“Can God forgive us for what we’ve done to this world?”
This question is asked early in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, and it haunts the rest of the film.
The Question:
Will God forgive us for what we’ve done?
First Reformed is one of the best recent movies I’ve seen. While many would not call it a religious film, I believe that it not only qualifies as a religious film, but is a film that holds faith in the highest esteem. Taking place in Upstate New York, the film tells the story of Pastor Ernst Toller, a former army chaplain who has recently taken a the head pastor position at First Reformed. The Dutch-Reformed church is owned by the local megachurch, Abundant Life, and Toller is more of a caretaker than shepherd to the 250-year old congregation. About 10 congregants on a good day and is more of a tourist attraction than functioning church due to its history with the Underground Railroad.
At the beginning of the film, Toller is adrift and depressed, battling both his inner demons and God’s apparent apathy. However, things take a turn when a young woman approaches Toller after a service and asks him to speak with her husband. She is 20-weeks pregnant and her husband wants her to get an abortion because he does not believe it is morally sound to bring a child into a world on the cusp of climate catastrophe. The woman, Mary, hopes that Toller can speak to her husband, Michael, and get him to see hope in the world. Thus begins the story of First Reformed, a tale about the overwhelming power of despair and its ability to pull us into the black pit of hopelessness.
There is a ton going on in this movie. Themes include: the death of congregational churches in America, the rise of megachurches, the relationship between church, capitalism, and politics, and climate change; but at its core it’s a story about despair. Pastor Toller is a man who has lost hope. At the beginning of the film, he begins to write a nightly journal in a vain exercise to find communication with God. He is quite aware that his role at First Reformed is mostly as a caretaker and tour guide and has no sense of joy or purpose in his ministry.
It is in this head-space that Toller meets Michael, a man who has become obsessed with climate change and convinced that our world is headed toward disaster. However, this film is not about the detriments of climate change, even though those are quite real, but about despair. One could substitute Michael’s fear of climate change for fear of technology, nuclear holocaust, world war, any major catastrophe could substitute because the point is not climate change itself but the sense of despair it brings. Michael is lost in despair. He believes that the world is doomed and that there is no point in bringing new life into it, and as the film goes on Michael drags Toller into despair as well.
The Pull of Despair
There are many things about this film that I love, but the things I want to discuss here is the way it portrays depression and despair, because I found it so accurate to how I’ve dealt with it in my life. Despair is like a black hole. It has its own gravitational pull and can drag everything into it until not even light can escape. It has a way of sucking all the shape, volume, and structure out of life until you find that there is nothing left in life to enjoy. Despair is also rapid. You can be doing fine one moment and the next find yourself sinking into its black pit without any way of escape. It can also drag other’s into it.
Despair has a way of radicalizing you. Suddenly, thoughts you would have never had or thought to be abnormal and unhealthy become common and familiar. Behaviors you would have never dreamed of doing are now habits, and you find yourself in a dark, comfortable routine. That’s the scariest thing about despair: it is comforting. There is a sick kind of peace that can be found when you embrace that there is no hope. You no longer have a need to feel discouraged or disappointed because this is just the way the world is. And it is this worldview, this nihilism, that can lead men and women to do truly abominable things.
In the film, Toller rapidly declines into such bleak nihilism that it eventually leads him to acts of complete destruction, and destruction is the end of despair. It is never satisfied until everything it has touched is broken down into rubble. It is insatiable and only satisfied when it has consumed the whole person.
There’s a reason it’s called the pit of despair. It is hard to climb out of this trap once you’ve fallen in, and yet, First Reformed does not leave Toller in the pit. It’s message, while vague, is ultimately hopeful.
The Answer
I don’t want to spoil most of the movie because it is worth your time to watch it, especially if you are a person of faith, but I do want to end by commenting that I appreciated a film about faith that was honest about doubt and despair. Faith and doubt, hope and despair, they are polar opposites that tend to trend together. As Toller even states in the film, you can’t have one without the other. As Christians, there is a temptation to try to ignore to despair. Christ followers should always be optimistic and hopeful. But if I’m allowed to be honest, it is hard to feel hopeful these days. We are in a worldwide pandemic, racial tension is the highest it’s been in my lifetime, and my country is more divided than ever. I look at my daughter and often worry about the world she is going to grow up in and have to be a part of. It is hard to find hope. Yet, like Toller, I know hope is there, even if it is hard to see some times, because I know the answer to the question. God will forgive us, and I know this because that forgiveness is seen in the person of Christ, His life, His death, and His resurrection; and that makes all the difference.
It is hard to be hopeful right now. To many people, it would seem foolish to have any hope. In fact, without Christ I would think it would be foolish to have hope as well. There is a lot of bad things going on; it would seem inconsiderate to be chipper and optimistic. However, Christians are not called to deny the problems of the world. In fact, we are called to address them, to identify them, and to repent from them. However, Christians know that this is not the end. One day, all things will be made new. Christians have hope not because we are called to be blindly optimistic and not because good vibes make us feel better. There is a reason for our hope. We have hope because the grave is empty. Death has been defeated and one day we will live victoriously. Because of that victory, we can look into the pit of despair and not be consumed because Christ has pulled us out of it.
Will God forgive us for what we have done? Yes, in fact He already has.
In the Thicket 