What a strange sort of faith-based drama: A movie about the diligent search for facts that the target audience doesn’t need. Based on the book by former
Chicago Tribune reporter Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel), it follows the atheist journalist on a quest to find the facts about the historical Jesus after his wife Leslie (Erika Christensen) converts to Christianity. Domestic discord ensues, and the story finds some honest, well-acted notes in the struggle of a married couple to adapt to a life-changing personal shift. But—not surprisingly—it’s all about how Strobel is the bad guy in this scenario, a proud non-believer who gets drunk and breaks things and has daddy issues that certainly play a role in why he can’t accept God. More ironically, the movie hinges on a subplot that shows how sloppy Strobel’s reporting could be, despite his willingness to set up an entire basement room with bulletin boards full of data like he’s trying to find the Zodiac killer. If the whole point of
The Case for Christ is not allowing pre-conceptions to cloud interpreting evidence, it makes you wonder why we should assume that Strobel got the story right this time.
By
Scott Renshaw