Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
43. Professors & Propaganda: Debunking the Drama in God’s Not Dead
If you've had any exposure at all to evangelical cinema over the past decade, it's almost certain that you're familiar with the film God's Not Dead and maybe even the sequels it has spawned. Recently we (Naomi and Rebecca) watched it for the first time. Unsurprisingly, we have thoughts which we share in this episode.
First of all, we are very curious about the fever dream that must have inspired the antagonistic atheist professor's character; in all our years on college campuses, we've seen--and heard of--nothing remotely like the events that transpire in his classroom. From implausible story lines and cartoonish villains to racist depictions of non-white characters, it's a pastiche of what some conservative Christian filmmaker imagined is the social martyrdom any "true Christian" faces in higher education.
Unlike the fantastical two-dimensional characters in this film, we discuss the range of personalities and beliefs we've found in both college campuses and church communities. Ultimately, we conclude that the film reflects precious little about the realities of American college classrooms while unintentionally telling us much more about the dogmatism of the filmmakers.
Links to Sources and Resources
God's Not Dead (2014) - IMDb
God’s Not Dead: A Brief Review and Analysis
Did an Atheist Professor Test God by Dropping a Breakable Object? | Snopes.com
The Artist's Way: 30th Anniversary Edition by Julia Cameron
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 2:This is Naomi and this is Rebecca, it's been a hot minute, hasn't it? It has, so what's coming at you?
Speaker 1:these days. Right now we're having our fall break, so it's two days, so Monday, tuesday, so that means I have my Tuesday of classes this week, and so I have a long list. I've got like 10 different ways I could spend this time, I'm sure, catching up on things at home, catching up on things at work, catching up just on all the things. But last night got together with some friends and we stayed up till way too late chatting and just catching up, because it's been so long since we've been able to get together.
Speaker 2:That's exactly as it should be, though.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah, exactly, and it shouldn't have to wait till fall break, like it should be something we could do during normal times, but anyway. So I'm a little bit sleep deprived and I overindulged in cheesecake last night, but you know, it's all good, it was worth it. It was worth it. How about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much same. I always forget that this time of the year is busy. I mean, of course it is. This is when Holmes County has the peak tourist season, so at work. We're the busiest and I guess online classes at my college don't get fall break, Like it is unacknowledged in all my classes, which absolutely-. The injustice, exactly.
Speaker 1:Like seriously. I mean, in my experience professors need the break as much as students do. Like what I, I? I don't understand the logic there, but I don't know. We got some hard liners here I guess, and I, yeah, I don't understand the logic of a lot of online education. I'll just say I don't either.
Speaker 2:I don't either. Um plus, I am getting ready for my big open house that I do every year. And you know, because I don't get fall break doesn't mean my kids don't get fall break. So my kids have been home, which is wonderful, but it also means you know extra cooking and all the stuff and you want to spend time with.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then Chase is in soccer tournaments, which is amazing, and they're doing well. But yeah, so it's just a lot of good stuff, it's good stuff, but, like I know this, why am I taking as many classes as I am? Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Everything everywhere all at once. Well, and you know what? Here's the thing I think it's worth mentioning too. While it is totally legit to be a college student in midlife, if you're doing it alongside all the other responsibilities and realities of midlife, that's not what the education system was built for, like it was not designed for that, and so you're trying to do the work of like three or four people. So props to you.
Speaker 2:I think, unfortunately, this notion of a stay-at-home mom is this idea that I don't know. She spends an hour every day cooking and doing laundry and cleaning up the house, and then maybe an hour getting kids ready for school and home from school, and the rest is free time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if she quote picks up a part-time job, or if she quote you know, does whatever, well, she's got all that free time, like, come on, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when she does that, none of her responsibilities that take two hours a day at all decrease. Yeah, those stay. That tend to stay the same and I don't think for the most part, it's because of any ill intent on anyone's part, but I think that's how our system stays alive and at the end of the day, we all want wives, and I say that I mean yesterday Matt went and got groceries. Matt does an amazing job, he helps too, but a lot of the mental labor stays the same.
Speaker 2:Right, right, a lot of moving parts stays the same, and I can criticize myself for having allowed it to take me this long to get through school, but at the same time I'm like I probably wouldn't criticize a friend of mine for the same process. So just let it be.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Right, well, it's a boo to the system, not to you.
Speaker 2:Right, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So tell us what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:Well, this is something we've kicked around, I think, for a long time. The movie God's Not Dead is one that's kind of been on the periphery of my radar, but I've never watched it until this weekend. But it was the kind of thing that I saw in my newsfeed, you know, back when it came out in 2014.
Speaker 2:And just hearing the premise told me that it was a movie about what some people who had never been to college imagined college to be like what some people who had never been to college, imagined college to be like yeah, so Naomi has brought up the idea of us watching and then talking about God's Not Dead several times. And I kept trying to dodge the bullet. And last night, while I was watching it, matt came in and he started watching it with me and he's like why exactly are you watching this and what exactly are you going to talk about? And I'm like I'm like Naomi's trying to punish me, that's all I know oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry. You know what? I? I tried to talk Dave, my boyfriend, into watching it with me. The most I could get was getting him to watch the trailer and that's all he needed to see. And he's like it's going to be 80 degrees. I got to go birding. But here's the thing. I think this, even though this is clearly a problematic film, I think it would not hurt professors, faculty people in higher education, people working in higher education who are working with students from these kinds of backgrounds, from conservative Christian backgrounds, to listen to the film, to understand the perspective that students are coming in with, because I think there is a giant mismatch in expectations and I think that's what we want to talk about here today, because the film portrays college kind of in the way our worst fears, the way we saw it in our worst fears, imagined it.
