“God’s Not Dead 2” stresses the importance of free speech in America, but, ironically, only caters to only one point of view. The film focuses on high school teacher Grace Welsey (Melissa Joan Hart), who is suddenly fired after entertaining a student’s question comparing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s and Gandhi’s non-violent stances to those of Jesus.
Grace, a strong Christian herself, quotes the Bible in answering the question, a citation that raises more than a few eyebrows in her classroom. Strong in her faith, Grace refuses to apologize for her actions on moral grounds, and the ensuing trial between her and the school board serves as the foundation for the movie’s storyline.
“God’s Not Dead 2” also depicts Christian, middle-class, white Americans who have been systematically persecuted in this country. The entire film inhabits a universe in which it is angry atheists — sporting signs with lines like “Teach! Don’t Preach!” — who are the real antagonists, protesting government buildings and harassing those outside. Everywhere they turn, the movie’s many Christian characters face persecution, whether from the exclusively liberal media, the government or any other nonreligious individuals the film unsubtly demonizes.
This “us versus them” paranoia oozes out of almost every scene to exhausting lengths, and to the point that each new straw man the film’s Christians easily shoot down is met with an increasingly frustrated eye-roll.
The heavy-handedness with which “God’s Not Dead 2” broadcasts its ideology matches its uncreative and obvious motifs. It should come as no surprise that the movie makes sure a character named Grace can’t be forced out of the classroom. It’s also hardly shocking the character who promises to make sure “God is dead in every classroom” bears the name Kane (Ray Wise), an allusion to Cain of Genesis, and is the movie’s most prominent antagonist. The plot itself mirrors that of the Gospel, with Grace acting as the stubborn, justified martyr, her coworkers the Romans and the Judge Stennis (Ernie Hudson) playing a stoic Pontius Pilate.
Add in at times sloppy camerawork and a shameless plug for Lee Strobel’s book “The Case for Christ”, and it’s hard not to come away unimpressed with “God’s Not Dead 2” from an artistic standpoint.
One of the main accusations leveled against Grace is that referencing Jesus was an act of proselytization, and that no state employee should try to get her students to convert. As “God’s Not Dead 2” is eager to point out, Grace’s actions cannot be counted as proselytization; she was just expressing her beliefs.
However, the real attempt at conversion is the entire movie itself, ending with a black screen displaying a plea to the audience to “join the movement,” presumably against perceived enemies of Christianity. Unfortunately for the film, though, its illustration of a war on Christianity is anything but convincing and pushes any possible converts away with each inept misstep.
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