God’s Not Dead is the story of a young man defending his faith. He’s put on the spot and needs to make a choice to either stand up or back down. That’s the main storyline, but it’s also about how others are impacted by a person’s knowledge of God and Jesus and what their relationship is in that situation.
The film really touches people’s hearts because many have been in that situation or maybe they’ve never asked themselves the questions it raises. It provides the most important question to be asked: Is there a God?
Why We Decided to Make God’s Not Dead
We were looking at a movie to reach out and spur conversation with people about the existence of God and actually got the idea initially from surveying a group of pastors. We asked them, “What kind of content should we produce?” They came back with many good answers, but one of the consistent responses I saw is that many of the pastors said there’s a lot of people who don’t know why they believe what they believe. The second point with that was a lot of Christians feel very uncomfortable sharing their faith. That was the main thrust for making the movie.
The inspiration behind the setting of the movie dates back a few years ago. I was in a meeting at Pinnacle Forum, and Alan Sears from Alliance Defending Freedom was speaking. He was speaking about a young girl who was asked to do some things that went against her faith and got in trouble for not doing them.
That story put my jaw on the floor and made me think about how many students go to college as Christians and how few stay a Christian after they finish their four years. It was that story that inspired me to set the movie on a college campus.
The Inspiration Behind the Stories in the Movie
We wanted to look at the movie from several different angles and appeal to more age groups than college and career, which is where I got the idea for all these different storylines crashing together. It was a love-hate relationship with our writers, because they loved the idea, but it’s a very difficult thing making all the storylines tie in together. The original idea was to cover different storylines to help people see how the presence or lack of presence of God impacted each of the different character’s lives in the movie.
Why You Need to See God’s Not Dead
I believe Christians should go see this movie because it will strengthen their faith and help them question situations about how they stood up for or backed down from their faith. It will also encourage them to share their faith more.
From a nonbeliever’s standpoint or for somebody that’s questioning, I think it’s a great movie because they can view it through Josh’s eyes and learn some things about apologetics that they may have not known. It will also bring up some questions that might inspire them to find a bigger answer.
It’s the biggest question of all time, and so it’s very important for them to consider it. People are so busy in their day-to-day lives that they don’t always take time to consider what truly is going to happen and what they truly believe.
What this movie does is stop everything and put you on center stage. It makes you ask yourself, What do I believe? Is there or isn’t there a God?
Russell Wolfe is CEO and managing partner of Pure Flix Entertainment.
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