Still Not Dead
“The Christian resolution to see the world as ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.” - Neitzsche, who God rightly killed with syphilis
I wasn’t disappointed. When the latest installment of the God’s Not Dead franchise debuted on April 1st, no day for fools, I knew it was time once again to make a pilgrimage into the populist imagination. Whereas the first film was about Freshman Josh defending God’s existence against Prof. Raddison (who God kills off, just like Nietzsche), this film is about a trial. When the first film rudely exposed itself to the world, my review saw only two ways to read these films: either as absolutely brilliant satire of Christian Culture or the most xenophobic, anti-intellectual pandering smut imaginable. Let’s keep running with satire!
In an early seen depicted above, to which I shall return when I spoil the ending below, a group of concerned brothers in Christ fear the end of their freedom to flaunt IRS regulations. It happened in Houston, he says. It could happen here, he says. We are at war! Liberals (who have all the rifles) will soon be persecuting Christians at gunpoint. Our fearless Rev. Dave will refuse to submit his sermons to what seems to be an American Censorship of Anti-Gay Sermons Committee. These are dark times for White Religion.
Thankfully, all the hot characters from the first installment of this sadomasochistic fantasy are back! With the exception of a few on-location Arkansan extras (which a native southerner like me can spot with peculiar ease), the Christians are looking phenomenal. Rev. Dave is back! I’m happy to report everything about his immaculate existence and sublimated internal contradictions still screams secret life. He looks to have bulked up a bit, which is hopefully helping his Grindr prospects. Classmate Token Asian has seriously stepped up his attire, and oh my God, the defense lawyer (hereafter referred to as LILF) is suave as hell. Victim Teacher (played by Clarissa Explains It All/Sabrina the Teenage Witch) is keeping it classy and chaste, and the director is careful not to introduce any tension between her and LILF, obviously because teachers are sexless, friendless creatures who only exist to serve your children. The hottest scene was when Rev. Dave goes before the American Censorship of Anti-Gay Sermons Committee and refuses to hand over his bigotry-with-a-smile sermons: the clerk and Rev. Dave lock eyes for long moment until the clerk just blurts out that he wants to hammer him.
Reporter from Lamestream Media is back too, and that’s a clever twist that will blow the audiences’ mind. She should have died after blaspheming the Holy Spirit by asking a Duck Dynasty guy how gay=sin when they regularly trick ducks into landing in a pond to mate with them. God then smites her with cancer, but God Is Good, All the Time™, and He is a jealous and fickle God who gives and takes away cancer like He forgot why He did it in the first place! With her spiritual codependence now at a cosmic high, she leaves her Lamestream Media job and embarks into uncharted territory: a Christian writing a blog about faith.
Obviously to placate PC culture, this film steps up its black-person-per-film rate from two to four. Returning are Michael My-God’s-Not-Dead-He's-Surely-Alive Tait and Happy African Guy (who the director knows Evangelicals will love, because AFRICA!), but we also meet Concerned Principle (a woman, no less) and Reasonable Judge. Now for context, GND2 comes packaged with a preview of Dinesh D’Souza’s new film, which is all about how Democrats have tricked black people into being mindless drones. Concerned Principle is the perfect embodiment of this stereotype of a subservient African American tricked into serving at the behest of liberalism. So to be clear, we get Christian Culture’s three main stereotypes of blackness: the good one in Africa, the other good one participating in White Religion World, and the leftovers that probably vote Democrat. Bases covered!
The hotness rule for Christians is sadly broken when Mike Huckabee wiggles onto the screen and asks some fair and balance questions filled with common sense. But let’s get into the mind-bending plot!
