Evangelicals In the Star Trek Universe

131 thoughts on “Evangelicals In the Star Trek Universe”

1. While Roddenberry was personally reticent to include religious characterizations outside of ‘Alien pretends to be God,’ other writers included a number of references to religion in general and Christianity in particular throughout the show.

   As for the content of ethical discussions in the show, Enterprise’s first few seasons suffers from a rather cowardly writing staff, rehashing conclusions and lines better delivered by Patrick Stewart…

   Ironically, in Trek, humanity was intelligently designed…

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2. Pingback: Even More 5 Links! | Faith & Geekery

3. Your observations of the world of Star Trek are right on target!

   My favorite Star Trek shows are Deep Space Nine and Enterprise and I was disappointed when Enterprise was canceled. I am in the minority because these two shows are less like by the fans. Oh well!

   Timotheus
   http://www.skubalon.net

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4. One of the things I read about Roddenberry was he did not want to make Star Trek religious in any way. He felt that the future Earth would be beyond religion by that time.

   This is the source of the Trekkie tag line and running joke “We’ve Evolved Beyond All That”.

   And according to Joel Engel’s bio, it was literally true in early TNG when Roddenberry was killing script after script for that exact reason, leaving the writers with only the Holodeck and Q (and the actor that did Q adamantly limited his appearance there to only once a season).

   Don’t think that Roddenberry was involved in any of that – his involvement pretty much ended with the Next Generation (which I believe was the best of the series).

   Roddenberry died about the second year of TNG (“New Testament Trek”), and his health had been failing before that. This was well before DSN (“Industrial Strength Trek” or “Gritty Trek”).

   There’s been a longstanding belief among Babylon-5 fans that DSN had some under-the-table cross-fertilization from B5 — both were being pitched around the same time and ran concurrently.

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5. Beside severything that’s been said of the philosophy of the show, you need to remember – TV is about ratings and Star Trek was no exception. And if a movie doesn’t sell tickets, you don’t get to make another, no matter how good the first one is. Conflict always makes for good drama – and bad drama too, but that’s another subject. And again, ST is no exception to that. And what’s bigger than conflict with a ‘god’?

   Some of the things Roddenberry and others did were only for the purpose of ratings. It was, after all, entertainment for the purpose of profit.

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6. It would be interesting to be able to have a casual conversation with a pastor/priest about SiFi first contact books or anything written by Niven and others and they know what I’m talking about and have read the books. 🙂

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7. Yes, I have read the book and sequel.

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8. One of the things I read about Roddenberry was he did not want to make Star Trek religious in any way. He felt that the future Earth would be beyond religion by that time. One interseting surprise on the later show “Deep Space Nine” was the religious beliefs of the Bajorans (a humanoid race) that were prominent. Don’t think that Roddenberry was involved in any of that – his involvement pretty much ended with the Next Generation (which I believe was the best of the series). He also tangentially touched on religion in one or two episodes of that show, but not very deeply, in one of my favorite episodes “Who Watches the Watchers?” which I highly recommend.

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9. I think it comes down to Evangelicals developing a case of Tunnel Vision.

   Made worse by the “Christian Bizarro World” ghetto where you can go from birth to Homegoing (TM) without ever leaving its Thomas Kincade cottage except for Wretched Urgency prosletyzing sallies.

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10. What a fabulous and inspiring article.

    Enterprise is a good show — but be prepared, the ending of the series is a bit ad hoc as the show was canceled, not completed.

    But, even though the end of the ride is abrupt, the trip getting there is very enjoyable.

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11. Nothing I know of. Just that 1968 is my usual dividing point between the First and Second 1960s; a lot of things just seemed to go south around that time.

    Thinking back on it, a lot of those Analogs were more 1960-1970, straddling the New Wave SF movement. (Though Analog would have none of New Wave.)

    I got hooked on SiFi in about 65 when I found Analog. the serialized main story hooked me. The sad part was it had a deep racist element to the plot. But the SiFi hooked me.

    Also thinking back on it, Campbell (from what I remember of his editorials in Analog) had a pretty strong streak of racism and eugenics in his attitude. (There was also a human-superiority element in his editorial acceptance policies, to the point that the term “Campbellian” came to mean a space-opera where humans are the most advanced/dominant species.) Also I figure he must have been a heavy smoker, from all the pro-tobacco editorial asides (such as the claim that lung cancer was NOT caused by tobacco smoke, but from using a cigarette lighter instead of matches).

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12. Would this be about the same time as prayer in public schools was disallowed?

    I think that happened around 1962, five years after Sputnik and roughly contemporary with the Cuban Missile Crisis/Nuclear War Scare. So yes, it would have been about the same time.

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13. “I grew up on the Bright Futures in pre-1968 issues of Analog ”

    At first I thought by 1968 you meant when Campbell died (the long time editor of Analog). But he died in 1971. What happened to Analog in 1968? My memories are a bit fuzzy as I was in the 8th grade then. 🙂

    I got hooked on SiFi in about 65 when I found Analog. the serialized main story hooked me. The sad part was it had a deep racist element to the plot. But the SiFi hooked me. And when Campbell died the tone of the magazine changed. Some for the better, some for the worse.

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14. Would this be about the same time as prayer in public schools was disallowed? If so, I wonder if that had something to do with it as well; it would have been easy to paint it as a push for indoctrinating the children with godless liberal secularism and whipping up a backlash against science education.

    It does fascinate me, because schools in Ireland (thanks to the convolutions of history) were and still are predominantly church schools; the teaching orders involved in education basically built, ran and staffed all levels of education in Ireland.

    My biology teacher in secondary (high) school was Sr. Angela. She taught us the text book on Darwinian evolution (and Lamarck got a look in as well) and we never got the “This is practically atheism, children, and don’t believe a word of it!” lecture. Then I read about American textbooks in some states saying that modern science is a sham and Young Earth Creationism is yer only man, and I do wonder what is going to happen.

    It’s not good for science and it’s not good for religion.

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15. Now I’m depressed.

    Looks like it will be Jesuits in Space, after all. Oh, well: when Our New Insect Overlords land, I’ll put a good word in for all you guys 🙂

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16. Oh, the tinkering around!

    I imagine that’s why they’ve gone for a complete reboot with the new film, which is actually more honest – if you’re going to toss out years of established canon, do it on the grand scale and start afresh.

    Still haven’t forgiven them for blowing up Vulcan, though. At least I can tell myself that the *real* Vulcan isn’t toast, it’s just this AU timeline Vulcan, but still – argh.

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17. “Why has science left the realm of being a tool that we have developed to reliably interact with this physical existence, and gone into the realm of trying to identify origins and reasons for why things do what they do?”

    Science without why is incredibly boring. Without a goal of finding out why, why do the experiment? Also toss in some how. But my interest in chemistry and physics were due to exploring the why.

    We have calculus because of a why. An early “modern” astronomer was asking Newton if he, as a well known mathematician, knew why all the orbits of the planets were elliptical and not circular. Newton told him he didn’t know but, went off and a few months later came back with the answer. But to get to the answer he had to invent the discipline of calculus. One of the biggest “why” questions of all time.

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18. Jars of Clay recorded that song on their Redemption Songs album that featured a lot of older hymns.

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19. It’s worse than that he’s dead Jim
    Dead Jim, dead Jim
    It’s worse than that he’s dead Jim
    Dead Jim DEAD!

    (the confluence of Dr. Demento and Star Trek must be the ultimate in geekiness)

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20. ‘Modern “scientific” atheism and intransigent Biblically-literal young Earthism are cut from the same cloth.’

    Amen. And the Orthodox Church broadly — Fr. Seraphim’s idiosyncracies notwithstanding — gets the whole subject just about perfectly right.

    “Many years!”, Fr. Ernesto. Our prayers are with you.

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21. In short, it linked the rise of Creationism with a widespread focus on spending on science and engineering during the 50’s and 60’s, as a response to the panic that the US was falling behind the Soviets in the Space Race. One of those areas placed under intense focus was a heavy push in science education in the public school system…

    I got caught up by that. I was diagnosed as a Kid Genius in kindergarten, two years after Sputnik, and fast-tracked for the next twelve grades.

    Because of the heightened emphasis on evolution, that prompted the response of many evangelical groups in the US against it, especially with additional issue of changing cultural values at that time. I can’t say if it’s fact, but the argument was compelling.

    In other words, a one-two punch: Sputnik and The Sixties. And we’re all still staggering around from it.

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22. iMonk, thanks for maintianing and moderating this site, it has challenged and comforted me.

    Why has science left the realm of being a tool that we have developed to reliably interact with this physical existence, and gone into the realm of trying to identify origins and reasons for why things do what they do? I don’t feel confident about the figure that has been extrapolated from the Bible as to the age of the earth, but I also know that for science to make absolutes on the same matter is an attempt at translating the infinite nature of this universe into finite numbers that we can perceive. It’s similar to the act of trying to make your way to a 0 value by dividing, an infinite process when done with a finite tool set.

    Also faith does not require proof, and to require it devalues the reward.(1 Cor 1:20-25 & John 20:29b)

    The task set for us is not to defend the unassailable,(God’s Providence) but rather those who can not defend themselves.(i.e. the oppressed.This doesn’t count us if we are oppressed. We should remember that we were promised such sufferings, and that when we bear them with a glad countenance, we are enhancing His glory.)

