The Road

I watched the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road last night and I was disturbed. I don't know why it is that movies can affect me this way, I know perfectly well that they are fictional but I can't help but think that there is an element of truth in what I see conveyed.

The Road follows the journey of a father and son heading towards the southern coast of America in the aftermath of an unknown disaster that has left the world almost uninhabitable. There is no food and one of the main obstacles for the father and son is to escape gangs that hunt other human beings because they have turned to cannibalism in their desperation.

The images presented are not overtly gory, but I found close-up shots of hooks not unlike those found in a butchery abhorrent because I knew what it meant. The most disturbing scene of all is one in which the pair break into a basement hoping to find food but instead find humans who have turned into total savages, eating each other and waiting to be eaten by those who have imprisoned them there.

It struck me as evil. Yet I do not think that cannibalism is beyond starving humans, history has already proven that. It seems like the ultimate proof for evolution and the survival of the fittest.

Where does the Christian worldview fit into all of this? There are comments made in the film that if God had made humans he must have turned his back on them long ago, for there was no humanity left.

Perhaps I think way too much. But I was struck by the darkness of the human heart, the potential for evil. We think we know ourselves. But in desperation, what would you do? What might you become? God knows. He knows us truly. And he has forgiven us for it. And for a moment I could not understand why. But that's grace, I guess.