THE BROKEN COMMANDMENTS: A replacement has been ordered.

Sen. Jason Rapert proudly announced this morning that the makers of the movie “God’s Not Dead” series of movies will contribute $25,000 to build another granite tablet bearing the Ten Commandments to replace the one knocked down last week.

Do remember, in response to the planned lawsuits over state favoritism of one sect of Christian religion illustrated by the Capitol monument, Rapert has claimed the monument is not about religion.

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From a Senate news release:

In the aftermath of the event, Bob Katz and Troy Duhon from the God’s Not Dead movie series contacted Governor Hutchinson to offer a donation that will assist in the re-building of the monument.

Kelli Crain from PureFlix Entertainment along with Bob Katz and Troy Duhon from the GND Media Group will present the American History and Heritage Foundation with a $25,000 donation during a press conference on Thursday, July 6th, 2017 at 11:30 am in the Arkansas State Capitol Rotunda. This donation will go towards the re-building of the Arkansas Ten Commandments monument that was destroyed last week. PureFlix Entertainment is the production company for God’s Not Dead. Katz and Duhon are the executive producers for the God’s Not Dead series. God’s Not Dead 2 was filmed in Little Rock in 2015, which was the same year the Arkansas State Legislature passed the Act which approved the donation
and installation of the Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol.

Senator Jason Rapert, President of the American History and Heritage Foundation, will be accepting the donation on behalf of the Foundation. “We are very grateful to Bob and Troy for reaching out to Governor Hutchinson last week with their offer of a donation in the wake of the destruction of the first monument,” said Rapert, “I also want to thank Governor Hutchinson for his support and I want to thank his staff for their assistance in putting us in touch with PureFlix and the GND Media Group.”

Rapert has said the first tablet cost $26,000. But he has a Go Fund Me campaign underway seeking to raise $100,000, with $55,000 already pledged.

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Not familiar with “God’s Not Dead: 2” filmed partially in Arkansas? Here’s Guy Lancaster’s review of the movie (“a Vagina Monologues for evangelical Christians,” he called it), with an excerpt pertinent to the times. The movie, which enjoyed state benefits in filming here, tries to make the point of state suppression of religion.

“The pressure we’re feeling today will mean persecution tomorrow,” says that same senior pastor. However, if there is a conspiracy to silence the free expression of Christians, or to prevent any discussion of religion from occurring in the classroom, “God’s Not Dead 2” fails to make that case. By representing a set of circumstances so far removed from reality, and in a manner so devoid of craft, it makes a laughingstock of any such claims of persecution. Instead, the fear that seems to underlie this film (and the previous one) is the loss of hegemony, the simple fact that religious claims are no longer privileged, immune from confrontation or refutation, but are subject to analysis and criticism from science, philosophy, history and law.

Persecution in Arkansas, where the legislature and governor gave official endorsement to evangelical Christian religiosity?  Don’t forget, too, that the man who knocked down the first monument is a professed Bible-believing, Christian college-educated follower of Jesus.

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