“I’ll tell you about the yellow king . . .” There are few TV series as renowned as the first season of True Detective. On the surface it’s a police procedural: two detectives solving a homicide case in rural Louisiana, but beneath the layers of top-notch writing, standout performances, and eerie locales, there’s a story that explores the meaning of existence, the utility of religion, and the integration of work and family. It’s a story of good and evil, light vs. dark. It’s a hunt for truth . . . with a monster at the end of it.
Anyone thinking of watching the show should be forewarned of its graphic content. The show doesn’t shy away from portraying the habits and actions of the depraved. But that’s what I want to write about today–are actions that we deem ‘violent’ necessary? Here’s a clip from the third episode that introduces the question: Does the world need bad men?
That car ride conversation gives you a good taste of a typical conversation between Rust (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty (Woody Harrelson). Rust is best described as a nihilist. He believes existence is a burden, that the noble thing for humanity to do is stop reproducing and “walk hand in hand into extinction.” He has adopted this attitude largely because of the death of his daughter in a car accident at two years old. Because she didn’t get a chance at life, Rust has convinced himself that life isn’t worth living in the first place.
Marty is Rust’s foil. He believes family and religion keep people decent and imbue life with meaning. Marty may talk the talk, but his personal life reveals his commitment to family to be only surface deep. Marty relieves himself from the stress of the job by sleeping with his mistress when he should be home with his wife, and by watching the game when he should be paying attention to his children. His pursuit of pleasure has taken him down a nasty road of lies as he excuses his actions away.
“It’s for the wife and kids,” Marty explains to the detectives investigating his partner. “Sometimes you gotta get your head right. Decompress. Can’t have the kids around the job.”
By describing adultery as ‘decompressing,’ Marty justifies his actions and remains ‘a good man’ in his own eyes. However, Marty is never truly convinced of his morality, not when his habits have proved so corrosive. The scene shown above only serves to complicate Marty’s idea of himself.
“Do you wonder ever if you’re a bad man?”
“No, I don’t wonder, Marty. We keep the other bad men from the door.”
Rust doesn’t think in terms of black and white. He knows he’s a bad man or at least a dangerous one. “I’m police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.” What matters to him is finding the truth–the killer–no matter the cost.
Mocking the Uniform
Rust’s response is an echo of a similar line often attributed to Orwell as well as Churchill: “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” The original sentiment, however, was expressed by author Rudyard Kipling in his 1890 poem, “Tommy”
"I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
…
O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken sodgers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit."
In The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume II: My Country Right or Left 1940-1943, Orwell comments on Kipling’s writing. “He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.”
I might have worded it differently, but Orwell’s idea brings up an interesting point about protection. How much more can a stable society accomplish than one that is ridden with crime? O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep/Is cheaper than uniforms an’ they’re starvation cheap. It’s easier to mock the thing than to actually do the thing. Mockers usually have no stake in whatever the object of their ridicule produces. They have no stake or take whatever service is being provided for them for granted. You can look at law enforcement or the military and ridicule, and those complaints may well be valid. But imagine what people would do to each other if all restraints were lifted? Marty asks a similar question in the show’s third episode. “Can you imagine what would happen if people didn’t believe [in religion], all the things they’d get up to?”
“Exact same thing they do now,” Rust says, “just out in the open.”
“It’d be a f****** freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.”
No Rails, No Road
“God is dead, and we have killed him,” Nietzsche said in 1882. Enter the twentieth century, quite possibly the bloodiest century in history. Get rid of the standard and let chaos reign. But even religion is no safeguard against the manifestations of original sin. As Christians, we know that Jesus’ teachings restrict our behaviors to those that honor God. Whatever is true, whatever is noble. Love God and love your neighbor. Adherence to biblical principles does not guarantee a crime-free society but it’s something. It’s much better than playing power games, which is the inevitable result of placing yourself over God.
You can see, then, the utility of boundaries. Lines that should not be crossed. In a fallen world, and in a country where separation of church and state exists (for good reason), law enforcement takes the place of God-ordained commandments. Because no one is perfectly self-controlled, we cede to others the duty to uphold established laws. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” said James Madison. You could swap out ‘government’ for ‘police’ and it would fit just fine.
But some people cross boundaries with reckless abandon. We’re not talking about breaking speed limits. The ‘other bad men’ that Rust refers to are the ones nobody wants on their doorstep, in their schoolyards, and walking their streets. In True Detective, Rust and Marty are tasked with tracking down a serial killer, whom they later discover to be a homicidal pedophile. He’s an evil that must be stopped. At all costs? Rust believes so. He couldn’t save his daughter from dying, so he made it his mission to save other people’s children from the terror of the ‘Yellow King’.
