NO! Satan is awaiting your arrival…

No, for many values of “us”.

Father, forgive us for what we must do/You forgive us and we'll forgive you/We'll forgive each other 'til we both turn blue/Then we'll whistle and go fishing in Heaven. -- John Prine

That movie feels like some sort of existential Synecdoche, NY style horror trip instead of an ordinary drama at times

I think the answer is a resounding “no”

If you believe in that sort of thing, then the answer is clear from the texts: forgiveness only comes from recognizing the sin, confessing it, and atoning for it. Mistakes are forgiven. Deliberate and unapologetic evil is not.

He’s probably really disappointed

there is a lot of media in recent years that have an undercurrent of "how do you deal with the end of America", and First Reformed is the poster child of this movement

Will we forgive god??

Is there a sense in which we could pose the question? Could "forgiving God" mean letting go of ideas about things that we think God has promised which God has not promised?

If god has the power to do something and won’t, it’s even worse than us not doing something. Because we don’t really have any power, but god does. Many of us didn’t want this to happen. Things like gutting foreign aid to starving people who don’t deserve to die. I can’t prevent it tho.

It was always supposed to be a team thing between heaven and earth. But here you go assuming, with the mocking lowercase term, that God had no right to demand that.

Well some people who don’t deserve it are being massively fucked up, and it would be good for someone to help who has the power to do it. If the deity wants to matter in our lives it has to try a bit harder otherwise I tend to think it doesn’t deserve the capital letters it’s demanding.

If the earth was the only place that mattered you'd have a complaint.

It matters to me.

But more than an infinitely larger life? The sufferings here aren't in vain. They are to force us to focus, if we are willing. Of course if we AREN'T willing....

They sure seem in vain. And it’s especially tragic to me when it seems those who least deserve these tragedies are the ones who experience them. I’m sorry, I don’t believe we are going to find common ground in this dialogue. There is prolly some kind of deity, idk. I see no evidence it cares at all.

As for “forcing us to focus” IDK how to do more. I am trying. I can’t make my neighbors care. But the innocent remain in awful positions they don’t deserve even a little bit. A lifetime of misery should not be the price to pay for heaven. That’s not fair. It pushes people away from religion too.

If you never look to a heaven (which lives in you first before you live in it) then of course you ain't.

Just looked this up. Do I need to pay a few buck to see this movie?

Been on a real Schrader kick again, this was fantastic

There's literally no one else in media I trust to understand the anxious hell of Reformed Brains than Paul. If you haven't seen The Card Counter, it's like Dutch Calvinist noir.

📌

Along the same lines, Mishima also does a great job of dramatizing the sense of self-importance found among dorks like Yarvin

I read this article and it's fantastic. Thanks for sharing it.

oooh boy that is great and feels really resonant to some of the discourse around fascism right now too

lmao I clicked the link without clicking the QT, read the piece, and just now went to QT your original post with "this has convinced me to rewatch first reformed" only to find that it was originally a QT of me...contemplating rewatching first reformed

we’re really getting the “old timers at the bar” routine down pat

so you wound up not being very convincing

similarly, I feel this all the time bsky.app/profile/flee...

bsky.app/profile/irho...

Due to a whole scapegoating complex, really.

I actually think Jerry Falwell et al were right in that I do believe God is judging America, just not for any of the reasons they thought

Absolutely. The empire of mammon imploding is going to be epic. It is like a weird theological sweet spot somewhere between fundamentalism and left-Hegelianism.

This is a Calvinist trope, but I would like to chime in from an Arminian angle and ask if we're dead set on being so enamored of sin that we won't let God have our selves, for heaven to begin living in them this side of eternity. God can't forgive if we won't embrace the Forgiver.

Much as I don't want to tar all of humanity with the sins of some, I don't think we deserve to even hope for forgiveness.

Hey that’s a cool time to see the post!

ominous

Only if we ask, and that would first require us to admit we erred. I fear America is too proud for that.

Even a vague sense of having erred is a better start than nothing.

"Help us better understand Your will with respect to the rabbit holes we have been jumping down when we should have been conquering them."

First reformed was the film that made me finally realize that Ethan Hawke never misses.

individuals who genuinely repent? i choose to believe the answer is still yes the nation as a whole? the bible includes plenty of examples of wrath being poured out collectively on those who commit evil, so no?

To repent as a nation can't mean perfection in any view, but to embrace significantly better ideas than before could be quite possible. We pretty well see obviously what's wrong with MAGA, but can we also lose things that make liberals brittle and have furnished MAGA with some kind of excuse?

As I believe I understand it as a liberal Christian, the applicable way of repentance would mean to significantly embrace whatever aspects of gospel ideals we are prepared to, and continue the process as it becomes more and more apparent and acceptable.