Theology and the Star Wars Universe (Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture) 9781978707238, 9781978707245, 1978707231

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Theology and the Star Wars Universe

THEOLOGY, RELIGION, AND POP CULTURE

Series Editor Matthew Brake The Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture series examines the intersection of theology, religion, and popular culture, including, but not limited to television, movies, sequential art, and genre fiction. In a world plagued by rampant polarization of every kind and the decline of religious literacy in the public square, Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture is uniquely poised to educate and entertain a diverse audience utilizing one of the few things society at large still holds in common: love for popular culture. Titles in the series Theology and the Star Wars Universe, edited by Benjamin D. Espinoza Theology and Black Mirror, edited by Amber Bowen and John Anthony Dunne Dread and Hope: Christian Eschatology and Pop Culture, by Joshua Wise Theology and the Game of Thrones, edited by Matthew Brake Theology and Spider-Man, edited by George Tsakiridis René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture, edited by Ryan G. Duns & T. Derrick Witherington Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination, edited by Brandon R. Grafius and John W. Morehead Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead and John Tucker Theology and Westworld, edited by Juli Gittinger and Shayna Sheinfeld Theology and Prince, edited by Jonathan H. Harwell and Rev. Katrina E. Jenkins Theology and the Marvel Universe, edited by Gregory Stevenson

Theology and the Star Wars Universe Edited by Benjamin D. Espinoza

L E X I N G T O N B O O K S / F O RT R E S S A C A D E M I C

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Espinoza, Benjamin D., 1988- editor. Title: Theology and the Star Wars universe / edited by Benjamin D. Espinoza. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, [2022] | Series: Theology, religion, and pop culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Theology and the Star Wars Universe is an engaging and enlightening foray into exploring the galaxy far, far away from a theological perspective. Written for an academic audience but accessible to fans of the franchise, the book will be an excellent addition to any collection”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022007277 (print) | LCCN 2022007278 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978707238 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781978707245 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Star Wars films—History and criticism. | Motion pictures—Religious aspects. | LCGFT: Film criticism. | Essays. Classification: LCC PN1995.9.S695 T47 2022  (print) | LCC PN1995.9.S695  (ebook) | DDC 791.43/75—dc23/eng/20220406 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007277 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007278 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Theologizing Star Wars: Engaging the Galaxy Far, Far Away Benjamin D. Espinoza

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PART I: OPENING ESSAY

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‌‌Chapter 1: The Word of God and the W(h)ill of the Force: Canon and Authority within the Star Wars Universe and Franchise James F. McGrath PART II: THEOLOGIES OF THE JEDI



Chapter 2: Use (the) Force: Jedi, Monks, and Unexpected Violence Zachary B. Smith



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Chapter 3: And What More Shall I Say?: Heroism in Hebrews 11 and Star Wars 37 Bethany Keeley-Jonker and Robert Keeley Chapter 4: Rediscovering the Sith and the Jedi: A Spiritual Analogy in Renaissance Humanism and Desert Asceticism Nathan Garcia ‌‌Chapter 5: From Padawan to Jedi: The Theological Premise for the Necessity of the Master-Apprentice Relationship in the Path of Spiritual Ascension Abdallah Rothman ‌‌Chapter 6: And Also with You: An Examination of the Demystification of the Jedi and the Clergy Nettie Brock and Josiah Brock v

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Contents

PART III: POLITICAL THEOLOGIES



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‌‌‌‌‌Chapter 7: Subverting the Ancient Religion: The Gray Ecclesiology of Ahsoka Tano and Old Man Luke Tim Posada

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‌‌Chapter 8: In Defense of the Nonviolent Luke: A Confrontation between Niebuhrian Realism and Christian Nonviolence in The Last Jedi 113 Andrew J. Kuzma Chapter 9: Undoing the Memory Wipe: Metz, Droids, and the Victims of History Edward Dunar Chapter 10: Mysticism and Resistance: Theology of The Last Jedi Rostislav Kůrka ‌‌Chapter 11: Bringing Balance to the Force: George Lucas’s Politico-Critical Refiguring of Salvation John C. McDowell PART IV: ENGAGING CLASSICAL THINKERS

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Chapter 12: The Modern Manichaeans: Binaries of Light and Dark in Contemporary Culture Jonathan Lyonhart

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‌‌Chapter 13: Thomas Aquinas’s Account of Hope as a Hermeneutical Lens for Star Wars Shaun C. Brown

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‌‌‌Chapter 14: An Archē Not Anarchic Enough: A Spirited Critique of the Force Ryan G. Duns

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Chapter 15: Lifting Rocks: Camus, Sainthood, and the Anti-Heroic in The Last Jedi 205 Russell P. Johnson Index

