The God’s Not Dead franchise is an easy one to hate… but I like to give each film a chance. And sometimes that means ignoring its self-righteous, delusional take on American Christianity. The franchise tends to believes in the persecution complex of Christians and the far-right version of the faith. Hey, I didn’t say it was easy to look the other way.

God’s Not Dead 5 (aka In God We Trust) shoves David A.R. Wight – the franchise pastor – into the role of political candidate going up against evil atheist Ray Wise, the <gasp> ACLU lawyer turned congressman. Wight has to measure his personal faith against what his campaign advisers tell him to do… fight dirty.

I was keyed up to hate this film since the fourth film dug too much into Christianity vs. government. Faith is fine, just keep it away from government, especially when endorsing a particular religion. But this film merely sprinkles a little bit of its delusional take on Christian persecution. It’s there, but only lightly salted.

Mainly the film is about the little guy taking on a big braggadocio political operative. A David vs. Goliath type story… the little guy is a man of undaunted faith but (operatively in the script) not a Christian nationalist far-right goon. In fact, the movie really just wants to encourage Christians to vote… which I’m all for (even if the film <wink wink> is tacitly encouraging only one type of Christian).

But on the merits of what’s in the script, mostly this film is just a corrupt politician vs. idealist type movie. In that regard, it’s a fine movie that got me on the side of the little guy, even if he’d occasionally say something in a debate that made me frown. And even if the evil ACLU/atheist/demon Ray Wise was occasionally a nefarious straw-man.

This is the second best in the franchise, only behind the one that admitted the right is capable of having bad arguments and a persecution complex. It’s a reasonably entertaining film if you can divorce yourself from the sprinkling of right-wing propaganda. It can be tough, but taking it as a given, the film delivered something more measured and entertaining.

My apologies.

Score: 78