God's Not Dead

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It's bad and I'm sorry
—Anonymous Christian pastor.[1]

God's Not Dead is a Christian propaganda film made by a director no one has ever heard of named Harold Cronk. The film is based on the infamous "atheist professor" chain emails. It follows the story of an Evangelical college freshman named Josh Wheaton who takes a philosophy class in which he is challenged by atheist professor Jeffrey Raddison.[2]

Contents

[edit] Plot

The movie follows Josh, our WASP main protagonist, in his quest to prove God's existence to his classmates after his professor, Raddison, threatens him with a failing grade unless he either proves that God exists or admits God doesn't exist. A few sub-plots include: A Muslim dad getting pissed at his daughter for converting to Christianity; Raddison's relationship with his Christian girlfriend, whom he constantly belittles for her belief in Jesus; Raddison's brother, Mark, refusing to visit his mother, who has dementia; the brother being in a boss/employee relationship with a woman who loves to hate on Duck Dynasty, and a lovable Chinese exchange student being led to Christ by Josh. After some preliminary debates, Josh trounces Raddison in a final debate by asserting that there had to be a first cause, then prodding Raddison until he yells that he really does believe in God, but he hates him. After this debate, Raddison is hit by a car and converts to Christianity as he lies dying.[3]

[edit] Why this would never happen

The entire premise of the movie is reliant on Josh being persecuted for his religious beliefs by his professor. The problem is that most colleges have policies against the faculty discriminating on religious grounds. All Josh would have to do is complain to the faculty and Raddison would be fired. Not that he would have to, because no self-respecting expert in philosophy would force his class to accept a view without question, as that would defeat the entire point of requiring students to take philosophy. He also wouldn't let the student take up the bulk of the time, unless he was exceptionally lazy (not generally something associated with rabid persecution).

[edit] Portrayal of atheists

The movie portrays atheists as militant assholes who hate God, Christians, and everyone else. Mark is portrayed as an inconsiderate asshole who dumps his girlfriend soon as she gets cancer. When he finally visits his mother, he insults her for being a demented old fundamentalist. She responds by saying "Your financial success was given to you by Satan." Raddison is portrayed as what most fundamentalists think atheists are: God-haters, who really do believe in God.

[edit] The "Inspiration"

The movie claims to be inspired by the "real-life court cases" of the Christian legal group "Alliance Defending Freedom." The credits of the movie include a list of several of the ADF's cases. Few of the ADF's cases are clear-cut, and none of them involve a professor violating a student's religious belief. Instead, there's a case of the ADF getting sexual harassment charges against a librarian dropped by threatening counter-action, and a fair number of cases involving students getting in trouble for discriminating against non-Christian students in their Christian clubs. [4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

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