+++ WARNING: THERE BE SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! +++

In this limited-release movie (read "movie shown where invited") the daughter Rachel goes off to college and takes a biology class with a professor who has the temerity to teach biology instead of religion in his Biology class. Rachel is confused by knowledge; she has never heard of this story of evolution before.

Rachel's father Stephen is very upset that Rachel seems to be moving away from religion. He goes to see Rachel's biology professor, concerned with the brainwashing going on in the biology class and Stephen ends up agreeing to debate the Professor on campus in an evolution/creation debate.

In the meantime Rachel is experiencing her own conflicts on campus with nonbelievers. Nonbelievers are universally portrayed as insincere, egotists, treacherous, and negatively worldly. Rachel is surrounded by people she cannot trust, people who are not at they appear to be, and boys who have a hidden agendas, unspoken sexual plans for Rachel.

Throughout Rachel's college struggles, the question postulated in her Biology class "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" continues to plague her. It's a truly vexing question for Rachel. Fortunately, rescuing apologist friend Evan offers Rachel a convincing solution to this conundrum. The chicken came first. Because, according to Evan, Life does not come from non-life...like that egg. An egg is non- life, apparently. (But later on I know that that unborn chicken will be classified as LIFE by the pro- Lifers.) Rachel is very comforted by this call to faith because the "call to critical thinking" was bewildering.

The film climaxes with what some people might consider a very stirring Christian sermon at the campus debate. Not a single bit of moderation of the debate, not a single bit of actual debating, not a single bit of true science offered by the biology teacher. And not a single mention of the fact that debating evolution and creation is an odd debate because evolution is a theory of change, not abiogenesis or the age of the earth or the big bang. But it is, rather, an emotional, triumphant music-laden call to faith and a comforting retreat from academia.

If you are looking for an emotional and sweet film to support your faith you will love this film.

If you are turned off by saccharine, false logic, and apologist baloney, this film will bore and annoy you.

I watched this movie out of pure morbid curiosity, as I watched it I began to question whether this was a Christian film or not... I mean it has to be because the disgusting lack of understanding of evolution, but then again, it portrays Christians as diabolical, manipulative, and ignorant as all get out... It starts out with a girl going to a biology class (why would a evolution denier study biology?), the professor seems warm and charming and respectable. Of course the portrayal of his understanding of evolution is off, but then again it was written by people who deny evolution. The plot then twists and turns for a good long while, with the girl being a typical college student more or less with weird shenanigans and chasing boys. It is peppered with really creepy scenes of the girls parents, and predatory boys just looking to, pardon the expression, "get their dick wet". It starts to get to some substance when the father of the girl looks up the nice professors name and finds him to be an evolutionist, oh the horror. The father decides he should talk to this Kaman guy and give him the once over for teaching his daughter, a BIOLOGY major, evolution. When he approaches the professor he chastises him for leading his daughter astray and questions the professors beliefs. The professor is very nice about it saying that if the bible helps the father then that is all that matters, the professor says that evolution helps in and that is all that matters. The father won't accept this and continues to berate the professor. When the professor comes up with what I think is a fair proposal to have a debate on the subject the Christian father freaks out and backs down. Big surprise. Then it gets weirder, and even more aggressive, with a student journalist creeping on the poor girl who just needs some space to find herself. He becomes aggressive in his pushing Christianity on her, and his bad mouthing of the nice professor. They try to paint the professor in a weird light trying to make him look evil, but actually portrays him as a reasonable and good person.

In the end if you want the run around of this whole movie it could be summed up in one interaction between a random student and the Christian journalist. The random student and the girl are discussing how people came from "apes", which again betrays the authors poor understanding of evolution. The creepy Christian journalist boy, again creepin on the girl stalking her, pushes his way into the conversation and then gives his incredible reasoning as to why we did not come from apes and I quote. Christian Journalist: "Does your mom look like an ape?" Random Student: "What?" CJ, aggressively I might add, "I'll take that as a no, does your grandma look like an ape?" This continues in a really mean way. I mean seriously, are you trying to make christians look like a bunch of ignorant bullies? If this is how you want your religion to be portrayed, that's fine, I guess... but man,I wouldn't want this movie associated with my religion and defending my beliefs.

In the end this movie feels more like a pro-evolution/anti-Christianity (especially with the speech made by the professor at the end) which is why i couldn't give it only 1 star. I mean really, it does a pretty good job of painting a disgusting picture of Christianity, their ignorance and their intolerance.

Some creationists insists that their position is a matter of science and not religion. This movie shows that's clearly not the case.

(Spoiler alert) "A Matter of Faith" is a Hallmark Channel-esque movie dipped in religion. A young girl Rachel Whitaker goes off to college. She enjoys her classes and makes new friends. For what appears to be the first time, however, she gets exposed to science viewpoints that conflict with the beliefs she's been taught that the Biblical God created the universe and all life. Her biology Professor Kaman teaches that, based on evidence - imagine that, life evolved over the course of billions of years from simple forms to complex forms. Rachel's creationist father isn't happy with this at all and goes to the college to confront the professor. The professor invites him to argue his side in a campus debate.

Along the way to the debate, a creationist journalism student argues that if your parents and grandparents weren't apes, you couldn't have evolved from apes - a laughable argument that swirled around during the Scopes Monkey trial of 1926. He also points out to Rachel and her father that another professor, Portland, was fired several years earlier for teaching Biblical creationism as science.

During the debate, Kaman explains that, according to Sigmund Freud, religion grew out of fear and ignorance of the unknown and fear of death. When things go wrong or disasters strike, people consider it to be divine punishment. When Kaman presses him to support his position, Mr. Whitaker concedes that he has no scientific proof of the afterlife and that the Bible was written my man. Kaman says, "So, your betting your afterlife on a book you can't explain about a god you can't prove." The scene is almost as good as Henry Drummond's confrontation with Matthew Brady in "Inherit the Wind" on the holes in the Genesis story of creation (hence the 2 stars instead of just one).

The former professor Portland then steps in with some worn-out creationist responses to evolution. He claims that laboratory experiments aren't enough to explain the development of complex organisms, that a designer was needed, that fossil records don't show the continuous development of life from one form to another, and that the Earth is not millions (much less billions) of years old (tipping his hat to the Young Earthers). Portland says what amounts to a concession that creationism is all about religion and not science, "The one who holds to Creation has his beliefs firmly rooted in the truths contained in the Bible and a personal God who created everything." He adds, "You can chance your eternity on the views of Freud and Darwin if you want. I'm putting my trust in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again on the third day." The debate ends with Kaman offering no responses to Portland, which is not surprising for a slanted movie like this one.

"A Matter of Faith" is obviously a movie for creationists. The lesson is that if your creationist viewpoint doesn't stand up to the mountains of scientific evidence supporting evolution and the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth, just respond by saying the Bible supports your position. Anyone who doesn't believe in the story of Genesis will either laugh or cringe at this movie. The movie was released in only 52 theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. It was so low on the radar that it doesn't have a Rotten Tomatoes profile. Were the producers worried that showing the movie to a wider audience might expose the weak arguments used to support creationism to widespread ridicule?