I could only keep my love of Star Wars a secret for so long. Same goes for my religious inclinations. So, the obvious conclusion is to publicize both by beginning a multi-part series sure to offend anyone who is a member of either rabid fandom (that is, Star Wars and Christianity), right? Right.
Let’s start out at maximum offensiveness, by defining the hotly contested nexus of the culture war: “hermeneutic”… According to Merriam-Webster, it is used as a noun to refer to “a method or theory of interpretation.” (It’s also an adjective that concerns the same.) Notably, “hermeneutic” is not to be confused with “hermetic” (the last thing we want is to “interpret” the Millennium Falcon’s airlock shut against the cold dark vacuum of space).
Now, let’s move on to less controversial topics. Essentially, I want to use Star Wars to inform how twenty-first-century Christians (or engaged atheists, or open-minded Buddhists, or generally well-educated citizens of the world) might improve our interpretive approach the Bible. The conclusions you’re drawing from my thesis here are indeed correct: we moderns often have our heads screwed on straighter about Star Wars than we do the most important religious text in Western history…
Living Documents
Before you link me to the Star Wars subreddit to be downvoted into eternal obscurity, hear me out. My favorite thing about Star Wars is that it’s a “living document.” Its fictive world evolves with each new comic book, poorly-written novelization, TV episode, and trailer to hit my eyeballs. Real-world events like comic-con panels and directorial interviews reshape the motivations of legendary characters in a galaxy far, far away. And, best of all, each time I re-watch the core 8 (soon to be 9) movies, I notice something new that makes me re-interpret everything that came before.
…we moderns often have our heads screwed on straighter about Star Wars than we do the most important religious text in Western history…
This is what it means to be a living document: Star Wars is in constant, irreducible dialogue with its own internal world, the historical moments of its creation, the cultural situation of its fans, and with the viewers themselves.
Now, go back two paragraphs and replace every instance of “Star Wars” with “the Judeo-Christian Bible”. (You’ll probably also have to think of a suitable substitute for “comic-con” — might I suggest “church camp”?) This is the connection between Star Wars and the Bible, the similitude that enables me to draw conclusions about one by studying the other: both worlds, Christian and Coruscanti alike, have living documents as their core and their wellspring.
The power of Star Wars as hermeneutic is that we can learn powerful truths about what it means to be a living document, without the emotional and religious baggage that makes it near-impossible to have a calm conversation about the Bible.
I have foreseen (ha! unintended Star Wars reference) several objections to the very premise that Star Wars, the Bible, or both are “living documents”. I’ll get to those another time, when my word count isn’t so high. For now, I’ll conclude with the briefest of possible examples:
The year is 1998. I am 3 years old, but even I know the Star Wars trilogy is a behemoth of commerce and a universal cultural icon, the most important thing to happen to America the world since the invention birth of Santa. Fans, in the 21 years after A New Hope‘s original release, have realized the only new Star Wars content they’re getting that of their role-playing campaign, or by trading their friends for unread Shadows of the Empire comics. In short, it is a dark day for the Rebellion.
And then, heralded by a shot of kaadu loping through a Naboo swamp, the sweeping scores of John Williams, and those oh-so-nineties movie-trailer-WordArts, the first trailer for The Phantom Menace takes the civilized world by storm. Everything is different now! Darth Vader is only 9 years old. (We also learn “Darth” isn’t his first name, but rather a moniker.) Obi-Wan is not the master, but the learner. The Jedi are not “a fire gone out from the galaxy”, but a formidable order of peacekeepers. Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine is less wrinkled, but just as sinister. And, shockingly, Darth Vader has credible competition for the coolest Dark Side warrior on the block, thanks to Ray Park’s acrobatically deadly Darth Maul.
Star Wars has evolved, for better or worse.
Now, take those last three paragraphs and replace “Star Wars” with “the Bible”: The year is ~30 CE. I am -1,965 years old, but even my constituent atoms know that Judaism has taken the Near East by storm. Unfortunately, the Jews themselves have endured one beating after another — exiled by the Babylonians four hundred years earlier, and once they finally make it back to Jerusalem, they find their homeland occupied by Rome, who brutally quells every fledgling attempt at rebellion launched by the desperate Jews. It is, indeed, a dark day for the rebellion.
And then, heralded by palm leaves and bizarre baths in the river Jordan, a Jew named Jesus changes everything that has gone before. Old prophecies meant for Babylon are reinterpreted for Rome; old boundary-making customs of cleanliness are applied to Gentiles (whom ancient Jews might hate even more than Romans); God leaves the temple at Jerusalem to live among the people God created, to die at their hands, and to thereby redeem that same creation. Everything is different now…
And the Bible records that change, not as a Wikipedia-page summary with a single meaning written out for all time, but as 66 comic books, TV episodes, and novelizations of God’s relationship with Creation –a “living document” that, if we let it, will engage with its own internal truths, its cultural-historical situation, and with our own lives.