This week I have been teaching the philosophy classes at our school. Part of the issue we are discussing is the challenges to our Christian faith from the so called “academic community” especially as our older kids are getting ready to leave our Christian school and head off to the university. I have been trying to prepare them for some of what they will obviously face. Also, this past week a tragic bus accident killed more than 30 small children as they were being transported home after a church activity, leading many people to question how a just and loving God could permit such a terrible accident. As we dealt with these issues, I suggested the possibility of taking the kids to see the movie “God is not Dead” as this movie deals with many of these issues.
The school administrators thought the idea was a good one and quickly approved it. The next step was to write to Susy and make sure we could afford it, as renting the theater was going to cost more than $400. Susy felt we could do it, so I was off to make the arrangements with the administrators of the local theater. We secured a reduced rate for the kids and a special morning viewing, where we would have the theater to ourselves. We made arrangements to have the kids show up directly to the theater this morning, Friday, the 23rd of May. We decided to take all of our high school kids but not the grade school as we felt the movie content would be above the heads of most of the kids in that age group.
We had quite a few kids from our youth group ask if they could attend as well, and we approved that on a “seat available” basis, as the theater had only 161 seats and that was almost the exact number of students we have in our high school program. Several parents also asked if they could come with the kids and we told them the same thing. This morning everyone arrived and we began to check off our list and check the kids into the theater. Once all of the kids arrived and were checked in, we had a limited number of seats that we could give to our youth group kids and a few parents.
The movie is well done and does a very good job of dealing with the issues in a clear and well reasoned manner. The movie also shoes the imperious nature of many atheistic professors who claim to believe in academic freedom, but refuse to allow Christian students the freedom to believe. The movie covers many issues such as pain and suffering, creation issues, and the reality of evil in the world. Our kids applauded and shouted out their approval and appreciation on more than one occasion. Everyone applauded vigorously at the end of the presentation.
After the movie was over, we took the kids to a public outdoor plaza in the shopping center where the movie theater is located. There I spent a half hour going over the issues with them and discussing the movie. The kids were very interested in what I had to say and paid attention in spite of the many distractions. And they all asked me to express their thanks and appreciation to all of your who generously support the school and made this outing possible!