What Star Wars Says About Us

Star Wars as a Mirror of Western Anxiety

Hey, it's John with the conversation that matters for January 2018. I wanted to share some thoughts on the new Star Wars movie the last Jedi my wife and I saw it the other night. So I'm a little late to this conversation since it's been out for over a month.

But nonetheless as I was sitting there, I had some thoughts that I thought were worth sharing. So hopefully you get something out of this and you find it at the very least stimulating. Intellectually, I want to really title this or make the theme of this video.

What Star Wars says about us? What Star Wars says about us broadly speaking? What does it say about us as Westerners as Americans more narrowly focused in the circles? I run and what does it say about conservative evangelicals reformed Christians?

So let's start with Broadly speaking what a star would say about Western culture. Why is it so popular? Why do we flock to these movies? I think for Westerners there's been a bit of an angst and a I Want to say a sense of worry.

We look at the way the world is progressing and it's going awfully fast. Technology technology is increasing. Modernity is weighing down on us and we are afraid we don't want to be part of the machine.

We don't want to live in a world in which your chief value is efficiency we want to know that there's intrinsic worth beyond our productivity and Right now it it's scary because what we've done is we've thrown out our moral framework that gave us Intrinsic worth we've thrown out Christianity.

It's like we went to the dump. We threw out our religious Glue that keeps us together and gives us a sense of what life means and in that box labeled Christianity was a number of things one of them would be chivalry for instance the me too movement I think of from last year and continuing on to this year.

Values chivalry. Now it might not be in every way a Christian sense of chivalry, but but we're saying where did chivalry go? Where did being a gentleman go? Well, we threw it out. Now we want it back.

We really want it back bad. The problem is the box that we threw it out on we don't want that box back. We're not willing to open the box that says Christianity on it. We're gonna try to find it somewhere else and I'd like to submit to you.

That's why Star Wars is popular. You see in the villain in Star Wars the first order a great example of the world that we fear it's sleek, it's Efficient there's a chain of command. Science is behind it.

It's a well-ordered machine. They got all the money. And and the stormtroopers are all people but they're basically numbers their robots and we don't want to become that that's what that's our nightmare and.

The alternative is the resistance the resistance consists of a bunch of scruffy guys that have old uniforms driving rust buckets with a kind of a loose chain of command and they don't have any money and we are attracted to that because.

Somehow they always escape the first order. They seem to pull it off and we want to live in a world where science and technology Are not the determining factor in who wins a fight. We want to know that there's something greater.

There's a plan. And the force offers us that the force offers us some sense and illusion of worth. It says that if you're a farm boy from a planet that no one's heard of or a girl. In the case of Rey and you have a purpose.

And and so it gives you that. And it also says that hey, there's a plan beyond just what science can override that science isn't going to be able to crush. What that plan is now that plan, you know, it kind of begs the question because where's the plan?

I mean in a force, it doesn't make sense if you really start stripping the layers back. But nonetheless, we have the elements some of those elements that were missing when we threw out the box that said Christianity.

The Force, Chivalry, and the Appeal of Star Wars

Now we also have the advantage of we don't have to have Christianity back. There's no God that's going to judge good and evil. There's no consummation in which evil is ultimately punished. There's an everlasting battle between good and evil.

And there's always going to be some hope that maybe someone who was evil can be good and maybe someone's good cannot be evil. And and there's this switching back and forth. And so we're not maybe even really completely responsible in every way for some of the choices we make the force is very deterministic if you really think about it and.

And we like that we like that, you know, there's not quite as much personal responsibility. We like that there's kind of a hope beyond us. We like the fact that we can manipulate our surroundings that the force offers that so the force even.

The words used right? It's called the Jedi religion. That's an old word now religion or the Jedi Knights I mean Knights are you know, the epitome of chivalry and the old world. We want some of that back.

We just don't want Christianity with them. And that's what Star Wars is giving to us. So that's why I think it's it's popular in the broad culture now a Note about this particular film the last Jedi I think is way more Out there with the force.

I mean it's direct you got Luke meditating in a lotus position and transcendental meditation becoming one with the Nirvana. They don't call it that but that's what it is the force you have him explaining the force to Rey in terms that I can only say are Buddhism or Eastern mysticism at best.

You have a yin-yang looking thing and there's a room in a tree where there's there's some books on Jedi religion and there's a yin-yang on the floor even the sign for the resistance seems to be half.

