The God in Godzilla

Pastor’s Epistle—July, A.D. 2019 C

What is it about Godzilla that keeps us coming back for more? I’m serious. Scores of giant monster movies have been made from the 1950s onward, yet it’s this particular gargantuan radioactive Japanese reptile that keeps returning to cinemas the world over every few years. Why? What explains the staying power and cultural impact of this seemingly silly premise? What nerve has it struck? What chord so resonates with audiences both East and West?

At their best, movies reflect the societal anxieties of their day, and the Godzilla franchise has been no exception. The original Gojira back in 1954 was a scathing commentary on the atomic bomb and thermonuclear testing. In the 1980s, Godzilla became a metaphor for the arrogance and recklessness of the Cold War. In the 1990s, he literally embodied Japan’s inability to come to terms with military atrocities in World War II. And after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the 2016 film Shin Godzilla satirized the government’s inability to deal with the ensuing crisis.

In generation after generation, this movie monster has symbolized human hubris turning around to bite us in our rears. As the 1977 song “Godzilla” by the band Blue Oyster Cult succinctly put it: “History shows again and again / How Nature points out the folly of Man.” Godzilla is Judgment—our own sins returning upon us to reap their just rewards.

In this he is not alone. Godzilla is a modern iteration of an ancient mythological archetype: the Sea Monster or Chaos Dragon. In mythology, as well as psychology, the sea represents chaos and the unknown. From it come both life and death, weal and woe, danger and opportunity. In Mesopotamian myth, the chaos dragon Tiamat first births the world, then tries to drown it for being unruly. In the Norse Eddas, Jormungandr, the World-Serpent, encircles the earth beneath the sea and rises at Ragnarok to bring about the end of the world.

The same creature, Leviathan, appears in the Bible—though in this case the chaos dragon is neither the mother nor the murderer of the world, but something added into the world in order to spice things up a bit. God makes Leviathan, the Psalmist sings, “for the sport of it.” The chaos dragon is Nature’s reaction to humanity’s sins. It comes to topple our towers, yes, but also to give the world—and thereby humankind—a second chance. After punishment comes redemption, after all. After judgment comes mercy. In fact, they are often one and the same.

And this is what I’m getting at. We love Godzilla because deep down we want to face our reckoning. We want our sins to return upon us, so that they may be dealt with once and for all, and the world thus given a fresh start. This is the mystery of God’s providence. Here below we often see judgment and mercy as separate things, diametrically opposed. But in God, perfect justice and perfect mercy reveal themselves as one and the same: they are both perfect Truth. And we encounter this Truth bodily in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The day will come, we are promised boldly, when there shall be no more separation betwixt heaven and earth, God and Man. On that day, Christ will lay all enemies under His feet and turn over the Kingdom to His Father, that God at last may be All in All. On that day there will be no more death, no more tears, no more suffering or injustice. On that day all of our sins will be laid bare, and every one of them washed away by the ocean of God’s mercy poured forth in the Blood of Christ. It will be the End of everything—not in the sense of termination, as though everything will simply stop, but in terms of renewal and resurrection, our ends and our purposes at long last fulfilled.

That, I think, is why we still love Godzilla. Indeed, one would suppose that a giant monster coming to stomp our sins at their source would be terrifying. But it’s not. It’s thrilling. It’s even—dare I say it?—fun. We want Judgment to come at the last, because that judgment is also God’s mercy. He will come and do away with all our evils and every ill. He will topple those things that poison our bodies, our souls, and our world. And then He will raise us up to a New Creation, a New Paradise, a New Eden, wherein God again shall dwell with Man, and all our sorrows give way to everlasting joy.

Or maybe I’m reading just a bit too much into giant monster movies. But it’s worth a thought.

In Jesus. Amen.