Speaker 2:Right. This was why we were told you probably shouldn't go to college, because the end goal of higher education was precisely what the professor projected.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So maybe to get us started, I'll read a synopsis of the film that I read, just in case anybody who's listening hasn't seen it. There's going to be spoilers, so if that matters to you, go watch it first. But on the other hand, you can just listen to us and we can save you the two hours it takes to watch the film.
Speaker 2:We are much more fun than the film was.
Speaker 1:So I found a synopsis on a blog and I'll link it in the show notes. I don't have any knowledge of the writer of this blog, so this is not an endorsement. I thought the synopsis did a pretty good job, and so that's the only reason that I'm referencing this. I just don't want to unknowingly endorse something that's problematic, right? Okay, so here's the synopsis. If you have as many evangelical friends as I do, it is not unlikely that at some point in the last year or two, you received a text message that simply reads God's not dead.
Speaker 2:The reason for.
Speaker 1:Did you? I heard about them. I heard about them, but I didn't get one. I guess.
Speaker 2:Matt said the same thing and I'm like I got so many. How can?
Speaker 1:you not have gotten any. I guess they knew I was beyond hope. Maybe that's why.
Speaker 2:And to be fair. To be fair, if anyone listening, send it to me. I know it was done with love and absolutely just being caught up in the moment. I don't want to shame you. I feel kind of bad now, but I did maybe have a small. Well, I actually got quite a few. Yeah, discuss later why I think this is such, why it was such a bad idea. Okay, um come on.
Speaker 1:This was a publicity stunt, but anyway, move on, and a very effective, very effective and very profitable one. I think the movie had like two million dollars for a budget and it grew, or it it gross netted it made like 64 million. So somebody got very rich off of this. Okay, so the reason for these text messages is the recent movie God's Not Dead. At the end of the movie, the film going audience is told by renowned Christian thinker and star of Duck Dynasty, willie Robertson, to text their friends that God's not dead. It is the fitting capstone to a movie which is little more than every Christian apologist's greatest fantasy committed to film.
Speaker 1:Here's the movie's basic plot. A freshman college student enrolls in a philosophy class. The professor is a virulent atheist who, on the first day of class, immediately implores the students to accept a fact that all his sophomore students already have there is no God. He asks the students to write down three words God is dead. Of course, our freshman protagonist refuses to do so on the grounds that he's a Christian. The professor then tells the student that he will have to defend the existence of God. So basically, the rest of the film is devoted to him seeking out defenses for the proof of God, and it all culminates in a final showdown between the student and the professor. The film ends with spoiler alert the professor accepting Jesus on his pavement deathbed after being hit by a car.
Speaker 2:It was so, it was so ridiculous, was so angry. Sorry, continue.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think one way to kind of understand the structure of the film is I heard it compared to like a Christian version of Love Actually or I forget what the other film was. It was compared to like where it was kind of multiple storylines that were threaded together and eventually everything comes together. And I think our greatest interest is, of course, is the main one the professor, because of the misconceptions, all the ways that higher education is misrepresented in the film, and there's just so much to talk about, so many layers to talk about, and I thought it would be interesting to go through here and just talk about what are the things that it got wrong about? Higher education? Because these were the representations of college so many of us had before starting college. Like if we would have seen this when we were young, we would not have blinked.
Speaker 2:I don't think and it would have affirmed that, yeah, college probably isn't for us.
Speaker 1:College is not a good idea. It'd be a waste of time. Why would you go put yourself under that kind of ungodly influence?
Speaker 2:Right yeah, willingly, and while Josh, bless his heart, can fight this battle, what if I'm not as smart as Josh is?
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think it also creates this unrealistic expectation that when we disagree with someone, there has to be this winner and loser. What happened to just having conversations and being like? I'm not sure if I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Right, because that's one of the wonderful things about a college experience is hearing people talk through their perspectives and there's no sense that anyone has to agree and I can just say, like these questions that the professor in this story is so hung up on are just not interesting questions to most professors I know, to any professors I know.
Speaker 2:Well, and legally, I don't think a professor would be allowed to demand that his students do this. And when I was watching it, I was taking notes as I watched and I just wrote wait, is this what people think a professor is? I was trying to imagine myself as an 18-year-old who dreamt about college but had no chance of going. Is that what I imagined a professor to be? And I think I kind of did yeah, yeah. And I think I kind of did yeah, yeah. And so much of what he did wouldn't have been legal or wouldn't be legal. No, from my experience, it's the Christian professors who have treated me like this and have treated classmates like this classmates like this.
Speaker 2:Now, granted, I probably had Christian professors who weren't like that but I'm sure I had atheist professors who weren't like that as well but in my experience, it was the openly Christian professors who would have approached the classroom with this type of energy, and I would never consider writing a movie saying that this is how Christian professors act Like why would I?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, and also, you know, I guess I was a little bit surprised that there wasn't more to talk about in the film. Like I thought we were going to come away with a long list of here's, all the things they got wrong about higher education, and the list was pretty short just because they made the same mistakes again and again, and again, right, right, and it boils down to the the atheist professor is a complete a-hole.
Speaker 2:He's a jerk.
Speaker 1:He is a bully, he's dogmatic, he is cruel, he is just a horrible person. He's mean to his girlfriend, yes, yes, both in the classroom and in his private life, and it's just this. It's so one note. It's so one note. And there are a whole professors. There are professors who are jerks, like that is undeniable. But it was one note and that was it Right. Yeah, and the movie just kept making that point again and again, and again.
