God's Not Dead

Did anybody else think this movie was painful to watch? I get that the movie is suppose to be one of those "feel good" movies in which the Christian comes out on top but, the concept was horrendous. Christian underdog vs ex Christian super Atheist tyrant. Come on, really? Are we even trying anymore? Hahaha. The Atheist even gets hit by a car and dies having faith in Jesus again. Ouch! The Nic Cage Left Behind movie was a pretty decent Christian film though the ending kind of leaves you hanging.

I thought the Nick Cage film was worse than the Kirk Cameron ones by a long shot.  If you were not familiar with the series before this new version came out, you wouldn't even know that the new one is about the return of Christ.

Did you stick around to see the end credits of "God's Not Dead"?  They list many legal cases where the Christian underdog has gone up against collegiate athesit tyrants.  The premise isn't all that unusual.  Regardless, the movie was enjoyable and is supposed to be entertainment--not biblical canon.  The premise of the film was to warn us to be ready to give an account of the hope (Jesus) that is within us.  I think it illustrated that point in a way that was well received.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  Could it have been stronger?  Yes, but most movies nowadays don't really stand up well if you scrutinize them enough.

alldatndensum wrote:I thought the Nick Cage film was worse than the Kirk Cameron ones by a long shot.  If you were not familiar with the series before this new version came out, you wouldn't even know that the new one is about the return of Christ.

Did you stick around to see the end credits of "God's Not Dead"?  They list many legal cases where the Christian underdog has gone up against collegiate athesit tyrants.  The premise isn't all that unusual.  Regardless, the movie was enjoyable and is supposed to be entertainment--not biblical canon.  The premise of the film was to warn us to be ready to give an account of the hope (Jesus) that is within us.  I think it illustrated that point in a way that was well received.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  Could it have been stronger?  Yes, but most movies nowadays don't really stand up well if you scrutinize them enough.

I did see that in the credits. I think what the movie did for those cases or at least how it represented those cases was extremely weak. I especially felt the scene where the Christian forces the professor to admit that he hates God and asks "How can you hate what doesn't exist" to be a huge misinterpretation of how Atheists feel about the existence of God. I might be looking too far into it but, I feel like this was what they were trying to for. It also made it seem like the Christian had a bunch of Atheist classmates who were judging him for standing up against the professor which wouldn't be the case at all in this time period. So many people are open minded and wouldn't had stood for something like that regardless of belief since what the professor was doing was clearly unprofessional.

I am not familiar with the other Left Behind series but, the movie does give subtle hints what has happened in the Cage Left Behind movie. Cage states that his wife told him about a time where people would suddenly vanish and be brought to heaven and his daughter also states it in other scenes. I wasn't that big of a fan of this movie either but I did like how intense things got when everyone disappeared.

I thought the the "God's Not Dead" movie was decent enough (although more than a bit formulaic).  

I agree with Alldat's assesment of the Nick Cage led version of "Left Behind" it was horrendously bad IMO.

I think we had a thread on it when it was newer.  It should be noted that I don't like most movies generally -- but yes, I agree and hated it.

I thought the apologetics were light.

I thought it failed as entertainment.

I don't think it "failed" as art because I'm not sure it even tried.

And I don't even feel like it was good propaganda.  I guess it went over well in our youth group, and maybe that's the intended audience, and it was really good for that.  But I felt like if I were an atheist watching it, I would have been furious at how "my" guy and position were portrayed, and I would have not been at all made to re-think my position.  If I'd been a Muslim watching, I'd also have been furious at how I was portrayed.  I'm a little bit (you get to expect it, of course. . .) sensitive to the way that "Hollywood" (to blame a big nameless, faceless umbrella) portrays Christians, pastors, etc. as usually rock stupid, blatantly hypocritical and immoral, or whatever.  I feel like it's illegitimate and underhanded and borderline slanderous.  I felt like this film did the same thing to those with whom we would hold different perspectives.

And yes - the freshman being allowed to -- repeatedly -- take control of the debate from the philosophy professor and ultimately "A Few Good Men" him into his own private "You're **** right I ordered that code red!" moment?  Ah, you're killing me.

Just my thoughts.  Again, I generally hate movies, so I'm probably the wrong person to respond on any level.

I haven't seen the movie and probably won't.  As for Left Behind, I saw Kirk's version and was deeply distressed that with all of the Christian colleges and universities with theater departments they couldn't find a decent cast that could at least act better than those people in the infomercials.

I'm with you.  I'm all for true Christian art (see Kemper Crabb's online blog and FBook page and old HM issues); but when the message devolves into pure, preaching-to-the-choir propaganda, I'm not interested.