    I hope that this is a cogent statement and will make an effort to clarify if necessary.

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23. Thanks, Werther. I probably even saw that episode in college, but don’t recall it anymore.

    I’m sort of just having fun with the question now, of course, but I do remember asking myself the question when I was, oh, 13 or so, and experiencing sort of a philosophical awakening of some sort. Then I probably went outside to work on my jumpshot.

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24. I’m surprised no one (myself included) mentioned “A Canticle for Leibowitz” until just now. I’ve always found it serendipitous that he wrote it in 1959(?), just a handful of years before Vatican II de-Latinized….

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25. I think Kirk’s question, “What does God need with a starship?” was one of the best lines I’d ever heard in all of Trek.

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26. I mean, how did Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles become The Entire Gospel? Wasn’t there this guy Jesus Christ who was supposed to be somewhere in the mix?

    Sarcasm aside, I thought a really interesting historical-sociological discussion of the particular kind of Creationism seen in the US was in the introductory essay of the book Scientists Confront Creationism, edited by Laurie Murphy. In short, it linked the rise of Creationism with a widespread focus on spending on science and engineering during the 50’s and 60’s, as a response to the panic that the US was falling behind the Soviets in the Space Race. One of those areas placed under intense focus was a heavy push in science education in the public school system, especially in biology, where previously schools hadn’t even touched the issue of evolution. Because of the heightened emphasis on evolution, that prompted the response of many evangelical groups in the US against it, especially with additional issue of changing cultural values at that time. I can’t say if it’s fact, but the argument was compelling.

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27. I have seen some futuristic “Christian Evangelical SF” set some significant time in the future…albeit, a future where scientists have “proven” the existence of God and all decided en-massé, Left Behind-style to abandon any scientific theory or framework for “Christian Science”.

    So Mary Baker Eddy triumphed after all? (hee hee hee)

    I ran into one recently in a Webzine where right in the middle of the story (set “a significant time into the future”) the author went into an aside how “Evolution Has Been Proved False”. Struck me as either an inverse of Star Trek‘s “We’ve All Evolved Beyond That” or a knockoff of the Soviet-era Russian SF trope where they always had to state how in this future “We Have Now Achieved True Communism”.

    I actually remember reading about one book where one such scientific proof was something alone the lines of scientists discovering that Genesis 1 was secretly encoded into our DNA by God.

    I ran into that exact premise in a Roe-v-Wade Anniversary issue of World Magazine years ago. It was one of a series of flashfics on the subject “the 100th anniversary of Roe-v-Wade”. Most of them were pretty lame, but that one stood out.

    And always struck me as YEC wish-fulfillment fantasy: Decoding the human genome finds Genesis 1 encrypted word-for-word in it, thus Absoutely PROVING Young Earth Creationism — Take That, Darwin!

    (The only thing I could compare it to was the generic Furry wish-fulfillment fanfic where “Everybody woke up tomorrow to find EVERYONE had morphed from humans into Furries — Yiff! Yiff! Yiff!”)

    Note how both of the above (Christian, not Furry) are variations on a theme: finding Absolute Proof of Young Earth Creationism/God’s Existance/The Bible’s Literal Truth, the same theme that motivates all those Searches for Noah’s Ark.

    I mean, how did Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles become The Entire Gospel? Wasn’t there this guy Jesus Christ who was supposed to be somewhere in the mix?

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28. Why do you think I picked that number?
    And increment it every year?

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29. “If the SBC (as the largest non-Catholic Christian body in the U.S.A.) can’t do something along these lines, then what hope is there? I’m not asking the “6-days of 24-hours each Creation” folks to change their minds, I’m just suggesting that hearing the reasons why scientists accept the theories they do (other than “Satan has cooked this up!”) can’t do any harm.”

    The YEC fans who know more than to parrot the company line do know how geologist come up with their dates. They say they are wrong. So they come up with convoluted ways that don’t violate their reading of the Bible.

    The problem is that the YEC theories all have severe problems or are based on rejecting most data (cherry picking) or just flat out refusing to believe anything that contradicts their biblical view of things. Considering that their biblical view might be wrong is totally not an option for most of them.

    I was in a group that setup just such a “discussion”. It was spread over about 8 weeks. By the time it was over it was clear the YEC side was never going to accept any theory that disproved their conclusions. And if their theories didn’t work to the end conclusion then they would keep working till they could come up with theories that would. A total rejection of the scientific method. And the YEC end game was if you’re not with us then you’re not really a Christian. Not all of them felt this way but it seemed that about 1/2 or more did.

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30. http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-fall/
    Thanks, Rick, for the URL to that article. I thought it was very good.

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31. No future settings more than “Twenty Minutes into the Future”? I have seen some futuristic “Christian Evangelical SF” set some significant time in the future…albeit, a future where scientists have “proven” the existence of God and all decided en-massé, Left Behind-style to abandon any scientific theory or framework for “Christian Science”. I actually remember reading about one book where one such scientific proof was something alone the lines of scientists discovering that Genesis 1 was secretly encoded into our DNA by God.

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32. You know, I actually did like the theme song, even if it wasn’t specifically written for the show. I thought it actually reflected the “pioneering spirit” of the show.

    Too bad it got all bogged down in Bakkula’s overacting, and the silliness of, well, just about everything else.

    What bothers me about the whole “Fanservice” thing which had Troi, Seven, and T’Pau literally just standing there as eye candy is that it smacked of laziness. Again B5 was a great example of a show which didn’t need to resort to silly tactics like that – Susan Ivanova was a wonderful character who added so much depth to the show; her speech about her being “sent by God” as vengeance for what the Earth baddies did to her family was totally awesome.

    But really, all of the tinkering around with the Star Trek universe that happened on that show was just a slap in the face to the fans. You can’t possibly make all of the stuff that happened in the show happen without causing some serious problems with continuity to the established canon. I mean, they even had the Borg in Enterprise, for goodness’ sake.

    And Voyager. Yes, that really was a missed opportunity. I really do think Genevieve Bujold would have made a great captain…it’s too bad she never took on that role.

    Another show of interest from a potentially Christian standpoint is Firefly – I think there’s a lot of fertile discussion which can be had from the character of Derrial Book.

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33. HUG,

    Let’s see 6013-year-old-earth -2009 A.D.- type years puts us at 4004 B.C.

    Bishop Ussher would be so proud!!

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34. Rick Wrote:
    “Not sure G. Roddenberry, had he lived long enough, would have approved of the direction Deep Space Nine went in regards to religious issues”.

    Ronald Moore has certainly opened a few windows in his Science Fiction work:

    “There’s another force at work here…there always has been. It’s undeniable, we’ve all experienced it, everyone…has witnessed events they can’t fathom let alone explain away by rational means. Whether we want to call that God or some sublime inspiration, or a divine force that we can’t understand, it doesn’t matter. IT”S HERE. IT EXISTS. And our destinies are entwined in its force”

    Gaius Baltar – the Finale of the recent TV series, Battlestar Galactica.

    Joanie wrote:
    “You ask, “If the ‘footprints’ are truly gone, how do we truly substantiate or determine how to validate a particular view or interpretation?” I answer, “I don:’t know.”

    They have to be there – items like the New Testament genealogies, for example, certainly point to a historical framework. Perhaps we still await a real insight into the way our age can unlock these matters.

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35. Howard and JoanieD-

    Good discussion. In regards to some views of such issues, I do recommend the Biologos website (and blog) that deals with such issues and questions. It is put together by scientists, including Francis Collins, who are Christians that believe in evolution.

    Here is their post on evolution and the question of sin and “The Fall”:

    http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-fall/

    Here is today’s blog post by them and it deals with origins:

    http://blog.beliefnet.com/scienceandthesacred/2009/07/different-types-of-origin-stories.html

    I am not saying I agree with everything they write, but the sites are helpful in seeing their view of such issues, especially since they have a high view of the orthodox faith and of Scripture.

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36. MuleChewingBriars-

    Thanks for your thoughts.
    “The Orthodox Church has a healthier view of God’s immanence than the Western Churches do.” I think you may be right.

    I understand that Fr. Ernesto is having a medical procedure done. I hope it goes smoothly and that he feels better soon.

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37. Martha,

    You might want to read Mark Noll’s book, “The scandal of the Evangelical Mind” . It might shed some light into the problems.

    Also, the SBC is not really an organization like the Catholic Church. It is a group of churches who have decided to play (and hopefully pray) together. Combining money to do things that each couldn’t do on their own. Because they are knit together very loosely, it is hard to do like you suggested.

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38. Stepping in for Fr. Ernesto –

    Mostly the Orthodox Church just ignores the whole science vs Genesis debate. I almost never hear it come up. Fr. Seraphim Rose took something like a Young Earth stand, and I believe he did point out something very worthwhile – modern science investigates the world as it is currently composed. Just as there is nothing that can be known about the environment beyond the event horizon inside a singularity, in the same way nothing can be known about the cosmos as it existed prior to Genesis 3:6 except by divine revelation. The assumption that it proceeded according to the same laws and principles as currently obtain is just that, an assumption.

