God’s
Not a Philosophy 150
Introduction
pg.1
Summary
of the philosophy theme pg.2
God’s Not Dead – the movement pg.3
Jeffrey
and the Newsboys pg.4
Jeffrey’s girlfriend, Mina pg5
Humanist Reporter – Amy; Boyfriend – Marc,
who is Mina’s brother pg.5
Secretly Christian – Ayisha, Daughter of cruel
Muslim man pg.6
Philosophy from Pastor Dave that is not
Biblical pg.6
Relationships
with and without faith in God: Relationships 1-5 pg.7
Topic
of Christians going to secular re-education pg.9
The
Institutions of Higher Education pg.9
The
hidden heart behind a heart of unbelief pg.10
Josh’s
searching though not yet having a personal relationship with God pg11
Being
ready to give an answer for what you believe as displayed pg.11
The Gospel Proclamations of the film pg.12
God is not a
Philosophy 150
As
much as I would enjoy writing a movie review of God’s Not Dead for you,
it seems that I have gotten into more of a description of how an atheist will
watch this movie. If you would like to read a movie review with the primary
story lines and good analysis of some of the conversations and such, then you
will appreciate my brother’s review called “God’s
Not Dead – Movie 1 Review”. We work together to produce ‘Start@theWord’ to
encourage believers to learn any topic of life by starting from the Scriptures.
We also write and record Christian music and lead worship together for fellow
believers as ‘Praise Offering’. You can find a link to Steven’s Review here:
www.incpu.org/GND-movie1-review.pdf
www.incpu.org/GND-movie1-review.htm
When
I first watched this film, it has a bold, loving Josh giving his best try at
avoiding denying his faith. It has a gentle, good pastor Dave who we all love
from old Christiano movies from our younger years, giving his wisdom to younger
believers. It has the Newboys’ strong lyrics to encourage believers to show
God’s love and share His message with whoever will receive it. It has three
well-played atheist characters – Jeffrey, Marc, and Amy – two of whom come to
faith in God during the course of the movie. And so I feel that it is important
to share with you some of the view-point that I acquired by watching it a
second time from an atheist mind-set, which I have studied for many years from
back when I began to question everything about my faith as a teenager. That
part of my journey is not anything I would have wanted. But it taught me why
every Christian needs to work through with their own questions and learn to
leave behind their own rebellious, sinful heart that will try to mislead you as
you go through that process. It is so important for Christians to know why they
put their entire life and obedience and heart in Jesus’ keeping and set apart
from the ways of this world; because then they can then understand the depths
of the heart of an unbeliever who desires sin and ignores or despises the heart
of God. This is how we learn to preach the gospel as Josh does in the movie –
sort of… So I invite you to walk through this brief journey of the story of
this movie with me as an atheist would. And I assume that you understand that
an atheist does not have very positive things to say about God.
Summary
of the philosophy theme
The
movie – God’s Not Dead – has some interesting commentary on the
relationships between student and teacher, boyfriend and girlfriend, parent and
young adult, and leaders and followers of American luke-warm Christianity. It
also has some complicated parallels of these human-to-human relationships to
the higher element of human-to-God relationships that I do not approve of,
because I understand their effect on my friends who are atheists. To the
atheist who is watching this movie, these parallels about God verify their view
of God as a detached, abusive old theory. If you are not familiar with this,
then to prove that this is what is going on, go listen to Professor Radisson say
to Josh: “Do you think there’s any argument that
you can make that I won’t have an answer for… Now I want to make this clear… in
that classroom, there is a god: I’m him. I’m also a jealous god, so do not try
to humiliate me in front of my students.” He’s giving harsh, bold, atheistic
philosophy speaking directly to the Christians in the audience about how
college professors behave. In short, this movie is packed with humanistic
ideology and not just from the voices of the atheist roles as you would hope. The
film is built around two statements - Professor Radisson’s metaphor “god is dead” which he explains to mean
that God never existed in the first place except in imagination; and the
Newsboys concert and song title God’s Not Dead, which is supposed to
be a response to what is happening in colleges across America suppressing the
truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:17-32). What the producers of this film
failed to mention is that with the entire thought process from beginning to
end, they are talking in the realm of theory and philosophy. So that when you
give the phrase “god is dead” and
its anti-thesis – God’s Not Dead – you are still talking in the realm of
philosophy by way of saying that the concept of God in society or culture is,
in fact, not yet dead or past its usefulness to mankind.
