I’ve mothballed the blog for awhile because
#MedicalSchool. However, I recently shared it with a couple friends who said
they enjoyed reading it, and that maybe I should un-mothball it. Because I live
for validation and praise (#Millenial), and also because I have actual free time
and don’t have to feel crushing guilt for not studying every second of my life,
and because I was already thinking about un-mothballing it, consider it, like
our Good Lord and Savior, resurrected for the moment.
The central premise of “God’s
Not Dead (2),” according to the trailer, is that Innocent Teacher is
asked a question about Jesus in class, which she answers, and a firestorm
ignites, because if you talk about Jesus in class, everyone will want to be
Jesus (kind of like how if you talk about how “gay is ok” in class, everyone
will want to be gay) because that’s how the world doesn’t work. The ACLU gets
all up in her face about how they’re gonna prove that Jesus isn't real (impossible
– he was a verifiable historical figure), and then idk, it’s this Whole Big
Thing. If “God’s Not Dead (1)” is any indication (and they share a title, so
it’s not an entirely ridiculous presupposition), this is going to be terrible,
with terrible characters, terrible theology, and a terrible premise.
1.
Jump straight from kids praying on a baseball diamond to someone putting
up the American flag. This is a wholesome American town where they pray to the
flag, because God bless America.
2. Future
Stanford Student has overbearing parents who are probably atheists because
Overbearing Dad is an ambitious banker and Overbearing Mom wears yoga pants
(yoga is of the devil, I think we’ve all established that, based on “This Present Darkness”
by Frank Peretti, and also some things I was told once in church).
3. Innocent
Teacher argues with Other Teachers about how difficult students are a blessing,
so you know she’s entirely pure, and better than them.
4. Innocent
Teacher plays super-fun games with her difficult students that mostly involve
quotes from “Hamilton” and not actual history. Example: “we hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and everyone knows that
Eliza, Angelica, and Peggy sing that in the song “The Schyler Sisters.”
Innocent Teacher is obviously a total hack.
5. Future
Stanford Student has an incredibly stilted conversation with Innocent Teacher
about Dead Brother, who says “you wanna know how I’m so overbearingly positive all
the time? JAYSUS.” And then doesn’t explain. That’s just bad evangelism.
6. “That’s
the thing about atheism – it doesn’t take away the pain, it just takes away the
hope.” And that… is just so, so bad. I don’t think the screenwriters have ever
met an atheist in their life, much less had a discussion about the audacity of
a non-believer's hope.
7. Future
Stanford Student finds Dead Brother’s Bible, and starts reading in Colossians,
and it’s all over from here. Colossians. Jeez. That’s like picking up “Harry
Potter” with the 5th book, and wondering why Harry is such an
angsty asshole all the time. Except with “Harry Potter,” at least the books
take a solid 5 pages to explain the plotline of the preceding 4 books. The
Bible doesn’t do that.
8. Future
Stanford Student - "Yeah, Gandhi, he was nonviolent, similar to Jesus,
right?" Innocent Teacher reels off a Bible verse about loving your enemy
and praying for your persecutors, and talks how the teachings and tactics of
Jesus influenced the nonviolent tactics of Ghandi, which they did. And then
Difficult Student texts someone, and you just know it’s gonna be this Whole Big
Thing.
9. Bad
Atheist Lawyer and Other Teacher seem to think that referencing a historical
character in relation to another historical character goes against federal and
state regulations regarding separation of church and state. I disagree. She was
not proselytizing, she was not trying to say that Jesus was the way, the truth,
and the life; she just said “Yeah, Jesus influenced Gandhi and also MLK, and
here are words that Jesus said, to back up my claim.” Maybe she lives in the
great Atheist Wasteland of like, Connecticut, or whatever, but here in the
Bible Belt, that’s not out of line.
10. Innocent Teacher, don't be
rude to Good Atheist Lawyer, he's going to defend you, despite being an atheist
and therefore the Mariana Trench of immorality and filth. Also, OFC he’s an
atheist. Are there ANY Lawyers in Christian media that aren’t? All of my
lawyer-friends are Christian, to my knowledge. I mean, that’s a sample size of
like, 3, but still. But since critical fact-based thinking is bad, and lawyers
are critical fact-based thinkers, stands to reason that atheists have the
corner on both the lawyer market and also the Mariana Trench.
11. Bad Atheist Lawyer
tells Innocent Teacher that she can make all this go away by apologizing for
her Jesus-mention, and she refuses. Honestly, this whole movie is bad, and the
character portrayals are worse, but I still don’t think that what she did was
legally wrong according to any state and federal laws, and since I applaud
people for sticking to their guns and not bowing to popular opinion, I’m gonna
back her up on this one. The rest of this movie is absolutely terrible, but
she’s in a real light gray area, here.
12. Bad Atheist Lawyer
siccs the ACLU on Innocent Teacher, because that’s all the ACLU ever does, is
go after Christians like a dog returning to its vomit.
13. Bad Atheist Lawyer
tells Overbearing Mom and Dad that Future Stanford Student could be part of a
landmark case for separation of church and state, and that Ivy League
admissions boards will just eat that up, because Ivy League admissions boards
are obviously comprised entirely of godless atheists who love to eat a big bowl
of Fruity Christians for breakfast every morning. Omg. Is there nothing in this
movie that is not bad?
14. Windswept Pastor from
“God’s Not Dead (1)” is sitting on the jury for Innocent Teacher vs ACLU,
because of course.
