![]() King wove his religion into his political philosophy, making Grace’s observation relevant to the class discussion. The movie could have accomplished its happy ending by noting that Grace did not actually preach, or by emphasizing that Dr. This all sets the stage for a morality play pitched at the level of a middle school afternoon special, a stacked-deck debate arguing against anyone (or any legislation) that might prescribe modest limits on the role of religion in public life. With absurd speed, she is summoned before an administrative inquisition, thrown under the bus by her teachers union (also evil, naturally), and when she refuses to issue an apology, the issue metastasizes from a harmless classroom gaffe into a courtroom battle that is nothing less than a referendum on whether or not God is dead. The film’s disingenuous portrayal of secularist outrage is just the first in a series of straw men. I should note that Grace doesn’t really do anything wrong here. She quotes a passage from the Gospels, which she knows off the top of her head because she is a devout Christian. And here her troubles - and the film’s histrionic narrative - begin. and the preachings of Jesus Christ, Grace concedes that yes, there is. Her name, of course, is Grace.Īsked if there’s a parallel between nonviolent doctrine espoused by Martin Luther King Jr. In lieu of discriminatory innkeepers or employers like Hobby Lobby, the protagonist is a pouty and virtuous cipher in the person of the an 11th grade teacher played by Melissa Joan Hart. Besides, anything of the sort would no doubt make a moral muddle of the film’s presentation of American evangelicals as a homogenous set of preternaturally wholesome, unremittingly friendly victims. Of course, nobody in the film comes out and says it’s okay to discriminate against gay people or it’s permissible for employers to sabotage their women employees’ health care. But the conflict is the same: on one side, well-groomed, beknighted, conservative Christians, who wish only to live and worship in peace on the other side, the forces of secularism, pluralism, and liberalism, represented here by those avatars of Satan themselves, ACLU attorneys. Since the original God’s Not Dead, the setting has shifted from a liberal arts university classroom to a nearby high school and its proximate hall of justice. But the movie’s cornfed aesthetic of sunshine and smiles hides a truly insidious agenda: the film is constructed as a series of ham-fisted apologias for American Christians who wish to flout the law. GNG2 is a syrupy, Hallmark-tinged oblation to the bogus narrative that Christians are an oppressed class, a complement to the same paranoid persecution complex that Ted Cruz so cravenly exploits when he says that liberals want to “sandblast” religious symbols off veterans’ gravestones. God's Not Dead: Light in the Darkness is a powerful reminder that in all circumstances, we are called to be a light for Jesus to a world in desperate need of hope.God’s Not Dead 2, the latest release from the independent Christian movie house Pure Flix, is staggeringly bad at the filmic level - but it’s the movie’s agenda where things get really nasty. The family reunion opens old wounds, as the brothers wrestle with the questions that pulled them apart years ago: Is God really good all the time? Where is God when bad things happen? Can Christ really heal the brokenhearted? The escalating controversy creates a dilemma for the small church-can Christians fight for their rights and be the light for Christ at the same time? Facing a court case and his own struggle to see Christ’s light in heartbreak, Dave asks for help from Pearce, his estranged brother-a big-city lawyer and an atheist-to fight for the church’s right to exist. Adjoining Hadleigh University uses the tragedy to kick the congregation off-campus. James Church, devastating the congregation and Pastor Dave. ![]() Yet even in life’s darkest valleys, a small flame can light the way toward healing and hope. About God's Not Dead: Light in the DarknessĪ church was destroyed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |