Jamelle Bouie: America is living with existential fear

The United States is in the midst of a second Gilded Age. For millions of Americans and for many young people in particular, the 2020s have been — thus far — a time of anxiety and dread, marked by social disruption, failing institutions and a deepening sense of urgency over the ability of humans to survive on this planet without destroying its environment.

But there’s not much in American culture that captures the dread and anxiety felt by young people and fueled by the looming climate crisis; the doomerism that feeds apathy, even indifference, about the future and what it holds; and the belief, still present and still potent, that something can and must be done.

There is at least one mirror that reflects this reality: director Paul Schrader’s 2017 drama “First Reformed.”

At 76 (around 70 at the time of filming), Schrader might not be attuned to the rhythms of modern American youth, but “First Reformed” demonstrates an uncanny grasp of the anxieties that pulse through America’s young people and, to some degree, the nation at large.

Like so many of Schrader’s films, “First Reformed” is about the existential crisis of a flawed man facing an even worse society. In this instance, the man is Toller, a Dutch Reformed minister at a dying church, played with Calvinist intensity by Ethan Hawke. As he struggles with alcoholism and works through a crisis of faith brought on by the death of his son in Iraq, Toller is asked to counsel Michael, a radical environmentalist who wants his wife, Mary (played by Amanda Seyfried), to get an abortion rather than bring life into a doomed world.

Toller finds himself torn between Mary’s optimism and Michael’s despair, between his faltering faith and a new prophetic fervor brought on by fear of climate destruction, between his obligations to his church and congregation and the moral sacrifices necessary to keep both afloat.

Sitting as he does at the emotional center of the film, Toller embodies the energy of the millions of young Americans who see climate devastation on the near horizon. He speaks to their fear, he speaks to their anxiety, and occasionally, he speaks to their hope.

“Courage is the solution to despair. Reason provides no answers,” Toller says early in the film. “I can’t know what the future will bring. We have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously: hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”

Schrader, himself raised in a strict Calvinist household, is channeling an age-old tension of American religious life, a dilemma tied to the nation’s Puritan and millenarian heritage. There is the fear of apocalypse and judgment — of a sinful nation in the face of a righteous God — and there is also the promise of salvation, atonement and resurrection for that sinful nation.

Ours may be a more secular age than the past, but as Schrader clearly sees, that doesn’t mean we aren’t possessed of the religious impulses that shaped our forebears. Some roots run a little too deep.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.