“That’s It, I’m Outta Here.” This was the real-life moment in which Lee Strobel had had enough of his wife’s new and frustrating religious insanity. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for his relentlessness and intellectual stubbornness, and Leslie’s new quiet fanaticism wouldn’t work in his world. Neither his audience nor his peers would be able to accept this version of tolerance. He needed to prove her wrong.

Lee Strobel applied his hard line of reasoning to every angle of the investigation to bring back his wife. Leslie herself was a wise, intellectual woman, and this trauma-induced pursuit of a savior could be very simply explained away with cold, hard facts. Lee Strobel wanted to regain his control.

This is the famous story of “The Case For Christ,” the film adaptation of the New York Times’ best-selling book written by investigative journalist Lee Strobel. The unfolding of this famous story on the big screen carries the weight of our culture’s most pivotal moments that occurred slightly below the surface of our typical news cycle. Argo, Snowden, Strobel. These are the stories of intrigue that change the course of lives far more widely than we realize at the time.

The story comes alive on the big screen with authentic tension and heart. While many screenplays aren’t able to bring the whole book to life, this movie actually dives deeper, bringing us more into the inner world of Lee and Leslie Strobel. We are brought in close as she deals with her husband’s angst, and we see a marriage in survival mode. She is at once unshakable and lovingly gentle. We see more dimensions of Strobel’s relationships with his Chicago Tribune colleagues, his father, and even the subjects [read: victims] of his other investigations.

“Possibly the most important part of the movie is the conversations that happen afterward,” Strobel said in our Dove.org interview. “I hope people invite their friends who don’t believe the claims of Christianity.”

In one of the movie’s pivotal moments, one of Strobel’s Tribune colleagues asks, “Do you really want to know the truth, or is your mind already made up?” This is the challenge no self-respecting atheist wants to face. We intellectuals celebrate proof, and science provides facts on which we can firmly hold our lines. If refusing to listen and investigate is proof of a closed mind, then anyone who rejects the whole story of Jesus of Nazareth should see this movie. These claims must be refuted with actual facts to prove Strobel as a fraud. I dare you.