Some creationists insists that their position is a matter of science and not religion. This movie shows that's clearly not the case.

(Spoiler alert) "A Matter of Faith" is a Hallmark Channel-esque movie dipped in religion. A young girl Rachel Whitaker goes off to college. She enjoys her classes and makes new friends. For what appears to be the first time, however, she gets exposed to science viewpoints that conflict with the beliefs she's been taught that the Biblical God created the universe and all life. Her biology Professor Kaman teaches that, based on evidence - imagine that, life evolved over the course of billions of years from simple forms to complex forms. Rachel's creationist father isn't happy with this at all and goes to the college to confront the professor. The professor invites him to argue his side in a campus debate.

Along the way to the debate, a creationist journalism student argues that if your parents and grandparents weren't apes, you couldn't have evolved from apes - a laughable argument that swirled around during the Scopes Monkey trial of 1926. He also points out to Rachel and her father that another professor, Portland, was fired several years earlier for teaching Biblical creationism as science.

During the debate, Kaman explains that, according to Sigmund Freud, religion grew out of fear and ignorance of the unknown and fear of death. When things go wrong or disasters strike, people consider it to be divine punishment. When Kaman presses him to support his position, Mr. Whitaker concedes that he has no scientific proof of the afterlife and that the Bible was written my man. Kaman says, "So, your betting your afterlife on a book you can't explain about a god you can't prove." The scene is almost as good as Henry Drummond's confrontation with Matthew Brady in "Inherit the Wind" on the holes in the Genesis story of creation (hence the 2 stars instead of just one).

The former professor Portland then steps in with some worn-out creationist responses to evolution. He claims that laboratory experiments aren't enough to explain the development of complex organisms, that a designer was needed, that fossil records don't show the continuous development of life from one form to another, and that the Earth is not millions (much less billions) of years old (tipping his hat to the Young Earthers). Portland says what amounts to a concession that creationism is all about religion and not science, "The one who holds to Creation has his beliefs firmly rooted in the truths contained in the Bible and a personal God who created everything." He adds, "You can chance your eternity on the views of Freud and Darwin if you want. I'm putting my trust in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again on the third day." The debate ends with Kaman offering no responses to Portland, which is not surprising for a slanted movie like this one.

"A Matter of Faith" is obviously a movie for creationists. The lesson is that if your creationist viewpoint doesn't stand up to the mountains of scientific evidence supporting evolution and the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth, just respond by saying the Bible supports your position. Anyone who doesn't believe in the story of Genesis will either laugh or cringe at this movie. The movie was released in only 52 theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. It was so low on the radar that it doesn't have a Rotten Tomatoes profile. Were the producers worried that showing the movie to a wider audience might expose the weak arguments used to support creationism to widespread ridicule?

I watched this movie particularly because it received such a phenomenally low rating on IMDB. Most Christian movies take a lot of hits from atheists and agnostic and other pro-evolutionists, but this one seemed to distinguish itself with a full two points lower rating than the average Christian film. I had to see why!

Now that I have watched the film, I am stunned -- because it really is very good. Perhaps it is because it is that good it hits a nerve for naysayers.

It's a perfectly good film, good cinematography, good screenwriting, good acting and yes, it has a purpose to show that it is both unscientific and just plain wrong for schools and universities to teach evolution as if that were the only possibility. I heard someone say that it takes more faith for someone not to believe in God than it does to believe in God. That is true. Additionally, it takes more faith to believe in evolution and that humans came from apes and that trees, flowers, the sun, moon, stars, animals and humans came from nothing but an accident.

Bravo to the filmmakers. Well done! P.S. I don't really know if this contained spoilers or not so I said yes just in case.

It's been a long time since I last saw this, but I have thought about how similar it is to God's Not Dead, and so I am now not the biggest fan of this movie either. This is why I am rating this a 1/10, for the same reasons I rated GND 1 and 2 a 1/10.

A Matter of Faith follows Racheal, a college freshman studying to be a pharmacist. As a field of science, she must study biology in school.

Her teacher of course teaches evolution to the class, and her father doesn't like this. He privately and nicely asks him to not teach it to Racheal because he fears that it will make her lose her faith. The teacher instead asks him to do a debate, and the story progresses from there.

Like I said, this is a lot like God's Not Dead. Not to mention that they both came out in 2014. Both involve God debates between college professors and Christians who are associated with the public school.

One of the problems with the movie is this- if the Dad was so concerned with his daughter losing her faith in creation, why did he send her to a public school that would require her to learn biology?

Complaining that she is learning evolution in biology is like complaining that she is learning about angle degrees in Geometry! What I am saying is, if you don't want her to learn evolution, don't send her to a public school biology class! Biola and Liberty University exists, you know.

Another thing that's odd is how early the teacher teaches evolution. He begins on Day 1 with no introduction or anything. I took Biology in 10th grade 5-6 years ago, and we learned about Darwin's theory in Spring, right after spring break!

Why didn't she learn that "the mitchochondra is the powerhouse of the cell" before this? Oh, right. Because we have to get to the message that atheists are terrible.

In one scene, a classmate makes fun of Racheal for what her Dad will do, and another classmate named Evan asks him the classic "Does your mother look like an ape?" misconception. I'm a creationist myself, but I know that evolution does not teach that monkeys directly birthed a human.

It is lies and misconceptions like this about evolution and college that fill the run-time. This is like a reverse Inherit The Wind. While that movie made creationists look bad, this one demonizes evolutionists. Was this the intent? To be the reverse Inherit The Wind? I hope not.

And while it has a good ending, where a man asks the crowd to make peace with the other side, the previous elements can't make up for that.

In short, this movie is a Matter of Bad Storytelling, one that needs to be fixed if we want non-believers to be inspired to faith by the art of film.

Reverse Recommendation: See Kent Hovind's Seminar Series Instead. I reviewed the first 3 on my page.