‘The Story of Everything’ counters the ‘scientific materialism’ in schools, producer Brian Bird says

The filmmaker best known for projects such as When Calls the Heart and The Case for Christ is behind a new movie exploring the intersection of faith and science – one he hopes will serve as a counterpunch to the scientific materialism so prominent in today’s schools.

Brian Bird rose to prominence as a filmmaker in the 1990s as a producer on Touched by an Angel and has been involved in multiple faith and family projects since then, including Captive, The Case for Christ and the Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart – which he co-created and continues to produce.

Bird’s newest film, The Story of Everything, is unlike the dramas for which he is perhaps best known, examining the scientific evidence for a designer behind the cosmos and exploring subjects ranging from the laws that hold the stars in place to the intricate patterns found within living cells. It is billed as a “cinematic exploration of the cosmos that reveals the hidden hand behind our universe” and is based on Stephen C. Meyer’s book Return of the God Hypothesis.

Meyer is among the scientists and philosophers featured in it.

The Story of Everything is in theaters April 30–May 6.

“Young people across the world are being indoctrinated into scientific materialism,” Bird told The Lion. “Several of my kids have gone to secular schools – and there’s just no stopping the freight train of scientific materialism. If your young people are going to college, it just is infused in almost every class they take. It’s sort of the underlying worldview for almost every class they would take in a liberal arts school.”

Meyer’s book asserted that breakthroughs in three realms of science – physics, cosmology and biology – strengthen the case for a Designer. It was published in 2021.

“When we read this book, it occurred to us suddenly that there is another way to help young people not see the world through such bleak eyes,” Bird said of scientific materialism. “Because honestly, when you throw yourself into scientific materialism, there is nothing but blind, pitiless indifference in the universe.”

Scientific materialism – the worldview that matter is all that exists and life arose without purpose or design – leads to despair, Bird asserted. It is essential, he added, that students are prepared to reject the beliefs of 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously declared “God is dead.”

When children and young people believe they are the “product of a cosmic roll of the dice,” Bird said, hopelessness is often the result.

“How can there be any meaning to our lives? How can there be any meaning to the universe? How can there be any purpose to our existence when we are a cosmic accident? And that’s what our young people are being told. No wonder there’s so much hopelessness and sort of just sort of this bleak view of everything.”

Bird labeled Meyer’s book a “giant knockout punch” to secularism.

The book and film are based on science – not religion, he said.

“It’s not dropping the Bible on top of people’s heads,” he said, but instead it “makes a case for design in everything.”

“And when there’s design in everything – that means it came from somewhere.”

Bird said the film was crafted to engage skeptics as much as believers.

“We are people of faith – but we wanted to do this story in a way that would make it bulletproof to the skeptic – and not [have people] see it as some sort of creationism in a tux suit.”

Meanwhile, Bird said the growing search for meaning among young people makes the film especially timely.

“It is a cultural moment right now. There are things happening right now. Young people are looking for meaning in a bigger way than we’ve seen in a long time. And I think this movie is exactly the guidebook that they need to start that journey.”