For the next five pieces of PIE, I’m going to look at the Four Gospels of Science Fiction. By Gospels, I mean that I see four predominant paradigms appearing in the majority of SF/scifi stories. I’ll state my case, offer support from the chief apostles of each Gospel and then let the rest of you have at it. The Gospels of SF:
1) There is a force in the galaxy/universe from which Humans (and others) might draw strength to do either good or evil.
2) Humanity is ultimately perfectible and given time will create a rational, kind and peaceful society that incorporates all philosophies.
3) Humanity will evolve to a state where it will (or find a means to) transcend matter (though still manipulate it) and freely choose either a corporeal or non-corporeal existence.
4) There is nothing outside of nature and Humanity will learn to perfectly manipulate matter and will leave its “tribal gods” behind when it moves into space permanently.
(Obviously, there is crossover among the Four Gospels of SF. Rational perfection may lead Humanity to a point where matter is no longer necessary and we exist as beings of pure energy. The perfect manipulation of the material may lead to a truly Unified Field Theory and all forms of matter and energy may prove to be intimately entangled with Human consciousness. There are easily others that shade into and out of each other. For example, Isaac Asimov, a strict apostle of the Fourth Gospel occasionally allows room for the Second Gospel in some of his robots like R. Daneel Olivaw. To me, George Lucas is the primary apostle of the First Gospel, but has incorporated elements of the Third Gospel into the STAR WARS movies.
And that is where we’re going to start:
WAS JESUS A JEDI MASTER?
The Jedi Knights were members of an ancient monastic order who could use an energy field generated by the cumulative “life” of all living things. This allowed them to have great strength, long life, powers of the mind like telekinesis and telepathy, and a moral certitude beyond that of ordinary people.
Jedi Knights were chosen by other Jedi Knights – in Episodes IV-VI apparently by sensing a “force” in an individual…in Episodes I-III by how many midichlorians an individual had in their blood. Jedi Masters rose from the Knights by successfully training padawan learners, nomination by other Masters, performance of extraordinary deeds or by self-proclamation.
Many Christians have equated Lucas’ Force with the Holy Spirit, Anakin Skywalker with Jesus Christ and the Emperor with Satan. What does Lucas say? In a TIME magazine interview in 1999, he said, “I see STAR WARS as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down to a more modern and easily accessible construct…I put the Force in the movie to try and awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people – more a belief in God than in any particular religious system.” (TIME Magazine, April 26, 1999)
I don’t think that Lucas would mind imagining Jesus as a Jedi Master (if he believed in the Force as some do. His personal philosophy tends toward Buddhist), and there certainly are hints of the Christ story in STAR WARS, but as Lucas says, his “Force” is an attempt to distill religion down and make it more modern and easily accessible.
The question begs to be answered: “more modern and easily accessible” to whom? Jesus has already said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one can come to the Father but by Him. Does Lucas imply here that because his Force is a sort of energy field made up of all living things, that to connect with the Force you have to have a specific disease (midichlorian infection). Does it mean that using the Force requires no commitment to anything other than “doing good”, that more people will follow the Force – because it has done away with exclusivity that requires no sacrifice of any sort?
I think this is exactly what the First Gospel of SF is aiming for. It creates a nice, easy “quasi-religious” religion with no one to really tell you what to do; no “right or wrong”; no rules to follow except for whatever you want to do. Certainly, if you want to climb to the highest heights, then some bit of sacrifice is required – ah, but the Earthly (or Tatooinely or Coruscantly) rewards are great!
To me, it’s eternal salvation for everyone who “does good” rather than salvation through the person of Jesus Christ.
To me, it’s dangerous because it requires nothing of most people. It doesn’t have any sort of morality except what you decide to have. It certainly doesn’t require sacrifice. Jesus was no Jedi Master. He is simply, Master and He requires that “you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.” (Luke 14:33). Somehow I don’t think that that would be acceptable to the apostles of the First Gospel of SF…
December 11, 2007
JESUS WAS A JEDI MASTER!