In Christian Culture, teachers unions are vicious, self-absorbed enemies of our precious children. Teachers want fair pay, evolution, and, above all else, Common Core math. After the opening panoramic shots of my hometown’s wanting skyline, we pan to a teachers’ lounge where angry Democrats confess their hatred of children and eagerness to retire. Only one teacher actually likes kids, but I won’t spoil it for you. Unchurched Teenager, the daughter of Freethinker Parents, has grown up in Arkansas without ever hearing about Christianity. She asks Victim Teacher if Jesus is kindof-sortof saying the same thing as MLK and Gandhi, and so it begins…
This is the first moment of the film’s true brilliance. Victim Teacher explains that Jesus, MLK, and Gandhi all had in common an unflinching commitment to nonviolence. The director chose the one similarity that Christian Culture ABSOLUTELY NEVER GIVES A DAMN ABOUT. But since hypocrisy actually is a primary value in Christian Culture, the director knows he can slide that in like a family-values congressman slides into a bathroom tryst.
The ACLU has been waiting for a case like this for years, we are told—a direct contradiction of the scores of cases listed in the credits as being the basis for this story, but of course our daring director knows it won’t matter. During jury selection, the idiot ACLU lawyer accidentally blows his last juror strike on a Marine (soldiers being the paragon of loving, non-violent discipleship of the One True God) and is unable to knock Rev. Dave from the jury pool. “Many are called, but few are chosen” Rev. Dave had said of jury service, but wrong! You get to sit in on this debacle!
Opening Arguments: Did you know that “separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution? Zing! Checkmate, Atheists! I just about dropped my second beer, but I won’t lie to you; It wasn’t looking good for Victim Teacher until a precise PLOT TWIST. Instead of arguing for the right to proselytize to school students, they decide instead to argue EXACTLY WHAT ANY ADULT WOULD ARGUE, which is why this story would never happen in the first place: Jesus was a historical guy.
They bring in apologist-in-chief Lee Strobel, who delivers this delicious food for thought: the very fact that the court uses an A.D. dating system already shows how Jesus was important! Checkmate again, Atheists. They bring in the author Cold Case Christianity, a true-to-life real adult who claims he was never a Christian until he applied his detective skills to the Gospels and realized what every true cop already knows: Jesus was real!
Another clever PLOT TWIST erupts when God predestines Rev. Dave’s appendix to explode, requiring Edgy Millennial Girl to fill the jury vacancy. Though she has all the markings of a hedonist with her colored hair and tattoos, it turns out we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, guys, because one of those tattoos was a cross all along. Didn’t see that coming, did you?
There are only two ways this could end: either A) Victim Teacher can be vindicated, proving God’s Not Dead, or B) she can be convicted, vindicating the Evangelical Persecution Complex. The right path isn't immediately clear, so let’s weigh the pros and cons.
The downside of going with God’s Not Dead vindication of Victim Teacher is that it also means liberal, democratically-established jurisprudence wins in the end such that the film would clearly and irrefutably demonstrate that no actual persecution was at stake and the entire movie was a completely unnecessary fabrication playing off the baseless, aforementioned Evangelical Persecution Complex, which means the director would end the movie with a clear, abrasive insult to Evangelical Culture’s intellectual acumen which may or may not notice it has been taken advantage of for years and years by charlatans and psychotic paranoia stoked by 24/7 propaganda and the Christian Industrial Complex evidenced foremost by the God’s Not Dead franchise that fights imaginary enemies with no basis in reality and instead accomplishes nothing more than a means for taking advantage of people so that they will ceaseless fight for their own mental enslavement, do irreparable damage to their children, and ultimately ensure the eventual end of Christianity in America. What to do?
Well why not have your cake and eat it too? (SPOILER ALERT) In the end, Victim Teacher is vindicated, but (post-credits PLOT TWIST!) Rev. Dave is handcuffed and put into a police squad car to be carted off before the American Censorship of Anti-Gay Sermons Committee. Will he turn into a gay in prison? Will he sign a lucrative book deal about his experience? Will Huckabee stage a protest? Only GND3 (and hopefully 4, 5, 6…) can tell us how the story ends.