We may not be angels, but we are tasked with protecting the innocent.
Defend the weak and fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed
Psalm 82:3
Lewis the Lion
In this fallen world, violence is needed to keep evil at bay. But what is the Christian’s role? Should we be pacifists who fight evil with words and non-combative action? Or are there ever times to bear arms?
To represent each side of this argument I’ll share words from C.S. Lewis, who gave an entire lecture entitled “Why I’m Not a Pacifist” and Martin Luther King Jr., who championed nonviolent resistance.
On pacifism, George Orwell had this to say in his 1945 essay, “Notes on Nationalism.”
“Those who “abjure” violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” You could say this is the “practical” approach to pacifism. No nation can consist entirely of pacifists and be prosperous. We’re not angels. One person’s right is another person’s wrong, and mediating between the two takes a little more than minding your ps and qs.
If the ‘practical’ approach to pacifism is constructed on a societal level, what’s the right approach for the individual? More specifically, the Christian individual? When discussing C. S. Lewis’s views on the pacifist it’s important to keep in mind that he lived through World War 2 where evil was put on display. To go to war, then, was little different than engaging in spiritual warfare. “The world echoes with the praise of righteous war,” Lewis writes in “Why I’m Not a Pacifist.” “I think the out in life consists of tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”
To his credit, Lewis acknowledges the horrors that have come as a result of “Christian armament.” Christendom has shed much blood in its quest to spread a misunderstood sense of Christianity to the Americans and before that to Saxony and all the rest of the Roman Empire.
What I found most interesting about his argument against pacifism was this rhetorical question: “Are death and pain the greatest evils? Is the suppression of a higher religion by a lower culture a greater evil?” Lewis is correct, of course. Pain and death are material things, bound to this world. The conquering of armies is less important, and less evil, than the conquering of souls. Therefore, fighting against an ideology like Nazism or communism which seek to put a stopper on organized religion, can be construed as righteous. It is certainly the case that God hates evil and calls all who follow him to hate it too. But how can we reconcile this with Jesus’ command in Matthew 5: 38-39?
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Matthew 5:38-39
Lewis argues that this verse applies to personal vendettas–revenge–but not necessarily to intervening on behalf of others. If someone harms us we should not act on our motivation to hurt him back. That’s clear enough. But when it comes to forcibly protecting a third party, Lewis sees no obstacle. Imagine you’re in the schoolyard, standing idly by while a bully slaps around a younger schoolmate. Applying Lewis’s interpretation, it would be sinful to attack the bully out of anger for his cruelty, but just and good to intervene on behalf of the oppressed, even if it means throwing a few punches in the process.
While I don’t have the wisdom to effectively argue the validity or invalidity of Lewis’s exegesis, I include his interpretation here as a counterpoint to the strict pacifist stance that Matthew 5 condemns all violence. Maybe there’s a time and a place.
Beloved Community
If Lewis views the pacifist as something like a coward, then Martin Luther King Jr. would have something different to say on the matter. He disliked the term ‘pacifist’ because it sounded too passive. “Active nonviolent resistance” was the term he preferred, and he gave it a trial by fire during his rallies for civil rights.
In King’s essay, “An Experiment in Love,” he writes that nonviolent resistance, “does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding . . . The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”
I talked about the importance of understanding in my Ender’s Game post. Certainly, it’s true that you can win over more people with a smile and a prayer than cursing and shaking a fist.
King goes on to write, “To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate [our opponent], but to win his friendship and understanding.”
King is writing about agape love here, the selfless love that sacrifices one’s own desires for the benefit of others. King’s ‘beloved community’ may sound like a utopian vision, but it’s what Christians should strive to create. Unfortunately, this does not solve the problem of evil. Only Christ can solve that when he returns on the day of judgment.
King’s concept of pacifism is more biblically sound than Lewis’s, but it does not account for the exceptions of people unmoored from morality, those who view evil as good and good as evil.
Maybe I’m being too much of a realist like Rust, but when King talks about not ‘defeating or humiliating’ our opponents, I’m left wondering what happens when the loving approach fails to bring about the aforementioned beloved community. Worse, what happens when we grant our compassion to those committed to doing evil?
Why So Silent?