Speaker 2:Right, couldn't, I guess. I wonder if it had been possible for them to have and show an atheist who was actually kind.
Speaker 1:But then that would poke holes in their own logic.
Speaker 2:Right, right and eventually we get there. And to me that is really sad because it made me feel a bit defensive for my atheist friends, because atheist does not equate a-holes.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Any more than Christian equates a-holes. You got some in both.
Speaker 1:That's right, absolutely, and maybe we should just say here for the sake of anyone who hasn't Absolutely, and maybe we should just say here for the sake of anyone who hasn't read it, that so, like some of the things that are happening, early on we have this freshman, josh, who is enrolling in classes.
Speaker 2:And he's warned. He's warned not to take this class.
Speaker 1:Okay, Would not happen. That does not happen. So, first of all, like if you go to the, I mean maybe back in 2014,. No, even back in 2014,. Registration was not taking place outside under the leaves, under the trees, and even I remember registering for classes back before, when we were still doing it on slips of paper, but like you would get your advisor to sign off on it and then you take it to the registrar's office and they would type in the stuff and off you go. Like you didn't get an advising session from the registrar and right and every situation I mean every institution does it differently, but I just yeah, by this by 2014.
Speaker 1:This is all happening online and not yes conversations yeah, also the humanities requirement they said it with like it has all the gravitas of um, uh, you know, um, the rocket science or or, or neuroscience or something really specialized. And I'm sorry, like speaking as a humanities professor, we certainly feel like we feel very sorry for ourselves because we perceive ourselves to be at the bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to who gets respect on a college campus. And I am sure that I'm sure we're not actually, or I'm sure we are blind to those who are further down in the hierarchy. But I guess, when it comes to I mean, even on most small liberal arts campuses where you would think you would expect the humanities to be most valued, you're lucky if you get lip service to the value of the humanities, much less actual material support. I mean, in a lot of institutions they are weeding out their human.
Speaker 1:It's a shame. It's a shame. I think it's a huge, huge mistake but they are weeding out their humanities departments as fast as they can. And look in your own experience how many humanities classes have you had? Look in your own experience, like, how many humanities classes have you had? Like history.
Speaker 2:English literature, philosophy, art, appreciation. I'm laughing because it's been eight years or seven years or how many years I don't know, but I've had quite a few. You have, okay, I have. And the thing is, I was going to say this later, but it kind of made me sad that they picked a philosophy class to do this with, because philosophy is fascinating, but the part of philosophy that is so corrupt is the masculine patriarchal roots. Yes, and that was never acknowledged. In fact, when I took philosophy, I was surprised at how much philosophy and scripture kind of related to each other and scripture kind of related to each other.
Speaker 2:And if I would want to go to school for another 10 years, I'd probably become a philosophy major, Like it really is fascinating, like it's a class where you can ask all the questions, think all the thoughts and you don't have to come to a conclusion. Yes, and you can come to multiple conclusions and it's okay. Right, and regrettably to me, the movie never mentioned some of the atrocious roots involved in philosophy as being problematic.
Speaker 1:Right, well, and I like what you said about the relationship between religion and philosophy, because, yeah, you can't deny how intertwined they are. I mean, and I think it's kind of a chicken and egg situation, like how much of religion or religious thought, religious doctrine, came from philosophy, came from Plato and vice versa.
Speaker 2:And even when you think about the allegory of the cave. The entire time we were studying that, I kept thinking about the verse. Now we see through a glass. Darkly, darkly, yeah, like. There's so many hints and suggestions and references, and I think the fact that I know my Bible as well as I do made it even more interesting.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 2:So I want to emphasize the point that we should not be afraid of philosophy.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you do run across a dogmatic professor, it might be a professor who's dogmatic about no, that's not what this professor, that what this thinker is saying. Like it may be, they might be dogmatic about interpreting a text or interpreting a thinker, but like they're not certainly in a first year seminar course or first year or freshman. They're there to learn here's, here's what Plato thought, here's what Aristotle thought, here's what Augustine thought. Here's like. I mean so, did you watch? Little Sheldon, yes. Young Sheldon, yes, we're.
Speaker 2:Young Sheldon, young Sheldon. Why did they come up with Little Sheldon? Yeah, did you watch? Did you watch Young Sheldon? Yeah, so I had to laugh at the way in his first philosophy class it absolutely screwed up his head because he was so used to absolutes, and his professor did a fabulous job of being like who knows, but then, if I'm remembering correctly, she pointed out the fact that this is the exact reason you should continue studying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's more to learn and I'm going to suggest.
Speaker 2:This is why we need people who deconstruct and we need people who keep asking the questions. We need people who challenge what we quote know, because we don't know everything and life is a question. And can we be okay in that, Right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you get to that part of it, you're going to love it.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. Yeah, barrett and I are watching it evening One TV show we found that we both enjoy. I love you, sheldon.
Speaker 2:Love it. It's our one one TV show we found that we both enjoy, so I love you on Sheldon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great. So oh, and before we move on too far, from the beginning, one of the opening scenes of the film had the, the professor, introducing this list of names of great thinkers. And you know there was, it was kind of the list of typical suspects, and then in there among them was Ayn Rand, and like boy that did if, if anything tipped off.
Speaker 1:This is a film of propaganda. It is that Ayn Rand, like academics do not give a hoot about Ayn Rand. She was so rigid and black and white in her thinking the only people capitalists are the only ones who take her seriously. In fact, in her biography I remember reading about how she was really wanting to be accepted by academics and when someone did kind of try to bring her like to an academic conference and where she could, she was so offended by being challenged, which that's the whole point of academic conferences is to have discussion and to present ideas and then have people ask questions and discuss it. And she was so offended that her ideas were not just wholesale accepted that she stormed out and thinking they were all just turning on her.
