You know what's worse than a preachy movie that preaches to the already converted? A preachy movie that deliberately paints the opposition in a bad light to sell their narrative.
The first God's Not Dead was a stupid movie about a atheist strawman disguised as a philosophy professor. There was nothing there of merit and it was only there as an echo chamber for those that believed as the movie makers did. This one however takes the persecution a step further into an America that never actually existed.
Melissa Joan Hart plays a teacher who one day mentions Jesus in a historical context while in class. For this she's sanctioned, everybody loses their minds and the evil ACLU steps in to prosecute her. The fact that they got Ray Wise to play the lead prosecutor and had him play it as devilishly as possible I'm sure was just a stylistic choice and not a way of trying to paint the ACLU as a bunch of satanists. If you've actually checked the facts you'd see that the ACLU has actually defended Christians when their rights were trampled upon. But that's not good story telling for these people so they leave that out and hope you don't check.
What follows is a standard courtroom drama which should never have gone as far as it did in the first place. There's no statute or law that states that you can't mention the name of Jesus in a classroom. What you can't do is read from a bible or teach Christianity unless the class calls for it like in a comparative religion class.
There's also a subplot where Pastor Dave from the previous movie is on the jury and later on is taken into custody for not providing the transcripts for his sermons. This is the plot for the upcoming "God's Not Dead 3". Again this isn't a bad thing as it's there to make sure churches don't lose their tax exempt status by promoting a political candidate which they're not supposed to do.
In the end it's a predictable movie with a predictable ending that will have the Christians feeling good and everybody else wondering why they wasted money on this.
The first God's Not Dead was a stupid movie about a atheist strawman disguised as a philosophy professor. There was nothing there of merit and it was only there as an echo chamber for those that believed as the movie makers did. This one however takes the persecution a step further into an America that never actually existed.
Melissa Joan Hart plays a teacher who one day mentions Jesus in a historical context while in class. For this she's sanctioned, everybody loses their minds and the evil ACLU steps in to prosecute her. The fact that they got Ray Wise to play the lead prosecutor and had him play it as devilishly as possible I'm sure was just a stylistic choice and not a way of trying to paint the ACLU as a bunch of satanists. If you've actually checked the facts you'd see that the ACLU has actually defended Christians when their rights were trampled upon. But that's not good story telling for these people so they leave that out and hope you don't check.
What follows is a standard courtroom drama which should never have gone as far as it did in the first place. There's no statute or law that states that you can't mention the name of Jesus in a classroom. What you can't do is read from a bible or teach Christianity unless the class calls for it like in a comparative religion class.
There's also a subplot where Pastor Dave from the previous movie is on the jury and later on is taken into custody for not providing the transcripts for his sermons. This is the plot for the upcoming "God's Not Dead 3". Again this isn't a bad thing as it's there to make sure churches don't lose their tax exempt status by promoting a political candidate which they're not supposed to do.
In the end it's a predictable movie with a predictable ending that will have the Christians feeling good and everybody else wondering why they wasted money on this.