Committed Christians and a TV Soap.

Eastenders is one of those TV soaps aired on the BBC four evenings a week. It's one of those programmes I can't imagine being watched regularly by committed, middle-class churchgoers. It portrays a way of life that is far too coarse and as unbiblical as it gets while trying to put across how typical East London working classes live and interact with each other on a day-to-day basis.

The scene is an outdoor setting that bears the name Albert Square in a fictional district of Walford, which is set at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The Albert Square setting is based on an actual square of the same design, Fassett Square in Dalston, in the East London borough of Hackney.

Toby Smith plays Gray Atkins in Eastenders.

But as I see it, the characters do not quite portray the real life of the working classes, at least, not so much among the male characters. The incredible absence of swear words, curses, smut, and other strong language and insulting speech have robbed the soap of real, true-to-life drama. You know, the sort of stuff I had to endure as a naive teenager entering the adult world of an all-male factory workshop from the kindergarten of school life. As author Charles Dickens once explained, when he wrote his books, the language spoken between the villains and criminals had to be unrealistically modified so as not to startle and upset his puritan readers.

No doubt, the classic TV soap Eastenders has followed Dicken's path of language modification. And that includes the complete omission of toilet jokes - indeed, often common at a working men's club or at a pub - the sort of jokes which I tend, at times, find hilarious but can be offensive to many other Christians. Indeed, I have wondered whether an odd joke thrown in occasionally would add a bit of cheer to the otherwise melancholic script and even raise its viewing figures. Or would such a joke aired on TV open the door for a plethora of complaints flooding the BBC centre? And eventually, leading to the danger of taking the soap off the air?

I have once read that Hollywood loves to portray the villain as a smartly-dressed English businessman. This is also true in Eastenders. Here, the producers at Elstree Studios wrote a script that led to the introduction of one character, Gray Atkins, played by Toby-Alexander Smith. In the soap, he plays the character of a failed solicitor cursed with a quick temper. On the outside, he looks swell to the women around him, as he goes about in a business suit and tie, thus, he stands out as a middle-class gentleman, a beacon of enlightenment and higher education living in a working-class estate. But behind closed doors, his wife, who was also the mother of his two children, was terrified of him, as his quick temper eventually led to a violent scene where she was stabbed. By covering up the murder by using a smashed bottle of milk, he was able to persuade the police to pass the incident off as a tragic accident.

Afterwards, he kills two more people. One of them was Tina Carter. After an argument and questioning him whether he really killed his wife rather than having been in an accident, he strangles her, then hides her body in a bin wrapper and places it into the boot of his car whilst there was no one else around. He then drives off to bury her in some remote, unknown location. Finally, after an altercation at an underground station, this time he pushes a man, Kush Kazemi, off the platform in front of an approaching train. Afterwards, he leaves the scene to look as if it was a suicide incident.

But despite being who he is, as a widower, he still has that appeal to draw in other women, as the series continues, we now learn that he proposed to the beautiful Chelsea Fox. At his first proposal, she hesitated and turns him down. But shortly afterwards, she changes her mind and accepts his marriage proposal. How I cringed! He may be a serial killer, but his profession as a solicitor with his suit-and-tie attire doesn't fail to allure her, as if she's walking into a deadly trap.

How true to life all this is a matter of opinion. For example, real-life John Reginald Christie, to name just one, murdered at least eight women, including his own wife Ethel, and then buried their bodies under the floorboards, also in the tiny back garden, and even walled up others in the kitchen. He was active in the decade between 1943 until he was executed by hanging in July 1953, then aged 54 years, by then, I was already ten months old.

John Reginald Christie.

The two criminals, one fictional and the other real share some common themes - as children, they were both ill-treated by their unemotional and unloving fathers. Both suffered bullying at school, yet, both achieved a high level of education. Both found women to be a threat to their egos. Both concealed their crime or their victim's bodies to avoid discovery. It's these similarities that have made me ponder whether the fictional character of Gray Atkins was borrowed from the historic John Reginald Christie.  

It's my opinion that most committed Christians would shun watching the soap, branding it as too worldly, unspiritual and glorifying sin. And it's quite true that, throughout the series, evil was allowed to flourish for a very long time before the perpetrator was brought to justice, much to my own sense of injustice. But one lesson does stand out quite clearly - that is, if you sleep around, you will face grave consequences. Throughout the soap, where adultery and unfaithfulness happen, it's always followed by the shock of its discovery, anger, strife, tears, divorce, mental illness, an unwanted pregnancy, even violence, and long-term ruin for the guilty. Perhaps that was why God instructed Israel not to commit adultery. God had already known of its dreadful consequence and wishes nobody would suffer from such sin.