    Also, the discussion about the existence of time (“billions and billions of years”) prior to the existence of a consciousness capable of marking that time has always seemed to me to be putting the cart before the horse philosophically. You start out with the idea that time exists in some objective sense, that it manifests itself in a succession of discrete moments even if nobody is around to pass through those moments, and this provides the framework for the whole evolutionary enterprise.

    Modern “scientific” atheism and intransigent Biblically-literal young Earthism are cut from the same cloth. That’s like the yob who wondered if a light meter could have measured the light on the Mount of the Transfigration, as if a created device could measure uncreated light. Both have a view of God as if He were like an artificer creating from without rather than a animating from within. The Orthodox Church has a healthier view of God’s immanence than the Western Churches do. I find Westerners, among whom I include myself, pay lip service to the divine immanence as a tenent of systematic theology. that is, we believe because the Bible and our pastors teach it, not because we know anything about it.

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39. Many evangelicals would prefer the refuge of Ken Ham’s 6,000 year old universe where you can be assured that either no one else is out there, or if they are, Jesus Christ showed up on their world as well, to any consideration of extraterrestrial ethics.

    IMonk, this is one of the four tropes that Christian SF inherited from Christian Apocalyptic Fiction: There are NO Aliens, and all “Aliens” are Really DEMONS in disguise. A 6013-year-old, Earth-and-some-lights-in-the-sky Punyverse cannot have any other intelligent life than God, Angels, Demons, and humans.

    The four abovementioned tropes are:
    1) No settings off Earth (because if we go offworld, God won’t be able to Rapture us).
    2) No future settings more than “Twenty Minutes into the Future” (because Christ is Coming Soon and we won’t have a future).
    3) No aliens (unless they’re really DEMONS).
    4) No semihumans/genetic constructs (unless they’re Satanic).
    I try to break these four whenever possible.

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40. Howard, good luck with Lewis’ Miracles. I found that book tough reading and had to read some paragraphs several times. I didn’t find other books of his: Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, Surprised by Joy, to be quite so tough. I am reading his The Four Loves and not finding it particularly engaging. In fact, since I started reading it, I have read three other books and am partway through a couple others!

    You ask, “If the ‘footprints’ are truly gone, how do we truly substantiate or determine how to validate a particular view or interpretation?” I answer, “I don’t know.”

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41. Joanie,
    Many thanks for your reply.

    You wrote:
    “Humans once walked on earth “in tune” with what God wanted for them to do. But, they then thought that they knew better than God and could “think for themselves” so to speak. By doing so, they cut themselves off from the life-giving Spirit of God”.

    I’d agree that the Biblical account certainly teaches this, but it’s hard to determine how this is worked through if the underlying understanding, which, it seems to me, was linked in some measure to a historical series of events by the writers, is in truth absent. If the ‘footprints’ are truly gone, how do we truly substantiate or determine how to validate a particular view or interpretation?

    As I’m currently reading C S Lewis’ “Miracles”, I certainly agree that many considerations in this field are simply staggering.

    Yours,
    Howard.

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42. Oh, I was miffed, I tell you, miffed!

    I wanted the early history of the Federation. I wanted more about Andor, and the Tellerites, and and and…

    .. and we got about five seconds of that, then the production company or the studio or someone got twitchy and said “Where are the space battles? Where is the action? Where is the hot chick in spandex?” and so we got ActionHero!Archer and that ridiculous – just off the top of my head – one early episode where Archer and T’Pol end up handcuffed together, and to get out of the restraints, have to crawl all over one another. Yeah, guys: and then you wonder why women don’t read/watch/are not involved in SF (yes, we do/are, but that’s a different rant).

    I tell you, T’Pau wouldn’t have put up with that kind of carryon! 😉

    I hated the dog, too. Well, not the dog as a dog, but it was so ridiculous – a dog? on a spaceship? What kind of idiot – oh, wait, I forgot: Brannon Braga.

    I am now going out to yell at those pesky kids to get off my lawn 🙂

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43. Ah, it was a fairly early one (as I said, long time since I watched the original, so can’t give chapter and verse).

    But I did like the notion that religion could be taken seriously. They did rather start off as ‘the Federation coming in to help the benighted frontier dwellers’ and I loved when Kira tore strips off Bashir for that very attitude from the start.

    They had a great time contrasting Kai Opaka and Kai Winn – as I said, Winn did get the Renaissance Pope treatment as being manipulative and power-hungry, but even she had a little more depth to her character: she was allowed to genuinely believe in the Prophets and to undergo her own spiritual crisis. Once she was convinced that Sisko was indeed the Emissary (and not just shoved into the role by Starfleet on behalf of the Federation interests – as a political animal herself, she knew all about manoeuvring of that nature), she accepted him in that light.

    On the whole, I liked DS9’s treatment of religion; granted, the Bajorans and Cardassians were thinly veiled Jews and Nazis, and elements of the Bajoran religion were very much influenced by Jewish traditions/customs (I’m thinking of Kira talking about going to Temple, and the Yahrzeit candle she lit for Bareil), so that may have been one reason for the relatively sympathetic treatment of it (as opposed to a Christian version).

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44. Not sure G. Roddenberry, had he lived long enough, would have approved of the direction Deep Space Nine went in regards to religious issues.

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45. But even a one-off conference or meeting or open day in which scientists come along and say “Okay, here’s why we date rocks to such-and-such epochs and eras; here’s why we date the universe as such-and-such an age. These are the tools, these are the methods, this is how we do it.”

    Not in a gladitorial combat way, but just to get the facts. It’s all very well to say that scientists are either deliberately lying, or total idiots, when they say that rocks are thousands of millions of years old, but if you don’t even have a clue as to how they get to that notion, then you don’t really have a leg to stand on.

    Because you may as well not use medicine, electricity, drive cars, use refrigeration, or do anything other than live in a cave gnawing on bones, if you’re going to reject the entire premise of the scientific method as lies and delusions.

    That is not that there isn’t such a thing as ‘scientism’, in which Science becomes deified and all kinds of conclusions in all kinds of fields are drawn without warrant, but it’s a big much to live in a modern house in a modern country and benefit from the fruits of scientific and technological discovery, all the time declaring that the principles which gave you your comforts and necessities are false and worthless.

    If the SBC (as the largest non-Catholic Christian body in the U.S.A.) can’t do something along these lines, then what hope is there? I’m not asking the “6-days of 24-hours each Creation” folks to change their minds, I’m just suggesting that hearing the reasons why scientists accept the theories they do (other than “Satan has cooked this up!”) can’t do any harm. ‘Know the enemy’, right?

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46. Turning T’Pau into a Vulcan sex kitten? (And I am willing to bet good money this was due to The Seven of Nine Effect, viz. attract the fanboys by putting a statutesque actress into a tight catsuit).

    There is a formal technical term for this: FANSERVICE.

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47. When you’re a compulsive womanizer, your second TV series will reflect that. Especially when diabetes and alcoholism and mini-strokes have had their way with your grey matter. Joel Engel’s unauthorized biography of Roddenberry states in so many words that he tried to make “New Testament Trek” an exercise in his own sexual fantasy near the end of his life, and the other producers and writers were always either fighting with him over it or sneaking the stuff past him. (That’s why the first season or two of ST:TNG had so many holodeck and Q episodes; it was the only thing they could sneak past Roddenberry. Anything else — any drama, conflict, storytelling — ran into the brick wall of “But by the time of Star Trek, We’ve Evolved Beyond All That!” Years later, one of JMS’s axioms of Babylon-5 was “It’ll take a LOT longer than 300 years to ‘Evolve Beyond All That'”…)

    I’ve seen the same attitude without the excuse of age, alcohol, and strokes. You run into it all the time in Furry Fandom.

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48. Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica)’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a welcome change from the aggressive atheism of Star Trek’s other spin-offs. Better characterization, action, and story-telling, as well.

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49. I haven’t written about it, but a LOT of other writers have. Not necessarily in a Trek milieu, but just on teleporation and what it implies. (As in “what if it’s actually a replicator that destroys the original to make the replicate somewhere else?”) There’s one story in Infinite Space, Infinite God that deals with that, and a New Outer Limits episode called “Think Like a Dinosaur” where the original survives to “disrupt the balance of the Universe”, and an animated short I saw at Spike & Mike’s years ago, and that’s just off the top of my sleep-deprived head.

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50. If you already have a Netflix subscription, get yourself a Roku. They’re awesome.

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51. Both.

    Because IMonk’s right. That IS the closest thing the SBC and Evangelicals have to an Evangelical Academy of Science.

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52. “and Total Sexual Freedom. ”

    I suppose most of us have heard the story of the three-some that Roddenberry tried to arrange with Majel Barrett and Nichelle Nichols… They say your first novel is autobiographical. What about your second TV series?

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53. Great post! I think you will find others of the series more provocative where this topic is concerned. I guess the benefit of starting with “Enterprise” is that it will make all the others seem that much better. Seriously though, great reflections.

    Are you familiar with the novel “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell? Well worth your time. While a synopsis might sound cheesy (as it is about the Jesuits being the first to travel to an alien planet), it is one of the most profound works of fiction you will ever read.

