Christology, Mythology, and Star Wars

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the much-beloved Star Wars franchise, makes its debut this weekend. Early indications from reviewers and eager fans indicate that the film hits the mark. At the time of this writing, 95 percent of critics and 93 percent of fans gave the movie a positive review on Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to being a well-made movie, The Force Awakens alludes back to key themes present in the series from the beginning that parallel Christian ideas of humanity and redemption. Even if not intentional, such spillover was almost inevitable, given Star Wars creator George Lucas grew up in a Methodist family. Plus The Force Awakens’ Director J.J. Abrams – renowned creator of Lost, the latest Star Trek reboots, and others – comes from a Judeo-Christian background (he identifies as Jewish).

Abrams recently described his largely “intuitive” creative process. “Any act of creation is a leap of faith,” he said at an event hosted by Vanity Fair in October.

So whether intended or not, Lucas’s longstanding influence and Abrams’s intuitive leap of faith resulted in strong Judeo-Christian themes reminiscent of the Messiah, the Kingdom of God, and the Biblical narrative filtering into Star Wars in general and this film in particular.

Christian Themes in Star Wars

The Force Awakens takes place 30 years after the original trilogy. It picks up where Return of the Jedi left off. The Rebellion defeated the Empire and destroyed the Death Star with the help of protagonist Luke Skywalker.

But evil hasn’t been completely rooted out. The First Order has grown up in the Empire’s place and carries on its evil purposes.

This time, however, Luke Skywalker isn’t around to save the day. He’s mysteriously absent. The main protagonists of this movie – familiar characters Han Solo and Leia Organa, along with newbies Finn and Rey – search for Luke to set things right.

Throughout the series, Luke emerges as the prophesied “savior” who brought “balance to the Force.” Most clearly, Luke “saves” his father Anakin (aka, Darth Vader) at the climax of the original series. The salvation Luke brought obviously wasn’t physically (newsflash, Anakin died), but evidently represented some type of broader spiritual salvation.

Even the liberal Guardian (UK) noted the strong “overarching redemption theme” in the series and that “Christianity features heavily” throughout the movies. Obviously, Luke Skywalker isn’t perfect, but the parallels to Christ are intriguing.

Luke Skywalker’s Christological similarities emerge even more clearly in The Force Awakens. As Christ left the world after dealing a decisive (but not final) blow to the Enemy, so too Luke is absent after defeating (but not wiping out) the Empire.

The Force Awakens recalls Jesus’ parables on the Kingdom of God. In the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13, Jesus tells his followers that God will allow both the good and the evil to dwell in the world until the Second Coming.

Luke’s faithful followers must carry on the good fight even in the absence of their hero. Similarly, Christians must battle against the remaining forces of evil while we wait.

We don’t see much of Luke in The Force Awakens. But in his absence various characters make selfless sacrifices. (I won’t say more to avoid spoiling anything, but there’s one case in particular that you’ll recognize when you see the movie.)

Yet the fight against the “dark side” continues with hope, rooted in the long-awaited Second Coming. Somehow, viewers know that the “good guys” will eventually defeat the First Order, just as Christians know Jesus Christ will conquer Satan.

As writer the  noted in his review for Christianity Today, “Star Wars operates on the level of a police procedural, or an oral history, or a Biblical parable (take your pick): there’s both the excitement of wanting to see what happens and the fact that you already know what’s going to happen.”

Throughout the Star Wars series, the Rebels struggle against the dark side, providing a model for American Christians today. IRD’s Mark Tooley wrote in June that “Star Wars offers a partial response” to “Christian despair over disturbing social trends.”

“America is not quite the Empire, but Christians might at least smilingly recall the old Jedis and their young rebel followers as we seek to capture the imagination of a new generation who’ve forgotten America’s founding ideals that were rooted in Christian worldview and created a republic of unparalleled liberty and prosperity, even amid great flaws,” Tooley commented.

Truth & Mythology

As far as I know, neither Lucas nor Abrams intentionally inserted Christian themes into any of the Star Wars movies.

“I don’t see Star Wars as profoundly religious,” Lucas told Bill Moyers in 1999 during a series called The Power of Myth. He continued, “I see Star Wars as taking all of the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and more easily accessible construct that people can grab onto to accept the fact that there is a greater mystery out there.”

Lucas added that he’d come to believe all religions were true. Lucas labeled himself as a “Buddhist Methodist” during a separate interview with scholar Orville Schell in 1999.

J.J. Abrams’s theological approach to Star Wars appears to be equally vague. This was evident at an event in November at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Abrams said that as child growing up watching Star Wars, he was attracted to the “Force” and the “idea of it being a religion without a God.” He said described the Force as a “non-denominational, powerful idea that was really important to us in this film.”

But Lucas and Abrams’s ambiguous theological interpretation of the Star Wars “myth” shouldn’t deter Christian viewers. God can use ostensibly secular stories for His glory, too. We should celebrate when that happens rather than get hung up on the minutia we might disagree with.

As C.S. Lewis wrote in God in the Dock, “We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘pagan Christs’: they ought to be there – it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.”

In truly good mythology, C.S. Lewis argued that God would inevitably shine through. Becoming convinced of this truth through talking to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien served as a foundational reason for Lewis’s conversion.

Historian Joseph Loconte described a pivotal conversation between Tolkien and Lewis in September 1931 in his latest book, A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War. Tolkien convinced Lewis that “myths did not originate with man, but with God,” and Lewis soon after became a Christian.

Lewis echoed Tolkien’s sentiment in his book Miracles. He wrote that “at its best,” a myth represented “a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination.”

Although Star Wars may not represent Christian theology and values perfectly, strong Christian themes shine through in its latest iteration. That’s inevitably what happens in good stories regardless of author or creator intent. Christians should enjoy and affirm these kinds of movies.