The same applies to lending and borrowing. There are multiple stories in Eastenders connected with large sums of money lent out, and the borrower is unable to pay back the debt. The results often end in fear, frustration, hate and gang violence, a very sad set of consequences for not taking the advice Jesus gave, which is if you lend, don't ask for the money back, if they ask for your shirt, then give him your coat as well, and if they tell you to walk a mile, then walk two miles - advice which seems at first to be incredibly unrealistic, even imbecilic and impractical, along with the fear of becoming a doormat, but at the end turns out to result in peace of the soul, greater happiness, less stress and anxiety, far less hostility, a recipient of greater respect, maybe even honour, and just as important, "piling hot coals on the enemy's head" - a poetic way of piercing his conscience. Indeed, Watching Eastenders could give us all a lesson in not behaving in a way that discredits the truth of the Bible.

As Christians, both Alex and I have discussed the consequence of sin after watching Eastenders. Rather than tut-tutting for wasting our time on "unwholesome hedonistic pleasures", such storylines does bring us to the Bible and if anything, conclude that the soap verifies the truthfulness of the Bible rather than denying or ridiculing it.

And now? We're waiting for Gray Atkins' comeuppance for his murders. It will come eventually. How? We just have to wait and see. It all hangs on how long the contract will be between the actor Toby Smith and the makers of the soap. If the producers of the soap stick with Biblical principles, then the thick of reaping what you sow will eventually bear fruit for Gray Atkins. And I believe that is what the viewers want, and patiently waiting for.

And if there's an irony here. We both also enjoy nature programmes, especially those presented by David Attenborough and physicist Brian Cox. Lately, we've been watching the Universe and how it began, a presentation by Brian Cox. Throughout the two one-hour-long documentaries, there was no mention of God or any hint of divine or intelligent creation. Rather, our Universe, including our Sun and Solar System, were all formed purely by chance over multiple billions of years. And we as a species, are nothing more than a coincidence, an offshoot from the Universe out of pure luck, an unnecessary side-issue, the Universe owing us nothing. Although all that is diametrically opposed to how the Bible evaluates us - as the pinnacle of Creation and made just a little lower than God himself and perceived by our Maker as worthy enough for redemption.

And so, such science-based programmes appeal to the middle-classes, including Christian graduates who fill our church pews. Such documentaries appear far more wholesome than the horrid goings-on within the soaps. Yet although very interesting to watch, such philosophies presented by the likes of Brian Cox can be soul-destroying, making us feel worthless and psychological damaging - far more so than Eastenders. At least with the soap, it's all fiction and the world knows that. But what Cox (and also Attenborough) presents is meant to be taken as historical fact while at the same time the Bible is relegated to mere legend, well within the realm of mythology.

Then, if we as a species is nothing more than an accidental spinoff from the gasses that swirled in universal space, then what's the point of good or bad? Indeed, Gray Atkins, and for that matter, John Christie, can snuff out the lives of as many people as they want. Why then, is that bad? We're just swirling gasses, after all, nothing more. And the NHS. Why do we all here in the UK love the National Health Service so much if all we are is a mass of random molecules gotten here by a stroke of luck?

Earlier in the week, my good friend and PhD holder Dr Andrew Milnthorpe posted a video of a Remembrance ceremony that was held at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016. He posted it on 11/11/2021, the day we remember Armistice Day, which was signed to end the Great War on that very day in 1918. After the hymn, I vow to thee my country, was sung by the choir filling the auditorium, a colonial publicly addressed the Queen with such adoration, had I arrived from another planet, I would have sworn that she was a saviour-goddess. Such praise and adoration for the Head of State do not come from a chance offshoot from swirling gasses. Rather, it arose from the Biblical record of Divine Creation.

Brian Cox.

I write this blog on the eve of Remembrance Sunday. Biblically based, it's an important day for us to remember all those who gave their lives for our freedom. Indeed, I see myself as more of a European than an Englishman. In 2016, I voted to remain in the EU at the Referendum and I was very disappointed when the result showed a national favour to leave the EU, especially by a very narrow margin. As a full-blood Italian (both my parents arrived in the UK before I was born) I still feel for my roots stemming from Italy, although by law, I'm a British citizen. Therefore, it's right to remember those who gave their lives so we can enjoy our freedom here in the United Kingdom.