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About the Contributors



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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my profound appreciation for the work and leadership of the Theology, Religion, and Popular Culture series editor, Matthew Brake. You were an enthusiastic proponent of this project, and I am thankful for your continued cheerleading and friendship. I also want to extend a hearty thank you to those who offered peer review or editing feedback on this volume. You know who you are, and I appreciate the hours of work and editing you put into this volume! From the beginning, I have been grateful for each of the contributors to this volume. You have put in immense hours of editing, re-editing, and reorganizing. Early on, it was apparent that the cadre of scholars who have contributed to this volume are among the best and brightest in their respective fields. I need to acknowledge that much of the work on this volume took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of great stress and sadness for so many. I am grateful for the work of the contributors and their sustained graciousness with me as editor. I am always grateful to friends and colleagues who continually expressed excitement about this volume. The work of editing is always tedious, but I am so appreciative of your encouragement and excitement for this labor of love. I am confident that the Theology, Religion, and Popular Culture book series will continue to break ground in the field of theological studies. Popular culture is a canvas by which we paint our deepest concerns, thoughts, and worries, and reading popular culture through the lens of various theological perspectives can always serve as an enlightening activity. I am grateful for those who continue to write and edit books in this series. May the Force be with you all. Benjamin D. Espinoza Summer 2021

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Introduction

Theologizing Star Wars Engaging the Galaxy Far, Far Away Benjamin D. Espinoza

George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars universe, says that the idea for a space fantasy about a group of plucky rebels taking on an oppressive empire came to him well before he directed THX 1138 and American Graffiti. As the story goes, Lucas had a hard time finding a studio that would take a chance on a space fantasy when science fiction had reached a stagnant point in the mid-1970’s. Finally, Alan Ludd, the head of 20th Century Fox, hired Lucas to write and direct Star Wars in 1973. Ludd took a big risk in hiring Lucas, a risk that would initially cost $150,000. To this day, Star Wars films have grossed over $10 billion. Since then, the Star Wars universe has grown exponentially to include books, television series, video games, toys, comics, and theme parks. The universe has garnered the ability to reinvent itself to reach new generations and provide commentary on social issues. Despite its frequent (and incorrect) labeling as science fiction, Star Wars continues to attract fans who would otherwise prefer to consume media from other genres. Its influence is staggering and will only continue to increase. Because Star Wars has become such a powerhouse franchise over the past forty years, scholars from across a diverse array of fields have sought to make sense of the galaxy far, far away. Scientists have (partially) developed lightsabers, theorized that Luke and Leia may actually be different ages due to space travel, studied the economic impact of the Empire’s downfall, and asserted that Han Solo had the legal right to shoot Greedo first. A plethora of books and articles have analyzed Star Wars from multiple standpoints, such as philosophy, psychology, economics, and media studies. A sizable literature 1

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also examines the influence of Carl Jung, Adolph Bastian, and the work of Joseph Campbell on George Lucas. Among this myriad of Star Wars scholarship are those books and articles that highlight the theological themes of the franchise. Analyzing Star Wars through the lens of religion, theology, or spirituality is unsurprising; with themes of hope, revenge, redemption, reconciliation, good and evil, and liberation deeply infused into the series, Star Wars is rife for theological analysis and engagement. A bulk of this work, however, is often of a devotional nature; that is, oftentimes, books that examine the spiritual themes of Star Wars often do so in order to deepen the spiritual lives of their readers and provide a theological lens by which to engage the franchise and other popular culture media. A smaller body of literature has explored Star Wars through the lens of academic theology. John McDowell’s The Gospel According to Star Wars provides a robust theological account of Star Wars for general readership with special attention to examination of the franchise’s portrayal of morality. As he notes in his introduction, George Lucas sought to create a highly relatable and entertaining morality tale. Lucas was even supportive of how Christians found commonality between Scripture and his films. More recently, Ken Derry and John Lyden’s edited volume The Myth Awakens examines the religious and mythological nature of Star Wars in light of increased criticism of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Contributors to Derry and Lyden’s volume engaged in discussions often from the standpoint of critical theory, interrogating how race, gender, and sexuality played a role in how those two films were received. Needless to say, theological reflection on the Star Wars universe extends from fundamentalist interpretations that remain suspicious of the franchise’s theological or political claims, to political theologies that attempt to create more generous spaces for subaltern voices to speak into the conversation. But theology by its very nature is contextual; we theologize from our sociopolitical contexts, making sense of God and the world through the lens of our experiences. As such, scholars have given greater attention to theologies that expand beyond the Western emphases of orthodoxy, individualism, and objectivity to include theologies that make sense of God and the world through the lenses of current social and political locations. Theology and the Star Wars Universe enters this rich theological milieu, and as the franchise continues to expand in multiple directions conceptually and narratively, theological reflection on the Star Wars universe must continue to take place.