Speaker 2:Right, she had to take it personally.
Speaker 1:You took it personally, doesn't?
Speaker 2:that sound familiar.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So once we get past that long list of quote unquote towering intellects, there's another line that I have here in my notes where this pompous professor says I'd have to empower them. And I don't remember. I wish I remembered the specific context of this, but it was something about. To me, that line was very clear that this is a.
Speaker 2:This professor is trying to disempower students well, he made the comment that he said in this class there's one god, and that's me.
Speaker 1:Oh my god yeah, oh my gosh, I can't. Oh, and it's so cartoonish, like seriously. Did they think anybody was going to take this seriously?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the one part and I think this line was in the first part of the scene where he had this argument in class and the professor said fine, you're going to have 20 minutes to teach the next three classes and prove your point. So Josh's girlfriend gets wind of this and, of course, she's the cute little blonde. They've been dating for six years and, spoiler alert she's angry with him because she thinks this is going to damage their future in some way. And Josh made the comment. He feels like God wants someone to defend him.
Speaker 1:I wrote that line down too.
Speaker 2:I struggle with this and I know it's kind of a popular notion. But why does God need me to defend him? I literally don't understand that and I'm not so sure that we have the urge so much to defend God as it is to defend our comfort. We don't want this house that we have carefully constructed to topple the house of cards. Well, I didn't want to call it a house of cards, because here's the thing I know many people who take their faith seriously, sure and don't interact within the world this way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I never want to disrespect that. I just think the things we feel the most defensive about are the things we often are the most insecure about. Yeah, and so I challenge this notion that God wants us to defend him. Now, in all honesty, if I was in a class, would I sign a paper like this? No, it is no damn professor's job.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Oh, it's a horrible pedagogy.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't sign it either way. If it was a Christian professor insisting that I signed God is alive or God's not dead. I wouldn't sign that either. No one gets to.
Speaker 1:Can I just say the only colleges that I have ever heard of requiring a statement of belief, signing on to a statement of belief, have been conservative Christian colleges.
Speaker 2:That's it, or Maranatha Bible School or Heritage Bible School.
Speaker 1:Or Calvary Bible School.
Speaker 2:Calvary yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so to be clear if I was in Josh's situation.
Speaker 2:And so to be clear, if I was in Josh's situation I would not be signing that paper either. But I wouldn't do it because I think I have to defend God. I would do it because it is so unethical.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, agreed. Could not agree more. I mean it's unethical for so many reasons and, in addition to the foundational reason you just gave, like it's just bad pedagogy. I'm like I think any professor who's doing this kind of thing, if their colleagues knew, they would be outraged, right, I mean, that's just lazy, that's lazy teaching.
Speaker 1:And do you know, watching this movie stirred some core memories for me and I started to do some digging because I was like, do you remember a story kind of like this that involved a piece of chalk? Say more. Okay, I have this memory. And hey, memories are fuzzy and memories are malleable. And so, with all those caveats in mind, it was like something from like some kind of Sword of the Lord publication, which is a fundamentalist Baptist publication, or something like that, where, like, I'm remembering typewritten text.
Speaker 1:So we're going way back in time here, but something about a boy at school and in my mind it was like, maybe like in communist Russia, but also, according to Snopes and the internet, it's also been USC University of Southern California. It's made the rounds and the professor says if you don't denounce God or if you don't yeah, it's been, it's made the rounds and the professor says if you don't denounce god, or if you don't, yes, a similar kind of thing, if you prove god is real, or if, if I, um, if I drop this chalk and it doesn't fall to the ground, if and it doesn't break somehow, that was supposed to prove the existence of god or not. And I'm I'm getting this all messed up, but hey, it's on the internet, you can find it if you want. And this one time, this one young man objects and the chalk falls down and, don't you know, it falls on the cuff of the professor's pants and it breaks. The fall and the chalk falls on the floor and doesn't break and the professor runs from the classroom in disgrace.
Speaker 2:Are you sure?
Speaker 1:Here's the unrealistic part it's not done yet. The unrealistic part, the really unrealistic part, is that the students then stayed for 30 minutes while this young man preached the good news to them.
Speaker 2:Okay, so are you sure this wasn't in a Christian Aid for Romania newsletter?
Speaker 1:It could have been. I mean, this is what I'm saying is like this feels so familiar, yeah, yeah, and of course, from what I was able to find, like according to Snopes, and there's like no one's ever been able to track down where this actually happened, like it was just it's it's a likely story, it's like it's an urban legend, but it's so. It has been around since the 1920s. Oh my yeah, but it's so. It has been around since the 1920s. Oh my yeah, it's been around since the 1920s. And I think it just ties in so well with the religiosity and anti-intellectualism of the United States.
Speaker 2:Well, and I guess my question is why do we so desperately need those types of stories to affirm us, and what about it is so affirmative?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it smells a lot like a martyr complex. The irony that here we have a country that was built around and in deference to the beliefs of white Christians and yet white Christians are claiming to be persecuted. I mean, even their stories of persecution have to be fabricated, because they are doing the things they're accusing atheists of doing. That's their MO, and instead, in propaganda pieces like this, they're accusing outsiders of doing what they do.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So of course Josh loses his girlfriend. I think that's where this conversation started.
Speaker 1:The girlfriend ditches him.