I hated that movie because it made me feel like a loser because my phone doesn't text. I have blood on my hands...

My favorite "Christian" films are The Book of Eli and Bruce Almighty (the sequel, Even Almighty was good too). True, they're not marketed to the Christian audience, but the messages in there are delivered much better, as opposed to the anvilcious (thanks tv tropes!) message those films give. Better acting too.

While I don't personally care for the pure quality of the art inself, I think some here are missing the Evangelical aspect of movies like Fireproof and Gods Not Dead. If you can get a nonbeliever to actually sit down and watch some of these, they will be given the Gospel. Plus, a movie like Gods Not Dead can encourage Christians to be more bold in their faith.

ParaNormaN wrote:

I especially felt the scene where the Christian forces the professor to admit that he hates God and asks "How can you hate what doesn't exist" to be a huge misinterpretation of how Atheists feel about the existence of God.

From my exprience, many who claim to a atheist can be open minded about the idea of a supreme being. But when you get into specifics, they can be very oposed to the idea of God revealed in the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

sentient 6 wrote:While I don't personally care for the pure quality of the art inself, I think some here are missing the Evangelical aspect of movies like Fireproof and Gods Not Dead. If you can get a nonbeliever to actually sit down and watch some of these, they will be given the Gospel. Plus, a movie like Gods Not Dead can encourage Christians to be more bold in their faith.

I really didn't have much problem with the premise. I experienced something similar in college. I just found the low end Christianity and arminian gospel distasteful enough to poison me against all the other of the film's weaknesses. I suppose it holds some value as you described.

I actually thought this movie was lame in so many ways...I do not think the kid made his point very well (you cant use scripture to prove your point if the people you want to prove your point to dont believe the scripture is even right or real to begin with)..In real life I doubt the kid would have won...The professor dying was lame... in fact the whole last scene was bad acting and in the end we find out the professor wasn't even an atheists but really just a guy who did believe but was really angry with God and ignoring his existence

This was posted the last time we talked about Christian movies. Too good not to repost.

WildWorld wrote:My favorite "Christian" films are The Book of Eli and Bruce Almighty (the sequel, Even Almighty was good too). True, they're not marketed to the Christian audience, but the messages in there are delivered much better, as opposed to the anvilcious (thanks tv tropes!) message those films give. Better acting too.

Totally agree! Book Of Eli was a fantastic movie. What I liked the most about the movie is that it isn't strictly based off of scripture or Christian moral. I think think that was probably what made the movie so successful. It also focused on how a man could easily use the word of God for evil instead of good. The villain character had bad intentions and wanted to use the bible for power. I really enjoyed that about the movie. The Almighty movies are really great too. Some people didn't like they used humor while using stories from the bible but, you can't please everyone. I thought the humor made the movie a lot more interesting and thought it also taught a great lesson on Bruce Almighty, that only God can be God.

sentient 6 wrote:

ParaNormaN wrote:

I especially felt the scene where the Christian forces the professor to admit that he hates God and asks "How can you hate what doesn't exist" to be a huge misinterpretation of how Atheists feel about the existence of God.

From my exprience, many who claim to a atheist can be open minded about the idea of a supreme being. But when you get into specifics, they can be very oposed to the idea of God revealed in the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Not everybody. You can say the same about religious people as well. When asked how would we feel about the idea of God not existing, we can be very opposed to that. 

savage amusement wrote:I actually thought this movie was lame in so many ways...I do not think the kid made his point very well (you cant use scripture to prove your point if the people you want to prove your point to dont believe the scripture is even right or real to begin with)..In real life I doubt the kid would have won...The professor dying was lame... in fact the whole last scene was bad acting and in the end we find out the professor wasn't even an atheists but really just a guy who did believe but was really angry with God and ignoring his existence

Yeah, man! Most of the examples and arguments the student brought to the table sounded like they were meant for the Christian audience only. Those would fly in a church but not in a class full of Atheists like the movie had presented. The whole "get dumped, call the girl and look for her" scenario was just dumb IMO. How did he even know that his ex went to see Newsboys anyway? Oh, and that's another thing, Newsboys was in the movie! Haha. I thought the part where Newsboys were on stage talking between songs then bringing up the "news" about a Freshmen taking on his professor was total cheese as well. Especially when they also had another celebrity on video complimenting his actions as well before telling everyone to text "God is not dead" to everyone in their phonebook. Oh yeah, and the part where the professor gets the text like 5 minutes after his passing was all bad too.

bjorn agin wrote:This was posted the last time we talked about Christian movies. Too good not to repost.

  I remember seeing this before! I must have posted in that thread, haha.