Whenever a Christian movie comes out or there is a major debate between and Christian apologist and an atheist, I usually tap several atheist news sources to see how they reacted because this usually tells me how good the movie is or how well the Christian apologists did before I see it. The more they bash the film or attack the delivery of the Christian apologist, the better we usually did. I never got around to doing a review of that first movie but I was pleasantly surprised when our youth department at my church (PFC) showed the movie for our youth movie night.
However, after seeing that first movie, I distinctly remember feeling that is was to light in the apologetics area. That there was not enough done to present a powerful refutation against atheism and for the existence of God. But I was still pleases because I had been desiring for some time to see a Christian move that actually attempted to take on atheism, which is a very serious threat that I believe the church is not taking as seriously as it should be. My many personal dialogues with atheists assured me that their arguments were not all frivolous and needed to be answered. And that even their many obvious lies, misrepresentations, and purely propagandistic tactics needed to be thoroughly exposed and refuted by Christians.
While thankfully there are a few astute Christian leaders that are taking this matter seriously and are providing sound and intelligent answers, this still is not being properly addressed by most churches, and it is evident in the public debates between atheist and Christian creationist as I wrote about last June, and that negligence is causing Christianity to lose credibility in the public arena of ideas.
When God’s not dead came out in 2014, I saw how frantic the atheist community was reacting and knew right away that I was going to enjoy the movie and indeed I did.
The movie raised the bar a notch higher by taking on a popular atheist argument about Jesus and at the same time exposing common atheist tactics of using the courts to silence Christianity in the public schools.
The atheist agenda to discredit the idea of God permeates our educational systems and atheists news reporters never miss and opportunity to do their part to help that agenda along. Matt Prigge’s article attacking Christian Movies is a good example of this.
I decided to write a review on his article because it is so typical of atheist misinformation and attempts at sabotage that I could use it to show you just how unconcerned they generally are about being honest when it comes to fighting against most things Christian.
The title of his article “Better off Dead” is a dead giveaway that he has no intentions of being truthful. Five sentences into the article he states:
“But if it’s anything like 2014’s God’s Not Dead” it’s probably terrible and horribly depressing”
Aside from the fact that there was nothing terrible and horribly depressing about the first movie, (that is not to anyone mature and mentally stable), he did not even have the decency to view the movie before he commented on its quality.
This lack of respect is typical of atheist writers with an anti-Christian agenda.
Prigge condemns “Christian” movies not just because they tend to be amateurish and lumpy (which many are), but because, in his words, “They tend to depict faith as a paranoid, black and white battle between nice believers and mean secularists.”
I take issue with this statement because this is also typical of how atheist writers misrepresent the work of Christians in negative terms to discredit it.
The fact is that there is nothing paranoid about depicting the black and white battle between atheism and Christianity, and how mean secularist are. A visit to almost any atheist website makes this fact clear.
But atheist are general aware that many people are easily influenced by what they read in the press and don’t bother to verify claims, and so stating their rhetoric with no intention of being honest is what they often do.
Christians need to be more diligent in responding intelligently to such misrepresentation in the press. Since atheists use the public press to wage intellectual war on the Church, Christians must not allow their attacks to go unchallenged.
Atheists understand the power of the media and use it effectively in their efforts to discredit God, Christianity and the Bible in the minds of many. But it seems that Christians are generally not as dedicated to using the secular press to defend themselves against the atheist misrepresentations or to promote an accurate representation of Christianity. This many be due to restraints by the secular press owners and editors, but that does not prevent Christians from taking to their own press and to the many accessible social media to log their objections and counter points to set the record straight. I can tell you from personal experience that doing so drives atheists into a frenzy because they hate competition and being force to battle intellectually on a level battle field. My personal files are filled with my dialogues with atheists who started off confident and arrogant only to resort to ranting, profanity and irrationality and eventually literally running from the dialogue once they realized they had picked and intellectual fight with the wrong Christian. Their arrogance comes mainly from their experience of being able to intellectually bully most Christians who don’t know how to defend their faith intelligently. I lay that blame not only on any Christian who fails to obey God’s mandate to “Study to show thyself approved unto God, as workmen that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” and “be ready to give an answer for the reason of the hope that lies in you”, But I also must place some of that blame on the Churches that fail to do their job of properly educating their faithful members. Pastors who are not able to properly inform their members should look for another line or spiritual work and leave Pastoring for those who have actually been called by God to Shepard that people of God.
Training believers to intelligently defend their faith is not a difficult thing to do, so there really is no excuse. Ignorant Christianity is unacceptable and is a primary cause for the apparent success of atheism taking over our public and higher education.
Matt Prigge then accuses the movie of “fanning the flames of a culture war that is greatly exaggerated”. Now for him to refer to the well established culture war as “exaggerated” is silly when even many of his own fellow atheists make constant reference to it. But again, accuracy and honesty are not high priorities for atheists reporters.
He refers to the atheist professor’s attack on Christian student theme as an offensive fantasy, in complete denial of the well documented evidence that this scenario has been and is occurring daily throughout our nation and the world. So it can hardly be describe as fantasy. But then once again, accuracy and honesty is not important.
Prigge accuses the first movies “worldview” of being “Old Testament” driven by victimization and dark vengeance. This is again strange since most atheists (him included), never bother to take the time to carefully study the Bible to understand the history or how it applies today. But aside from that, nowhere in the film does his claimed theme appear. He simply puts his spin on it to discredit it.
He refers to the radical Muslim father in the film as “villainous” and the female atheist reporter as “Evil” when the film neither say of indicts either. The Film correctly presents how some radical Muslim fathers think and act with their children, forbidding them to associate with or have American friends. It also accurately depicts the manner in which atheist reporters acts towards Christian. Trust me on this, I know from personal experience and I can document it from limitless clips now on Youtube. So for Prigge to make such accusations is clearly dishonest and propagandistic. But again, this is typical of atheists reporting.
I don’t think I need to go any further to demonstrate just how unreliable Matt Prigge as an atheist reporter is. But I will conclude by addressing his closing remarks.
This man has the audacity to close with the following:
“Everyday Christians like any group, deserve movies that speak directly to them. Right now they’re getting screwed.”
Please notice how he presumes to know what speaks to us Christians and even concludes that we are not getting what we want. An amazing display of arrogance and presumption, especially considering how poorly he has represented the movies he is trying so hard to make his readers dislike.
Personally, I loved the movie, even more than the first one because it was more focused on the defense against the atheist attack on the historical Jesus. I will eventually be writing a review of it later but suffice it to say for now that I think the creators are to be commended and awarded for their efforts, and any level headed person with an appreciation and love for God, the Bible and the Christian faith would have to appreciate the message of the film as much as I do if not more.
Those who do not (professing Christian or non Christian), must give intelligent sound reasons for disliking it and I have not yet seen such a review.
By the way, I did contact Matt Prigge via his email but naturally he has not replied to my comments. I am not holding my breath but if he responds I will let you know.