    Peace,
    Jamie

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54. Small comment – evolution is not chance-driven, it is “driven” by natural selection but, we might say, powered by random mutation. Overly focusing on the chance aspect of evolution has caused a great deal of mischief and ignorance.

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55. Also, Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow.”

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56. I would say that our nature double-edged and that the reverse side has prevented total annihilation. I do find it unlikely that we will tame our dark side through rationality and logic. Even the Vulcan’s victory over emotion proved largely an illusion.

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57. Do I laugh or do I cry?

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58. Yup, that’s a great episode. I still like the the last scene in Gethsemane better.

    Forgiveness is a hard thing. But necessary.

    This scene is pretty good too.

    Here’s what JMS (B5’s creator) says about “Passing Through Gethsemane” and forgiveness in the Lurker’s Guide:

    As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.

    So I cannot forgive. Which makes the notion of writing a character who CAN forgive momentarily attractive…because it allows me to explore in great detail something of which I am utterly incapable. I cannot fly, so I would write of birds and starships and kites; I cannot play an instrument, so I would write of composers and dancers; and I cannot forgive, so I would write of priests and monks and minbari….

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59. Rampancy,
    That’s my favorite B5 Episode. 🙂 I googled a bit for the song and I believe “No Hiding Place” is a Gospel song from the Folksinger’s Wordbook. In “The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5”, JMS does say it’s an old Gospel song.

    I also love the “Moment of Perfect Beauty” from There All The Honor Lies in Season 2:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-7CjnBKAb8

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60. >Seriously, Michael, could the SBC not sponsor something along the lines of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?

    This may qualify as the finniest thing ever said about the SBC.

    I think the SBC’s version of that is the Creation Museum here in Ky.

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61. rampancy, I have just (virtually) fallen upon your shoulder, sobbing “Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!”

    Turning T’Pau into a Vulcan sex kitten? (And I am willing to bet good money this was due to The Seven of Nine Effect, viz. attract the fanboys by putting a statutesque actress into a tight catsuit). Wasting Scott Bakula as an actor by turning him into Action Hero!Archer? That stupid, stupid, stupid (did I mention stupid?) Temporal War thing – people, please! This is early Federation history, when we don’t even have a reliable working transporter. We’re dependent on the good graces of the Vulcans to get outside our own solar system. A civilisation with time-travel would kick our backsides from here to the Magellanic Clouds and still get home in time for tea.

    And I didn’t like the theme music, either 🙂

    (You should hear my rant about the wasted opportunities with “Voyager” and what should be done to Brannon Braga, involving copious notes taken from Dante’s “Inferno” to start with.)

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62. “Not all Christians are as poorly equipped for an honest participation in the Star Trek universe as evangelicals.”

    Just because the Vatican Observatory is run by Jesuits (and has extended its tentacles to Arizona, with a research group at the University of Arizona and telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory) is not a matter for concern.

    And just because we seem to have a programme for First Contact is nothing to be worried about:

    http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2000/08/Would-You-Baptize-An-Extraterrestrial.aspx

    We are not in advanced negotiations with aliens and preparing for when our new insect overlords land, don’t be silly! 🙂

    Seriously, Michael, could the SBC not sponsor something along the lines of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences? As you say, Christianity and science need not be at one another’s throats, and some kind of forum where there could be a meeting of minds, or a place for discussion outside the ‘culture wars’, or even just for scientists who are also believers not to have stones thrown at them, would be helpful .

    http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/index.htm

    “The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is international in scope, multi-racial in composition, and non-sectarian in its choice of members. The work of the Academy comprises six major areas: Fundamental science; Science and technology of global problems; Science for the problems of the Third World; Scientific policy; Bioethics; Epistemology.”

    “Today, almost half a century after the publication

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63. Howard, I like FollowOfHim’s post regarding “footprints.” And regarding what would happen to our theology if there was no Adam and no Eve who was created out of a rib of Adam: I say that we can still learn from the allegory. Humans once walked on earth “in tune” with what God wanted for them to do. But, they then thought that they knew better than God and could “think for themselves” so to speak. By doing so, they cut themselves off from the life-giving Spirit of God. It took Jesus, who was ALWAYS in tune with God to bring us back to God. That would be it in a very succinct way. Obviously, there would be a lot more explaining to do to flesh this out. (But hey…Jesus “fleshed” it out very well!)

    I think we all, to some extent, decide that there are things in the BIble that are allegorial or metaphorical. Jesus was not a physical door or a real vine….we know those as metaphorical language. I don’t believe Lot’s wife actually turned into a pillar of salt. She may have cried so much as she realized she could never return to the home she loved that she became “salty!” Or, it may be that the pillar of salt story came about to explain a feature on the earth that was kind of in the shape of a woman.

    But…I do believe the miracles that Jesus did. I can see him healing the lame and the sick. I can see him increasing the bread and fish. I can see him walking on water. I can see him appearing in a room though the door was locked (after the resurrection.) I can see him resurrected. What’s the difference? Well, I do believe that the Spirit and power of God was in Jesus. And his miracles are not things like turning rocks into bread….he is making MORE bread from what is already there. Even when he turned water into wine…it was more of an “adding to” than something like turning rocks into bread. When he healed people, he was able to see them as healed and they were healed.

    The resurrection is easier for me to somehow imagine or comprehend than Jesus being conceived without sperm. There was an egg because he was born of Mary and she conceived him in her womb and he said to be fully human. Yet, if we say he was fully human, then that would mean he would have to have chromosomes the way every other human does. So, if there was no man contributing sperm, then I guess God had to “whip up” a sperm right then and there. It does sound odd. But, I guess when you think of it, it’s no odder than the fact that we have this entire universe and we cannot really imagine how it began and yet we cannot imagine there being a time when it did not exist. Thoughts of eternity blow my mind!

    I am a nobody though; I am not a teacher, preacher, theologian. So take what I say with a grain of salt and learn from folks like C.S. Lewis and N. T. Wright and others that Michael and others here may recommend.

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64. https://internetmonk.com/michael-spencer-the-internet-monk

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65. Fr. Ernesto-

    Would like to hear your thoughts on how the Orthodox Church handles such matters, especially Genesis and evolution.

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66. Howard-

    “We re-evaluate the Genesis account as myth, poetry, etc, but what impact does that have on our theology – if there were no Adam (one of the two ‘men’ of history, according to Paul), no historical fall, no ‘days of Noah’ as such, then where does this leave the essential theological framework of Creation, Fall, and Redemption which underpins the entire nature of Biblical revelation?”

    The essentiall theological framework is not changed. God still created, mankind still falls short of His glory. Likewise, the centrality of God/Christ/Trinity, and His mission, does not change.
    However, keep in mind that some of the early church fathers wondered about the genre of Genesis as well.
    What may change is the understanding of how God created, and how we all end up in sin and death.

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67. Since otherwise I’d have had to have explained how in vitro fertilization couldn’t classify as virgin.

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68. One author who has managed to do that quite reasonably is Christopher Stasheff in his series about Gramary. The first book in the series is “A Warlock inspite of Himself.”

    None of his books have ever made it to the screen, and especially in the early ones, it would be hard. Partly because they are both science fiction and fantasy, part because of his love of punning.

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69. My pastor just sent me a copy of “When I Am Weak”. Amazing. Brilliant. Who are you?

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70. “Literalism with respect to Genesis (and other places in the OT), by contrast, makes vast claims about subjects which, if historically factual, should leave large footprints”.

    So what if those ‘footprints’ aren’t there?
    We re-evaluate the Genesis account as myth, poetry, etc, but what impact does that have on our theology – if there were no Adam (one of the two ‘men’ of history, according to Paul), no historical fall, no ‘days of Noah’ as such, then where does this leave the essential theological framework of Creation, Fall, and Redemption which underpins the entire nature of Biblical revelation? If that message – and particularly the basis it derives from – is dubious at best, fallacy at worse, where does that leave us?

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71. Some personal opinions.

    Star Trek, especially THG, relied heavily on magic/miracles to solve many plot lines until Roddenberry died. Q was big in this. But other “advanced magicians” filled the void way too many times. It was nice to actually have the characters figure out solutions.

    I can’t believe iMonk is/was not a fan of DS9. With Cisco being such a total baseball fan and all. And there was that great episode where he explained linear thought to a race of ephemeral timeless beings via a baseball game.

    The science of STV was a joke. Ken Hamm has better explanations for things.

    STE had my vote as the POTENTIAL to be the best series in the series. But the network that has inherited the ST franchise really has no idea what to do with it. If you look at their other TV shows it was and will be a poor fit for a long time. And the reference to Archer’s dog in the current movie was priceless.

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72. “It would be almost impossible to write a reasonable science fiction story set in the far future that incorporated Christianity.”

    “A Mote in God’s Eye” has some minor incorporation of religion in a first contact situation. But it was a very minor point.

    And if you’ve not read the book, the “Mote in God’s Eye” refers to the look of a cluster of stars.

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73. “What scientific evidence exists of Christ’s virgin birth or resurrection? There is not one single scientifically verified case of a human being conceived without sperm and egg,”

    Since when does virgin mean no sperm and egg?

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74. “Answers such as “the universe was created with the appearance of age” won’t do very well when the residents of that universe are telling you their own versions of the history of the universe.”