If
you understand this humanistic philosophy that the movie is built on, it will
be much easier for you to understand why your friend who is a scoffer or
atheist will be using this movie to explain and excuse their unbelief in or
disgust for God. We realize that most genuine followers of Christ are unsure about
what I just said, because it is such an opposite view-point of the same movie to
the extent that it seems impossible. But I plead with you for the sake of the
gospel and for the sake of the souls of your very friends – please listen to
this difficult philosophy enough to understand their heart. You will discover
that these are more common beliefs around you than you wish. And you will
discover things about your own relationship with God that you never thought
about, and you will help to turn a sinner from the error of his ways by
stopping their use of this movie as an excuse to hate the detached, abusive God
that the movie suggests.
God’s Not Dead – the movement
We
at FEDBP, usually avoid the hype of new movements, because they usually are
intended to replace preaching of the gospel and also avoid focusing on the root
causes of the heart. They are sometimes not in agreement with God’s heart at
all, and yet they become widely popular with Christians. This movement built
around the theme “God’s Not Dead” is somewhere in the middle. However, we
noticed that they intend to build a second part of the movement on April 1st 2016. So we decided to work
on the confusion included in God’s Not Dead 1, so we can work on God’s
Not Dead 2 after it comes out. It is interesting that it will be
released one week after American Christianity has celebrated the death of our
Lord as a criminal/martyr to accomplish our salvation from our sins. There is a
reason for this date of release. The reason that we are concerned about God’s
Not Dead 2 is that it begins to suggest that followers of Christ are
eager to break laws, offend unbelievers by forming political protests, and are
even happy about being considered lawless for the sake of Christ and the
gospel. This premise is completely in contradiction to Jesus’ heart on the
matter. We should not be preempting secular government’s interest in dissolving
Christianity by use of our own strategies and prideful assertions of our
influence on secular cultures and governments. The proper response is found in
the following words of Jesus, and then we will proceed to talk about the
philosophy of the death of God.
Jesus’
words in Matthew 10:19-28 “But when
they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it
will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who
speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will
deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up
against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all
for My Name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they
persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you
will not have gone through the cities of
So
we have some commentary to offer about God’s Not Dead on three topics:
1)
Because it has a primary intent of showing that people are convinced by
evidence or experts to be converted to faith in the existence of a “God”, which
by the way, is not equivalent to faith in God’s Son and His redemption. We live
in the time after Christ has appeared to all mankind as Mediator between God
and men.
2)
There are many troubling stereotypes along with a secondary intent to convince
Christian youth to go re-educate themselves at college, as my own brother and I
also were pressured when we were younger to go to college because people felt
that we needed a different form of education after having been home-schooled.
3)
There are dozens of underlying humanistic messages that help atheists to
further their disrespect for God. But I plan to only address a few of the most
painful attacks against God’s heart, because many Christians have not studied
atheist ideology enough to recognize some of them and I am limited by
time/space. I certainly didn’t notice some of them on the first showing of the
film and couldn’t work through their reasoning until I gave more careful
attention to them.
List
of concerns about the script’s effect on the heart of an atheist:
Jeffrey
and the Newsboys
These
philosophical tendencies betray at least one scoffer among the writers of this
script. Here are some examples that cause me concern: I have serious questions
about the writers of this film choosing to have God’s wrath with thunder,
lightning, rain, and a weird hit-and-run accident against the primary atheist
while there is a preacher in the car next to him (not to protect him but) ready
to go talk to him in three minutes before he dies as if God had to set this up
to bully Jeffrey into believing in Him. This event is followed immediately by
the lyrical imagery of God roaring like a lion and is preceded by the lyrical
imagery of the prophet-like Newsboys calling to make way for the Kingdom on
earth which includes the lyric “burn away
everything that’s not for you… we won’t stop until your heavens come down, we
won’t stop until every knee bows to You. And all our hearts will sing: make a
way for the King”. He lost his class, his life’s work, his understanding
of the world, his girlfriend, his reputation with his fellow professors, and
then he dies in a freak accident with Christians gloating over his defeat
within the span of two weeks – now that is tragic and makes you want to
question the heart of whatever Christian hates atheists this badly. In addition,
the film directors have the admissions guy describe atheists this way when he
says to Josh: “Think: Roman coliseum, lions, and
people cheering for your death.” The students weren’t cheering for his
death, and even the Professor allowed him to present his views to the class. The
movie also suggests as a psychology caveat that Jeffrey just has detachment
issues – as shown by his being scared of dying, his refusal of Mina’s breaking
up with him, and his anger against God for losing his Mom when he was twelve
years old – to explain why he hasn’t believed in God.
