What would a Starship Want with God?

Last updated on: September 27, 2017 at 8:46 am by Mark Shea

What would a Starship Want with God? 2017-09-27T08:46:26-07:00 Mark Shea

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Deacon Steven Greydanus takes a look at the Star Trek franchise’s complicated relationship with religion:

“What would God want with a starship?”

That line, uttered by William Shatner’s Capt. James T. Kirk in the much-derided Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) — co-written and directed by Shatner himself — is probably that film’s most famous (or infamous) moment.

In the weeks building up to the recent debut of CBS’s new series Star Trek: Discovery, buzz around the franchise has raised a different question: What would a starship want with God?

The topic was raised several weeks ago when a news story spelled out that — in keeping with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s secular-humanist brand of sci-fi utopianism — the word “God” will not be uttered on the show, even in casual profanities like “for God’s sake.”

Since many Christians object to profanity in entertainment, this proscription would seem to be welcome news for faith audiences. The context and motivation, though, elicited concern from Star Trek fans who are believers.

One common response has been to rattle off examples of positive religious references and images from The Original Series (TOS) onward, from scenes set in the original Enterprise’s interfaith chapel to the episode “Bread and Circuses,” which depicted an Earth-like planet with a parallel Roman Empire persecuting an underground faith originally thought to be sun worshippers, but whose deity Uhura ultimately says isn’t “the sun in the sky; it’s the Son of God.”

There is a ton more at the link. Check it out!

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