Two Popular Christian Films Attempt to Assert Biblical Truths by Spreading Lies
Actor and social provocateur Kevin Sorbo once again earned headlines recently for making a bewildering comment.
On Aug. 9, he posted on X his views of Vice President Kamala Harris: “If Kamala really is black, have her say the N-word, let the people decide for themselves.” In stating this, Sorbo signaled his eagerness to jump into the issue of Harris’s racial background, oddly initiated the previous week by former President Donald Trump.
Sorbo’s publicity stunt reminded me of the only example of his acting that I’ve ever seen: The Pure Flix Entertainment film God’s Not Dead, released 10 years ago. This launched a series of movies featuring plotlines that defended Christians’ belief in a supreme being.
As a now-disbeliever, I made an effort to watch God’s Not Dead with an open mind. But I found that it wallowed in the same illogical problems that compelled me to abandon theism years ago.
What struck me most about the film was its occasionally use of outright falsehoods in allegedly promoting God’s truth. This tactic mirrored the 2017 movie The Case for Christ (also produced by Pure Flix Entertainment), based — rather loosely, it turns out — on Christian author Lee Strobel’s conversion from atheism to religious belief. Strobel’s 1998 book “The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus” made him a popular figure in the field of Christian apologetics.
The Case for Christ delves deeply into fiction time after time. For a film that depicts a significant life experience of someone who’s still alive (and was involved in creating it), The Case for Christ swerves sharply away from Strobel’s biography on numerous occasions.
I was intrigued by how these two movies made use of obvious falsehoods in their attempts to convey what Christians accept as God’s truth. Why not be more honest when preaching the gospel?
Ultimately, these films botched the most important point about Christianity: Exemplifying servant leadership by tending to the needs of those around them rather than demanding that everything in the Bible be taken as literally true. Their goal really was to persuade viewers that they possessed the essential truths about life. If they achieve this, they can then promote designated believers who hold the moral authority to declare what makes for good public policy and who’s best suited to implement it.
***SPOILER ALERT: This essay discusses key aspects of these two films.***
The one lie that irked me the most in God’s Not Dead is what Christian student Josh Wheaton (played by Shane Harper) said about a renowned cosmologist. The Rev. Georges Lemaître was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium who’s been described as a mystic. He also had a brilliant scientific mind and, as a theoretical physicist, is credited with developing the idea of the expanding universe.
In God’s Not Dead, Sorbo portrays Jeffrey Radisson, a militant atheist and dictatorial college professor of philosophy. At the beginning of his first class of the semester, he insists that all his students write on a sheet of paper the words “God is dead” and then sign it. Wheaton refuses to attest to something that runs counter to his Christian beliefs, so Radisson suggests they debate the existence of a supreme being in front of the entire class.
In his first presentation, Wheaton references cosmological ideas on the origins of the universe. He points out that it was a Christian scientist who challenged the notion of a static universe, one that had no beginning and will have no end. Lemaître used evidence of an expanding universe to argue that it in fact had a point of origin, later to be called the Big Bang.
Wheaton says that the Bible describes a moment of creation that strongly reflects the concept of the Big Bang. He claims that Lemaître said what occurred during the Big Bang was exactly what we would expect to see happen when God proclaimed, “Let there be light.” Here, Wheaton connects a revolutionary idea in cosmology with what’s written in the book of Genesis — the Bible had it right 2,500 years before modern science caught on.
The problem is that Lemaître said no such thing. Yes, he was a Christian who believed that God created the universe. He also believed that the universe reflected God’s creativity.
However, Lemaître advised theists not to use scientific theories to try to prove God’s existence. He even counseled Pope Pius XII against drawing such conclusions.
Another minor quibble I have with this part of God’s Not Dead is when Wheaton brushes aside a question from a student with an unsubstantiated presumption. The student pondered if everything in the universe has a cause to come into being as Wheaton claimed, what caused God to come into being.
Wheaton sidestepped this dilemma by stating that Christians believe in a deity that wasn’t created. But there’s no follow-up on this from anyone, including the militant atheist grading the student’s presentation.
Had Radisson been an actual professor of philosophy, he would have jumped all over that example of flawed logic. He should have insisted that Wheaton provide persuasive evidence that God wasn’t created.
Why should Wheaton be allowed to offer a point of mere speculation in a formal debate to avoid having to wrestle with a real problem with his argument? I’m sorry, but a philosophical issue isn’t solved simply because you choose to ignore it. As an authority on the use of logic, Radisson should have seen that coming from a mile away.
Turning to The Case for Christ, I was astounded how much the plotline diverted from the experiences Strobel lived through and documented in his book. It’s true that even biographical movies take some license to tell their stories. But there were some unnecessary fabrications in this film just to prop up Strobel’s theological views.
The first one I encountered was a scene toward the beginning of the movie where Strobel (Mike Vogel); his wife, Leslie (Erika Christensen); and their daughter, Alison (Haley Rosenwasser), are at a restaurant. The daughter begins choking on something when another customer named Alfie Davis (L. Scott Caldwell) rushes over to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Alfie says she is a nurse and knew that God wanted her to come to this restaurant that night for a reason.
This makes a deep impression on Leslie. She and Alfie become good friends, and Leslie begins attending Alfie’s church. She soon becomes a Christian, which causes tension in the household as her husband remains an atheist.
This leads Lee Strobel to examine the claims of Christianity, resulting in his conversion. The film follows his quest as an investigative reporter to question biblical experts and find out if what’s stated in the Bible is true.
Here are the facts: The lifesaving scene in the restaurant never happened.
Leslie and Lee Strobel got to know Linda (the actual person portrayed in The Case for Christas Alfie) when they moved into a townhouse complex; Linda was one of their neighbors. She and Leslie got together for coffee regularly, and Linda started sharing her experiences as a Christian. Leslie began attending Linda’s church and eventually converted.
So the “miracle” of Alfie’s being at the right place at the right time as part of God’s plan in the restaurant scene was pure fantasy.
It’s true that Strobel interviewed some leading Christian scholars while writing his book. But the reality is that’s not what led him to convert.
Strobel’s book was published in 1998, and he conducted his interviews in the mid- to late-1990s. But by that time, he had already been a Christian — in fact, he was a teaching pastor at the church that he and Leslie attended.
Strobel discusses his career as an investigative reporter in his book and his journey to explore what’s contained in the Bible. But he wrote that his experience mirrored his quest in interviewing these biblical experts to some extent — except that his first journey was primarily personal study.
The movie makes it appear as though he uses these interviews to accept Christianity. That’s simply not true. My impression from reading his book is that he was merely looking to confirm ideas he already believed were true, not test to see if they stood up to logical scrutiny.
I concluded, though, that the film made an incredible statement (albeit not intentionally). It employed myths to tell a story that sought to teach deeper truths about life, not necessarily provide factual information.
Amazingly, this is exactly what the Bible does. It’s obvious that many of the stories in the Bible are nothing but fables. But Christians such as Strobel can’t accept this and insist that everything in the Bible needs to be taken at face value.
They don’t grasp the wonderful power that compelling myths have had over numerous cultures throughout history, and it’s unfortunate. If Christian moviemakers examined how they used fairy tales to sell the points made in God’s Not Dead and The Case for Christ, they may recognize what their religion has been doing for thousands of years. Then it would be easier for them to engage the wider society in the essential truths of their faith rather than demanding adherence to the flawed concept of literalism.