Jeffrey’s girlfriend, Mina
It is offensive that they play Jeffrey’s
girlfriend Mina as though she has the same supposed weakness of mind that her
mother has with dementia? And they definitely played her as being
overly-stressed about her mother’s loss of mind to the point of not being able
to move on with her life. Why would they have Jeffrey describe that she used to
quote her mother and Emily Dickinson (which is a harsh and tragic commentary),
and Spongebob “with equal self-confidence”?
When she says that she feels that they are unequally yoked, every atheist is
definitely agreeing that they are unequal in intelligence as verified by the
next situation with the Merlot being cooked in her trunk and the fact that she
is acting as a servant to Jeffrey at his party rather than being his partner
and best friend at the party. It seems to have been written as an accidental
insult, when Jeffrey quotes Socrates and thereby suggests that she doesn’t
think well enough to purchase and store a bottle of wine. But how would Jeffrey
accidentally belittle someone’s intelligence unless he actually believes that
it is true; but to verify that statement contradicts the fact that Jeffrey does
actually know God and hates Him. So in summary of Mina – as Jeffrey said to
Josh from the atheist point of view – the mind-virus of Christianity seemed to
rise up again into her thoughts while she is already weak and distressed about
her mother’s health.
Humanist Reporter – Amy; Boyfriend – Marc,
who is Mina’s brother
One of the other prominent humanists, Amy,
throws a weird temper-tantrum like a child when she finally realizes that she
might actually die. It’s as if that is the first time that she ever thought
about God – as though God never even tried to teach her, and now she feels abandoned
and is depressed. So from the atheist point of view – suddenly God, if He
exists, is the only one left who could possibly care about her as she is dying.
This is one of the primary ways that atheists believe a person comes to Christ
– they are depressed and afraid, therefore they turn to an imaginative friend
who can be adapted to fill the need, unlike normal humans who are not so
abstract. Notice also that there is a complex philosophical meaning to her
relationship with Marc who is also anti-God. Notice also that both Marc and
Jeffrey roles are played by Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain who are former
super-heroes Superman and Hercules from the ‘90s. Again this is from an atheist
perspective – he acts as if everything is about him and won’t even give her
directions if he doesn’t get some benefit of ego-power, which is literally the
exact same opinion that atheists have about our God. Then at the dinner, in
spite of noticing her distress, he insists on telling his good news first being
that he has just become a full partner (thinking of Jesus sitting next to God
after his resurrection – and yes, atheists really do think this way) and when
her human frailty (thinking of sinful nature) – which she has no ability to
control – gets in the way, he doesn’t care about her anymore. It’s like whoever
wrote this part of the script is basically asking – is our relationship with
God a contract negotiation that can be broken or is it love; and if it is love,
why does God not care that we are dying and instead He just walks away from us
as Marc does from Amy? That is definitely from the perspective of an atheist or
scoffer, whoever put this in the film.
Secretly Christian – Ayisha, Daughter of cruel
Muslim man
It is also really messed up that they seem
to (accidentally?) parallel God also with Ayisha’s dad who is Muslim (again,
from the atheist mind-set). Please compare the two quotes here. When he picks
her up from school, he says to Ayisha, “I know it’s
hard, living in a world and being apart from it… a world you can see but can’t
touch… We must never forget who and what we are; that is the most important
thing.” Then while he is slapping her around, trying to control her mind
and her life and force her to acknowledge his god, and then rejects her as
useless to be abandoned on the street, they are playing these lyrics sung by
Tricia that are eerily similar to the dad’s words from before: What I know is You, my God, are real, no matter how I
feel… And through it all, I’ve got to hold to what I know. Gonna hold to what I
know. What I know. What I know.
