The “God's Not Dead” series doesn't surprise anyone these days.
The series shocked Hollywood in 2014 when it grossed more than $62 million on a shoestring budget.
Recent disturbing headlines have given “God Is Not Dead” as much momentum as its deeply religious audience.
The fifth film in the series, “God's Not Dead,” will obviously garner less at the box office due to the diminishing returns of its predecessors, but that doesn't make the series any less meaningful to Christian conservatives and pop culture at large.
The first film, starring Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain and David A.R. White, gave Christians a rare, raw look at the culture wars. The story focused on a secular professor (Sorbo) battling wits with an evangelical student; unless the young man proclaims that “God is dead,” he will fail the class and his academic dreams will be dashed.
Critics panned the film; Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 12% rating of “rotten.” Subsequent films received similar panning from Critic Nation. Either way, Christian audiences lined up to see a story that reflected their worldview. Hollywood, by and large, did the opposite, then and now.
The show's durability is part of an overall thirst for faith-friendly productions that continues today: The recent Kendrick brothers drama “The Forge” grossed a staggering $20 million in just three weeks, more than mainstream fare like “Borderlands,” “The Crow” and “Blink Twice” have made. “The Forge” follows a young black man (Aspen Kennedy) whose life changes when he embraces his faith.
The “God's Not Dead” series also excels at tapping into the zeitgeist in unsavory ways: The 2018 sequel, “God's Not Dead: Sunlight in the Darkness,” explored clergymen under fire for using the pulpit to promote political causes.
The 2021 sequel, “God Is Not Dead: We the People,” dramatized efforts to halt the rise of Christian homeschooling in America.
In “In God We Trust,” lawmakers specifically target people of faith and demand that religion be kept far away from government.
If this sounds all too close to real life, that's no coincidence. Christians are routinely vilified in Hollywood, but real life is often much worse. Pro-life protester Lauren Handy, 30, said: Sentenced to nearly five years in prison He was arrested earlier this year in connection with the 2020 shutdown of an abortion clinic.
Meanwhile, countless acts of violence by the far left go unpunished. Church burnings It's common in CanadaCloser to home, according to the House Judiciary Committee, the FBI's “Richmond Memo” “Traditional Catholics are Potential Domestic Terrorists”
And who can forget when the U.S. government closed churches during the pandemic but opened liquor stores? The New York Times took notice.
No wonder “God is not dead” has not gone away.
“It's like [White] “Either he has a crystal ball or he's being guided in some direction,” Scott Baio, who co-stars in his latest film, God's Not Dead, said of his co-star and producer on the saga on the Hollywood in Toto podcast.
Recent disturbing headlines have energized “God's Not Dead” as much as its religious audience. But that's not all the story has to offer.
The series has provided jobs for actors whose conservative beliefs have alienated them from Hollywood companies: think of Caine, his latest co-stars Samaire Armstrong, Scott Baio and Melissa Joan Hart, all of whom worked steadily in Hollywood for decades before becoming openly conservative.
Neither of them are in supporting roles. In “In God We Trust,” Armstrong co-stars as a single mother who helps Pastor Dave (White) take down a ruthless Democrat (Ray Wise). Baio shines as the Democrat's right-hand man, a tactician willing to take advantage of any opportunity for his client.
Many conservative actors have stayed quiet for fear of losing work, and they have a point: Sorbo says the star's conservative Christian beliefs led his agent to leave him more than a decade ago, forcing him to create his own projects outside of Hollywood to stay active.
Oscar nominee James Woods is also an outspoken conservative, but he hasn't appeared in a major film in a decade.
When stars see like-minded colleagues busy with new projects, they may feel more courageous to speak up.
The “God's Not Dead” series isn't the pinnacle of cinema — the films are preachy and lack the flashiness of big-budget films — but they do offer audiences an alternative, and give right-wing stars a chance to do what they do best: entertain.
