A Matter of Faith — Movie Review

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

This child is often late to the party when it comes to reviewing books, movies, and videos. In this case, A Matter of Faith is a movie from October 2014. God’s Not Dead, which I have not seen, was released in March of that year. I watched this one on 30 April 2022.

Irrelevant, but a fun surprise for me is that it was filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I know the area, having lived near there for several years.

Christian movies are like getting grub from the chuckwagon: depends on who is doing the cooking. The genre has a reputation for Pollyanna-style material and bad acting, and some of that is deserved. For example, the A Thief in the Night films that began in 1972 had a good message about the end times, but acting and production were often poor. If I recollect rightly, the last two were improvements over the first ones.

To be fair, the movie industry is known for being hostile to presenting Christians in a positive light, so enthusiastic Christians filmmakers work with low budgets and whomever they can get to work in front of and behind the cameras. Many are using actors who make no pretense at Christianity, but still do their roles in a professional manner.

Things are changing. While many Christian movies suffer from weak writing, it is incorrect to assume that if it’s faith-based, it’s going to be bad. Can’t be using the genetic fallacy and rejecting the entire genre, we have to judge them on their own merits.

Here’s what happened that brought A Matter of Faith to my attention. YouTube recommends videos, so I looked. The entire movie is available there on a channel supposedly owned by the Christiano brothers of Five & Two Pictures who made it. It can be seen on the cutely-named Freevee (formerly IMDB TV), which is owned by Amazon (an Amazon account is required to use it, but not the overpriced Prime). It is also on Pluto and Tubi. Note that selections change, so it may not be on any of those tomorrow.

I went to IMDB and saw that it had a user review score of 3.7 out of 10. Atheists were out in force to vote the movie down. It’s who they are and what they do. Some were saying “worst movie ever made”, and one hatetheist equated it with ISIS propaganda (hyperbole much?), plus other extremely negative claims against Christianity — especially creation science.

After all, they are compelled to protect their fundamentally-flawed origins mythology because it is foundational to atheism. Many of the reviews did not show any knowledge of the movie beyond having watched the trailer, but yee haw boy howdy, they sure did use the word propaganda quite a bit.

One sidewinder said it had the “same merit as a Jonestown Koolaid commercial” and “I think the purpose of making this terrible movie was to try to enlist new members to a rapidly dwindling cult using hollow logic and citing mythical situations as “proof” to support their weak indoctrination attempt.” I could triple the length of this article by examining the false claims and blatant hypocrisy of many reviews, but we need to move on.

Rachel Whitaker was raised in a Christian home and she is going off to college. Her biology class is taught by Professor Kaman (Harry Anderson of Night Court fame), who has an agenda. He promises that if students attend the classes, they are guaranteed a passing grade. That’s a mite suspicious.

During her first few weeks, Rachel is too busy for church or reading her Bible. Professor Kaman, being the caiman that he is, makes bold evolutionary pronouncements with “evidence” that is strictly conjecture, and Rachel is accepting seeds of doubt.

Her father, Steven Whitaker, is upset that Kaman teaches evolution. (Where has he been? The secular science industry and academia are saturated with people who have a worldview based on atheistic naturalism for many years.) Steve visits the professor to respectfully complain about the evolution-only curriculum. Since the college needs a topic for an upcoming debate series, the professor cajoles Steve into debating him.

One trick is saying, “Evolution versus creationism“, and when -ism is used, it has a negative connotation for many people. That was the title of the debate. However (and this puts burrs under the saddles of fundamentalist evolutionists), both creationism and evolutionism can both be used. Indeed, many creationists have no problem with the word creationism.

A professor with training in evolutionism and a passel of experience in public speaking will debate an inexperienced parent of a student. Seems legit. Actually, biblical creation scientists have a difficult time in getting their secular counterparts to debate. Their challenges are declined or ignored most of the time. If Kaman wanted a hot topic for debate, he could have found several qualified creationists who would oblige.

Please pay attention. Although the professor is an atheist and evolutionist, he say, “I teach what my textbooks tells me to teach,” then praises evolutionary scientists. However, parents who take solace in the fact that there are Christian teachers in the public school system are deceiving themself. The reason is that, like Kaman implies, the curriculum given by the state takes priority.