Speaker 2:No, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Did you have more to say? But I did have one thing I let I wrote down. I forbid you that was. That was a line that she yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think I wrote oh no, the girlfriend is ditching him and harassing him too well, you can see she's gonna be be an unsubmissive wife one day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then they bring Duck Dynasty into it, because of course they do. I was not expecting that and I'm trying to remember if I knew they would Like after everything, I was like, yeah, maybe I. But when they crawled out of the truck I was just like, oh yeah. But when they crawled out of the truck I was just like, oh yeah, and I thought the storyline of Amy was just so sad it's not the right word, even Like I almost want to go to poor taste.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, let's think about the inherent, the internal inconsistencies here. She's this leftist vegan who is in league with this horrible, horrible corporatist.
Speaker 2:And isn't she some type of popular influencer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's a blogger. I think she was one of the early influencers.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yes. Influencer, yeah, I think she was one of the early influencers. Yes, yeah, yes. And and also, did you notice how, like, when she was holding the phone up to the duck dynasty guy, like she was, she was holding it, like she was holding a gunpoint, right, which was I? I'm trying to find the words to say how perfectly awful this is. Like they couldn't, if they, if someone was trying to make a parody of a christian film, I like, what's the point of doing it there? It's, it's making itself, because the duck dynasty guys are. It's a costume, like I mean, they, they were, they used to be these guys in polo shirts playing golf. Have you seen those pictures? Yeah, I mean, like they are cosplaying rednecks.
Speaker 2:Right and they're cosplaying rednecks with the hot wife. Yeah, but my observation, and again this kind of made me sad. Unless someone was quote a seeker, they were kind of projected as jerks. Yeah, and just sad.
Speaker 1:Not kind of yeah. They were universally awful people.
Speaker 2:And as sad, like dismal people almost without dignity. Yeah, and that bothers me. Like if our perception of the outside world or of anyone who doesn't think the way we do, if that is our perception, I guess then I understand why we fight the way we do. I was going to say, if that's the perception, it's sad and it is Well, it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's Say more about that. When you say when you fight, when we fight the way we do, Can you say more about that?
Speaker 2:I feel like Christians constantly participate in this zero-sum game. We can't have conversations. Christians are mad at people who even deconstruct. No, if they're mad at people who deconst, deconstruct, no they.
Speaker 2:If they're mad at people who deconstruct, they probably can't handle a philosophy class right like christians are so often so attached to their certainty, to their rigid beliefs, to their, their, this idea of who god is and who god certainly is not, and anyone and anything that falls outside of that they can't just disagree with. They have to have this fight, with this battle of wits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they have to see themselves as being persecuted by that.
Speaker 2:Right, never suggesting or thinking about that. There may be hurting other people too. Yeah, maybe they're actually hurting other people too yeah. Maybe they're actually the persecutor. Yeah, like I did, I hurt other people. Yeah, I shamefully hurt other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, me too Agreed, agreed.
Speaker 2:And I wish we would, maybe, maybe we just all need to settle down just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing. My sense is that if we don't go into attack mode, if we don't go into spiritual warfare mode, the powers that be lose some of their power, like they gain control of their followers, their congregants, by keeping them in a perpetual state of warfare. People are just easier to control.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's so much fear is involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, scared people are easier to control. Right, right, and people who are very genuine and care about right and wrong and want to do the right thing get caught in that trap. Right, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's just. It's so unfortunate because I just want to reiterate again, just in case this hasn't been clear In my experience, professors at least in the parts of the country where I've gone to school and that might have something to do with it professors are incredibly nervous about saying something critical about someone's faith, to the point where I have had professors I mean you have too who are defending terrible things that religions do under the name of freedom of religion and it's under this idea of pluralism.
Speaker 1:This is just not an interesting conversation, this conversation that the Lee Strobels and the apologists Christian apologists want to have have this proving God is real or not these are just not even interesting questions to the vast majority of professors out there, to most academics.
Speaker 1:And what is interesting about this whole series, or at least some of the parts I'm aware of, is they take an issue and then it ends up shifting at some point and they have to make that shift and it's unrealistic and it's it's.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even make sense in the storyline, but they have to make that shift in order to get the conversation where the filmmakers want it to go. And what was interesting to me here in the film is when, again and again, the logic of it was if I can prove that there might be a God, then that somehow proves there is a God, and that or different times, when logic of the logic of creationists was projected onto evolution or onto science. And it's like no science understands. Academic research understands that all knowledge is contingent, everything we know is contingent on what we know right now, and that new information is always becoming available. So when we talk about facts, we're talking about well, based on what we have in front of us right now, and there's always the expectation that things could change. Where religion is saying no, things are this way, black and white.
Speaker 2:That's it and what I would love to see is Christians to be able to have better conversations and understand that perhaps what they assume is happening in academia or in the outside world might be a projection of their fears. And I think more often, in my experience, more often the dogma comes from the religious world, not from the outside world, and again, that's my perception. I am sure it also comes from the outside world, but in my experience that hasn't been the case. Yeah, the one part where I really got a little bit frustrated was when Josh wanted to play this notion that without faith and without God there would be no morals.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, yes.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about that?
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. You know I have had people try to tell me this. You know that if it, you know, if it weren't for the threat of hell, you know they would be out doing all kinds of horrible things. I'm like, no, I think you're selling yourself short. I think you're a decent person. I don't think you'd be going out committing murder and doing all these horrible things if you didn't have the threat of hell hanging over you, if you didn't have the threat of hell hanging over you.
Speaker 2:You know what's interesting the more I deconstruct this notion of hell and the idea of hell, and the more I let go of the fear of hell, the more seriously I look at what I want to do and what I want to be, because that's who I want to be.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And that's what I want to do. The more I deconstruct, the less it becomes about what I need to do, or what the right thing is to do, or what God wants me to do, because that can be fairly black and white and also awarding oh God saw me commit that good action and I'm going to get stars in my crown for it.