Philosophy from Pastor Dave that is not
Biblical
It
is tragic that Pastor Dave and Willie Robertson both suggest the need to
acknowledge God because they are afraid of God rejecting them according to the
passages of Scripture that they both quote. Is that really why we preach the
gospel and talk about our relationship with God? That doesn’t describe my faith
and love for God. It is concerning to me that Pastor Dave is lazy about his
pastoral work, rather than looking for ministry, and even gets angry with
Christians going to worship God at the end saying to the missionary, “I can’t believe this, the car actually starts, and now
we’re being done in by believers… Please, no more words of wisdom… MOVE!”
(as he angrily honks his horn). He gives psychology advice to Mina that I could
not give, talking about generating her self-worth internally, rather than
looking for approval from someone outside herself, at which point, many
atheists will undoubtedly insert God alongside Jeffrey as people outside
herself that she should not look to for her self-worth. And why is he quoting
the psychologist cinderella complex to begin with? Then to make it worse, she
says: “don’t most people do that”? And he
responds: “Yeah, a lot of people do, sure. But
using romance to shore up self-image is an unstable foundation”. After
that, does he literally just switch to suggesting that she should look to Jesus
to be the right person to care about her and that she means everything to Him?
Atheists do notice the hypocrisy of quoting secular psychology and then trying
to pull Jesus out of your psychology statement. Just after that, he literally
says “to the point where God’s only Son would
willingly be crucified again for you, just you, if that’s what was necessary.”
That would not be correct, Biblically. God says: “It is impossible… if they
fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for
themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” Hebrews 6:4-6 At another place in the film, Pastor Dave also
passively agrees with Josh that God was out at the moment, saying: “Well… maybe that’s why He sent me.” (thinking of Elijah
taunting the prophets of Baal about their god who can not hear nor speak nor
act). From the atheist point of view – if your God is imaginary, that would
explain why Josh can’t seem to hear from Him and has to hear from the pastor.
It is sad that Josh does not actually have a relationship with God which I will
prove more thoroughly in moment. But just to start as evidence – the fact that
he can not hear God talking to him, does not seem to love Jesus’ death and
resurrection enough to mention the gospel to the philosophy students or to
Martin or to the Professor or to his girlfriend as she is thinking about
breaking up with him over his God, and the fact that Josh was willing to put
God on trial for the atheists while not even using Christ’s own words to defend
the truth, but instead quotes human “experts”. Now, I do understand that he is
young in the faith and also a young man still. But you almost have to not know
God to do these things.
Relationships
with and without faith in God
There
is one thing about someone who preaches the gospel and their way of life guided
by the Holy Spirit of God inside of them to be able to obey the truth that
causes division in families and relationships. Some of this division is
explained in this film to good effect. However, the writers of God’s
Not Dead have actually removed the gospel as the barrier in the
relationships except in the case of Ayisha and her dad who were Muslim. Instead
they have inserted the very existence of a “god” as being the obstacle in
relationships. I will deal with this more shortly, but there is not even one
human on the planet that does not know that our Creator will also be our Judge.
Atheists and unbelievers have to willfully choose to deny and suppress the
truth; it is not a human instinct to ignore God. This is a grievous distortion
to play against Christians and people who are searching out their faith in
Relationship 1: Josh finds out the
hard way that his girlfriend – who is three years older and smarter but chooses
to go to her third choice school to stay with him – does not have belief in the
existence of a “god”. Josh clearly does not understand what is going on around
him, but he does love and trust with a good heart. His girlfriend Kara uses her
best manipulative, caressing attention and outright demands to convince him to
stay with her plan for his life, even using the imaginary existence of a “god”
who “wants you with me, so it’s the same answer”.
She says that he should sign the stupid paper saying that “god is dead”, and several other statements that prove that she was
using God as a manipulation tactic because (it is suggested that) she is so
much smarter than he is – according to the atheist’s point of view. They end up
breaking up after six years of dating. How is it possible that he did not
understand the conflict in the previous six years?
Relationship 2: Jeffrey Radisson
is played as a dangerously angry professor of philosophy who forces his atheism
on everyone, but seems to be passive with Josh for some reason, even allowing
him to give lectures to the class. His girlfriend Mina, however, gets the brunt
of his attacks in a very personal way. Mina, who boldly proclaims her belief in
the existence of a “god”, somehow came through his class with an A- grade. He
then risked his career to charm her and they have been dating for years now.
