May 19, 1999
Star Wars 'spiritual but not Christian'
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WACO--The Star Wars saga echoes an eternal spiritual quest, but it misses the essential truths of Christianity, according to Baylor University religion professor John Wood.
___"Episode I--The Phantom Menace," the fourth installment in the Star Wars series, premieres this week, 22 years after filmmaker George Lucas began chronicling a story from "long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away."
___For more than two decades, moviegoers, critics and theologians have explored theparallels between Lucas' vibrant mythology and the gospel's presentation of God's ultimate victory over Satan.
___"The main parallel is such a general thing: There is this cosmic struggle between good and evil," observed Wood, who teaches a "Christianity and Films" class.
___"One reason folks identify with Star Wars is we know there's a struggle in our hearts between good and evil," he explained. "But we like to see it in cosmic terms--a gigantic transcendence far beyond the individual level. When you see it in cosmic terms, the good guys always win."
___On that level, the Star Wars saga mirrors Christian eschatology, the biblical story of end times, Wood noted. "For a long time, it looks like evil will triumph, but ultimately good will win out."
___From the Christian standpoint, Star Wars' method of victory--even victory by the forces for good--is fundamentally flawed, he added.
___"Where the problems start for Star Wars is that evil is always overcome by violence," he said. "Non-violent confrontation won't work, because the evil forces are so intransigent. The way you defeat evil is to annihilate it. Violence is the only way.
___"Is this the biblical view? The way God overcomes evil is by redeeming it."
___God so loved the world that God defeated evil by sacrificing his only Son, Jesus, to save the souls of "whosoever" believes.
___And that sense of availability to all who believe also contrasts the gospel and Star Wars, Wood pointed out.
___"In Star Wars, the Force (a supra-human power) is only for a few elite, the Jedi Knights," he said. "Some people try to make parallels between the Force and the Holy Spirit or the power of God.
___"In Star Wars, only the Jedi warriors have that Force. But the Christian faith says God's Spirit is available to everyone. There's elitism in Star Wars."
___Furthermore, Star Wars' violence perpetuates its elitist structure, he added.
___"In the Star Wars conflict, you use violence to maintain the hierarchy--protect Princess Leia, preserve the Jedi Knights. You don't have biblical egalitarianism, that God's love is for everybody."
___Wood doesn't get overwrought about the ways Star Wars misfires on Christian themes, because he appreciates Lucas' craftsmanship as a storyteller rather than a theologian.
___"Lucas never claimed he was writing anything more than a fairy tale," Wood said. "But it touches all of us because of its cosmic scope."
___In an interview for Time magazine, Lucas told journalist Bill Moyers: "I don't see Star Wars as profoundly religious. I see Star Wars as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct--that there is a greater mystery out there. ...
___"I would hesitate to call the Force God. It's designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, 'Here's the answer.' It's to say, 'Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like? What does God feel like? How do we relate to God?' Just getting young people to think at that level is what I've been trying to do in the films."
___Religious storytellers have been grappling with those themes for millennia, Wood asserted.
___For thousands of years, people of faith have dealt with the reality of good versus evil, he explained. "Evil is real in the world, and evil is going to be defeated. Otherwise, you have total despair--if you don't believe good is going to win out."
___The theme particularly is resonant with one American film genre--the Western, Wood said.
___"All our old Westerns deal with this same theme," he noted. "You have good guys and bad guys, and they're clearly identified. White hats and black hats."
___For example, the title character in the movie "Shane" represents "a redeemer figure who wins over evil against unbelievable odds," he said. The same is true for Clint Eastwood's character in "Pale Rider." "The bad guys are going to win, and yet this one guy saves everyone.
___"In that sense, Star Wars is nothing new," he added. "Star Wars just puts it in cosmic terms. It's bigger than saving the town or a village. It's saving the whole universe."
___And that theme is as old as humankind, Wood stressed. Some Old Testament stories parallel the Babylonian account of creation and a battle of good and evil. And during New Testament times, Gnostic myths of creation point to similar themes.
___"It follows back as far as we can go," he said. "Everyone wants to describe how all this meanness and evil got here and what's going to be the final outcome.
___"People have struggled with that from the beginning of time," long, long ago.
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