Speaker 1:Self-serving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've realized that I really don't think that thought process anymore and I just focus on who I want to be when I go to bed at night, and that's harder, that's more difficult, and I have found that it's not about the reward or burning in hell for not doing it. It's about the validation of connection and of not this notion of saving the world, but by just making the tiny corner of the world that I'm a part of better and acknowledging what other people do it for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about doing good for the sake of doing good, right, because that's who I want to be. Because of who you want to be, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm not waiting for some glorious mansion, yeah.
Speaker 1:Gold star, gold streets.
Speaker 2:I'm not like, that's not a motivation. Right, Right Right right, right, and Christians are actually the foundation of good morals. We've got a lot of crap we're dealing with in our circles. Lots of crap.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, of all the villains in this movie. The villains are all from within. I mean the, the, the behaviors that they projected on these villains are all their own behaviors. Yeah, yeah, I mean the dogmatism which we've been talking about. The complete jerk and that he was to his wife and our girlfriend. You know, he was incredibly disrespectful and rude to her. Which patriarchy anybody. And then you've got the muslim girl who I I just thought it was it was is incredibly xenophobic, but also like they had her getting out of here. She is in jeans, you know, know, dressed like a conventional American student, a college student, but then she's got the. She's wearing a headscarf that covers her face. Like I don't, I've never seen that. Like I don't know, I don't think that's a thing. I think if you're covering your face, you're also wearing the hijab.
Speaker 2:So Matt came into the room just oh, you weren't finished Finish what you were going to say.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's just a superficial thing, her father. I was like I thought he was going to be a good guy. At first I was like, oh, he sounds like the ideal Christian patriarch. He's saying all the same things. And then, of course, he turns out. Well, guess what? He does turn out to be just like the Christian patriarchs, because he throws her out eventually when he finds out she's a Christian. Except Christian parents are throwing out their gay and transgender kids.
Speaker 2:Right. And sometimes parents are throwing out their kids because they blow the whistle on abuse. Absolutely. This happens people. This happens Absolutely. And it was funny because Matt walked in while they were first introducing I forget her name and her dad in the car and he goes, whoop, whoop, whoop. Bad person alert, bad person alert. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:The body language, everything.
Speaker 2:We knew he was going to be a villain, even though he was saying all the and I don't know how to say this, but the way they use diversity with all the biases, just all the biases, it just reinforces, yeah, it reinforces.
Speaker 1:It's like almost worse than if it were just a pure white cast. Because then, by bringing in these, quote unquoteunquote, diverse backgrounds, all they're doing is reinforcing, just reinforced, their stereotypes.
Speaker 2:and because yeah, on one hand I was glad, okay, good, it was an all an all-white cast, but oi, the biases were there uh, it was so, so disrespectful.
Speaker 1:Um, I mean all the way down to the always cheerful, wise black man from africa, no less. Oh, oh, oh, um. And then also, uh, it was really interesting.
Speaker 1:How so this girl, the muslim girl, comes home from school and we see her getting out her iPod, ipod Nano one of those and listening to Franklin Graham, a minister by Franklin Graham, and she lays on her bed like she's listening to music and somehow this what eight, nine-year-old little boy sees the name Franklin Graham and knows automatically exactly what's going on. Right, right, because he knows the names of famous Franklin yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, preachers of other religions are, and then that was the basis for her getting kicked out of her house. I also noticed a lot of kind of spiritual bypassing when she did come to the church then, after being kicked out, and what did they say? Something like it was something trite and like God works all things together for good, or something like that, and it was just such a. It was meant to be comforting, but it was such a good example of spiritual bypassing, of kind of going yep, well, you know, count it all joy. I think somewhere that I think so.
Speaker 2:I think so too. You know the thing. That kind of struck me and I kind of had to like sit with it for a bit. So the Muslim father was physically abusive to her and literally threw her out of the house, but then it shows him sitting on the step sobbing afterwards, and I kind of sat with that for a bit because, in all fairness, I think my parents probably felt that type of grief too when I was disowned.
Speaker 1:Did they have this space, or were they connected enough to their emotions to express?
Speaker 2:it, and I think is it in how to Kill a Mockingbird, where she says something along the lines of the Bible can, in the wrong hands, be as bad as a bottle of whiskey or as damaging as a bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 1:Whoa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I butchered that phrase, I totally butchered it, but it's something like that. Butchered it, but it's something like that, and I think we've talked about it like parents who followed Bill Gothard and who did all the spankings and all the things it's not just the Muslim parents who get it wrong and are in serious grief about their wayward child. I think this happens in many religions, including Christianity, and maybe we don't have to be so divisive. Maybe we can be an example of what living peacefully with people we don't agree with looks like. Maybe love doesn't have to be or the Bible, or our truth doesn't have to be like a bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe skills like problem solving, skills like conflict resolution, I think often Even honesty, even honesty, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And reflection.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, are things that are just, they are not taught, or if they're taught, they're taught in this very hierarchical way, or what?
Speaker 2:does the Bible tell us about that?
Speaker 1:Right, and often the Bible's interpreted in a very hierarchical way. I guess what it's saying is like I think it is so unfortunate that well-meaning people aren't equipped with the tools to do these things like conflict resolution, and instead there's, like this suspicion of pluralism right, pluralism is a bad word in these circles the idea that you can have and this is the thing where Anabaptists should be leading the way on this- I know they should.