Guy Stewart is a husband; a father, father-in-law, grandfather, friend, writer, and recently retired teacher, and school counselor who maintains a SF/YA/Childrens writing blog by the name of POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS
that showcases his opinion and offers his writing up for comment. He has almost 70 publications to his credit including one book (1993 CSS Publishing)! He also maintains blogs for the West Suburban Summer School and GUY'S GOTTA TALK ABOUT DIABETES, ALZHEIMER'S & BREAST CANCER!
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6 comments:
Aw now. Why would you want to go and insult Jesus?
To me, it’s dangerous because it requires nothing of most people. It doesn’t have any sort of morality except what you decide to have.
To me this is the main problem with Christianity. It takes those people who decide to follow him and says "No matter what you do, you're still getting into heaven if you just raise your right hand and say the following." It removes any sort of moral obligation to do something for ones fellow man. Of course, Jesus is the foremost among those who strove for humanitarian works, but the system he left behind allows, even encourages, apathy to the highest degree. There are no rewards for doing good, no consequences for evil. At least moral relativism relies on empathy and how you affect the world and others.
I have no particular problem with Jesus... at least the words reliably ascribed to him. Or most of them.
But the wholly Greek doctrines introduced by a certain self-confessed murderer were so diametrically opposite to anything that any Jew would ever believe, that it is a dead certainty that Jesus - had he been around - would have kicked that fellow all the way up that road to Damascus.
I don't mean to offend, but there are serious questions about the basic morality, let alone sanity, of a doctrine like Original Sin. If any father in your neighborhood imposed such an unforgiving grudge on his grandchildren, and their grandchildren, forever, for a one-time lapse of his teenage son & daughter, we'd judge him a loon.
That one doctrine was taken, by Jews, to be a direct insult to God and it was the chief reason for their willingness to die, rather than accept Paulian heresies.
I've gotten carried away, here. And please accept that I see nothing but sincerity and love and deep moral purpose, on the pages of this blog. Indeed, I applaud the effort to make science fictional sense of Christian doctrine. James Blish had a good go of it, right?
By all means, I look forward to your efforts, with interest.
But I feel it's important that you see just how fundamental is the logical and moral breech, between what many people see as basic decency and the hash job that Paul et al made, of a promising beginning.
With one bookend consisting of original sin and the other bookend consisting of that blatant (and deeply nasty) acid trip - Revelations - it makes many of the good things in between seem rather hard to fit into any kind of sense.
So, yes, the parallel with Yoda is apt. Only make it Paul as his corelate. Sour, judgmental, elitist, always unfair, demanding celibacy from healthy young people, yeah. There's your parallel.
Guy,
I enjoy your insights, my old friend. For centuries, Philosophy and Religion have often melded for the purpose of good, intelligent discussions like yours; I applaud your essays. As a called and ordained servant of Christ, I am careful to make the distinction between apostolic Christian doctrine, and enjoyable, in-depth discussion about how faith compares and exists in this world and our imaginations (fantasy, as a genre, is not inherently evil, i.e, Tolkien, Lewis, etc.)
Your essays are far from irritating. They are most enjoyable and though-provoking. I look forward to reading more, my good friend.
Fr. Jon Sollberger
Interesting - your phrase about salvation to the one who "does good" sounds like an echo of Romans 2. Do you disagree with what Paul has to say there, or do you (like many commentators) assume he is speaking hypothetically? :)
David -- thanks for taking the time to comment! I appreciate your insight. My own naivete has been revealed...while I knew that the concept of original sin was by no means universal, your comments prompted me to do a bit of research into the topic. While I look into it, I will stand by my current theology that man was created holy and that by an act of disobedience, one man (who was, after all, the only one at the time and the only one who could make the choice) allowed sin to enter the world permanently and humans became NOT holy. Jesus came to reclaim that holiness by taking on the just punishment of a God who could not tolerate anything that is not holy.
This is NOT to say that my theology is static. I will be doing reading and praying in the near future on the subject of original sin.
That said, I want to bring this back into the realm of SF: if the representative human chose disobedience (as he was the only one around at the time), then it stands to reason that he could have chosed obedience as well. Are there aliens out there whose representatives chose obedience and who are thus still holy in God's eyes?
And one final question, part of the trouble with Adam's representative choice of disobedience seems to be difficulty in accepting his choice as indeed redpresentative. What I can't quite understand is why that's a problem -- we've accepted representative government for over 200 years What's the trouble with Adam representation?
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