Three Insidious Lies of 13 Reasons Why

Late one afternoon, I received a call from my mother-in-law telling me that the police had found one of our mutual friends lying dead in a locked bathroom from an overdose. My heart sunk as I just sat there shaking my head, not really knowing what to say. 

Just a couple of days before, I had spoken with the young man, pleading with him to not go back home to the state where his relatives were. I reminded him of the basic lessons he had learned during his numerous stints in rehab, and to stay away from the people, places and things that triggered his desire to relapse. After praying with him, he assured me he would remain here in town.

Though he had been unsuccessful at taking his life in the past, the next night would be his last.

Suicides are devastatingly tragic and traumatic events. One of the most horrifying statistics associated with suicide is that, according to the CDC, it is the second leading cause of death among persons aged 10-24 years old. So, when I heard that there was a new Netflix show called 13 Reasons Why that graphically depicted a high school girl slitting her wrists, my blood began to boil.

My wife and I decided to watch the show together, and after only 15 minutes or so, I asked her to pause it so I could rant about how dangerous this show would be to many viewers. By the end of the last episode, I had made a mental list of several insidious deceptions that were shrewdly woven into the fabric of the show. But to keep this blog to a reasonable length, I’m just going to highlight three of those areas for you.

Insidious Lie #1: God Is Absent.

For a show that is predominantly centered around the subject of death, I found it quite eye-opening that God was completely written out of 13 Reasons Why. Well, I shouldn’t say completely. The names God and Jesus were used quite extensively, yet only as curse words. However, there were no discussions of God in relation to the afterlife (or even mention of an afterlife at all for that matter).

13 Reasons Why puts the secular humanist worldview on full display. Because God doesn’t factor into a secular humanist’s worldview, “mankind is the ultimate norm by which truth and values are to be determined. … All reality and life center upon human beings.” Basically, humans get to act as if they are God.

The worship and exaltation of ourselves above God is the chief sin listed in Romans 1, and, as the Apostle Paul explains, when we try to play God we bring much chaos upon ourselves and others. Though the writers and producers of 13 Reasons Why surely didn’t intend to do so, by writing God out of the script and repeatedly blaspheming His name, they ended up proving that God remains true though every man be a liar. We can try with all our might to suppress the truth of God, but He was, He is and He will always be whether we acknowledge Him now or later.

Insidious Lie #2: Truth is relative.

Tracking right along with the secular humanist rejection of God is the adoption of moral relativism. Basically, they believe that truth is relative to each individual, since each individual can act as his or her own god and standard bearer. 13 Reasons Why repeatedly puts forth this worldview with statements suggesting that we all have to discover and live out our own personal truths.

One of the most glaring fallacies with moral relativism is that no one actually lives that way. We may like the thought of truth and morality being flexible, but the reality is that we all have rigid ethics that we expect others to abide by. 13 Reasons Why shows itself guilty of this hypocrisy in one of the most fundamental aspects of the show.

13 Reasons Why is basically a story about various forms and consequences of bullying. Clearly, one moral of the story the writers and producers want to get across is that bullying is bad. But wait, if truth is relative, what is bad anyway? And, what if a bully decided that his truth is that raping multiple girls for pleasure’s sake is good?

What gives 13 Reasons Why the right to make a rapist a villain if truth itself is up for grabs? If God doesn’t exist, why not live solely for pleasure, even if comes at the expense of others? If God doesn’t exist, there is no ultimate judgment, there is only right now. So why not make our own personal pleasure the standard of good and bad?

Conversely, the Bible relentlessly declares the veracity of God’s absolute truth. That’s ultimately how we know bullying is wrong. That’s ultimately how we know rape is wrong. That’s ultimately how we know murder in all its forms is wrong. The Scriptures reveal the definitive dividing line between truth and error, for Jesus said that everyone who is on the side of truth listens to Him.

Finally, Insidious Lie #3: Suicide Increases Your Level of Control.

As much as 13 Reasons Why is a show about bullying, it is also a show about control. The lead character, Hannah Baker, felt her life had spiraled completely out of control because of the bullying and controlling actions of others. So, she attempted to regain control by ending her life. Also, before she slit her wrists, she made a series of tapes for 13 people detailing the 13 reasons why they were to blame for her suicide. She hoped that she would be able to control them from the grave, and in this fictional show, she played them like puppets.

But that is not how things work in the real world.

In the real world, even when we’re alive we cannot control the way others grieve a loss. We cannot make others feel guilt or remorse. We cannot make others repent. So, it doesn’t make sense that dying would suddenly cause people to do what we want.

Dying is not a means of regaining control. It is a complete relinquishing of control. When we stand before the Almighty Judge of all the earth, do we really think we will have the freedom to do as we please?

Death is not the end; it is the beginning of the rest of our lives with either Jesus in Paradise, or apart from Him in a hellish domain. There’s no more freedom to choose. Where we spend eternity is based on what we did with Jesus while we were still on earth. The early Christians all testified of this truth.

He … will examine all things, and will judge with righteous judgment, rendering merited awards to each. To those who seek immortality by patient endurance in well-doing. He will give life everlasting, joy, peace, rest, and an abundance of good things, which neither hath eye seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. To the unbelieving and despisers who do not obey the truth, but are obedient to unrighteousness, when they will have been filled with adulteries and fornications, and filthiness … there will be anger and wrath. … At the end, everlasting fire will possess such men. – Theophilus 180CE, ANF Volume 2, p. 143 [CD-ROM]

The truth is: The Lord Jesus came into the world as a baby, faithfully lived each moment according to the will of His Father, died for our sins on the cross, rose from the dead on the third day, and is now exalted at God’s right hand. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. The question is: Have you surrendered control of your life to Him?