Speaker 1:Anabaptists were the ones who, hundreds of years ago, were saying hey, we should be able to choose our religion and we shouldn't all have to be part of the same religion.
Speaker 2:And we should live peacefully with each other.
Speaker 1:And what that has come to mean, unfortunately, is we all have to be the same or you can't be with us. Yeah, and it's really, really unfortunate because I think whenever we're talking about kind of dogmatic, tyrannical, authoritarian systems whether it's religion or politics or anything when we lose those skills, then it leads to all kinds of unnecessary conflict and all kinds of harm. And I think this is what comes out of having this purist mindset which, when we think that doing right or wrong comes down to following the rules of the Bible or rules of whatever or not, we get that very rigid perspective and that very rigid us versus them perspective on the world, versus living true to our own values and recognizing, yeah, others can live true to their own values too, and it doesn't need to threaten me. And that's just not at all encouraged by films like this. In fact, I wonder who do you think is the intended audience for this film? Is it non-believers? Is it rank and file? Who do you think you?
Speaker 2:know again. I don't know Because I don't know, because I don't want to in any way shame someone who found this movie helpful. Sure, it did have some good feel elements and I can see how, 20 years ago, it may have validated my faith.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, same.
Speaker 2:So my guess is it was probably geared to Christians who haven't deconstructed. I don't think that that is necessarily bad, but I think we have to figure out a way to do that in a way that offers dignity to everybody involved and honesty about who we are, not just glorifying the Christian.
Speaker 1:Right, because Is that fair? Yeah, I mean, I think more than fair. I guess I'm far enough removed from this worldview that I'm saying this more as an outsider to it now, but oftentimes propaganda is directed toward people outside the group. In my mind, this is propaganda directed to those inside the group. It's propaganda that is directed at young people going to college and it is teaching them to go in with defenses. It's teaching them that their professors are out to get them. It's putting them in an oppositional mindset and the bottom line is it's just not based on reality.
Speaker 2:But I think even broader than that. It taints our view of what the unbeliever really is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And what value the unbeliever has. Absolutely, and I wonder if it's not this type of propaganda that perhaps makes us disinterested in the single mom or the immigrant who can't speak our language, or you know whomever.
Speaker 1:It kills curiosity about any of those situations.
Speaker 2:And if someone is curious, oftentimes they're curious and want to be helpful in order to quote, show Jesus and if the person doesn't reciprocate quickly enough, they lose interest. The christian loses interest because they can't save them, and so they move on yeah, it's very colonist, very colonizing kind of perspective and guys.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what we accuse them of. Like we can do better, we we should do better. I mean, like I think we're obligated to do better, and the disinterest and the arrogance that I have seen so often from religious systems and leaders. That's why you're losing church members. That's why you have the dones and the nons. Why you have the dones and the nones, it's because they listened when you talked about Jesus being a humble carpenter and sitting with the sinners and eating with the people. Other people scorned, they took it seriously.
Speaker 2:They took it seriously and they're frustrated because you're not. Yeah, Josh, at some point gets in the professor's space and is arguing with him and yelled at him because he demanded them to sign these papers and to believe a certain way. And that was a valid point. That was an absolute valid point. But I had to think you know, Josh, so does your God. Your God demands as well. I'm wondering if what you view as your God you're kind of projecting onto your professor.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, and that seems to be what the film is doing, right Again and again, it's projecting the view of it's a very dualistic model where the assumption is oh, these atheist professors are just doing the same thing, we are just in reverse, and that's not true. And I think for me that was the biggest mental shift. For me was going from seeing things as two-sided to seeing things as having 27 sides, and the idea of demanding that someone pick a side like that is yeah, that's the purview of dogmatic religion, not education.
Speaker 2:There was no space for someone in the class just to say you gave me a lot to think about. I don't know. There was no space for someone in the class, just to say you gave me a lot to think about, I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:There was no space for that. And at one point again, josh was yelling at the professor and told him that what he's teaching is anti-theism, which is that was valid. That was valid. The way the professor was handling the class, that was an absolute valid argument. But Josh was presenting the exact opposite. And how was that better? To me, it would have been at the end of the movie or at the end of the class. Everyone in the class has to stand up. They were the jury. They had to decide. You know, is there a God, is there not a God? One or the other. And of course, every student in the class stood up and said God is alive. Was what they said? Right, wasn't that what they said?
Speaker 1:Or something like that.
Speaker 2:Not one person said hmm, I don't know, but I can't say with certainty that God is dead or I don't know. You've given me something to think about. Why is there not more space for that, not just in the movie, but in our circles? We have so little space to simply say I don't know.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think that lack of space for that kind of thing was a major point of my disillusionment that just asking a question, asking an honest question in good faith, was dangerous.
Speaker 2:Well, and for those of us who can't stop thinking, yeah, it quickly becomes apparent, or at some point it becomes apparent that there are some things we can't know. And the way it's oftentimes presented is if you reach that spot, you're out. And then they wonder why there's people leaving the church. It is so insane to me that much of religion is so, so slow and almost refuses to see how their rigid not just a rigid belief, but a rigid call to action or a rigid call to live and exist in this community, is what is pushing people out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right, and there's often this move to just double down rather than adjust.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about how much I hate the way they killed the professor at the end? Are we allowed to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Well, we already warned about spoilers, so why not? I was yeah agree yeah, so is he on the way to the concert.
Speaker 2:I think that that that where everybody's paths kind of everyone's going to a news boys concert because because it's 2014. Of course they are.
Speaker 1:And then he's on his way there and he's in an accident.