They manage to avoid talking about God, which would suggest that she really
doesn’t know what she believes. However, because of her mother dying of
dementia who asks her why she is not married, she begins to think about God
more and also to rethink about being unequally yoked with him, which doesn’t
make any sense since they are clearly not married and it is unclear whether
they are living together. Finally, his abuse, insults, and degrading her lack
of intelligence forces her to leave him. So she announces to him in front of
fellow professors and his students that she is leaving him.
Relationship 3: Marc is an
arrogant, selfish, heartless man. It’s not a bad match for an arrogant,
conniving, leftist reporter named Amy. However, her heart begins to change when
she realizes she is about to die, while he maintains his firm grip on his
life’s ambitions and ditches her even while knowing that she has cancer. This
is not really caused by belief in God’s existence, but rather by rebellious
hearts hurting each other. It is a good ending to the relationship for her sake
though.
Relationship 4: Ayisha comes to
belief in the existence of a different God or seemingly even of faith in
Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection (I say seemingly, because she questions her
entire faith to Pastor Dave, wondering if it’s all a big mistake. I would hope
that someone in her position of life would firm up their faith quickly). Her
father is an oppressive Muslim man who can only love her through his hardened
heart of rebellion in loving his false god. So he demands that she follow his
dictates, not knowing that she has been hiding her interest in Jesus for a
year. She is discovered listening to a sermon of Franklin Graham from the
Scriptures and is beaten and kicked out of the family. This happens all over
the world in many different forms; it is very common for a family to reject a
family member who comes to faith in Christ or belief in the existence of a
different God or gods. Luke 12:51-53
records Jesus’ words: “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I
tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house
will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be
divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and
daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” Luke 12:51-53
Relationship 5: Martin is an
exchange student in the
Topic
of Christians going to secular re-education
My
next concern is that the entire movie suggests that Christians can go to
college or university without having their faith undermined or tested in any
significant way, as long as they enter it with some level of desire to retain
their faith. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The establishments of
higher education are designed to subtly break and rebuild what you think you
have learned from your family and your first years of playing at reality. In God’s
Not Dead, they establish some very inaccurate stereotypes. They have a
rather weak professor who allows Josh to give 60 minutes of lecture without
significant criticism, who allows Josh to use his podium and then feels that
his authority is undermined by the result, who makes open threats and looms
large over Josh in very obvious fashion which betrays his own uncertainty. Then
the professor ends up admitting outrage against God rather than the usual
atheist position of indifference and passive authority and expert knowledge.
What world do they live in where no one (meaning students) thinks about God and
therefore have no problems writing the philosophical statement “God is dead” regarding the concept of
God being past its usefulness or cultural relevancy? When has there ever been
an entire room of unbelievers (only two are still sitting) who decide to
reverse their opinion and claim that a “god” does exist and risk their grade?
What professor openly threatens to use his bias to hinder the student’s career
path, but then walks off in defeat at the end when the entire class disagrees
with his philosophy? It’s as if Josh became the philosophy professor. Is he now
going to continue with humanistic philosophy or will he proclaim Jesus Christ
and turn the class into a church? It is so unrealistic that it is painful.
The
Institutions of Higher Education
Higher
education does not work this way. There are networks of friendship built to
keep a system of ideology progressing in the country. If that foundation of
thought conflicts with your Scriptural world-view, you do not get to be the new
teacher. The professor just comes back with more confidence and other experts,
and they don’t really let you speak. To a college student, the barrage of
“facts” from multiple disciplines of science, sociology, religions, history,
literature, mathematics, finance/business, etc are overwhelming to every single
student that sits under these professors who appear to have the exclusive
knowledge from the experts in each field. Even in a “Christian” college, the
attacks against faith are subversive and almost unavoidable. They are just not
obvious so that no one feels that their beliefs are threatened. It’s the exact
same atmosphere in secular colleges. Every student gets a mindful of questions
and mis-guided perceptions crammed into very short spaces of time, with
resulting grades and their entire future hanging in the balance to make sure
there is enough pressure to make them absorb the provided world-view as much as
possible. On top of that, most young people are in a time of rebellion and
self-exploration and pride that opens their heart to all sorts of evil
pursuits. It seems that this movie is intended to promote this indoctrination
of our young people. We cannot recommend strongly enough to just study the
Scriptures for yourself, and learn secular knowledge and how to work with your
hands only as needed and as God directs. Seek His kingdom and righteousness,
first and all of this wisdom will be added to you by the relationship with His
Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves apart from the snares and fears of people’s
opinions in this social structure called higher education.