This is a real-life dilemma that has real consequences. Think about the activists supporting the Hamas terrorists who murdered and raped thousands of Jews; think about the politicians who placate them. We all want a peaceful solution. We want to discourage violence. But sometimes we’re so worried about the sin of commission that the sin of omission slips us by. We see evil, confuse it with something else, substitute compliance for courage, and shout for peace when peace would mean death. Sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease.
Maybe the reason we abhor violence so much is that we recognize the futility of retaliation. Violence begets violence. Misery ensues. We want it to stop. Some people become immune to it–these are the bad men, the ones who accept evil in the world and immerse themselves in it to protect the ones they love. Then there are the pacifists, both noble and cowardly. “Everyone knows something is wrong with them,” Rust says. “They just don’t know what it is.” Well, the same goes for society. We label violence as evidence of our social disease, we label evolution as the root cause, but no one is willing to label what it all means. What does it mean that mankind commits atrocity after atrocity? Time is a flat circle, Rust says. “A world where nothing is solved.” It’s easy to become nihilistic in the face of such an outlook. On the other hand, it’s also easy to detach from the world, to withdraw from the common horrors and remain silent, biding your time until Judgement Day. But we cannot be voiceless Christians. Because there are people at the door of our friends, our children, and on our own stoop. If we don’t help each other, who’s going to help us when the time comes?
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas is a good reminder of the consequences of remaining silent. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”
Many German churches of the 1930s went along with Hitler’s regime until it was too late. Dietrich Bonhoeffer–pastor, prophet, martyr, spy–spoke out. He was a voice for the voiceless–the Jews–reminding the people of the gap between the gospel message and what the German government was preaching.
In Bonhoeffer, Metaxas includes a quote from Martin Niemoller, who worked alongside Bonhoeffer at his church.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemoller
This is what happens when evil is ignored or placed behind a curtain. Rust and Marty have to track down the ‘big people’ who are behind the cover-up of the deaths of abused children. Bonhoeffer participated in the plot to kill Hitler because he believed faith without works was dead. He is murdered for this act.
In Matthew 16, Jesus tells his disciples about what lies in store for him, that he will suffer at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, that he must be killed, and that he will rise on the third day. Peter says, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” Remember Lewis’s point about pacifism? Are pain and death the highest evils? Peter is too worried about a material body, and Jesus calls him out.
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Here are the next two verses. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
One more note on death, which I find beautiful. This is by Bonhoeffer, who referred to death in a poem as “the last station on the road to freedom.”
“How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether in our human fear and anguish, we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”
We don’t stand up to evil for the sake of saving flesh and blood. We stand up to stop lower cultures from suppressing the truth so that others might experience the transformation of faith in Jesus Christ.
Nothing But That Love
The last episode of True Detective’s first season is called Form and Void. Rust and Marty have tracked down the true killer, the ‘Yellow King,’ and are going off on their own to deal with him because the police force considers the case closed. Together, the detectives confront the killer on his property and defeat him. Gravely wounded, Rust has a near-death experience in his hospital bed. In this dream state, he talks about feeling his daughter’s presence. “I knew she waited for me. It was like I was a part of everything I ever loved . . . and then I woke up. But I can still feel her love there, even more than before. Nothing . . . nothing but that love.”
Rust’s dream, hallucination, experience in the void between life and death, however you want to describe it, is his realization that pessimism is nothing but an illusion. There are people he cares about that give life meaning. Love gives life meaning.
Here are the last two minutes of the show to show Rust’s changed perspective (there is profanity).
This Day We Fight
What an iconic last line. Life really is a story of light vs. dark, and like the Bible promises, light will win in the end. The theme is integral to three of the most successful franchises in recent history–The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. What does the hero do in each one? Stand up to the dark side who craves nothing but power and prepare to sacrifice their lives to defeat it. What sustains them? Love and friendship. It’s Sam lifting Frodo onto his back on the slope of Mount Doom. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”
In his book Manhood, Josh Hawley writes, “The man who makes war on the evil in his life and sacrifices his own pride opens his life, in the end, to something far more powerful. He opens it to love. Love is the burning center of the warrior’s existence and the secret of all true courage. The warrior loves something dearly and passionately more than himself. He loves his wife and children. He loves his nation. He loves God. And that love makes him strong.”
As Christians we should be willing to say, no, I’m not going to go along with that because we know the consequences of inaction. Eternal separation from God. Maybe not for ourselves, but for the millions who are sucked into the lies. We should be like the one German in the photograph without his arm raised in the Nazi salute; we should be like Tank Man on Tiananmen Square. Get behind me, Satan. Because if God is for me, who can be against me?