First Reformed: Glimmers of Hope Amid Harsh Realities?

Every once in a while a movie comes along that both challenges and informs us about the Reformed faith, and First Reformed, directed by Paul Schrader, invites us to think about a mysterious God who is above all and yet sometimes doesn’t seem that way.

Until now, Schrader, who wrote such films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and the Last Temptation of Christ and did the screenplay and directed such films as Blue Collar, Hardcore, and American Gigolo, has steered clear of making a movie about some of the positive, even redemptive, elements of the Calvinist faith in which he was raised on the West Side of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Schrader studied theology when he was at Calvin College before heading West in the late 1960s to make his fortune in Hollywood.

In recent interviews he has said that at the age of 72 and after years of knocking around in an often brutal and frequently faithless industry, he came to a place in which he wanted to make a movie touching on some core parts of the CRC ethos that shaped him.

Recently, I went with my wife and a few friends to see First Reformed at a theater in town. Afterward we sat in a restaurant and hashed over the film’s message. There were lots of opinions. Still, everyone seemed to agree that this movie got us thinking more deeply about our own faith.

As the film opens, the camera pans slowly across the stately white facade, topped by a cross, of a nearly 250-year-old Reformed church in upstate New York.

We watch as the camera moves in, taking us to the front steps and then into the troubled life of Rev. Ernst Toller, the pastor. We learn, as the movie unfolds, about the efforts of a pastor trying to reconcile the many losses in his life with the God who seems to have forgotten him. Toller spends his nights writing in a journal, trying to sort out his life, and drinking.

At the same time, Toller is something of a modern-day mystic. And as with many mystics from the past, we don’t really know if he is a seeker of eternal life or a guy on the sure road to hell, a man bent on self-destruction or a martyr, a saint or a self-absorbed sinner, a visionary or a victim of his own delusions.

Schrader doesn’t tell us. Still, with shots of Toller officiating at communion or kneeling in prayer beside his bed, the movie reminds us that being part of the Reformed branch of Christianity can have a strong pull and purpose in today’s world -- a world of toxic waste, ill-conceived wars, and spirituality that seems to lack any sense of the miraculous. In an early scene Toller asks his scant congregation a question shaped by  Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1: “What is your only comfort in life and death?”

Ethan Hawke, who plays Toller, said in an interview that one of his heroes is the 20th-century Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who wrote of the value of living an austere life pointed toward a God who is hard to define and yet whom we can approach in the solitude of our faith. There is a cloistered, monastic feel to the film -- a simple, frame-by-frame depiction of a pastor who can no longer live by the conventional, public norms of his vocation.

Toller is an outsider who is hurting beyond measure. We see the lines of his own suffering — the death of his son as a soldier in Iraq, the breakup of his marriage, the suicide of a man whom he was counseling — etched in his face. He is a former military chaplain who is ridden with guilt for many things, particularly convincing his son to join up and fight.

Pastor Jeffers, who leads the nearby Abundant Life Church that seats 5,000 worshipers and has become First Reformed’s patron, tells Toller that he spends too much time in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Even Jesus, Jeffers points out, didn’t spend all his time in the garden, “but you—you’re always in the garden. . . .”

To an extent, the movie’s plot is driven by the suicide of Michael, the environmental activist whom Toller was counseling, coupled with his own awakening to how people are destroying the planet God created for us to honor and preserve.

Another important plot element, giving the movie a rich and much-needed dose of humanity, is the pastor’s relationship with Mary, Michael’s widow who is pregnant with the child her husband wanted to abort.

But the plot is really more about Toller and a God who Schrader says can be only inches away, just beyond our reach. In an interview, Schrader, who has spent years enamored by sex and violence in Hollywood, said: “I do believe in the holy. . . . There is another world out there. It’s right next to us. Some days you can almost reach over and touch it, and that’s the world of the spirit.”

Certainly there are no straight lines in this film; faith is reflected in stark shots of simply furnished spaces and few words spoken. Toller’s views are not orthodox; he’s not in the mainstream of Reformed teaching. But that tradition, Schrader’s tradition, nonetheless comes through — usually through hints and inferences, such as the meditative shots of the sanctuary.

In addition, the movie reflects an important aspect of the Reformed faith, says Carl Plantinga, professor of film and media at Calvin College.

“In this we see the idea that to be Reformed we need to do something in this world” rather than wait for things to happen in the afterlife, said Plantinga. “I also think, though, that Schrader (in portraying this historic church with so few members)  may be lamenting the passing of Reformed Christianity in mainstream America.”

The film is driven by Schrader’s own questions and battles. At one point, he has Toller speak of Jacob, who wrestled all night with an angel. Watching it, we are uncertain until the end, just how Toller’s struggle will turn out. But even then we aren’t sure.

Speaking of the ending (don’t worry, I won’t spoil the particulars), Schrader said he is not sure what to make of it, even though he is the writer and director. Viewers have said it does leave a lot of questions up in the air.

First Reformed tells a hard story that skirts the edges of deeply psychological and spiritual themes. At one point Toller wraps himself in barbed wire. Like a crown of thorns, the wire bites into him, staining the white robe he wears. We ask: Was he identifying with Christ’s own suffering?

In some ways this films relates a complex theology told by a movie maker who has had his own share of hurts, struggles, and demons.

Yet, it also hints at a theology of hope. Early in the film, Toller speaks about hope to Michael who is clearly blanketed by despair.

“Courage is the solution to despair,” he tells Michael. “Reason provides no answers. … holding these two ideas [hope and despair] is life itself.”

Hope is a balancing act, he says. It is what life is about; thinking won’t get you there. And, it seems, this is a fragile hope that sometimes comes unexpected in the dead of night. A hope that can rise out of the most intense pain.

It’s a hope that comes from God — a hope that in the end might just save Rev. Ernst Toller.