Another student named Evan met Rachel and said that he had taken Kaman’s biology course. He pointed out that Kaman has an agenda and tried to get her thinking.

Rachel’s father wants to get is message out to Rachel and other students. She is appalled — appalled, I tell you — that her father is going to do the debate. Professor Kaman won’t change his beliefs. Also, it will “ruin me on campus!” Apparently nobody considered the possibility that if Steve pulled out, he would be labeled a coward and things would be worse for her.

A glaring error in the movie is that it was claimed that Kaman teaches that we evolved from apes. According to evolutionary beliefs, humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. (The fact that our putative ancestors sure did look like apes apparently has no bearing on the situation.) The “evolved from apes” thing is something creationists should avoid.

Another weak point in the movie is something that should be discussed. Too many Christians and creationists attempt to defend our views with “memes” and clever sayings that would fit on bumper stickers, but are woefully unprepared in witnessing to atheists and evolutionists. These folks get slapped down by opponents who have learned their talking points and boilerplate rhetoric. Rachel’s father knew what he believed, but not why, and was unable to defend his position in the debate.

Kaman (if he had a first name other than Professor, I missed it) used rhetorical tricks including assertions, appeal to emotion, false definitions (including the common atheistic definition of faith), straw man, and more. He also used the category error of demanding scientific proof of God. While some may claim that the movie makers were creating a straw many with the way Kaman presented his arguments, other creationists and I have seen such things many times.

In addition, there are indeed professors who are openly hostile to Christianity and especially to creation. This Kaman jasper is a representation of many reports that drop down over the transom.

I left out details that would spoil the movie for y’all, but there were a couple of surprises. One had the professor giving what was said in the debate some thought afterward. There is no “everybody gets saved, let’s have a group hug” ending, but there were some unexpected events well as a couple of things that could be predicted by viewers.

A Matter of Faith was recommended by Creation Ministries International, Answers in Genesis, and others. It has some flaws beyond what I have said, but my agenda is to encourage people who watch it and keep in mind some of the things I have said. Ask yourselves and each other questions. F’rinstance, how would layman Steve have fared against Kaman if he had prepared from the numerous materials available online provided by creationists? How about if he knew and used a presuppositional approach?

To make the movie more realistic, they could have done a full, formal debate. (It would also have been quite a bit longer.) I mentioned earlier that Rachel told her father that he would not change Kaufman’s views. That almost never happens in a debate, although it may happen later. Good debates are for each side to present their viewpoints, and to see if they can withstand scrutiny. If you can spare 2-1/2 hours, I highly recommend the “Does God Exist?” debate between Dr. Greg Bahnsen and Dr. Gordon Stein.

Again, I recommend that Christians and biblical creationists see A Matter of Faith. They can spot some flaws, and learn about doing apologetics. Also pay attention and notice that evolutionists live by faith themselves. A link to the video was posted here, but I had to remove it because the video is no longer available to the public.

Startled by the Light

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

Not so long ago, I wrote a short article where I laughed at at myself, and my wife joined in. Sure, why not? It was funny. This one takes a different approach where my reaction to something would have been humorous if someone had been with me, but it is also an example of the design work of the Master Engineer.

The incident was simple enough. I was in the kitchen of our apartment rustlin’ up some grub. Suddenly, I saw a very bright flash on the wall out of the corner of my eye. We’re bein’ nuked! A few seconds later, I saw a box truck used by a major delivery company pull up to the curb on the wrong side of the road.

The truck had big windows just off perpendicular just like this one from Unsplash / Talv Bansal that I cropped and modified.

Too bad WordPress won’t let me put the image on the left and add the text to the right of it.

Anyway, a number of things galloped through my mind in a second or two. One is that I was drawing from memory. The “road”, as we call it, is actually a long driveway through the apartment complex. (Although it’s paved, I heard that the potholes can be seen from the International Space Station.) This road is like the side roads in the area where cars can travel in both directions. It also curves up an incline toward the back. Just then, the truck was being driven down the curved grade. People are not supposed to park facing traffic, but he did that anyway.

