring that there is no God, and that there is no God who has a personal relationship with individuals, just makes so much less sense than the alternative. I encourage all of you who have written reviews without even attending the movie, to suspend your disbelief for just a couple hours, and listen open-minded, not with an ear toward refuting but with the same open mind that people profess to have addressed to Mormonism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc., and then make your choice from free will after really listening.

The professor in the movie is not so much a caricature as some would have you believe. We all know people who've declared that they see little point in having faith, and some will even die that way; that's their choice. Is the movie a little shallow in places? Sure, if it had really explored the full relationships, the movie would have been much longer, or have removed some of the augmenting story lines. Instead, we get a small glimpse into the kinds of people some characters portray, and quite frankly, I've me all those kinds in my life. Go see it, then decide for yourself. I enjoyed it, it moved me, it renewed my faith, and it told the right story.