Faithful Friday: Standing Firm-My Movie Review of God’s Not Dead: We The People
Welcome Back Readers~
Pureflix does it again, producing the fourth installment of the God’s Not Dead series; this one aptly subtitled “We the People” attempts to question the role of government in providing adequate education for our next generation. For those unfamiliar with the movie franchise, plot themes center around religious freedoms in public education arenas ranging from high school to college universities. Though a fictional scenario, Christians find themselves in similar situations- where they have to choose. Do they decide to stand up for their beliefs and speak out amid adversity or stand back and do nothing?
In the fourth installment of the franchise, Pastor Dave (David A.R.White) is motivated to go to Washington with the St. Jude community to speak out about their ability to homeschool their children as they see fit. At the same time, the opposition argues that such a Christian curriculum remains “antisocial,” “biased,” and does not follow educational standards, despite the McKinnon’s (played by Francesca Battistelli, Antonio Sabato Jr) evidence proving that their students scored higher on standardized testing. Finally, single mother, Taylor Hayes (played by Amanda Jaros) testifies how her son has benefited from the individualized teaching and become more outgoing as the weeks progressed. Audiences learn later more about Taylor’s story – how she is a widow and how her husband died serving in the Army to protect American freedoms.
In this movie, audiences will reunite with some previous characters introduced earlier on in the franchise. One such character is Ayisha Moradi (played by Hadeel Sittu), whose realistic portrayal of an Islamic Christian gives new meaning to the term “religious freedom.” The character represents those Christians who are either forced to live and worship in silence in third world countries or who are shunned because they refuse to deny their Christian beliefs in families that are close-knit and their faith is “inherited.”
Sadly, this movie highlights how fragile our freedoms are in today’s culture. Even in America, our freedom to teach our own children is threatened by the opposition to Christian beliefs. This threat erodes our liberties and attempts to force government teaching on every child.
God’s Not Dead: We the People is exclusively on Pureflix for a month (10/21- 11/21) before coming out on DVD shortly after. For those that are interested, you can enroll in a free monthly trial at:pureflix.com.