Despite what you think, this post isn’t about me, although the title might imply that. It’s about a Netflix series called The Sinner which my wife and I have recently been watching. We just finished season 3, and I learned season 4 is coming to Netflix this week. The show stars Bull Pullman as Detective Harry Ambrose, an emotionally scarred detective, thus the title, and he has the perfect vibe for the character. He does what typical detectives do, but his emotional baggage allows him to connect in a unique way with the also emotionally scarred people he’s investigating. He kind of reminds me of another detective those of my generation would be familiar with, Columbo, but with a lot of problems. His issues, coming from his dysfunctional upbringing, help him to relate in some way to those he’s investigating, which in turn helps him deal with his own demons.
Dealing with terribly broken people, the show has themes of redemption and forgiveness, and the ongoing effects of sin. It reminds me of what Moses wrote in Numbers 14:18:
‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
At first reading we might consider this is unfair. Why should children suffer for their parents’ sins? When we think about it for a minute, though, how could it be any other way. He isn’t saying the Lord visits punishment arbitrarily down through the generations, but that the sins of parents have implications in the lives of their children, and their children’s children and so on. It’s an obvious fact of life, and one portrayed skillfully in The Sinner. Sin always has consequences, even generational consequences.
What is not in the show, however, is God, not even a hint, except in the third season which is an interesting exploration into the nihilistic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. So God, in effect, becomes a character by his absence. I couldn’t help thinking of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and his character Raskolnikov who took his God-less view of the universe to what he thought was its logical conclusion. I appreciate that a TV series in 2022 would tackle something like that. You wonder if Bill Pullman’s character in response might see God as an answer to his emotional pain and confusion, but he doesn’t, or at least he hasn’t so far.
While the title implies something religious, The Sinner is a typical secular modern drama, a broken and messed up man trying to figure things out as he interacts with other broken and messed up people. God obviously isn’t relevant to that process. That’s how secularism on a cultural level perpetuates itself. God isn’t denounced a la the angry atheist, he’s just irrelevant. That is powerful cultural messaging, even though the writers don’t intend it to be. They’re just secular people writing secular drama for other secular people who would never think to ask, a la Where’s Waldo, where’s God? As Christians, we think leaving out God is as dumb as making a Where’s Waldo picture with no Waldo! He’s gotta be in there somewhere, right? Nope.
The writers and directors of secular entertainment don’t intend to program secularism into those who watch, but it happens at a subconscious level, nonetheless. As I’ve written here before, that’s how plausibility structures are built in the modern human mind. Unless someone gets a consistent dose of counter programming, secularism is what seems real to them. Watching The Sinner, they would never think to ask, why isn’t God part of this drama. Like most people outside the church in the Western world, they are seeped in the secular stew all their lives, so God is an afterthought at best.
Almost everyone in the West “believes in God” because they know intuitively that atheistic materialism (matter is all there is) is absurd. They can’t believe everything came from nothing, but whoever or whatever God is, he’s just not relevant to their lives. This is inconceivable to we Christians because life without the constant presence of God in our thinking isn’t life. But as Christians, we need to be aware of the secular programming of the culture because it affects us, and we too are immersed in that stew; there’s no escaping it.
A rich vein of examples of such programing could be mined in our lives, but The Sinner offers one up with no digging required. The message we would take from the show is that the problems in our lives are not inside of us, not in our sinful human inclinations and rebellion against our Creator God but are outside of us, and primarily caused by others. If not by others, then by circumstances beyond our control. We are, to put it another way, victims. Thus, Detective Ambrose is consistently looking back at his upbringing, his psychologically disturbed mother and absent father, and the memories haunt him. But there being no Jesus, no mercy, no grace, no unconditional love of God in Christ, no divine rationale for forgiveness, he grapples as best he can. Season 3 ends with him weeping uncontrollably over the death of a nihilistic murderer, and we’re left to wonder why exactly he would do that.
As Christians we realize the answer Detective Ambrose is looking for is the gospel, which is the good news that can give him the only answer to all the emotional pain life has dealt him.
Last Sunday our pastor in the sermon said something that gets to the heart of that answer. He said, our problem isn’t others sinning against us, or us sinning against others, but our sinning against a holy God. Once we are reconciled to our Creator God in Christ, we’ll be able to see that it is not the effects of sin that is our problem, or the people or circumstances that cause those problems, but that we’re the problem. King David after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed to try to cover it up penned Psalm 51. In it he wrote these amazing words that indicate he understood the essence of our sin, that it is primarily an offense against God:
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
When we too understand this, no secular programing of an irrelevant God will tempt us to see ourselves as victims. That is good news indeed!
Brilliant commentary Mike! I have seen the first couple seasons of this show with my wife and we have discussed the subject matter you touched on above (in such a great manner). I appreciate your insights and perspective. Peace to you, my old friend.
Hey, Greg! Thank you so much for your kind words. It’s fascinating to see secular people try to deal with sin without Jesus because it just can’t be done. Thanks again.