What is your favorite movie? (I'll make my next nerd post about it after the poll closes!)

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Star Wars and Catholicism Part 1: The Force and Redemption

Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to “Life, Religion, and Fandom”! Today, we will be discussing Star Wars with religion, specifically the Roman Catholic religion.

Everybody knows about Star Wars, and most people know it has a different worldview (or galaxy-view) than the Roman Catholic religion. I’m here to show that the two can be compatible, especially when seeing the moral similarities in the two.

First, let’s talk of the most obvious thing to connect: the Force. The Force is explained by Obi-Wan Kenobi in “A New Hope” that the Force is the thing that holds the universe together and binds everything. THIS DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So many people think that because God is replaced with an impersonal Force that Star Wars is evil. God is the person that created the universe, and the Force obviously did not in Star Wars. This means that God guides the fate of the galaxy, and that the Force is just a way that he lets his power be shown, like the miracles that we have here on Earth (such as the Parting of the Red Sea, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, etc.).

Kylo Ren (aka Ben Solo), in “The Force Awakens”, is struggling to find the power of the Dark Side by asking the twisted remains of his grandfather’s mask to help him. Obviously no one told Kylo that Vader turned back to the light side of the Force before he died.

Looks like no one caught on to that either. By “that” I mean that the light side of the Force alone is not enough to save Kylo Ren. What Kylo needs is to realize that life is more than power, but under the guidance of Supreme Leader Snoke, he actually believes that power is the ultimate purpose in life.

We see Jesus being tempted with power in the Gospels after his baptism. He goes out into the desert and allows himself to be tempted by the Devil. The Devil tries to make people believe that the wrong things are the ultimate goal of life, such as power, importance, money, etc. Jesus, however, is able to combat this with the Word of God. He is able to save fallen humanity from its sins, just as those who turn to the Dark Side can be turned back to good.

We see this at the end of “Return of the Jedi”, when Darth Vader throws the Emperor down the shaft to save Luke. He then asks Luke to take his mask off so he can see Luke with his own eyes. When Luke says that he has to save Vader, Vader replies, “You have already saved me, Luke.” He has done a complete 180, and wants to die in the peace of knowing what his son looks like without the filter of his mask.

Pretty heartwarming if you ask me!

Stay tuned for part 2! Please leave any concerns or questions in the comments! I will reply to all!

May the Lord be with you,

Elizabeth

No comments:

Post a Comment