The
hidden heart behind a heart of unbelief
Now
that we’ve talked about the professor/university problem, let’s talk about how
to make an argument for proving God’s existence. They have played Jeffrey
Radisson as a moral and caring individual who is a good person who passively
“knows” that there is no god. They did the same with reporter Amy; she loves
animals, she loves people, she even loves her neglectful boyfriend who only
cares about himself. This movie intentionally changed the fact that real people
who are like Jeffrey, Amy, and every single one of those philosophy students
all really have the same evil heart as Marc; they are just varied in how
determined they are about the details. But unbelievers certainly are not
passive about their choices and the knowledge that they need to reject God in
order to allow themselves to choose sins in whatever way they want. This is why
you do not put God on trial. It is scoffers and mockers who put God on trial,
not a Christian. We should not agree that God is on trial, because we know that
it will be the professor and the students who will be on trial. There is not a
single human who does not know their Creator. And every single human even in
the furthest corner of the earth knows that God will judge them. Their
conscience bears witness and all of creation explains His power and unity in
righteous, orderly care for us. The reason these producers have built the story
this way is to make it seem that most people are ignorant of the truth and
therefore just need a preacher. American culture is so dishonest about this.
Every single person knows enough to be able to look into the gospel and ask God
for the truth and get saved very easily whether they have been inundated by
American Christianity or live in the jungles of
Josh’s
searching though not yet having a personal relationship with God
Let’s
talk about something more personal – lack of obedient faith in American
believers. Josh’s mannerisms and questions show that he does not yet know God.
He does not recognize God’s voice. Even when he is at the church to
specifically block out the world and hear God speak to him, he still can not
hear God talking to him. He doesn’t know God’s Word and instead has a C.S.
Lewis quote that keeps reminding him that he needs to test himself to find out
if he even has faith in God. It is shocking that the producers edit out all of
the negative consequences and persecution that a true follower of Christ would
experience when they start preaching about God, with the one exception being
that he lost his manipulative girlfriend. Even his relationship with her is
superficial and he should not have been accepting of her caressing and
flirting. How did he not know during six years of dating her that she despises
Christ unless it is because he himself does not have a relationship with the
Holy Spirit of God up to that point in his life. His presentation does not show
much love for Christ’s sacrifice for sins which he never talks about. When he
talks to Martin, he casually admits that he doesn’t know why he wants to honor
God, but that he thinks of Jesus as a friend and that he wouldn’t want to
disappoint Him. That is not the same as saying, “Jesus is my friend” which
would have been a lie. He says, “To me, God’s not
dead. He’s alive.” Jesus is alive or He is not alive. It is not subject
to personal opinion (“to me”) or to philosophical debate. But again, if he does
not know God, then he has to make it subjective so as not to offend or make a
statement that he cannot stand behind. What about: “I
wouldn’t want to disappoint Him.” Disappoint Him how? By denying His
existence entirely? Or by agreeing that Jesus died and pretending that He never
rose back to life? Or by agreeing that God is no longer a relevant philosophy
in society? Which equation would even seem like a possible accurate statement?
How is “God’s Not Dead” a suitable response to any of these? Why do
they have Josh use the phrase “academic suicide”
twice, and then also have Professor Radisson use the phrase “academic suicide”?
I
would like to discuss two more very important topics: being ready to give an
answer for what you believe as displayed, and the gospel proclamations of the
film.
Being
ready to give an answer for what you believe as displayed
Let’s
look at the advice that Pastor Dave
gives Josh, the defense that Willie Robertson gives Amy for praying to Jesus on
his show, and Michael Tait’s reply to Amy’s question at the end. David White’s
advice was that if Josh will not acknowledge God in the classroom, God will
deny him, and that because he is given this opportunity, much will be required
of him. It is interesting that Josh skips the first half of Luke 12:48 when he reads it. Go look up
Luke 12:48. They even showed the
entire verse right there on the screen but he somehow knew to skip the first
part. Are Christians in the habit of skipping parts of verses that they do not
want to read? Luke 12:48 reads
Jesus’ words: “But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of
stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him
much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will
ask the more.” Does Willie think that by acknowledging Jesus and praying on his
TV charades/show, that this somehow obligates God to accept him as His son?
