Religion: fiction and fantasy
The Force can pull you to the Good Side or the Dark Side as religion meets
fantasy.
Columbia Missourian
May 26, 2002
By JOSHUA MONKEN
http://digmo.org/news/state/premium/0526state7247.html

The Force is the fictional religious power used by the Jedi in the Star Wars movies. Jedi Knights, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor, left, and Anakin Skywalker, played by Hayden Christensen, channel the Force's power in Episode II.

Luke and Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah, the lightsaber battle that killed Obi-Wan, Darth Vader cutting off Luke's hand with the power of the Dark Side - all these familiar images from Star Wars draw on the imagined Jedi religion.

The Force is even more prominent in the recently released Star Wars:

Episode II. The dark side threatens to break apart the galactic republic;

the good side is strong enough to make Yoda drop his cane and do flips.

Star Wars isn't the only place where religion meets fantasy. Many science fiction and fantasy novels involve hints of religion, which help make the worlds believable.

Religion has only begun playing a commanding role in science fiction in the past few decades. Other pillars of science fiction - the many incarnations of Star Trek, Frank Herbert's Dune series, Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, among others - also have strong religious threads.

Religious evolution in Sci-fi

George Slusser, curator of the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection at the University of California-Riverside, the world's largest science-fiction and fantasy library, said he has seen science fiction evolve to include topics such as religion while popular culture has also changed. As society focuses more on issues and controversial topics, and less on technological improvements, so will the science fiction genre.

For Allen Steele, graduate of MU's School of Journalism and Hugo Award-winning science-fiction author, the genre puts religion into perspective by placing familiar themes and concepts in foreign environments to let things work themselves out.

"This is something that science fiction does very well," Steele said, "because it's able to set up a plausible 'what-if' scenario, then look closely at the possible consequences of that situation. No other form of literature is able to do that in quite the same way."

Religion adds depth to many of these created worlds, and helps readers identify with characters and their struggles. Religion often permeates the political and social structures of the created universe, as it does in real life.

"Star Trek writers have noticed that religion does not exist in isolation - that is, religion is always interacting with what you might call 'social and cultural issues,'" said Susan Schwartz, professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and co-author of the book Religions of Star Trek. "Star Trek culture is blended completely with its belief system, which is agnostic at its core by the time we get to the Next Generation series."

In dealing with many thousands of star systems and countless culture variations, writers of Star Trek create a separation of church and state system, much like that of the United States. Those of the United Federation of Planets deal with individual religions on a singular basis, and make no claims to one or another.

Write what you know

To completely escape one's sphere of influence and knowledge is extremely difficult in literature, and at the very least hints of reality and religion pop up in fiction.

"When you're trying to build these institutions, it's too much for one writer to do," Slusser said. In science fiction especially, authors are called upon to create entire universes. It's beyond one person's creative abilities, Slusser said, to invent a whole, independent universe.

The type of religion that runs through works of sci-fi and fantasy depends on the type of created world. George Lucas invented an ambiguous Jedi religion with vague, mysterious overtones. The Jedi religion is animistic in the sense that it focuses on the power of the Force that permeates all things and can be harnessed with the right training.

Many religions begin with a prophet, messiah or other central figure. The same is true for science fiction.

Frank Herbert's Dune saga began with a prescient young man fulfilling a prophesy, eventually becoming the emperor and religious figurehead of the galaxy. Similarly, Robert Heinlein created the Church of All Worlds in his work Stranger in a Strange Land, in which a human born on Mars wished to impart the wisdom and beliefs of the planet's indigenous life.

Steele also touched on the subject in some of his past novels. He said much of his research and development in this area comes from real life.

Steele's second novel, Clarke County, Space, features a cult, the Church of 20th Century Saints, that follows a supposed reincarnation of Elvis Presley, considered a Christian prophet.

"After the novel was published in 1990, I received fan mail from readers who told me that this sort of thing really did exist... that there were indeed groups who worshipped Elvis as a prophet," he said.

Fake religions as commentary

Steele is working with religions in a satirical way in one of his works in development, and said that is one of the many forms religion in science fiction takes. He said it can make the created world seem more real as well as be a commentary on the real world.

Schwartz claimed the same for Star Trek, at least partially.

"What the Star Trek writers used as their models were often over-simplified impressions of world religions on Earth," she said. "They are often caricatures, but often enough they manage to capture some fairly salient points.... So these writers pick and choose which aspects of earthly religions they want to incorporate to make their own points."

In a way religions can become a tool for writers, for use as either a device to further the plot or an outlet for the author's opinions.

The animistic Jedi religion central to Star Wars also has its roots in real life. Slusser said the Jedi religion represents the core of religion, or a commentary on the power of belief - the struggle between good and evil, as well as political dominance.

Science fiction does not always have to reflect real life - sometimes real life reflects science fiction. The Church of Scientology developed as a result of a science fiction article written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1950. The magazine Astounding Science Fiction encouraged Hubbard to write about "modern messiahs," Steele said, "but Hubbard apparently thought the idea was too good for just a science fiction story, because he went on to form the Church of Scientology."

Fake science-fiction religions even further penetrated their way into reality a few years ago when the latest census was taken. A mass e-mail hoax in Australia encouraged citizens to denote Jedi Knight as their religious preference. If enough people signed up for the Force, the e-mail explained, the Australian government would be forced to fund the religion.

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