The God Who Wasn't There
Portrayed as a "guide through the bizarre world of Christianity", The God Who Wasn't There has generated significant controversy. According to the film's official website, the aim of the documentary is to hold "modern Christianity up to a merciless spotlight." The God Who Wasn't There, the website goes on to claim, is "bold and hilarious . . . and asks the questions few dare to ask. And when it finds out how crazy the answers are, it dares to call them crazy."
Issues argued in The God Who Wasn't There include:
- Jesus was a fictional character who was never based on a real human, but on previous, older mythic savior figures such as Dionysus and Mithras
- Christian leaders are reluctant to teach early church history because it supports Jesus' mythic character
- The letters of Saint Paul (which were written prior to the Gospels) did not recount most of what we know as the Jesus story and consider the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension to have happened in a mythic realm
- Christian doctrine often contradicts itself
- Moderate Christianity makes even less sense than a literal interpretation
