God's Not Dead - Neither is Choice

I haven't seen God's Not Dead and not sure if I want to.  I've read quite a bit about this movie and although it touches on some topics that are true (that public universities can have a strong bias toward humanism), however, It saddens me to hear that the movie negatively portrays anyone who is not a Christian, including atheists and Muslims.  

Some people will say "well do you see how Hollywood usually portrays Christians???"  Yes I do.  However, is this movie drawing more people to the love of Jesus by engaging in an "us vs. them" war? I'm not sold on the value of fighting a culture war with Christian movie propaganda like this -- I'm afraid this just reinforces the negative stereotype of the "angry Christian trying to legislate a moral lifestyle" which could in turn give people a false image of a God that is only concerned in people being "good people."

I contend that this subculture of Christianity that is focused on trying to change our country by political power instead of radical love and grace is trying to do something that Jesus is adamantly against.  God respects our choice to follow Him or to not follow Him, so we should also respect the right of others to do so. 

There are countless atheists that have come to know God (C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, Greg Boyd, to name just a few), so to paint atheists as "the enemy" is be ignorant of the fact that some people require more time on their journey to work through doubt and questions and let God work in their heart and mind.

Also unsettling is how this movie presents a Muslim family that rejects their child for converting to Christianity. This suggests that Muslims are the only faith that disowns family for converting to a different faith.  What about Christians that disown their family to converting to or from Catholicism??  This happens all of the time.  This negative portrait of a different faith is doing no favors for showcasing the beauty of the gospel message in my opinion.  It's fear-mongering.  It's the equivalent of trying to build yourself up by taunting someone else.

I say this with all due respect to the people that created this movie. I will assume that most of the people involved in this movie have good intentions and they have a heart for sharing the love of Jesus, just like I do. Since I have not seen the movie, and I am relying on a movie synopsis from other reviewers, I know that I could be completely off in my commentary about this movie. Regardless, the main intention of this post is to be a humble critique of the "aggressive culture-war fighter Christian" approach to spreading the good news of Jesus.