Aprops of the film First Reformed, a writer for Movieguide.org avers that “the movie’s politically correct leftist politics . . . are easily refuted by any person who’s done some research on those topics.”  I do not doubt the reality of such refutation, but Paul Schrader is not really standing up for leftist politics in the film any more than he’s standing up for right-wing politics.  And the observation that “the movie’s very last scene is just silly and anti-climactic, if not stupid” is one I disagree with because the ending seems morally justified and not altogether different from what occurs in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.  Indeed, it is an idiosyncratic Christian ending.

These criticisms appear on the same Christian website that, some years ago, hotly condemned an obscure documentary (I can’t remember the title) that endorsed the idea of universal salvation.  To support its view, Movieguide.org presented John 12:31-36 without analysis, without translating any original Greek word, without sufficiency.  Why, the site is more flawed than First Reformed.