15. Good Atheist Lawyer
kicks a juror off because her favorite TV show is “Pretty Little Liars,” which
is stupid, because that show is actually pretty damn good.
16. Bad Atheist Lawyer
kicks a juror off because his favorite TV show is “Duck Dynasty,” which is an
excellent idea, because that show is dumb and full of dumb men with a
persecution complex and janky beards.
17. Atheist Newscaster
covering the case (ofc she’s an atheist) states that the extremists we need to
worry about are the hardcore Christian radicals. Well, she’s not wrong, that’s
for sure. I personally don’t think that Innocent Teacher falls under that
umbrella, however.
18. Apparently the ACLU
subpoenaed all of the sermons from all of the churches, and now OMG CENSORSHIP
AND PERSECUTION OF THE SILENT MAJORITY.
19. Innocent Teacher
points out to Good Atheist Lawyer that bringing Jesus up in a history class is
not wrong because Jesus was a verifiable human figure in history whose
teachings verifiably influenced many other verifiable human figures in history,
and that the premise of their defense should be that she was not preaching the
Good News of Jaysus, but rather having a history mention about a historical
figure AND NOW WE’RE FINALLY GETTING SOMEWHERE. Jeez. If I wrote this movie, it
would be approximately 5 minutes long.
20. And then she hands
him a Bible and says he’s got some reading to do. No. That’s not how you win
this.
21. OH MY GOD NO YOU DID
NOT JUST CALL LEE
FREAKING STROBEL TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS.
22. Windswept Pastor
collapses and grabbed his right side, and I’m pretty sure he has appendicitis
and now OMG THERE WILL BE NO CHRISTIANS ON THE JURY AND HOW WILL THEY EVER
WINNNNN?!??!
23. NAILED ITTTTT.
Appendicitis. brb, taking my boards tomorrow.
24. And now they call to
the witness stand Cold Case Detective, who wrote the book “Cold Case
Christianity” to prove that Jesus was a real person, and can you guys PUH-LEASE
stop calling hacks who write books, and start calling hacks who are Ph.Ds in
History or something?!?! Literally any monkey with a keyboard can
self-publish a book.
25. Cold Case
Detective flips TO THE LITERAL BACK OF THE BIBLE to find the book of Matthew.
Seriously, he is like, at least 9/10ths of the way through the book,
approximately where James is located, if there’s a concordance, or Two
Corinthians, if there’s not. MATTHEW IS THE FIRST FREAKING BOOK OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT, IT’S LIKE 2/3 OF THE WAY THROUGH THE BIBLE OMG.
26. Guys, stop using the
Bible to prove the existence of Jesus. It's inherently biased.
27. Kids, kids, it's cool
that you're singing "How Great Thou Art" to Innocent Teacher.
Literally one of my favorite hymns. But seriously, guys, you gotta do it in
4-part harmony, otherwise the atheists will win, and it will be all your fault.
28. Some Christian Dude
talks to Mike Huckabee about how “Jesus was the most influential person who
ever lived,” and I just don’t think you can quantify that. Personally, I think
that probably that title goes to Genghis Khan, ancestor of 1 of every 200 individuals
in the world.
29. Good Atheist Lawyer
goes on an obviously satirical rant about how anyone in the personal or private
sphere should be persecuted until Christianity has been stomped out. And of
course Innocent Teacher completely falls to bits because she has absolutely no
faith in the lawyer that’s been faithfully and faultlessly helping her through
this entire process. God may or may not be dead, but sarcasm sure as hell is.
30. Suddenly we’re at a
Newsboys concert? Um, ok?
31. Jury voted in favor
of Innocent Teacher, because of course they had to, because how was that even
an argument?!?
32. OMG THE JURY MEMBER
WITH THE CRAZY-COLORED HAIR AND THE RACCOON EYES AND THE BLUE LIPSTICK IS
SECRETLY A CHRISTIAN WITH A SECRET CHRISTIAN TATTOO ON HER NECK DESPITE THE
LAWS IN LEVITICUS AGAINST TATTOOS OMG PLOTTTTT TWISTTTTTT.
33. Good Atheist Lawyer
has never met anyone who’s stood up for what they believe in the face of
opposition until he met Innocent Christian Teacher. It’s because he’s an atheist,
and all his friends are atheists, and all atheists are anthropomorphized lies.
34. Future Stanford
Student announces “God’s not dead!” to the assembled protestors. But, like, no
one was arguing that through this entire movie, so…
35. The movie ends
without Good Atheist Lawyer becoming Good Christian Lawyer, which, honestly,
surprised me.
In summary, this movie was
pretty bad. The only good people were the Christians, or the people who were
about to become Christians, and also, unexpectedly, Good Atheist Lawyer, which
displays some small degree of nuance. But every other person in a position to
do any critical thinking or reporting of facts was an atheist, and that’s just
feeding into the leftist argument that right-wing conservatives are all
anti-intellectuals.
The premise of the movie was
inherently flawed – a case against a history teacher teaching about nonviolence
in history who answered a question about Jesus’s influence on nonviolent
protests would get laughed out of court.
Summary of the summary – better
than “God’s Not Dead (1), but still bad, with ham-fisted treatments of anyone
who isn’t a Christian.
And now I have "God's Not
Dead" by the Newsboys stuck in my head, and I'd just rather that weren't
the case.