    And even more to the point. If it was “created old” then it doesn’t mater to science. They deal with what is. And if what is is old rocks, then the rocks are old.

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75. Follower Of Him, the transporter issue was addressed (sort of) in an episode of “Next Generation,” in which Riker discovered that a long-ago transporter mishap had created two of him.

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76. Fr. Ernesto:

    “It would be almost impossible to write a reasonable science fiction story set in the far future that incorporated Christianity. Remember, by our own beliefs, the final denouement of history takes place here on Earth, in the Middle East.”

    Uh, to many Christians, this would be greeted as the very opposite of reasonable.

    Assuming the indefinite continuation of human history, since Christianity has already lasted two millennia, I don’t see how a few more thousand years could be considered implausible, even from a strictly secular perspective. If anything, it seems a conservative prediction.

    By the way, “Babylon 5” (like Star Trek, set several centuries in the future) did explore the issue of religion in some detail. At one point the captain had representatives of various earth religions line up for the benefit of an alien ambassador. Their range was similar to that which exists today. Also, one of the main characters on the show was from an Orthodox Jewish family.

    Turning to novels, if memory serves, “Speaker for the Dead” (Orson Scott Card) takes place on a planet settled by Brazilian Catholics. (I think Card served there as a Mormon missionary.) And “Dune” has come up before–it takes place in a universe where various religions have been amalgated together, but on a planet with its own Islamic-inspired messianic traditions. Also, the Bene Gesseret function as an independent religious order. (They are organized as nuns, but “Kwisatz Hararach” apparently comes from Hassidism, of all things.)

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77. Great point.

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78. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and “Fahrenheit 451” are two sci-fi classics with plenty of Christian themes and imagery, and a good Christian case can be made for “The Matrix.”

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79. This was pretty much the scene which made me realize how different B5 was from any Sci-Fi Show I’d ever seen before back when it was first running:

    It loses it’s impact if you don’t know the whole context of the relationship between the Narn and the Centauri, and G’kar and Londo, but it’s still a chilling scene – I was always curious where “No Hiding Place” came from as a hymn.

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80. B5 was the greatest sci-fi show of all time until the new BSG edged it out just by it’s sheer realism. The BSG episodes during the insurrection are bone-chilling.

    But B5 is a show I go out of my way to see.

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81. Amen

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82. That is indeed the case, his show notes for that episode are amazing

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83. Ah, Star Trek Enterprise, or “Enterprise”, or “Rick Berman and Brannon Braga’s Last Attempt to Try To Destroy the Star Trek Franchise”. I wish Manny Coto had gotten his hands on this series earlier, otherwise we wouldn’t have had to sit through the incredibly inane “Temporal Cold War” plot arc.

    And then there’s the unbelievable “Decontamination Room” scenes with T’Pau and Archer. If all away missions ended up with the Away Team half-naked washing each other down it’s no wonder why the Federation consistently kept on getting their behinds handed to them by just about every antagonistic race in the series. *shudders*

    And yet, Enterprise was my guilty pleasure, like WWE or the copy of MacAddict magazine quietly stashed away. It was a fun show that didn’t take itself too seriously the way DS9 or TNG or Voyager did. I didn’t need to follow the complex relationships of DS9, the moral preaching of TOS, Capt. Picard waxing philosophical on TNG, or Kate Mulgrew overacting her way out of another sticky situation on VOY. No, if I turned on the TV to Enterprise, I knew for sure that people with funny facial prosthetics were going to get beaten up and/or shot, and lots of stuff was going to explode. Fun times.

    I really do want to echo the earlier comment recommended Babylon 5. Please, please, PLEASE watch it from beginning to end, and then watch Babylon 5: In The Beginning. J. Michael Straczynski wove a spellbinding story of heroism, forgiveness sacrifice, love, and redemption, that really deserved a wider fanbase than it ended up getting. The story of G’kar and Londo Mollari, hated enemies representing two races bitterly at war who ended up making their peace with themselves and their ultimate fate is something I still find touching and inspiring, and Marcus’s desire to stay “pure” for his love Ivanova is something which I find puts Twilight’s Edward Cullen to shame.

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84. There’s a very strong form of faith in Star Trek that appears in every episode, often several times:

    Everyone believes that when they use the transporter to beam down to the planet du jour, they will still be themselves, and not just an exact replica.

    (Please tell me you’ve written about this big can of gak/worms already somewhere, HUG…..)

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85. Live long and prosper.

    Not all science fiction writers are raving negativists or atheists. Some do quite a bit of work with take-offs on fairy tales or futuristic military fiction, etc. Many in the fantasy crowd have future worlds in which gods are at work. And many of those gods reflect some rather Christian ethic.

    But, here is the reality. You are not going to find science fiction writers that are going to portray a Christian universe and are able to sell that story to non-Christian publishers. The reason is an extremely practical one. It would be almost impossible to write a reasonable science fiction story set in the far future that incorporated Christianity.

    Remember, by our own beliefs, the final denouement of history takes place here on Earth, in the Middle East. Thus, a story, such as the Isaac Asimov Foundation Series / IRobot series which takes us thousands of years into the future to a humanity so scattered in space that the Earth is itself considered a mythological memory, would have to posit that God had delayed the Second Coming to the point that the Middle East would have little to nothing to do with human history. That would certainly be taking Christianity from its “conservative” roots into something more like a mythological religion.

    It need not be atheistic bias that makes science fiction writers unable to write an usable conservative Christianity into their stories. It can simply be that our own books (Old and New Testament) appear to give a history of humanity which makes such a diverse scattering of humanity appear to be an untenable future.

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86. ” Here’s the thing though: What scientific evidence exists of Christ’s virgin birth or resurrection?”

    I think this is very much a substantive concern. As one who believes in both, and at the same time takes Genesis figuratively, I should try to explain my view:

    When I think about essentially all Gospel accounts of miracles, and those in Acts, I am struck by the fact that, due to their ad hoc quality, they are mostly (dare I say “safely”?) beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. Their footprint is, from a scientist’s perspective, simply too small, and, more to the point, we are saying that they are supernatural events in the first place. The believer can’t apply scienctific methods precisely because they are miracles, and the opponent can only appeal to a philosophical position rejecting the same since there’s no way to really study the events directly. I can’t claim that absolutely all NT miracles have this “too bad for science” character — the Resurrection would be disproven if the remains of Jesus of Nazareth were to be identified as such, for example — but broadly speaking, they and OT stories such as Elijah’s and Elisha’s miracles, do fall into this category.

    Literalism with respect to Genesis (and other places in the OT), by contrast, makes vast claims about subjects which, if historically factual, should leave large footprints — especially with regards to Creationism. Sometimes, these claims turn out to be true: we didn’t know about the Hittites except from the Scriptures until the 19th century, for example. Other Big Claims aren’t so clearly supported: the Exodus should have left a trace or two in the Sinia Pinnensula after forty years of a couple million people doing laps in their Nike Eversandals. The Great Flood can’t explain the geology of the very mountains it is said to have covered in the first place. Et cetera.

    In short, my rough-hewn criterion for whether science should be called upon to illuminate a Biblical text (to support either a more or a less literal reading) is the “footprint” or the event — miraculous or not — in question.

    (I’m sure the Evil Kirk would have a different opinion, of course.)

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87. Agree. Father, Son and Spirit could choose to reveal themselves and work in whatever way they choose. They did however give us the Bible as part of that revelation.

    The point I am trying to make is this: Given the information we have, some of us consider it laughable that others still cling to a literal interpretation of the creation as told in Genesis, and yet when confronted with the argument that the supernatural events of Christ are no more plausible, we revert to the “take it on faith” argument.

    I think it’s reasonable to say that all of us that claim Christ probably differ in our opinions of what is or is not literal in the Bible. Fine.

    I struggle with making that determination, and if the Bible is nothing more than an Oliver Stone version of God’s work, I don’t know what to think.

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88. Babylon 5! I felt that that universe felt more realistic than the Star Trek one. It dealt with religion in a more realistic way than I felt Star Trek ever did. The interesting part to me is that it was written by an avowed atheist, or so I have been told.

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89. A couple of good sources:

    http://www.starbase10.com/trek/religion_in_trek.htm

    http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Christianity

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90. The Bible is a faith book, not a fact book. Verifiable historical facts are few and far between, and science as we know it didn’t happen for a thousand years, give or take — but does that matter?

    Jesus would still have existed even without the Bible; he’d just have been revealed differently. The Holy Spirit would still work in our lives, and God would still be I AM.

    Some things are truer than facts.

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91. How does the possibility of a Star Trek universe of myriad life forms and myriad cultures engage the Biblical narrative and its narrow cultural origins and non-scientific presentation?

    Actually, SF (the literature of “The Great ‘What-if?'”) should be (and has, to varying degrees) tried to deal with this “What-if”. However, a lot of Christians are climbing into “that little box buried in the university basement” and nailing the lid shut after them.

    I’ve even experienced this in editor’s demands over a novella of mine where different paths of salvation for different species with different basic instincts originating on different worlds (and how to recognize them) is an important part of the background. (I joined the Lost Genre Guild and linked up with my writing partner to get away from that sort of mentality. It’s straitjacketed the entire Christian (TM) market.)

