“I think God has sent me a message.”

In The Reaping, Hilary Swank portrays a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her family was killed. Sometimes when tragedy visits us, it can cause our faith to break, leading us to turn our back on the things we once knew and trusted.  In this case, Swank’s character becomes a world-renowned investigator in disproving religious phenomena.  Her journey and story seems much a continuation of the short-live television show, Miracles.



But when she investigates the not-too-subtly named small Louisiana town of Haven, she discovers that it is suffering from what appears to be Old Testament-type plagues.  As a scientist myself, I appreciate the struggle of reconciling the pursuit of facts with matters of faith.  Hers looks to be a journey toward realizing that science can’t always explain what is happening, and that sometimes faith is required to battle forces that threaten a community.

We all have faith—good faith, bad faith, or misplaced faith. Likewise, we all go through periods of doubt. When you know something, you can’t have faith in it because there is no need for faith. God is big enough for us to question, doubt, and wrestle with. In fact, He expects us to.

We continue to look for miracles, to see some true sign of God’s presence in our reality. They are God’s calling cards. We believe that if only we could have some proof-positive of God at work in our lives, in our world, then it would heal our faith and soothe our doubts.

In The Reaping, the plagues are presented through the lens of the horror genre (and, one might ask, how else could you see them?) and I look forward to seeing how the movie’s creators wrestle with the question, “What has God wrought?”