CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: Is All 4 mini-series Everyone Else Burns a comedy or a tragedy?
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I’ve been watching Everyone Else Burns on All 4: it’s comedy mini-series about a Manchester family who belong to an extreme fundamentalist church, The Order of the Divine Rod. It’s unlike any church I’ve ever come across.
The show’s creators, Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor wanted to use what they saw as ‘darkness, bleakness, strife’ within the Order as a shade to ‘emphasise the light.’ They aimed ‘to bring out the sense of community as well, the warmth there and the sense that the community is an extended family.’
Will David (Simon Bird’s self-righteous, controlling patriarch) develop greater self-awareness, we wonder? Will daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly) escape the Order, and follow her dream of studying medicine?
People brought up in fundamentalist settings may find things they recognise in Everyone Else Burns. The emphasis on following rules as a way to holiness. The intense focus on the imminent return of Jesus (the first episode begins with David dragging his family to the summit of an out-of-town hill at 4am for ‘Apocalypse Practice’.) The fear. The hypocrisy lurking beneath the veneer of conformity.
The perspective on the world outside the Order, a view which indiscriminately shuns both the darkness and the light found there, and seeks security in the bubble of certainty the community provides. The emphasis on being up-front about your faith as a project, rather than as a way of life.
There are moments of light and joy in the series, such as when Rachel sits with her arms around Joshua for the first time, on her face an expression of utter contentment. But the light which is the reality of Christian community is entirely absent. There is no sense of God’s presence; no awareness of the immense divine love which sent Jesus among us.
No hint of the wonder of being accepted and forgiven by God. No hint of answers to prayer. No hint of the painful times when God seems absent, our prayers unheard, times when we resolve in sheer faith to entrust ourselves to God. No hint that churches – communities of broken people finding hope in the divine – are precious to God, close to God’s heart.
The title of the mini-series, Everyone Else Burns is little referred to within it: the idea that there is no salvation out-with the Order. There is no suggestion that persistently, the love of God invites all people, everywhere to encounter Jesus, the Light. No suggestion that the mission of the Church is to mix with others, to be real, reflecting the love of God both in actions and in words.
At times I found this sitcom funny. But for the most part, to me it seemed not comedy, but tragedy.
