One of the great things about being a blogger is the free stuff. My latest snag? A free viewing of "God's Not Dead 2". Yay.
I definitely wasn't the first person at my church to see "God's Not Dead" (the first one) Over and over people said, "It's sooo good! You've got to see it!"
"Wow," I thought, "I don't usually give faith-based movies much thought because of the poor quality but...if this many people loved it, it must be amazing." Or not. Don't get me wrong, the message was great but the acting, writing and general plot were as expected.
Now when people tell me they loved a faith-based movie, I ask, "Did you love the movie or the message?" They look at me strangely for a moment and then sheepishly laugh.
That's what I thought.
With that in mind, I already knew what to expect from "God's Not Dead 2". And unfortunately again the plot was predictable, the acting cheesy and the dialogue wooden. (Ugh - I hate giving poor reviews) However, my late teen son said that he thought number 2 was a bit better than number 1. Then jokingly said, "By number 10, it'll be really good."
As a Jesus loving, Bible studying, card holding Christian, the way non-Christians were portrayed in this film rubbed me the wrong way. In fact it made me cross. It seemed like every non-Christian was an angry, hateful beast out to destroy Christians. But as the Bible points out, we do not war against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. We shouldn't think of non-believers as our enemies but as those Jesus died to save.
The premise of this movie is a teacher is taken to court over discussing Jesus in the classroom. My favorite part of the whole movie was when they had a couple of true-life authors come in as witnesses. I can see me picking up a copy of their books.
If you liked the first movie, you'll like this one. It's quite similar. My young teen daughter loved them both. She said she was fighting tears the whole time. (which makes me smile - I love her heart) As for myself, I'd rather listen to the Newsboys and then read a book about Jesus.
"Movie has been provided courtesy of Sony Home Entertainment Canada and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc."
