I wonder if Scott Morrison appreciates Ethan Hawke as an actor.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
If he hasn't already seen it, I think he'd find that one of the star's movies, in particular, would exercise his mind.
Paul Schrader's First Reformed is a film that doesn't just capture the zeitgeist; it shackles it and parades it around like an exhibit in some barbaric freak show.
The 2017 drama, starring Hawke as a conflicted Protestant minister who becomes radicalised after meeting a disturbed parishioner, is perhaps the definitive depiction of climate anxiety yet put to celluloid.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Hawke's Ernst Toller is convinced by Michael, a man in his congregation, that God would explicitly disapprove of humankind's degradation of the planet. Michael's partner is pregnant and he wants her to have an abortion because he feels the couple can't, in good conscience, bring a child into a world where environmental armageddon looms.
Toller's acquaintance with Michael ultimately leads the priest down an increasingly destructive path, at the end of which lies a suicide vest.
Schrader frames climate change as a kind of holy war, a battle not just for the planet but for the souls of its stewards.
There's a scene in which Toller is browsing the internet to educate himself on the full extent of man-made climate change. Images of the Great Barrier Reef flash across his computer screen, accompanied by headlines about mass coral bleaching. In processing that scene, what would run through Morrison's mind?
The prime minister's faith has been a topic of intense public speculation since he emerged victorious from the Liberal leadership contest more than a year ago. And no more so has it been a subject of interest than now, when the nation is in the grips of an unprecedented bushfire crisis.
Pentecostalism is a Christian denomination intellectually remote to many of us. And the elevation of a devoutly Pentecostal man to the leadership of our country has led Australia into uncharted territory.
Above all, Pentecostals place emphasis on the Holy Spirit, on the inherently supernatural elements of Christianity. Satan, to them, is everywhere, and Judgment Day is coming.
Morrison and his family are members of the Horizon Church congregation in the Sydney suburb of Sutherland. Much ink has been spilled about how the PM's religious beliefs might influence his policy positions.
Writing in The Conversation in the days following Morrison's reelection last May, Philip C. Almond, emeritus professor in the history of religious thought at the University of Queensland, suggested that the prime minister's faith may offer a glimpse into his true perspective on global heating.
"According to Pentecostal theology, all of history - and the future - is in the control of God; from creation, to the Fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, to the redemption of all in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ," Almond writes. "In turn, this will lead to the second coming of Christ, the end of the world and the final judgement."
"This is why further action on reducing carbon emissions to counter the environmental damage wrought by climate change may have little intellectual purchase with the PM."
In February last year, Tasmanian author James Boyce penned an essay for The Monthly in which he argued a similar point.
"Belief in Satan and the imminent return of Christ ... helps explain the prime minister's less-than-passionate response to the most pressing environmental issue of our time," Boyce writes. "It is not surprising that Pentecostal activism about climate change is non-existent - the end of the known world is not a matter for mere mortals to decide."
Morrison has copped an almighty barrage of criticism for his handling of the fires currently smiting Australia: from refusing to meet with a coalition of 22 ex-fire chiefs who had warned him that his government wasn't prepared to combat the growing threat of climate change, to jetting off on holiday to Hawaii as the nation burned.
Could it be that his faith prevents Morrison - who once brandished a lump of coal in the Parliament - from treating the threat of climate change with the requisite urgency?
In Schrader's film, calling attention to the existential threat of climate change becomes a matter of religious duty for Hawke's Toller. This perturbs not only the leaders of the megachurch overseeing the operation of Toller's ministry, but one of its main benefactors as well, the chief executive of a polluting chemical company.
Could it be that his faith prevents Morrison - who once brandished a lump of coal in the Parliament - from treating the threat of climate change with the requisite urgency?
Morrison hasn't himself linked his religious beliefs with his stance on climate change - at least, not publicly - and we can't presume to see inside his head. But the longer the Coalition refuses to take climate change seriously, the easier it is to see something of our prime minister and his colleagues in the fictional Abundant Life megachurch and its ambivalent donors.
I'd be surprised if First Reformed wasn't increasingly seen as an important film in the years to come.
Morrison should watch it. He just might learn something.