    (How did First Contact affect Christians in the novella’s backstory? The established Liturgical churches — Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox — took it pretty well; the Evangelicals didn’t (retreating even further into that box in the basement), and the real fringies went for “the Islamic Approach”, fighting any and all change with blood and terror, sparking no-fault persecutions by secular governments. Sorry, Evangelicals, I call ’em as I experienced ’em.)

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92. I know we are about Star-Trek on science and religion. But, as a once-upon-a-time watcher of X-Files, it’s no strain to see the science rules theme beyond the flight deck.

    Check this dialogue

    Mulder— “when science cant offer an explanation can we turn to the fantastic?”

    Scully, ever the skeptic —-” What I find fantastic is any notion that there is anything beyond science.”

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93. McCOY: Once, just once, I’d like to be able to land someplace and say, “Behold! I am the archangel Gabriel!”

    SPOCK: I fail to see the humor in that situation, Doctor.

    McCOY: Naturally, you could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointed ears, Mr. Spock; but say you landed someplace with a pitchfork?

    –from TOS “Bread and Circuses”

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94. When the fears of the atomic age started and created the pessimism about our future that led to the push-back of the 60’s – too many Christians we’re still hiding in bomb shelters waiting for the rapture to happen. Gene showed a future were we didn’t blow ourselves up, and captured people’s imaginations in the process.

    Never forget this fact of timing:

    STAR TREK PREMIERED ONLY THREE YEARS AFTER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. Only three years after a close call with Global Nuclear War and just as Vietnam was ramping up. Just like Star Wars first hit the big screen when the country was in Post-Vietnam depression and Serious Movies were all Angsty and Cynical.

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95. I see several posters have remembered “Bread and Circuses,” in which Uhura declares “our” religion to be Christianity. In retrospect, the Star Trek people seem to have regarded this as something of an embarassment, but I wish they’d work it into the plot (I guess it would have to be done in the new movies) that the African Union / US of Africa has experienced / will experience major waves of evangelism in the next few centuries, and that Uhura is a member of one of these churches. (I would also like to have seen Dr. Bashir established as a secular Muslim.)

    If people insist on arguing about evolution, then you may be interested to know that The Next Generation came down pretty firmly on the side of Intelligent Design. (By bald-headed aliens, of course–which explains why humans, Vulcans, Klingons, etc. all look pretty much the same.)

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96. “There’s Klingons on our starboard bow,
    Starboard bow, starboard bow,
    There’s Klingons on our starboard bow,
    SCRAPE ‘EM OFF, JIM!”

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97. How can our faith be expected to withstand an ever increasing mountain of pressure to adapt to the latest scientific and enlightened thinking, especially when those that resist are labeled as ignorant rubes?

    By going hyper-rigid on everything (such as Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles) until it snaps and the pieces get swept away?

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98. Someone told me that the two characteristic Gene Roddenberry plots are:

    1) We go past the edge of the Galaxy/Universe and finally encounter God, only to find that God is (a) malevolent, (b) psychotic, or (c) both.

    2) A highly-advanced “Transcendental” alien race (gods in all but name) puts humanity on trial (with extinction as the penalty) for war/whaling/racism/anything we’d normally call “our sins”, and a character speaking for humanity has to defend us against these accusations and escape extinction.

    For somebody who was a Madelyn Murray O’Hair-level anti-theist, Roddenberry sure seemed fascinated/obsessed with the theme of The Last Judgment.

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99. In this, Roddenberry was following an older tradition in SF: The Bright Future. Though at its most extreme, The Bright Future becomes an unrealistic and static Utopia (as the Star Trek universe did shortly before Roddenberry’s death when he was executive producer of ST:TNG), it is still preferable to the nihilistic Dark Futures and No Future that came to dominate post-1968. “Old Testament” Star Trek and Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds were the last gasp of those Bright Futures on TV.

    I saw this happen with Literary SF. I grew up on the Bright Futures in pre-1968 issues of Analog and the mostly-bright futures of classic SF novels. (Dystopias such as 1984 and after-the-Holocaust nuclear war novels did exist, but did not dominate.) Futures where you could Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before, Futures you wanted to live to see.

    Then around 1968, “Sauron got the Ring” and everything changed from the First to the Second 1960s. Dystopias came to dominate — Nuclear War Dystopias, Ecological Disaster Dystopias, Race War Dystopias, Nixon-as-Fuehrer Dystopias, Christian Theocracy Dystopias, Reagan-as-Fuehrer Dystopias, Cyberpunk Dystopias, Y2K Dystopias, Global Warming Dystopias, etc. Futures you wanted to slit your wrists to avoid.

    Then around Y2K, another shift from Dark Future to No Future, as alternate-histories and “forward into the past” time-travel became prominent. From Bright Future to Dark Future to No Future — exactly the same progression (in much different context) as Left Behind‘s seven-year Antichrist Dystopia followed by The End.

    (Aside: the mid-1960s also saw the rise of “New Wave SF”, where in the attempt to make SF Respectable Mainstream Literature, SF acquired a lot of Highbrow Literature’s bad habits.)

    Now we live in an age of Nihilism and a Cult of Ugliness, where to show how Serious (TM) you are, you must write as Nihilistically and Ugly as possible (with or without the accompanying Ironic Quip). Instead of “Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before”, we can look forward to breathing very shallow to minimize our Carbon Footprint while watching TV documentary series about how The Planet will heal Herself once the Cancer of Humanity is finally extinguished. Now isn’t that a Future you want to live to see?

    And where people got so desperate for any hope amid the Nihilism and Ugliness and Ironic Quips that they’d flock to any New Messiah. You can only take a steady diet of Nihilism and Despair for so long before you go crazy, kill yourself, or grab for anybody who promises a way out.

    We need hope. And I don’t mean the Darby/Lindsay/Left Behind version of the Second Coming. I mean the hope of all the minor eucatastrophes before the Great Eucatastrophe. And Christians have jumped on the Dark-to-No-Future bandwagon with everyone else, handing over the world to a fictional Antichrist and gloating “It’s All Gonna Burn” instead of preaching hope. (Instead of preaching Hope like our current President made the center of his Hopey-Changey campaign promises.)

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100. Well, I haven’t seen the episode in question, but I’d be a defender of the Prime Directive (the principle of non-interference).

     Supposing the magic cure saves the susceptible race and we have two intelligent hominid species competing for resources on this planet. I would like to think that they could learn to live harmoniously, but I’m betting that it’s more likely there would be increasing clashes until one race killed off the other.

     (It would be ironic if the race that should have died due to the plague managed to kill off its rival, only to be smitten later on by another plague or some natural disaster, and we end up with both races dead instead of one surviving if the “Enterprise” hadn’t interfered – but that’s the kind of saturnine turn of mind I have) 🙂

     Now, unless the “Enterprise” or some other Federation vessel is going to be there on permanent watch to make sure that Race A does not massacre Race B, or that no other disaster wipes out one or both of them, then they don’t much have a leg to stand on when justifying interference in this instance.

     I do think it would be a different matter if it were a case of, for example, Race B using biological warfare. I do see the dilemma of “Do we do what we can while we’re here, or do we stand by?” And I do think that basing actions on “evolutionary wisdom” is a dreadful dog’s dinner of a way of making decisions.

     But unless they’re going to be permanent Fairy Godmothers (and their interference is going to warp the development of this world from what it would have been), then I uphold the Prime Directive and say keep your noses out of this.

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101. Something about Star Trek and its creator:

     Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was an atheist who progressed to anti-theist later in life. He also had a lot of the fanboy in him, and (judging from the fanboy universes inflicted on me at SF cons) the Star Trek universe has two characteristics of fanboy universes: No Gods (“We’ve Evolved Beyond That”) and Total Sexual Freedom. A universe reflects its subcreator, and these facets of its subcreator’s personality and beliefs have remained through all the (increasingly variant) incarnations of that universe.

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102. “…we want to have all of the answers, and have total control, but we can only actually move toward God as we yield control.” This is so true, Todd. It is amazing how tightly we hold onto the control we think we have. Most of us do not even really know what it means to yield control to God. But it is imperative that we do yield to God if we ever expect to live in any way like Jesus lived. Jesus needs to have room to work within us and we are so unwilling to give up that room.

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103. I have my Senior Highers read Genesis 1 and then do their best to draw a picture of the cosmology described in it’s structure. Then I show them a picture of Hebrew cosmology – a flat earth with waters above and below, and the waters above held back from the Earth by a solid bowl (the KJV gets that’s right, “firmament” is better than “sky” since it’s not talking about empty space, but the wall separating the waters). The two lights and the small lights are all tacked onto the inside of the bowl.

     Then I say, “Yah get the distinct impression that this isn’t talking about what we’d call ‘science?'” The students nod and we go on looking at the theology of the passage and how incredibly damaging a mistake it is to equate “scientific fact” with “Truth.” Something that far too many Christians unwittingly do.

     A good book, by the way, is In The Beginning…, by Henri Bloucher.

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104. You’d probably enjoy reading (if you haven’t already) some of the attempts to wrestle with the universe of science fiction in relation to Christianity, such as those by David Wilkinson, or the chapter I wrote “Religion But Not As We Know It” for the volume Religion as Entertainment.

