I’m late to the party, but I just got done watching the BBC crime-drama Broadchurch. The general setting is that a boy is murdered in a small, sleepy, English town that is the picture-perfect example of neighborliness and simple living.
Everyone knows each other and is friendly. There have been 0 murders in the town’s history. Yet in the death of this one boy, the entire fabric of society is undone.
One of the show’s main protagonists, Detective-Inspector Alec Hardy, is an outsider and a hardened man. The problem with the town isn’t this external attack (the murder of a boy), but what this evil does in revealing the actual lives of the people in Broadchurch. It’s not so much of the evil of the murder, but the evil within men’s hearts that brought this about. The murder of Danny Latimer reveals the intricate webs of deceit, malice, and lust that were formerly underground.
As Hardy says to his partner Miller, “Anyone’s capable of murder, given the right circumstances”. The theme of the show is a harrowing, and bleak message: trust no one.
I’m not going to say anything more about the plot, less I reveal something. The show is well shot, great dialog, and a masterful use of themes and symbols. However, I will discuss, with the most subtlety I can conjure, the thematics.
A major one is nature of knowing and trust. Multiple characters are surprised at what those who are closest are capable of and have done. And yet, at the same time, there is an unfathomable mystery in much of the actions. Things occur for reasons that baffle the mind. Emotions and feelings crop up without any explainability. Why one love exists for another is completely mystifying. There are existential motifs, but they are self-referential. “Because it’s there” doesn’t do much to let another into one’s mind, but it’s a near refrain throughout the show.
Alec Hardy is a broken man, and yet he sees rightfully where many would look away. He is unafraid of confronting the sickness in Humanity. A couple characters say things to him like “How do you sleep with your mind?” or “I can’t imagine being inside of that head of yours” or even “You cannot belittle my faith because you have none”. Yet, as I watched these words spill out in confrontation, I could only laugh to myself. As much as they are directed at Hardy, they’re pointed at me. I do not expect truthfulness as the common instinct of men. Lies roll effortlessly out of our lips in a bid for survival.
But in a dialog between a minister and DI Hardy, there is an interesting contrast that begs the question of whether or not it is an actual conflict of ways and means. The minister is horrified at the accusations and insinuations that Hardy is making. He, a man of faith, who acts as the hope and conscience of the town, cannot abide the state of suspicion that Hardy lives by.
But that’s the question: can one live in a state of pessimism, knowledgeable of human wickedness, and constant suspicion, and also be a man of hope? Hardy is dark, and Paul Coates (the minister) is a man of light. Hardy turns to evidence, Paul turns to a confused faith in the Almighty. Hardy believes human wickedness will continue to seethe, Paul believes the town can put this evil behind them.
But I’d argue Paul Coates stands in a sub-Christian assessment. He’s trying his best in a generally agnostic town, and seeks to act almost as a mediator between God and the faithless and agonized congregation. I appreciate a sympathetic angle for a Christian, but he’s woefully ill-equipped to deal with a Fallen World.
The question is revolves around this: can we have hope or is the World really a dark and haunted place? The Christian answer, despite the split in the show, is: Yes.
The Bible will constantly evaluate men as cons, as fools, as capable of great acts of idolatry, betrayal, and murder. The hearts of men are wicked, who can know them? This only, seemingly, should weigh atop Hardy’s assessment. Not only is world Dark in the moral sense, but also in the intellectual sense. We can’t understand what others do, we can’t even understand why we do what we do. There is a mystery of the World. We are perplexed when the covers are thrown off and our bubbles are popped. Things seem arbitrary, perhaps capricious, perhaps indifferent. We look for a reason, and we intuit there is one, but it is hidden from us, no matter how hard we dig.
Yet the Bible maintains this mystery. We are never given easy answers or philosophically arranged arguments for explanation. We are not provided with a ‘what’ or even a ‘why’, except in broad sweeps. However, we do receive a ‘who’.
God tells Job, not why the evils that afflict him happened. Instead, God poses questions and riddles to him. The ultimate reality, and confession, is that Job is only a man, and cannot even begin to reckon with God. But, the Sovereign Lord promises to be good, and to be on the move. Job walks away with a renewed trust in the God who listens and watches, and yea, even speaks and works.
It is this hope in an utterly faithful one, that gives us the ability to maintain both a suspicion and a hope. It is the twin reality that the Apostle enjoins us to: wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That we are to discern, and yet take risks. We see Jesus knowing full well the hearts of men and what they desire and are capable of, yet He, the only true pure One, enters into the fray. He will upend His opponents with questions, parables, and riddles, bringing about ‘dark-sayings of old’. He embraces His friends with affection, even with a recognition of betrayal and cowardice. He is able to bless Peter in one moment, but call him out as ‘Satan’ in another.
Jesus was not the “beautiful soul” of German romanticism, idyll and at bliss, and yet He was pure and righteouss. Jesus was not a grizzled killer, nor a Niebuhrian ‘realist’, and yet He saw right through people and called them out on their intents. He is the fulfillment of God’s cadre of prophets and martyrs, who manifested similar veins of wisdom and innocence.
It is only from trust in the Sovereign King and God that we can even take risks. That we might be purified by the hope of the resurrection, and yet crafty and wise to see schemes and lusts for what they are. May we be rid of the dichotomy.