"I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom: preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables." 2 Tim 4:1-4

Sorry to disagree, but when an offense is made against the gospel, every Christian is charged to defend that gospel. Rewriting a convenient view of God doesn't change Him. He is eternal and unchanging. Trying to create Him in the image we prefer rather than one of Scripture is idolatry. We love Him and obey Him as He commands and I believe He does celebrate that, but not disobedience and inaccurate representations of who His Word. He defends Himself through His Word and our testimony.

I love Morgan Freeman's line (as God) - "Let's just say that whatever I do, I do it because I love you." Those words spoke to me when I watched the film.

In fact, I hope He does the victory dance in His watching of this movie - a God who laughs and smiles and dances with us is quite a refreshing reprieve from the portrayal of Him as a Master who only directs us and tells us what to do in a blunt and harsh manner and we are but servants who carry out His will.

There's hopefully a middle-ground here. I'd like to believe God gains so much pleasure from giving us direction that, when we do understand and follow His leading, He's smiling and laughing in approval and ready to dance a dance with us. If that's "blasphemy" then I sure wish some of the church who likes to complain would try it. They might find it quite refreshing and would spend more time doing something other than bashing a movie that positively reflects an all-knowing and loving God.

5) When you don't understand the point of why God is doing something, you often react in a negative and poor manner. Many times it comes out in religiousity and ignorance. Just because we don't know God's angle on things doesn't mean we should ignore His direction. The same can be said of this movie. I believe the producers and director, Steve Oedekerk, knew WHY they were doing this movie and didn't feel like they were having to teach a Sunday School lesson. The fact that they didn't give everyone a blueprint of how to disect and believe leaves it up to us to glean from it what we will. I would say to Amy and anyone else who feels the need to defend God to let it alone - I'm pretty sure God can defend Himself and He will when He's being attacked. That's not happening in Evan Almighty.

3)If you can't just stop and laugh at some of the things that God allows to happen to us here on earth, then you're wound too tight and life here just ain't as fun as it should be. The fact that Evan's vain and conceited character had to be totally flipped out of his comfort zone in order to obey and understand God's calling for him was not only hilarious but left me with chills up my spine b/c of the spiritual truth hidden in that humor - that being, God will do what God wants, WHEN He wants to and if you're the vessel He wants to use, then He's going to use you.
4) That said, I don't believe God will FORCE His will on anyone. If you want to split hairs, then that would be it. It could be interpreted that was forcing His will on Evan. HOWEVER, I chose to believe that God KNEW Evan would come through and willingly see this was the right thing to do, thus, he was choosing to do this out of his free will, with a BIG nudge, but I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't seen it.

1) In NO way was God mocked or made lesser than He truly is. In fact, I really related to Evan's pessimism of "God calling him to build an ark for no reason". Don't we all doubt from time to time that God is telling us to do something big for His sake, esp. when there's no clear reason WHY He would tell us this? I LOVED that God had a bigger plan for Evan and wouldn't tell him the "hows or whys" yet, but just that a flood was coming and he was going to use Evan to save people.
2) Just because God told Evan there was going to be a flood didn't mean He was flooding the earth. Why do people assume that this is "God re-flooding the earth after He said He'd never do it again"? Even cooler is at the end of the big finish, the director put in a rainbow just to emphasize the point that this wasn't a bashing of God. I LOVED that.

I noticed in one comment that the writer said the movie did add up to the account in Genesis due to the fact the God promised he wouldn't flood the entire earth again. Well that doesn't happen in the movie. It is a wonderful movie with a great message. Don't knock it until you watch it!

There are several disturbing items I find in the article, especially being posted on Crosswalk. First and foremost, I noticed a reference on the first page about wanting to stay true to the Genesis account and the link takes you to Genesis 6. There is no mention of Genesis 9:15 at the end of the account of Noah and the Ark where God makes a covenant with His people, never to flood the earth to destroy people and animals. Has this movie's God decided to break His covenant? It also seems unfortunate to note the focus on the green side of this movie and saving the earth, rather than the opportunity to save the lost. I would have hoped this would be the primary focus of articles here on Crosswalk. I come here to see how today's movies connect with my faith, not with the world. I am concerned when we ignore the impact of media which negates the truth of God's word.

It's great that the modern day twist on this biblical story will reach so many people and the message of social responsibility and respect for all life is fantastic.

It's unfortunately, though, that hundreds of live exotic animals were used in production when exclusively CGI animals could have been used instead.

Birds & Animals Unlimited supplied a number of animals for this film; The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued several official warnings to Birds & Animals, including its chronic failure to comply with veterinary care requirements, failing to provide shelter from heat and sunlight, and failure to maintain enclosures to prevent escape.

Additionaly, trainer Sid Yost provided a chimpanzee for Evan Almighty. Yost recently surrendered his chimpanzees to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act and California anti-cruelty statutes. A primatologist who worked for Yost for 14 months also reported that she witnessed routine beatings of the chimps.