Almost like a yin-yang looking thing. So there's all sorts of symbolism Eastern mystical Factors to this and It's an eternal eternal battle. You get the sense at the end. There's a little boy who looks up at the stars and he has this little ring that has a rebel or I'm sorry Resistance insignia and you get the sense.

This battle will continue on forever. And that's what Star Wars is. It never ends and it just keeps going and so. So for a Christian to look at this we we can recognize it's a fantasy. But we should also recognize this is not taken from a Christian worldview.

There can be fantasies like Chronicles of Narnia Lord of the Rings that are taken from a very Christian conception of reality. Star Wars is not one of them and What a lot of Christians say who like Star Wars is that well, it's just a fantasy.

I can ignore those things or you know, I don't have to take them seriously. Well, I understand that but why is it that when Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia comes out? We're all about the symbolism in it that resembles Christianity.

We're all about bringing our friends to evangelize them at the movie theater. How come all of a sudden we're so into symbolism when a fantasy that we like comes out that's Christian. But then all of a sudden symbolism doesn't really matter when it comes to Star Wars.

It's just a fantasy. I wonder that a little bit I would submit to you that there's the reason we go to see these movies as I just described is because we want an alternative Reality and this is somehow fulfilling that in us.

It's satiating our hunger for the way the world could be or the way we wish the world would be it teaches us something about The real world. That's what fantasies do so I Can't take that argument seriously fantasies.

Do correspond with reality? There's no such thing as just a fantasy now a lot of Christians I've noticed and this is I'm gonna be a little critical here but I I'm being critical on myself as well. A lot of Christians who are very concerned about issues such as race relations social justice.

And I know some of this just because I'm friends with them and and I go to a prominent Evangelical seminary a lot of these guys who are very sensitive. I mean sometimes I wonder hey, man, you know There's no racism on the McDonald's menu.

Like, you know, I'm just I'm exaggerating what I'm saying. They'll find it in different places and denounce it as injustice somehow Star Wars doesn't register Star Wars. They'll post things online. That are just praiseworthy or critique, but the critiques are not about the force or any of the Eastern stuff.

It's about well, I didn't like this character or it you know in science, you know. You can't drop bombs from space or you know, the narrator the other one that wrote it should have written this into it.

Those are the critiques I saw so. My challenge is if you are a Christian maybe consider being offended about this because it is wrong. I actually regret buying the movie tickets I did. Realizing how much of an Eastern mystical, you know force can excuse the pun that You know was was on the movie.

It these movies are influential and I really don't want to support them the more I think about it. So that's why I'm being critical on myself. You know, I've supported this and I was entertained by it.

There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with you going to the movies. That's not sinful. I'm not saying that I'm just trying to prod you wrong. Is this not also coming from a Christian and anti-christian conception?

Is it not against the God that you love? And I want to close with this. I mentioned before that Star Wars. This is ongoing battle forever. In the Chronicles in aria Lord of the Rings. There's a consummation same thing in the Bible.

There's a consummation. There is a time when all our dreams are fulfilled when you know, it's just beyond what we even can dream and Evil is punished once and for all and God is vindicated and just well not that he needs vindication.

But he wins in the end and we love it. Star Wars never has that it's actually hopeless if you think about it. It's what's a new hope about a new Hope is about well, we get to fight another day, but you never actually beat the first order.

You never beat the dark side there will always be forever. That's why Ray and Kylo Ren they fight and they can't even one can't get the edge over the other because they're equal. And that's what Star Wars offers us and if I can botch a quote hopelessness.

Which I think is what Star Wars is offering or was his offering ultimately I think will lead to fear and fear will lead to hate and hate will lead to suffering. So That that's just an observation. I had that you know is very antithetical to a Christian way of thinking.

So so consider those things maybe if you're convicted, you know, maybe make. Maybe if you're at least gonna make online posts about Star Wars, you know consider mentioning that that it has this Worldview that you don't agree with and that you're kind of offended by.

I mean I think that alone would be would be really good and we have a better hope to offer the world as Christians. Star Wars doesn't actually offer hope and neither does New Age mysticism or pantheism.

Only Jesus Christ and and that's the message that I'm bringing to you. And I think that's the message that Lord of the Rings and to a very much greater extent C .S. Lewis is the Chronicles of Narnia brings to you and that those are the fantasies that I would want to support more and hope.

Get made into movies more. So there you go. Have a good day.