What Star Wars Says About Us

Hey, it's John with a 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? For Westerners, there's been a bit of an angst, you know,

I Want to say a sense of worry We look at the way the world is progressing and it's going awfully fast

Techno 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 they're 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 an 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 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 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 in 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 is this ongoing battle forever In the Chronicles in our 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 Rey 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. Star Wars is 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, it's 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's the Chronicles of Narnia brings to you and that those are the fantasies that I would want to support more and hope