It was a bright sunshiny day, so the windows caught the light as he drove around the bend toward my building. The light reflected from the truck’s big windows, through our big sliding glass door, and onto the wall in the kitchen where I was standing. It was there for a fraction of a second.

All those details, and I understood what occurred in just a few seconds. The other thing that happened to me was even faster.

The flash got my heart a-pounding and I had a surge of adrenaline when I was startled by it. This was probably the “fight-or-flight” reflex kicking in, so I was finding the source of the light, but also ready to take action if needed.

My reaction is the humorous part of this. A related but far more serious incident where I awakened to keep from dying is at “Inner Survival Alarms“.

Darwin’s Flying Monkeys™ are content to say the rapid thinking that accessed memories of the terrain, weather conditions, the fight-or-flight (as well as the inner alarm from that other article) are all evosplained by the Stuff Happens Law. That is, “it evolved” followed by vague speculations and faith-based assertions without evidence. The logical conclusion is that evolution was not involved. These things are further examples of the work of our Creator.

The Galápagos Vampire Finch and Lying for Darwin

This was originally posted here, but Goolag (Google, the owner of Blogger/Blogspot, in turned owned by Alphabet) took it down along with several others. Then they changed their minds and “reinstated” it. No, they haven’t. Why am I not surprised?

It is indeed unfortunate that my final Question Evolution Day was such a failure (due to apathy of professing creationists), because in addition to supporting freedom of speech, QED articles had material to help people spot fake news like how the “vampire ground finch” proves evolution.

Credit: Flickr / Peter Wilton (CC BY 2.0)

Many critters are opportunists when their preferred foot is unavailable. In the wild, the giant panda uses its nasty big pointy teeth to masticate bamboo, but will eat other things, including rodents (they take a greater variety of food in captivity). Indeed, the lorikeet has taken a turn toward carnivory.
How picky are humans? Consider Proverbs 27:7. Nick Yemana had a comment about Japanese eating raw fish at the 2 min. 42 sec. mark here. My Scottish ancestors and distant relatives over yonder eat haggis, but I’m not fond of the idea. I think Americans ignore the ingredients of hot dogs and other sausages. The point is that when you need to eat, you make due with what’s available.

As for that vampire ground finch — the naturalism narrative is once again more important than actual science. It may seem like an ad hominem for me to call them liars, but the lapdog media for the secular science industry as well as the educated professional scientists have no excuse. They know better. This bird does drink blood to some extent. Darwin’s acolytes are calling it evolution, but that is deceptively conflating evolution with slight change.

Have any of those tinhorns ever bothered to see if these wonderful examples of evolution can survive on blood alone? Is there evidence of significant mutations or added genetic information? Do these birds show any interest in blood when their primary food sources are available? Not hardly! Meanwhile, biblical creationists have shown many times that the Master Engineer has equipped creatures to adapt so they can survive. 

These are the kinds of things that other creationists and I are trying to teach: We want people to learn how to think, not tell them what to think. Secularists are lying to us about science and evolution. They are also suppressing the truth about the Creator, which is compounding their wickedness. Yeah, I’m a mite irritated. Those finches stopping off for a quick nip of blood on their way home from work is nothing Darwin could be proud of, and this kind of evoporn is sucked up by atheists and other naturalists to confirm their biases.

The diet of most vertebrates tends to be specialized, but flexible in extreme circumstances. Humans decidedly prefer certain foods, but in extreme circumstances will sometimes consume almost anything, even urine and other humans. Some birds consume primarily seeds, others worms, yet others nectar or sugar water. Robins prefer worms and insects but, if they are unable to find worms, will consume other foods, like fruit, raisins, suet, berries, and seeds. Likewise, some finches favor seeds, others prefer flower nectar, pollen and insects.

Darwinists believe that all food preferences evolved, so why did the discovery that some finches consume blood recently merit headlines? The reason is (it is implied), that, historically, finches did not include blood in their diet but, in extreme circumstances, they recently evolved the ability to eat blood. Thus, evolution is occurring in front of our very eyes! The claim is “Scientists suggest the vampire finch evolved to drink blood to survive the volcanic archipelago’s harsh environment and scarce resources.”

To read the rest of this evolution-refuting article, click on “Why Does This Finch Drink Blood?” Yippie ky yay, secularists!