God's Not Dead 2 (2016)

God's Not Dead 2 is both appropriately and logically the sequel to the original God's Not Dead. In God's Not Dead an atheist philosophy professor played by Kevin Sorbo requires his students to write the words "God is dead" on a piece of paper as a significant portion of their grade in a Freshman philosophy class. In so doing professor Sorbo crossed a line, and in retaliation for this God has him hit by a car and killed, which I think also crosses a line. So God's Not Dead 2 is very much in the spirit of the original film, and also crosses some lines.

Now there were many subplots in the original God's Not Dead film and the sequel continues some of them, the Chinese student who becomes a Christian, the atheist blogger who becomes a Christian, and the likable Christian pastor who I don't think we ever see preach played by David A. R. White. However the main plot of this movie leaves the college campus for a nearby high school where a popular history teacher with the hit you over the head name of Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan Hart) answers a students (Hayley Orrantia from The Goldbergs) question comparing the teachings of Jesus to those of Martian Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi who the class has been studying. Ms. Wesley's answer to the question is safe and logical and hard to argue with and wouldn't seem the kind of thing that would upset reasonable people, but this is a God's Not Dead movie so it does.

Ms.Whitney is put on trail for "preaching in the classroom" where her plucky local lawyer played by Jesse Metcalfe must do battle against a smirking ACLU lawyer who is basically the devil, in fact he is played by an actor who has played the devil on T.V., the always entertaining Ray Wise. I don't think it would really be spoiling the movie to say that plucky lawyer and nice Christian lady win the case, though the way they do makes very little sense, and would take too long to get into here.

Like the original film there are a number of straw man atheist characters, principally Hayley Orrantia's parent's, whose son recently died and who don't appear to be grieving much as they are evil atheists. There are also various subplots about put upon Christian's, including pastor White who refuses to turn the transcripts of his sermons over to the government for review. Now this subplot is inspired very loosely by something that happened in Houston a few years ago where some local pastors where required to turn over transcripts to the government for review. Now unlike in the movie there is a reason (other then presumed anti-Christian bigotry) why the Houston pastors were required to turn over these sermons, it was part of discovery on a case charging that some local pastors had violated restrictions on using their tax exempt pulpits to advocate for political matters regarding an anti-discrimination ordnance in the city. Basically that they were telling their parishioners how to vote, which could be a legal problem and something that should be open to investigation. So in short God's Not Dead 2 is not so much a film about how Christians are treated in contemporary America, as it is a film about how many conservative Christians feel they are treated in contemporary America. This disconnect is obviously a problem well beyond the movie, and I don't know how or even if it can be "solved". I do know that God's Not Dead 2  is a not a good movie, poorly done in a number of respects and intentionally inflammatory, though not quite as mean spirited as it's immediate predecessor. Still fascinating as peak into the thinking of a large segment of the American public. *1/2