WAS THIS THE GREATEST TV EVER?
TV drama often does religion really badly. If it’s not Christians quoting scripture self-righteously every third sentence, it’s serial killers being inspired by the book of Revelation. But there is the occasional outlier that nails it, and the biggest of all celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first broadcast in May 2026.
She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny? “You can’t conceive, not can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God”, says Graham Greene. I don’t know whose ass he was kissing there ‘cause I think you’re just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise his glory and praise his name?
The series two finale of The West Wing has the US president, Jed Bartlet locked in Washington Cathedral having it out with his maker. Bartlet, a practising Christian, has seen his mentor killed in a road traffic accident and his close adviser critically injured in a shooting incident. Bartlet is declining with MS and has deceived the nation over it, a series of events have gone against him and the whole thing has come to a head. He ends his tirade in Latin, rejecting his relationship with God and his tenure as president.
And then he returns to the West Wing of the White House.
In an imagined conversation with his late mentor, Mrs Landringham, Bartlet rehearses statistic after statistic on America’s chronic inequalities and what remains unfinished in his presidency. A press conference has been called in which his staff expect him to say he will not run for president again. Bartlet steps outside into an unseasonal tropical storm, ushers away an umbrella and allows himself to become utterly drenched in rain before stepping inside to say he would, after all, be running.
Most people who have followed a vocation will know the deep mood swings that can come from being disappointed with God. The sense that the boat is filling with water but Jesus remains asleep in the stern. And yet at the same time, an inability to abandon the sinking ship. The place where conflicted faith meets the irrevocability of calling. They want to let go of God, but he will not let go of them.
Bartlet’s exposure to the rain was scripted as a baptism from God, a renewal of his presidency; a sign of God’s continued love and purpose for him. Aaron Sorkin intended the episode to be a celebration of religious faith and it can take a measure of faith to understand it: some viewers assumed Bartlet had renounced his religion for good, but those with faith knew all too well what was unfolding. Jed Bartlet was angry with God, and God just hugged him closer, like a toddler tearfully dissolving into a parent’s arms. One man told me this episode alone had kept his faith alive for two years when no-one else could.
The episode Two Cathedrals was broadcast on May 16, 2001. Looking back, this was a particular moment of hope. The Cold war was over, the tech boom was deafening. 9/11, the global banking crash, economic austerity, toxic social media, disinformation and populism lay ahead; the era when nation would invade nation instead of speaking peace to it. These are perilous, febrile times and yet Two Cathedrals echoes today.
Politics is a vocation and we need people to act on this. They’re all in it for themselves may be an exaggeration, but the fact it is believed so widely suggests some evidence to back it up. Secure, public spirited religious faith has been the quiet underpinning of much British life and may be so again. Bartlet’s outburst was also a liturgical lament, a rage against the cruelty of life. We need this culture of lament too – not self-serving anger or detached cynicism - but coherent protest to God against injustice. Grief that inspires activism, not apathy.
Jed Bartlet went into his press conference soaked to the skin, looking ridiculous. When Richi Sunak called the UK General Election in the pouring rain outside Number 10 in 2024 he was made fun of mercilessly; the summer rain symbolising the end of Tory rule. With the suit sticking coldly to his skin, Bartlet showed in his body the foolishness of the cross; bearing witness to the hope that God renews all things. It all depends on how you look at a drenching.
