Before we begin to talk about Harold Cronk’s seminal Christian drama God’s Not Dead, one thing has to be made clear: though the Criminally Underrated banner generally operates as a way of championing great cinema, the movie we’re here to talk about is just not good. If taken at face value, this Kevin Sorbo vehicle is a laughably bad film, presenting its viewers with a fantasy world of Christian persecution and some of the most cockamamie plot twists one could ask for. But like all bad movies, their value lies within the act of alternate viewing: taking the film and using it as a jumping-off point for conversations about how bonkers everything is. God’s Not Dead is no Manos: The Hands of Fate, Gigli or Waterworld, but if you can stomach the foul taste of everything this movie wants to feed you, you’ll find yourself watching a masterclass in conservative and/or religious propaganda (this movie is definitely both) that few films since have really managed to match.
God’s Not Dead presents us with a fever dream full of insane details that one could spend hours poring over, like a fractal spiral of mediocrity. It’s a 113-minute look into a world in which everyone and everything is against Christianity, as though the era of feeding Christ’s followers to lions never passed and evangelical Christianity didn’t have a decades-long stranglehold on American culture and politics. Incoming college freshman Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper) finds himself doing battle with philosophy professor Jeffrey Radisson, Sorbo’s cartoonish answer to Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins-style atheists, over the fact that he refuses to sign a form that asserts God is dead, which Raddison makes a requirement of passing class. Josh has made a critical error in not realizing that his professor is a smug debate-lord atheist, and thus must spend hours of class time arguing about the existence of God with him. God’s Not Dead isn’t all Sorbo trying to dunk on a teen by showcasing a litany of logical fallacies: It’s also an ensemble drama! We meet the atheist blogger Amy Ryan (Trisha LaFache), who runs a website called The New Left and whose version of journalism is ambushing Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson and his wife in a parking lot and asking them loaded questions. She’s also diagnosed with cancer — think she’ll see the error of her heathen ways? And then there’s Ayisha (Hadeel Sittu), a student who’s forced to hide her growing Christian beliefs from her Muslim father.
And let’s not forget Reverend Dave, played by David A.R. White, who stands at the center of all four films in the God’s Not Dead franchise. White is the co-founder of PureFlix (now known as Pinnacle Peak Pictures), the production company behind God’s Not Dead — and in the film’s world, he’s the great connector. He gives counsel to Josh about his debates with Professor Radisson, helps Ayisha after her brother tells their father about her Christian leanings and talks with Mina, Raddisson’s improbably Christian, long-suffering girlfriend, about how much it hurts to have such a shitty 50-year-old edgelord for a boyfriend.
Frankly, none of these characters are very believable, and the film threatens to collapse under the weight of just how many of them we’re expected to care about. Every one of them is exceedingly entertaining in the right light, though. The biggest key to the “incredibad” factor is that every nonbeliever is, without fail, painted as a total jagweed. Professor Radisson shouts at teenagers and repeatedly insults Mina in front of friends and colleagues until she gives up and dumps him. Elsewhere, Amy’s boyfriend, Mark (played by — why not? — Dean Cain) breaks up with her because of her cancer diagnosis! This is maybe the weirdest, most hilarious scene of God’s Not Dead; what’s better than Dean Cain shouting “You’re changing our agreement! You’re breaking our deal!” at a woman who just got diagnosed with cancer? Mark and Professor Radisson each feel like cartoon villains, maybe because the people who made the film cannot see non-Christians as anything but huge assholes. How else are you supposed to view a guy who refers to a cancer diagnosis as “unresolved personal issues”? Even though she’s inches away from being born-again, what about Amy, who we last see harassing the Christian rock band Newsboys (who appear in the following three God’s Not Dead movies (yes, there’s so much more) in their dressing room, calling the Bible “ancient scribblings” in a way that makes it impossible to ignore the agenda of the person who wrote this script? Then again, for as one-dimensional as the nonbelievers are, they don’t exactly make the Christians of the film seem all that much better: Their defining trait is their belief in Christ, and absolutely no other personality traits really come through. It’s not that kind of movie, though; these aren’t meant to be human beings, but bland stand-ins for different paths to evangelical Christianity, allowing the target audience to very easily see themselves in Josh, Mina and Ayisha without thinking too hard. What makes God’s Not Dead so worthy of a Bad Movie Night hatewatch is just how funny it is.
Professor Radisson is by far the goofiest character, alternating between barking open threats of academic retaliation at Josh for daring to question him and hurling insults at his girlfriend, before he has a classic “I hate God because he took everything from me!!!” meltdown in front of the whole class. Then there’s the tonally strange comedic relief, which comes in the form of Rev. Dave and visiting Ghanian pastor Rev. Jude (Benjamin Onyango) being repeatedly unable to start a string of rental cars. Sadly, even this is a failing of the film; the only reason it happens is to make sure Dave and Jude’s Disney World trip is delayed just long enough for Dave to be there for Professor Radisson’s death.
Yes, this film ends in Sorbo’s deathbed conversion, moments after a car going roughly 20 mph hits him. It’s truly a “they don’t ask how, they ask how many” moment, and speaks to a warped worldview: the two reverends, sitting beside Sorbo in the pouring rain, helping him convert to Christianity with his last remaining breath, then standing around and laughing about it with his blood still warm on the ground. I wish I was making that up.
Even a decade later, God’s Not Dead still feels like a potent reminder of how insidiously entrenched ultraconservative evangelicalism is in America. Not satisfied with merely beating us over the head with its plot, the movie concludes with an onscreen list of lawsuits filed against different schools across America, nearly all of which were spearheaded by Christofascist instigators (and SPLC-designated hate group) Alliance Defending Freedom. You may know them as the jackals partially responsible for repealing Roe v. Wade and for the waves of anti-queer legislation that have gripped the United States in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency. “Are you being challenged for living out your faith?” the text onscreen asks after the lawsuit crawl, before giving the organization’s web address so that you, too, can frivolously sue your school for barring you from disallowing non-Christians from your fraternity. From the outside, the film feels like it was created as a simulation of what it might be like if Christians were looked down upon by society, so that everyone involved could work themselves into a rage and fight against the rights of LGBTQ+ people across the globe with confidence.
There isn’t one square inch of God’s Not Dead that isn’t smug, self-important, clumsy and just generally godawful. Considering its affiliation with such unambiguously evil people, it’s honestly questionable for us to even write about it. Yet, out of all of the similarly smug, self-important, clumsy and godawful Christian cinema — your Breakthroughs, your Fireproofs, your Heaven Is For Reals — this one feels like the most darkly fascinating and totally entertaining. As a movie, it’s filth, but the layers of perversely fascinating decisions are intoxicating to examine. If you can pinch your nose and look past the stench of evangelical fantasy propaganda, you’re bound to have an experience that will eat away at your brain for months (or years) to come.
The post Criminally Underrated: God’s Not Dead appeared first on Spectrum Culture.