Review of God's Not Dead 2 (2016) by Ingmar B — 01 Apr 2016

Excellent movie! Best one I have seen in a long time. Got it all, drama, humour, deep emotions, multiple unexpected turns of events, family friendly and a good message.

Some negative reviews complain that all non-christians in the movie are portrayed as mean or unlikable people. Sorry, but the defense lawyer was the non-christian with the most screen time, and he was likeable, smart and caring. Of course there were bad guys, too - but without them there would be no drama, no challenge, no entertainment. I think they found a very good balance.

Others complain that the movie exaggerates anti Christian persecution, citing that they have many non-Christian friends that are nice and do not persecute them. But the movie did not try to portrait that this persecution is happening all the time, only that it is frequent enough that it is clear that there is a developing pattern. To connect the story to reality, there is a long list of court cases in the closing credits of Christians being sued for trying to exercise their freedom of religion.

Some complain that the logic is flawed, but without giving any example. I actually tend to pickup and be very annoyed about such flaws in movies, but did not see any in this one.

Some complain that the movie did not allow for opposing views to be explored. Excuse me? There were multiple characters doing this throughout the movie, most importantly the opposing lawyer that was given ample screen time to make his views clear in and out of the court room.

I hope this movie helps motivate us to discuss the inevitable cross influences between personal belief, public discussion and politics. It helps us to realize that everyone brings his believes to the discussion, wether they are Christian, secular or other. And we should not exclude any of them from the public discussion because of their believes. We are more civilized than that!