That is a terrible misuse of Jesus’ words. Why does Michael say that God is
more real than we are because He has existed longer than we have? How does
length of existence make you more real? Again why is he giving a “To us, they are as real” subjective opinion? The
entire movie is written in philosophy as I described at the start of this
report. That is the only way to explain the disaster of thoughts that were
given to us as though they are a strong defense of faith in Jesus Christ. In
fact, Jesus is barely mentioned in actual conversations. Okay, let’s look at
the use of the gospel in the movie.
The Gospel Proclamations of the film
There
are several attempts at this: Franklin Graham sermon on 1 Corinthians 15 to
Ayisha listening, Pastor David to Professor Radisson, Newsboys to Amy Ryan,
Willie Robertson to Amy Ryan interview, Josh Wheaton to Martin, Willie
Robertson’s challenge to send text messages.
Franklin Graham: “1 Corinthians says you’re saved. That Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on
the third day according to the Scriptures. If you believe this in your heart.
If you accept this by faith you see, God will forgive you, He’ll cleanse you
and He’ll set you free.” Sermon from Franklin Graham – 1 Corinthians 15.
Why is
Conversation
between Jeffrey Radisson and Pastor David after Jeffrey had his ribs crushed
and is within short moments of death -
Radisson: I
can’t die. I’m not ready. David: Do
you know Jesus? Radisson: I’m an
atheist. David: I believe it’s God’s
mercy that brought me here right now. Radisson:
I’m dying. What is… how can you call that mercy? David: Because that car could have killed you instantly. And I’m
sure right now you probably wish that it did. But I’m here to tell you that
it’s a gift, because the God that you don’t believe in has given you another
chance… another chance to change your final answer. Radisson: I want to die, but I’m so scared. David: Well if it’s any consolation, so was Jesus. So scared He
sweat blood. He asked the Father if He could remove it from Him. But the answer
was “no”. Radisson: he says “no” a
lot. David: He gives us the answer
we’d ask for if we knew what He knows. Radisson:
As far as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than
Your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, says the Lord. David: Exactly. So the question is…
Stay with me… stay with me… Are you willing to put your faith in Jesus Christ?
Are you willing to take that chance? Radisson:
Yes David: God is willing to forgive
you of your sins… all of them, if you accept His Son and ask Him into your
life. That’s all you have to do is accept His Son, accept His love, receive His
forgiveness right now. Do you accept Him as Lord and Savior? Radisson: Yes, I accept Him. David: It’s all right, in a few minutes
your going to know more about God than I do, or anybody else here does. It’s
okay. It’s okay.
Then
Professor Radisson dies… with David looking over him.
The
accident is not a gift from God. And David did the exact same thing that
Franklin Graham did. There is no repentance required, just acknowledgment.
Jesus sweat blood because of fear of rejecting the Father’s will and disobeying
which He did not want to do. And it so distressed Him, that He would rather be
that strained but not commit a sin, especially one so great. Look at Hebrews 12:4 in order to understand
this. God does not say “No” a lot; rather He does not look at outward appearance
to make decisions. He knows how to talk to people’s hearts as their own special
person. He also knows when we are about to make a mistake that we will regret
and that will affect the work of the truth. It seems that the atheist humbles
himself, but it also seems that he is just quoting what was drilled into his
brain as a child. How can David say: “Are you
willing to take that chance?” Faith in Jesus is not a risk we take; it
is an understanding we come to by humbling our heart and admitting our own sin,
which David failed to deal with. It’s no wonder he got confusing results. He
then does the same outrageous claim that
Michael Tait’s
prayer for Amy Ryan:
“Dear God, we don’t know your plan for Amy, Lord.
Lord, we’re asking that you would save her tonight, Lord. Change her, cleanse
her, giver her fresh start, Lord. Let her know that she’s loved. And more
importantly, that’s she’s loved by You, the Master of the Universe. Giver her
strength for the journey ahead, Lord. And let her know, speak to her, that
You’re going to be with her every step of the way. We pray this Jesus, in Your
Holy Name. Amen.” Once again, this is clearly not a gospel explanation
or call for repentance or anything of the sort.
