For a while now, we’ve known that actor Kevin Sorbo was hoping for lightning to strike twice with his new Christian movie (produced by Sean Hannity, who also appears in it).

He’s using the same formula, too. A few years ago, in God’s Not Dead, Sorbo played an atheist professor who finally accepts Christ after getting struck by a car.

And according to the trailer that’s now available, his new movie, Let There Be Light, is all about an atheist author who gets in a car crash and begins to reconsider Christianity.

Because when Hercules gains a following, you might as well make Xena.

If the trailer is any indication, though, this movie is one you’re all gonna love to hate-watch.

A few things worth pointing out:

1) Sorbo’s atheist character has a bestselling book called Aborting God: The Reasoned Choice. It’s the sort of title that could only be whipped up by conservative writers trying to mash together everything they abhor about Secular Humanists in a few words.

It’s also a weird cover. While it makes sense for authors like Richard Dawkins to put their faces on the covers of memoirs, atheists typically don’t put their faces on books about atheism. After all, it’s not about them; it’s about their arguments. This is the sort of book cover you’d expect from mainstream Christian authors like Joel Osteen.

2) I’ve never seen Dawkins do this.

That scene, by the way, appears to come at the end of a debate against a Christian apologist. The audience even gives him a standing ovation (after Sorbo imitates Jesus like that, I should add). I’ve been to a lot of debates. No one’s ever that desperate for approval, and no one ever gets the entire audience to stand and cheer for one side and one side only.

It’s almost like the writers are exaggerating everything to make atheists look as smug and arrogant as possible. But that would never happen in a Christian movie, would it…?

3) They had no room in the budget, apparently, to hire the usual voiceover guy to do the narration. I know Christian movies are usually pathetic rip-offs of secular culture, but I didn’t realize it extended that far.

4) We get it, Sorbo. You played Hercules.

5) The atheist character, as you’d expect in a Christian movie, has no nuance. He has no desire to volunteer, drinks himself silly, and is divorced and lonely. The movie sets it up so that his only saving grace… is grace. It might make for a more dramatic conversion, but it’s an unfair depiction of atheists, which is what we’ve come to expect from these kinds of films.

6) This is in the movie. Because why the hell not.

The end of the trailer suggests that Sorbo’s character comes out as religious on Hannity’s show. Because in this day and age, there’s nothing else newsworthy to cover, right?

…

One more thing. On the Facebook page for the movie, where they posted the trailer, a self-described Christian named Glenn chimed in criticizing the message and professionalism. He said it was “low quality evangelical propaganda” and that “the production quality is shit.”

That led to this incredible exchange.

Well played, Glenn. Well played.

The movie is slated for a Christmas Eve release.



