The list above, however, is a good representation of some of the problems I found.
There were other things throughout the movie that raised my eyebrows. I have to say that I did not pick up on this initially my wife did. What about repentance? What about faith in Jesus? They denounced their original statement that God is dead by standing and saying, “God is not dead.” I don’t think that is what Paul had in mind in Romans 10 when he wrote that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The rest of the class converted to theism. Martin, a student from China, is the only classmate shown who converted to Christianity.
Unfortunately, that is not what the movie portrays. The converse is a very slippery slope.Īfter the movie, someone told me that it was great how all of the students in Josh’s class converted to Christianity. I do not make this a test of orthodoxy necessarily, but do believe that it is a very legitimate position and even the best position. I believe that God created the earth just as the narrative of Genesis records, in six literal days. I think that good arguments exist for a young earth. I realize that many solid, Bible-believing Christians agree with this position I do not. Josh begins his arguments for the existence of God by granting that the world is billions of years old. It argues for the belief that Jesus is God, which is at the center of the Christian faith. It also does not stop with arguing for the existence of God. While this apologetic is not likely to convince an atheist to convert (there are no surefire arguments for the existence or non-existence of God), it is the best argument for the existence of God in my opinion. This seems to be the best explanation for why the body was missing from the tomb. You don’t go to your death for something you know to be a lie. Also, most of the apostles were martyred for their faith. Unfortunately for those who argue for this solution, the tomb was well-guarded. The resurrected Jesus appeared to over 500 people at one time. The only problem with this is that hallucination is not a group phenomenon. 1) His followers thought they saw the resurrected Jesus, but were merely hallucinating. This leaves us with only a few choices for explanation. They will even grant that His followers claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. They will grant that He really was crucified. Most reasonable unbelievers will grant that there really was a man named Jesus who lived just over 2,000 years ago. However, I felt that Josh failed to utilize the best arguments at our disposal. Christians need to be prepared to give a defense for their faith. I said in my last post that I appreciated the concept of the movie. Willie’s remark was a cute thing to say, but it was dead wrong and extremely unhelpful. When I read the Bible it is as if God is speaking, because He is. I believe that the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, is the very Word of God. Christians do not believe that the words in red are somehow more important than the words in black. He follows the quotation up with, “And that’s in red so it’s important.”įor starters, an atheist with no religious background may not even know what he means by that.
Then Willie responds to one of the questions by quoting a Bible verse. Willie and Korie respond to these questions as graciously as one could reasonably expect. She asks several demeaning questions of Willie and his wife, Korie. One of America’s bearded heroes, Willie Robertson, is interviewed in the movie by a disrespectful young reporter. Unbelievers do not feed the hungry and take care of the poor as worship to God, but this does not completely negate their good deeds. Now certainly the Scriptures say that even our good deeds are as filthy rags to God. Many times they do this better than Christians.
The ministry of Jesus to unbelievers should always be held up as a model for Christians to follow.īelieve it or not, unbelievers actually do good things. He ministered truth to them that they might repent and believe in Him. In Matthew 9:36, Jesus looked on the crowd of lost people and saw them as sheep without a shepherd. If they wanted to demonstrate how Christians can effectively engage a lost world, they came up short. If the creators of the movie wanted to build a straw man and utterly demolish it, they succeeded. Mark, the successful businessman, was a self-centered jerk. Professor Radisson was an egotistical bully. All of the non-Christians were portrayed as evil numbskulls. Below are a few of the things with which I took issue.ġ. The idea behind the movie was good, but I must quibble with some of the details.
It wasn’t even mostly bad as this post may seem to indicate. The movie was not all bad as I said in my last post. Adam Blosser is the pastor of Drakes Branch Baptist Church in Drakes Branch, VA.