A Window Into the Now

     This article addresses one of the fundamental purposes of science-fiction, and one that television shows do particularly well. Following my post from last week on why Christians should feel free and encouraged to enjoy science-fiction, I thought it would be helpful to point out another useful element of science-fiction that Doctor Who is well set up to do. And that is to provide a window into a cultural moment, into our moment, specifically on the subject of religion.

©Doctor Who/BBC

     Science-fiction is typically focused on future events, future possibilities and potentials. More often then not, however, the story is a veil that entertains, but conceals a deeper meaning and critique of our current society and culture. We are judged by our (potential) future, critiqued in light of what may be. This is a tradition in the genre from the very beginning, all the way back to H.G. Wells and his Utopian social vision for humanity. It is much like the role that the doctrine of the end times plays in Christian theology; at the end, true justice will prevail, all wrongs will be righted, and we will be judged by our time spent right now. While less definitive in most cases, science-fiction judges us by what we may become.

     Given this, we should expect to find many of our own world present, in metaphorical forms, in the science-fiction we watch and read. The article notes how Doctor Who has addressed the topic of religion throughout the years, sometimes ambiguously, sometimes more directly. Like most science-fiction, the series never affirms the existence of God, and at best will usually leave such questions open. It presents us with some "possible futures" of religion, complete with strangely militarized clergy, odd rituals, and any manner of creepy aliens. But what is most interesting is not how it is presented then, but what it tells us about our cultural beliefs now.

     Modern Christians are not often good readers of our time. I've heard it said that the Church usually imbibes cultural trends, but usually a few years too late. Perhaps in contrast, science-fiction often channels ideas about our own time very effectively. As the article mentions, Doctor Who presents religion in a way that is analogous to the state of religion in the current day United Kingdom, and probably the United States as well. It does this in a way that recognizes the complexities and diversities of current spirituality, and the relativism required of us that is a practical reality even if not an actual one. It allows us to explore religious ideas, even while being ambiguous enough to leave room for the faithful Christian right next to the atheist. The best science-fiction, in other words, reads our society well, and gives us a laboratory for testing out ideas, and for understanding our own times better. It is a window we do well to look through.

Questions & Answers: What Hath Christianity to do with Science Fiction?

     I have had conversations with friends about the sort of project we are doing here, connecting science-fiction to Christian ideas, that have gotten the raised-eyebrow response. Science-fiction, they point out, is largely a secular and religion-free genre, wanting little to nothing to do with ideas about God or religion. So why, then, are we trying to get these two things to talk to each other? What do we expect to achieve? There are two ways in which this conversation is, I think, productive; in the questions and in the answers.

     First, we have to consider the questions they are asking. Science-fiction is, I think it is uncontroversial to say, primarily concerned with asking what it means to be human. In almost every example I can think of, the genre asks what happens to us in our future and what does that tell us about ourselves now? The Christian faith is of course also concerned with these questions. Who we are, where we are going, and how we get there are questions that concern every human being. Science-fiction has been called one of the last places where we can find the "novel of ideas," the story that engages with large, difficult questions, that we all as a race continue to struggle with.

     This I think is very important. As a Christian, I am interested in the answers to these questions. But I am not only concerned with how the Christian faith has attempted to answer them. It is instructive and important to recognize how others have done so as well. It isn't just in novels that we find interesting science-fiction asking interesting ideas, but also in film. Doctor Who wonders at what it means to be a human being, despite the Doctor's alien origin. To choose just one example, consider what happens when the Doctor regenerates. We get someone who is at once the same person, yet in disposition and personality distinct. Of course this began merely as a function of the show in order to keep it running past the actors who play the role, but in the reboot series they have begun exploring what it would mean to the human person to be changed in this way. What is it that makes me, me? What is the essence of the Doctor that transcends the bodies he inhabits? What is it that makes a person an unique individual? I hope to explore this question in later posts, but for now, I merely want to point out the question, and hopefully it should be obvious how the question of an individual's essential attributes or characteristics is an important one.

     While the questions are the same, the answers are quite often different, if they are given at all. Usually the metaphysical or truth of a religion are kept mysterious at best, irrelevant or deniable at worst, in science-fiction. But they still desire to give us answers to significant questions about personhood, time, the end of creation, or human advancement and evolution. Engaging these philosophical ideas from the perspective of a somewhat believable future is very helpful to anyone. Science-fiction has the advantage (or sometimes disadvantage) over mere fantasy of trying its best to root its ideas in plausible or at least imaginable futures. The question of personhood, for example, can be explored in reference to androids or holograms. Can artificial beings like this be considered human? What is essential to personhood? As we enter a brave new world of technologies most of us cannot begin to understand, these will quickly start to become less theoretical and more real ethical questions. By "jumping ahead," science-fiction gives us a place to start answering even theological questions. Doctor Who is, again, no exception, exploring many fascinating questions of human nature, time, social issues, and yes even religion.

     The medieval age saw western Europe creating massive stone churches, the Gothic cathedral, magnificent monuments or architectural genius, aesthetic beauty, and human imagination. Some theologians of the time, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, were said to have created cathedrals of the mind, systems of philosophical thought that sought to answer with clarity, power, and even beauty the most pressing questions that faced humanity. I would argue that Doctor Who is one room in the monolith of science and science-fiction that seeks to do the same sort of thing, though perhaps cathedral is not the right word for their building. The buildings may end up being different, and we may know at the end of the day that one is a much better choice to live in, but that does not mean that we can't appreciate the other for its beauty. Who knows, by listening to science-fiction, maybe we'll actually learn how to ask better questions ourselves.