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105. So, a literal creation and the Garden of Eden are allegories, the Noah flood either was a localized event, or the retelling of an ancient Babylonian myth, Jonah’s experience with the great fish was symbolic of some period of personal mental turmoil, and so on. And yes, I’m fully aware of Jesus’ use of parables.

     How can our faith be expected to withstand an ever increasing mountain of pressure to adapt to the latest scientific and enlightened thinking, especially when those that resist are labeled as ignorant rubes? What chance does our flawed, human expression of Christ stand against fictionalized Utopian futures?

     I do not deny the scientific evidence for an ancient universe of an unimaginable scale. I do not deny the past existence of dinosaurs. I do find it interesting that the same scientific discipline that demands proof through observation and experimentation insists (despite the total lack of evidence) that there simply MUST be other intelligent life out in the universe.

     Here’s the thing though: What scientific evidence exists of Christ’s virgin birth or resurrection? There is not one single scientifically verified case of a human being conceived without sperm and egg, nor is there a single scientifically verified case of anyone being revived after being clinically dead for three days.

     So, given this, why should we believe any of what the Bible records beyond verifiable historical facts, and at what point does Jesus become just another ancient founder of a philosophical way of thinking and interacting with others?

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106. Roddenbery conceived of Star Trek during the Cold War and as a counter to the pessimism that was born of the threat of annihilation. Instead of condemning everyone who wasn’t like him he pulled a, “Look what we can do if we all work together.”

     Theologically, it’s crap. What we can do when we work together is create bigger weapons by which we can blow ourselves up, and even in Roddenberry’s universe there’s always the “other” which we will use those weapons on. Hello Babel…

     On the other hand, in dark times humanity needs people who project hope – and where were the Christians who were doing that during the Cold War? Billy Graham was out there, but after WWII the idea of an Evangelical in the public sphere was a novel thing – fundamentalists had abdicated the public sphere in the 20’s and 30’s, right when we were needed most. When the fears of the atomic age started and created the pessimism about our future that led to the push-back of the 60’s – too many Christians we’re still hiding in bomb shelters waiting for the rapture to happen. Gene showed a future were we didn’t blow ourselves up, and captured people’s imaginations in the process.

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107. Martha,

     I’m glad that you brought up Deep Space Nine. I thought that it was the best of the following series, but its attitude toward religion drove me crazy. I felt that they never respected the Bejoran faith at all. Especially since the main religious leader was power hungry.

     I don’t remember the episode that you quoted. Most of my memories are about Major Kira and her beliefs.

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108. Martha, an even better on than that is in the second to last season when Major Kira had a crisis by her faith (which made Captain Sisko an emissary of the prophets – a religious figure) and her duty (which made Captain Sisko her C.O.).

     Near the end of the episode she said, “I’ve tried to separate my faith and my duty in the past but I can’t do it anymore – and I really can’t. For me you are the Emissary of the Prophets and my commanding officer, you and Starfleet will have to accept that.

     I remember watching it and smiling. It was one of the most honest dealings between public and private/science and religion that I’ve ever seen in Science-Fiction. It was brilliantly done.

     The only thing I’ve seen better than that is the B5 episode, “Passage Through Gethsemane,” which really needs to be viewed by everyone. iMonk, look it up on iTunes – you will not regret it.

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109. Regarding the “tricking us” – I’ve never found this a compelling argument.

     A purely materialist evolutionary viewpoint has no foundation for considering anything that science says as authoritative since evolution does not promise to produce truth – just surviving collections of chemicals. This point has been well argued by William Craig Lane and Douglas Wilson (among others).

     A Christian/Deist/Theistic evolutionary viewpoint is not constrained by purely materialistic explanations for appearances (such as the “the earth appears really old”). However, a Christian has more reason than a materialist to trust empirical observations and scientific method (whatever that means these days) since we start with the unchanging God as our first cause. Christian scientists (IMHO) largely still tend to gravitate towards finding purely natural causes for anything we see in nature today, and that is to be expected since that is what science is all about and we don’t want to rely on a “God of the gaps” line of reasoning. Except that if we eliminate all but natural causes for the world we see today then we are no longer describing the world described by the Bible where all things are held together by the Holy Spirit.

     “All things being held together by the Holy Spirit” is, of course, not the same thing as taking a literal view of Genesis 1-3. But somewhere in the middle is a world view that allows for transcendant causes to be just as plausible as purely natural causes – this is especially true in the realm of origins. Ockham’s razor is a blade brandished by a hand attached to a world view.

     If evolution is a fact then the task remaining for Christendom is not to show how this synchs with science (a lot of Christian evolutionists see the enormous odds of evolution producing humans, as the point of God’s interaction in evolution). The remaining task is to work on the theology of death entering the world through sin and being ultimately overcome through Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. A lot of work has been done in this area but nothing I have seen will satisfy all camps – discussions around Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15 tend to come down to our view of scriptural innerancy which is a discussion that will most likely result in name calling and brandishing of razors other than Ockhams.

     I freely admit that I am not a specialist in this area and the “nothing I have seen” could simply be my inability to read as much as I wish I could find time for.

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110. Listening to the Macarthur mp3. He simply has no grounds for taking the position that “days” are literal 24-hour days. He seems to have no understanding for poetic expression ingeneral or Jewish literary conventions in particular.

     Tim Keller teaches that we can best understand Genesis One as a creation poem or “ode to Creation,” and he outlines the underlying poetic structure, Anyone who’s looked at Bullinger’s outlines of the books of the Bible can understand what Keller is getting at. I think he’s right.

     CS Lewis seemed to believe that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are mythology and allegory, and that the “literal history” part of the story begins with Abraham. That’s not my personal “position,” but I have no problem with that. Jesus said “follow me” and “you must be born again.” He didn’t say, “You must believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis in the most pedestrian, literalist, anti-poetic way.”

     And Muggeridge reminds us that the “creation story” — even as mythology — conveys more truth and wisdom than the “Darwin story” (Dawkins style) — even if the latter is accepted as fact.

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111. The farther away from the original Star Trek series they got, the more the writers seemed to allow for spirituality and at least a little room for the other side of death. I thought it interesting that by the time they wrote Enterprise, they gave Vulcans more spirituality – but they were also a little devious and deceptive, almost sinful.

     What drives Sci Fi is the progress of science. We are all on spiritual journeys, and no doubt the history of mankind is carried along on the spiritual journey as well. But science, the discovery and practical application of scientific principles is taking mankind on a very special and somewhat separate journey. This journey is made more separate from the religious one precisely because of stumbling blocks like evolution and geological/cosmological time.

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112. Interesting posting. And once again you post on topics that no evangelical will touch with a ten foot pole.
     That Star Trek episode shows the prevailing logic of determinism in evolutionary theory. Archer and crew couldn’t interfere because evolution would “obviously” be weeding out the race stricken with the disease. I find this determinism amusing because it is no different than the religious mother who won’t give her son medicine because his cancer is God’s will.
     I find Stephen Jay Gould’s works more tolerable, especially MisMeasure of a Man. Evolution would be chance driven. And Archer’s altruism would be seen as a positive chance event, not a death sentence.

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113. Not to go all trek geek or anything, but it was Star Trek V where the false god is unmasked.

     I echo the suggestion of Star Trek Deep Space 9 for the most in depth look at religion v. science.

     Also, Uhuru knew about the Son of God because she referenced it in Bread and Circuses.

     Some of the movies, like, specifically, Insurrection show that all is not perfect in the Star Trek universe, so human nature hasn’t been banished all together.

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114. “Star Trek’s “perfect” future is an imperfect picture of imperfect man”.

     It can certainly be read that way, but there’s a flip side –
     In Star Trek III, the ‘good’ men of the show (having been saved from the scourge of Khan by the sacrificial death of the principal human/non-human character) witness nothing short of a miracle with the resurrection of Spock. The film ends with that great moment of reunion and the words –
     ‘The Human Adventure is Just Beginning’.

     To borrow a Trek phrase, it’s fascinating to see how often this (like so many other shows) moves forward on the basis of a redemptive event. It seems that the heart of Christianity is far from thrown away.

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115. The one aspect of human nature that I find missing in most of Star Trek is the lack of original sin. Humanity is painted in the grand picture where is there is no war, hatred, greed. Humans have “evolved” in just a few centuries to over come what has been the human condition of thousands of years. Star Trek’s “perfect” future is an imperfect picture of imperfect man.

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116. Well, us real trekkers (of the classic variety) have long been aware of another strain in the show. How many TV Science Fiction incarnations have episodes like ‘Who Mourns for Adonias?’, with Kirk (the Scottish word for church) arguing with Apollo, and boldly stating the case for monotheism before a thunder-bolt wielding ‘god’, or better yet, the superb “Bread and Circuses” which envisions the birth of the Christian faith on another world? Then there’s Kirk’s unmasking of a false god in Trek IV (not the greatest film, but it had moments), and that’s before we even look at the character of Spock (by the way, according to some of the key Trek novels, Vulcans are born with an innate knowledge that the is one true God – pantheism is an aberration in their culture).