Why does Willie say: “Jesus, now that’s eternal… whoever acknowledges me
before men, I will acknowledge before the Father in Heaven; whoever disowns Me,
I will disown him to the Father. Now those words are written in red, so they’re
important… C’mon, let’s go do some acknowledging.” There are so many
things to say here. Why doesn’t he say “He’s eternal” or “life with Jesus, now
that’s eternal” or something? Why did they choose to be so blurry with those
words? Why is he afraid of being disowned and therefore goes to do some
acknowledging in the church and invites the atheist to aspire to the same? Why
does he say those words are in red – red ink? Does he not know that the atheist
would see written in red as written in blood? That was not a gospel
presentation and sounds more like fear-mongering, which Willie knows because he
deals with media and talks to atheists and scoffers every day of his life.
Martin decides to
become a Christian,
based on what gospel? Martin says, “Your
decision to prove God is not dead has affected me greatly! Josh: I’m glad. Martin:
Yes, and it has changed everything! I have decided to follow Jesus. Josh: That’s great, Martin! Hey… you
know what? You’ve gotta check this out…” Now it is possible that Martin
read the entire life of Jesus in his own private time, but the way they wrote
this makes it seem that a mere debate about the existence of a “god” can bring
about faith in Jesus for salvation from our sins.
And finally, let’s look at
what Willie Robertson had to say to
the Newsboys audience. Now it’s time to mass-produce the gospel message they
have created in the movie:
“Hey, I’m Willie Robertson, speaking on behalf of the Robertson
family. Me and the gang wanted to let you know: we’ve heard in the news that
there’s been a bit of a squabble down there on campus. One of your professors
insisted that God is dead. (crowd
booing) Well, I’m happy to announce that the reports of God’s death were
exaggerated. (crowd cheering) Now
let me ask you a question: Have you got your cell phones on you? Good, all
right, now while this next song is playing, I want every one of you to go to
your contacts and click on everybody you know and text them three simple words:
God’s Not Dead. And there’s ten
thousand of you out there, and everyone knows about a hundred people. That’s a
million messages right there. A million times, we’re going to tell Jesus that
we love Him in the next three minutes. Tait:
And for the young man, who took up the gauntlet to defend God’s honor – and you
know who you are – I can only imagine, the smile you put on God’s face. This
one goes out to you. (Song – God’s Not Dead)
First of all, Willie and
Tait are working together to spread their just-acknowledge-god kind of gospel. Secondly, how is Willie a
representative to God to have to tell everyone that the report of God’s death
is not true. To an atheist hearing this, it’s because everything Christians do
is led by manipulative greedy leaders like Willie and Tait because their
imaginary god is not able to speak at all. Well, I think they’re pretty
accurate on their assessment of Willie and Tait, but they are not correct about
other followers of Christ who know God’s voice and do not have to hear
confirmation of the existence of God from anyone. Third, how is mass-producing the phrase “God’s Not Dead” a gospel
message or a message of love to God?? I already showed the meaning of this
phrase above, and it clearly does not prove that we love Jesus and His
sacrifice.
To
you, the reader:
But
I trust, that if you are still reading this, that you truly do love God’s work
of love in dying on the cross only once for all of us when He shed drops of
blood resisting the temptation to run and hide and even forgave all those who
crucified Him so that they could be released from the curse of death. It is
that heart that we should teach to others, because He has given us His same
Spirit inside of us that bears witness to the truth and teaches us the ways of
Jesus. Jesus is the one foundation that can not be replaced, and we should be
careful how we build on it. And some preach Christ out of contention and pride,
but let all of us preach the gospel because we actually understand and love the
hearts of our rebellious friends knowing that they are trying to choose
destruction for themselves. Even while they are sinners, we teach them that
Christ died for them, because God was willing to die for them while they hated
Him. God causes His blessings to come on the just and the unjust, and to the
good and the evil heart. Let us give freely what God has first given to us –
the message of reconciliation that we preach in which we are God’s ambassadors
pleading with them: Be reconciled to God! With love in our Lord Jesus - Paul
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We
hope you will check out Steven's analysis on the 'God's Not Dead' Storyline:
The Professor and the Student, and their Creator.
www.incpu.org/GND-movie1-review.pdf
www.incpu.org/GND-movie1-review.htm
*To
find our video teachings and music,
Start@TheWord YouTube page:
www.youtube.com/Start@TheWord
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And
you can find a digital copy of this report you just read, here at this link:
www.incpu.org/Gods-Not-a-Philosophy150.pdf