Speaker 2:The weather forecast had been clear skies, no rain. The black missionary had said it's going to rain and the white church pastor made fun of him for saying that because it totally went against the weather forecast.
Speaker 2:But oh look, the missionary was right and the magical, yeah, magical, mysterious very last minute the professor decided he was going to go to the concert. And he's on his way and just in front of the pastor. And well, the pastor and the missionary had stopped at a red light. It's raining, cats and dogs, and the professor crosses the street in front of them and doesn't let his car come out of nowhere and just take him out, but not totally take him out. He has three precious minutes to live.
Speaker 1:And while they're dying, the missionaries say something about this being a good thing. Right? Because, of course, as he's praying the sinner's prayer, as we all know he's going to do, in his last gasps dying gasps of breath the missionary makes some kind of remark about this being a good thing, which I. It strikes me it's like getting him to say the quiet part out loud, thinking that audiences won't criticize him out of a fear of it being racially motivated. It wouldn't look good to criticize the black man. And so the black man says the thing that the white people are thinking. Is that overthinking it?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean no, I can see how you got there. I think he was trying to say that it was a good thing because heaven's better than earth has been for him, and that, in actuality, he's going to be celebrating things we know nothing about.
Speaker 1:That's one way to look at it. Yes, another way to look at it is the bad guy I know Is taken out.
Speaker 2:And the most offensive thing here, the most offensive thing for me was literally, literally, as this was going on, as the professor was laying on the pavement in pouring down rain, barely able to breathe, duck Dynasty is at the concert on a screen and he does a shout out to Josh. He heard about this kid who took up a professor and argued him, and the next song is committed to you, this kid. And then was the call to text everyone in your contact list three words God's not dead. And this is going down as the professor is dying.
Speaker 1:Poetic justice.
Speaker 2:Like, you have to validate the win one more time. Yeah, one more time yeah while the professor is gasping for breath yeah and I think, and again, not shame anyone who participated in this, that is not at all what I want to do, but but it hit me as this idea of texting out these three words God's not dead is such a weak witnessing.
Speaker 1:Who is it going to convince, other than someone who's already convinced? Like, what impact is it going to have?
Speaker 2:Right, you know what's hard witnessing the single mom who's forever having car problems and doesn't know how to line up a mechanic, the kid who needs a babysitter, the friend who, once again, has got something happening, the person with mental health struggles, the person who believes a different faith, absolutely, totally different from yours. But you're trying to hold space for them too. I feel like we want to do these things to make us feel like we're doing something important and valuable, when really it's an advertising ploy for the people who are telling you to do it. It was absolutely an advertising, boy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know who was buying all those tickets Youth groups, churches, Yep yep, and then it became a contest to see who, like everyone, had to see it yeah yeah, yeah. But you know what, though that was brilliant marketing strategy, I mean I have to give them credit.
Speaker 1:I have to give them credit for that brilliant marketing strategy, because the only people that it pulled in were the people who were already going to be buying tickets or who would be interested in buying tickets. Yeah, talk about guerrilla marketing, because the filmmakers don't have to pay for all that free advertising. All that's going out on people's phones, boy, that's name of the movie.
Speaker 2:Let's be clear I have nothing but happiness for someone who finds peace with this and who finds comfort.
Speaker 1:Two things can be true. Two things can be true.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, two things can be true, but let's be honest about what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And let's listen, let's pay attention to what the people at the top of the hierarchy are telling you to do. They don't always have your best interest in mind. Sometimes they just simply want to sell tickets.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. They don't always have your best interest in mind. Sometimes they just simply want to sell tickets, absolutely, absolutely. And when you think about the example of Jesus in the New Testament, like he did, plenty of discourse and conversation, but it was with the religious leaders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was, it wasn't with the sinners. Yeah, yeah and it was, it wasn't with the sinners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the material support for people in need is just undeniable. I'm pointing out the inconsistency between what the Bible says and what the Biblicists say it says Right, and noting the giant gap between that's all. That's all.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I hope you enjoyed this today. I know it was convoluted and messy and all over the place and we told you the story so you don't have to watch it.
Speaker 1:Since this wasn't a very structured podcast, maybe we were able to keep you company as you're, you know, folding laundry or driving down the road or something like that, and if so, then mission accomplished.
Speaker 2:And if you did watch it or decide you want to watch it, we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts and like let us know what you think. And maybe we missed something, Maybe we got something wrong.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Maybe you have more to add to what we said.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's really easy to send that kind of response to us when you click the link in our show notes and can send a text message right through your phone and you don't have to go look up the email address if you don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:And, as a caveat, if it takes us three days or a week to get back in touch with you, it's not because we don't love you. It's because we're just, you know, in touch with you. It's not because we don't love you, it's because we're just, you know, doing all the things we are trying to keep our heads above water.
Speaker 1:But, yes, absolutely every, every note, uh, text, email is uh, greatly, greatly appreciated and is is is really the. The satisfaction is the payment is our payment, it's our payment for this hobby we have. So that really does mean the world. Something we've been talking about is reading the artist's way and then talking about it here on the podcast. I guess if we were better organized we might have like an official book club kind of something official. But we're just putting this out there, I guess to hold us accountable as much as anything that we want to do this, and inviting anyone who wants to read along with us.
Speaker 1:I have not read the Artist's Way. I'm familiar with it. I have heard talk about it, and so I don't know if I'm going to love it or not. Talk about it, and so I don't know if I'm going to love it or not, but it seems like it has content that could be valuable to those of us who want to write or want to have written, and it might be something we'd enjoy going through together. So until next time, take care, folks. Talk to you soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we wanna talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
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Speaker 1:Stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