     I think such fiction can provide a window for us to re-examine some of the presumed ‘safe’ assumptions of our own world. Lewis was right when he noted that evolution may be deduced because of certain data, but woe betide the society which seeks to establish its church from assumptions derived from that basis ( a reading of his ‘Cosmic Trilogy’ may refresh us to some of those chilling consequences).

     Science Fiction, like life itself, can often make us uncomfortable ( – Trek writer Jerome Bixby’s ‘The man from Earth’, for example, now on DVD, certainly can unsettle in that manner) but it can also raise splendid opportunities to discuss the very nature of truth, faith, etc – recent shows like The 4400 and Battlestar Galactica have most certainly done so. I for one, am thankful for such ‘cerebral’ (the accusation made to Roddenberry after the first Trek pilot) viewing, and the insights of men like Asimov, Heinlein and Herbert to our times – they certainly have allowed pause for thought!

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117. When Pope John Paul II made the remarks above indicating the relative peace which mainstream Roman Catholic thought had long made with evolution, one of my grad-school roommates — a German YEC proto-blogger on the nascent World Wide Web — informed me that the pope’s statements “were making big waves on the Internet” among the YEC community. My unarticulated mental response was:

     “Where have you been?”

     And I think that’s the first issue that needs to be addressed. Too many in the YEC’s intellectual ghetto are simply unaware that there even IS anything beyond the harsh dichotomy of Dawkinsian atheistic evolution and YEC — and that there has been for decades, if not over a century. It’s just not on their radar. So, to answer iMonk’s rhetorical question, yes, it IS high time: just show up, evangelical evolutionists! Make your very existence known, even if you’re not always given a full or fair hearing.

     With apologies to WJB, more is at stake than knowing the proper Age of Rocks. The tragedy is not in the relative dearth of Christian geologists; the tragedy in is the legion who find, too late, that their personal Rock of Ages wasn’t so much solid as it was brittle.

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118. couldnt help myself
     “Star Trekkin’ across the universe,
     On the Starship Enterprise under Captain Kirk.
     Star Trekkin’ across the universe,
     Only going forward ’cause we can’t find reverse.”

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119. I’ve always found it amazing how many people want to believe that God has somehow told us everything, or that we will/can understand everything.

     I suspect that much of Genesis creation account originates in God talking to Moses on the mountain, and giving him the cliff’s notes version, with a sort of “there is simply no way you would actually understand this, you have no basis for it.” And Moses accepted this, because he knows God.

     To imagine that the bible tells us anything other than God’s message of Love for us is incredibly solipsistic…we want to have all of the answers, and have total control, but we can only actually move toward God as we yield control. How strange. How human.

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120. My blood pressre does not rise one point for the evolution/science debate. It seems a rat trap for me and i want nothing to do with that waste of my time.
     However, this post does raise some interstesting points. I find it inconcievable that a future without the effects of faith would be kind, rational or ethical. When our nature is free to assert itself, the result in history has been horrific. Even when done in the name of the church, man’s natural ways are about conquest, domination and cruelty. I find the wildly optimistic, star trek view of the future to take a far greater leap than my own faith requires.

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121. Michael,

     Great analysis of “Enterprise.’ I’d be curious to read your thoughts about the original series. My wife and I have just started to watch through the first season (available at tv.com or on Netflix) and while only half way through, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how non-evolutionary the show is. Several of the first few episodes directly challenge scientism–which is the real problem, anyway–and the idea that humans can and should reject all teleological boundaries in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

     Also, I’m not sure if you or your readers are familiar with him, but John Mark Reynolds gave a few lectures at Southern on this topic earlier this year. They are on the intersection of science and religion and are definitely worth wrestling with. http://www.dennyburk.com/?p=3985

     Highest regards,

     matt

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122. Here’s a good link that describes what exactly (John Paul II and) Catholics believe about evolution (a word that means different things to different people): http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

     Excerpt:
     Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul.

     Note the “atheistic evolution” is specifically rejected.

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123. Oh, “Enterprise” drove me nuts – but as a Trekkie, not on religious grounds 🙂

     The re-writing, retconning, and downright idiocy of the re-imagining had me frothing at the mouth (there ain’t no fundamentalist like a first-generation Original Series fundamentalist).

     But when it comes to religion, then “Deep Space Nine” is fascinating in how it deals with it: there’s even one episode where the classic ‘science versus religion’ clash is played out. The Prophets of Bajoran religion are referred to as ‘wormhole aliens’ and Keiko O’Brien, who is teaching school on the station, is teaching the Bajoran kids that these aren’t gods or deities but simply super-advanced aliens. The parents – under the influence of Kai Winn (who is basically a Bajoran version of a Borgia Pope) pull their kids out of school and there’s a formal protest about this. Keiko, for her part, is in full “They persecuted Galileo and now they’re persecuting me!” mode (which made me roll my eyes and go “Keiko, you’re no Galileo”).

     Now, the station commander, Benjamin Sisko, is the contact between the Prophets and the Federation (for plot reasons too convoluted to go into here) and he’s expected to toe the rational, scientific, Federation ‘these are not gods, these are members of an advanced scientific civilisation’ line. But when his young son asks him why don’t the Bajorans just believe the Federation about this, the interesting part is this: Sisko doesn’t do the expected patting the primitives on the head, they don’t know any better, bit; he tells his son “From our view, they’re advanced aliens. But we don’t have any proof one way or the other. They could be supernatural beings; we just think they do what they do by science, because that’s how we do things. The Bajorans could be right and we could be wrong.”

     DS9 was always very good about dealing with religion, more nuanced than the usual “When we get to the stars, we’ll put all that behind us.” There was also one good “Voyager” episode dealing with the same ‘religion versus science’ dichotomy, where the irony was that the Captain’s rationalising of what all the rituals and beliefs are ‘really’ about (e.g. fasting to achieve an altered brain chemistry to make you see what you think are visions of the gods) only bogs her down, and it’s not until she takes it on its own terms that anything is achieved.

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124. When Ben Stein’s movie came out last year, I got a little caught up in the religion vs. science discussion byself. Ultimately I came to this conclusion: neither religion nor science can be used to prove the other is wrong. Good science makes evaluations based on measurable results, and God cannot be dissected, sampled nor x-rayed.

     I have been and continue to be a big fan of Star Trek. The Next Generation episodes from the 80’s are still good; you should give them another chance. The Star Trek Universe, as we refer to it, came out of the mind of Gene Rodenberry. We are after all talking about a work of fiction. I don’t believe there is anyone else out there; but I can’t prove it.

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125. One big difference between Scot McKnight and the iMonk is that Dr. McKnight is not reluctant to tell one and all that he doesn’t bother to read (or, one supposes, watch) fiction, while you, Michael, not only describe the shortcomings of the Star Trek universe but also have the integrity to provide us with “spoiler alerts” forty-three years after the airing of the original episodes!

     A comment on your statement, “Many evangelicals would prefer the refuge of Ken Ham’s 6,000 year old universe where you can be assured that either no one else is out there, or if they are, Jesus Christ showed up on their world as well, to any consideration of extraterrestrial ethics.”

     In his essay “On Religion and Rocketry” (a very interesting read), C. S. Lewis pondered some questions about what humans ought and ought not do if and when intelligent extra-terrestrial life is discovered, what actions might be appropriate, and what might be downright arrogant of us, such as pressing the story of redemption on a race that might not have fallen.

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126. I would like to know why Evangelicalism is having this problem and nobody else is.

     It’s a completely unnecessary problem to be having, and it’s going to marginalize Evangelicalism as their best and brightest get siphoned off by other forms of Christianity or secular atheism.

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127. Frank is right about MacArthurs sermon. It was incredible and I thought it would get a lot more attention. I’d be interested to here your take/response to the sermon.

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128. I’m going to have to agree with you Michael. The conversation, while centuries old, is still going.

     I’ve had many fights with myself about these things. I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never questioned religion nor science. I thought they could co-exist, and if I found a part that didn’t coexist, I just left it up to the mystery of God that will be revealed to us later.

     Lately, I’ve been asking myself if God really does hide stuff from us. I can’t fathom the thought of God “tricking us” by making creation younger than it seems. I’ve also been struggling with the thought of Christ redeeming the Universe versus redeeming humankind. Very interesting questions and discussions have come from this and has caused me to change the way I think.

     Being open-minded is the key here. As a good friend once told me, “Semper Gumby” (always flexible). Its not a matter of who is right or wrong, its more of how we can show love and kindness.

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129. Monk,

     Good read. My IFB dad loves Star Treck. I don’t think he has put that much thought into it. 🙂

     But seriously. In your remarks to Frank Turk, lay out for me what you see as an accpetable evolutionary theory if you will.

     I agree with Frank. I don’t think it has to be a Ken Hamm or “my uncle was a monkey” choice.

     Good read.

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130. Your use of the word “cave” and the identification of all evolutionary theory as “evolutionists” indicates that for you, there is really nothing to discuss. I’d suggest that many Christians have not yet set those two assumptions into concrete.

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131. Oy. So we actually cave to the evolutions because Ken Hamm offers an inadequate alternative?

     For laughs, Michael, you should think about Dr. MacArthur’s talk on Evolution and Gen 1-3 at the Resolve conference this year. it didn’t get nearly enough press in the biosphere. Or the media.

     Your endorsement of it would prolly set anew trend in this discussion.

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