Kevin Sorbo: Churches must support faith-based films in culture that has 'ever-increasing anger' toward Christians
"God's Not Dead" and "Hercules" actor Kevin Sorbo has urged churches of all sizes to back faith-based and God-glorifying films, especially in a culture that has an “ever-increasing anger” toward Christians.
“I get stopped, and 80% of the time people say, ‘Please make more movies like ['God’s Not Dead'],’” Sorbo revealed in an interview on Abby Johnson’s hit podcast, "Politely Rude."
“It’s amazing — pastors will stop me and say, ‘You can reach so many people. I'm a pastor of a small church.’ And I go, ‘I don’t care how small your church is. We need your support.’”
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“I shoot 3, 4 million dollar movies. That's the catering budget on 'Pirates of the Caribbean' or ‘Avengers.' Those are $300 million movies," he continued. "The only way we can get these [faith-based films] out there is if we have the magic that we had for 'God's Not Dead,' where a $2 million budget makes $140 million movie. That was powerful word of mouth, and we need that. We need churches of all sizes to say ‘Hey, go see these movies.’”
The actor, who has been in the film industry since the 1980s, is the narrator of the new documentary “Before the Wrath." According to the film’s description, the documentary is based on true discoveries from the time of Christ and features researchers in the Middle East who've discovered new evidence that proves the prophesied Rapture is not only real, but why it must soon come to pass.
Sorbo described the documentary — which landed the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s "documentary" section — as an “amazing, educational look at the book of Revelation.”
“It’s a combination of pastors and priests and rabbis and experts on the Bible and whatever doctorates they may hold, plus mixed with 2,000 years ago, where it's during Jesus' time,” he said. “It goes back and forth ... it’s really cool how they did this, and how they tied it into the Old Testament and the New Testament.”
“What's cool about it is that anybody can watch it, even dummies like me can really get educated on the breakdown of the Second Coming of Christ,” he said.
LISTEN: Subscribe to the ‘Politely Rude With Abby Johnson’ Podcast on Edifi
The actor stressed that there’s no “hysteria” in the documentary, adding: “It’s just an interesting, educated look at the final chapter of the New Testament. And it's fascinating.”
Johnson said she loves the book of Revelation because it helps the Church have a “healthy” fear of the Lord. She noted that God has become “squishy” and “whitewashed” in today’s culture, with people focusing primarily on a God of love rather than on His justice and judgment.
“And that's true. God is love, but God is also just right. And I think the book of Revelation shows us that justice, and that helps bring about a sense of fear, a sense of respect of the Lord, and I feel like that's something that we're really missing in our society today,” she said.
Sorbo agreed that culture has an “ever-increasing anger toward Christians.”
“I don't really quite understand it, but you know they deny God. They hate God. They resent God,” he said. “I played one in 'God's Not Dead;' I was a college professor that was so angry about something he didn't believe in, and you see that play out all the time.”
“Atheism is a faith; to believe in absolutely nothing — if only Christians could be that strong in their own faith because that’s pretty powerful,” he said.
Sorbo also narrates the recently-released documentary “Against the Tide: Finding God in an Age of Science" and stars in the faith-based film “The Girl Who Believes in Miracles.”
The latter movie, Sorbo said, is about a young girl who hears her pastor say, "If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains." She starts to pray, and miraculous things start happening in her town.
"There's no walking on water, but there are things that happen that wake people up," the actor said. "I think miracles happen every day but we're so caught up on our six-second world that people don't pay attention anymore. We're too impatient. And I think there are wonderful things that happen all the time. This movie is one of those movies that make you go, 'Wow, OK, what a great little movie.'"