Theologizing Star Wars

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OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS The book before you is an attempt to address a number of diverse themes related to the Star Wars universe. The contributors to this volume all come from a diverse set of backgrounds and each examines the Star Wars universe through the various lenses of their disciplines and perspectives. While some provide fresh perspectives on timeless themes, others take divergent perspectives on the Star Wars universe, offering creative takes on various aspects of the franchise. In the opening chapter, James McGrath explores notions of canon, authority, and truth in the Star Wars Universe. McGrath brings theological shape to questions related to Disney’s rejection of the expanded universe, prompting readers to engage in questions related to canonicity and truth within the newly formed Star Wars canon. McGrath’s chapter is appropriate to begin the volume, as it lends a critical eye to the deeper questions that the Theology and Popular Culture series seeks to answer. In Part II, “Theologies of the Jedi,” authors examine the most prominent figures within the Star Wars universe—the Jedi. The Jedi have often been compared to the Pharisees and Sadducees of the New Testament, the monks of religious orders, and modern political parties. Deservedly, they invite speculation regarding their moral status within the series. Zachary Smith writes of the problem of “holy heroes,” the Jedi, using violence. Smith concludes that viewing our holy heroes encourages us to move beyond our past failures and create something new, much like Rey at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. Speaking of heroes, Bethany Keeley-Jonker and Robert Keeley discuss the notion of heroism in the series in light of Hebrews 11, the famous passage of Christian Scripture that explores those who have demonstrated faithfulness to God despite their challenges, and engage the work of Walter Fish, a communication theorist known for his work on narrative theory. Taking a look at the desert monastic movement and Renaissance Christian humanism, Nathan Garcia finds similarities between such movements and the Jedi-Sith relationship. In these two Christian movements, Garcia finds two expressions of the same faith, much in the way the Jedi and Sith express their commitment to the force in divergent ways. Abdallah Rothman compares the path from Padawan to Jedi to the path of spiritual ascension in Islam, providing a refreshing take on spiritual formation. To close out this section, Nettie Brock and Josiah Brock discuss the blurring of boundaries between those who formally practice the force (the Jedi) and those who do not (such as Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One). Together, these chapters bring a multifaceted perspective to the Jedi and cause us to rethink some of our assumptions regarding the nature of power, true heroism, and spiritual enlightenment.

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The first chapter in Part III, “Political Theologies,” picks up where the last chapter in Part II left off. Tim Posada, much like Nettie Brock and Josiah Brock, examines the “graying” of the church. Posada draws attention to those who have left institutionalized religions in order to express their spirituality anew. This chapter properly sets up the main thrust of this section, which is to examine the contours of the political theologies present in the Star Wars universe. Andrew J. Kuzma explores Luke’s refusal to fight in The Last Jedi and overall pacifism as a natural progression of his commitment to the ideals of the Jedi. Edward Dunar draws attention to how droids are presented in the franchise through engagement with the work of Johann Metz. Rostislav Kůrka observes a stark thematic change between the trilogies, engaging the concepts of mysticism and resistance using the work of German theologian and activist Dorothee Sölle. To close out this section, John McDowell reflects on some of the larger sociopolitical themes present in both the creation of, and within, the narrative of the series. In Part IV, scholars examine the franchise through engagement with some classic thinkers throughout history. These scholars each provide a fresh take on authors such as Augustine, Aquinas, and even Camus by thoughtfully interacting with the Star Wars canon. Jonathan Lyonhart, in a manner similar to the earlier chapter by Nathan Garcia, explores Augustine’s conflict with the Manicheans as a way of describing the dualism between the Light and Dark in the Star Wars. Next, we move into two chapters on Thomas Aquinas. The first of these chapters, from Shaun Brown, uses Aquinas’s account of hope as a hermeneutical lens by which to examine how the Star Wars universe perceives hope. Ryan Duns creatively explores Aquinas’s account of the Spirit through engaging the narrative of Star Wars. The final chapter in our volume, from Russell Johnson, explores French Algerian philosopher Albert Camus’s concept of absurdity as a means of reflecting on hope and heroism in the series, much like Robert Keeley and Bethany Keeley-Jonker do in an earlier chapter. In a world like today, reflecting on hope and heroism seems like a positive way to end a volume such as this. I am immensely proud of the hard work that these scholars have put into their chapters. They truly represent the breadth of theological reflection occurring in the academy and in society at large today. Moreover, I am thankful that these contributors range from young and promising theological students to more seasoned scholars. The ability to attract bright minds of all ages is truly one of the beautiful aspects of the Star Wars universe. Whether you’re a student in college or graduate school, a working professional with an interest in theology, or a seasoned scholar looking for new and interesting topics to explore, my hope is that Theology and the Star Wars Universe inspires you to dig into the discipline of theology with renewed excitement and joy.

PART I

Opening Essay

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‌‌C hapter 1

The Word of God and the W(h)ill of the Force Canon and Authority within the Star Wars Universe and Franchise James F. McGrath

In a highly symbolic moment in The Last Jedi, Yoda brings down lightning that sets fire to the sacred tree containing the library of Jedi sacred texts. Given that Luke Skywalker had been ready to set fire to the tree himself, his dismay at Yoda’s action seems surprising. Right before this, however, Luke had hesitated, questioning whether he was doing the right thing. Perhaps he had even wondered what Yoda would think of his action (although without looking at a WWYD? bracelet). Luke was presumably doubly surprised: he had not expected that Yoda would approve of what he intended to do, and even less had he expected Yoda to carry through this dramatic action that Luke himself had drawn back from at the last moment. Later, the careful observer sees that the texts were not in fact destroyed, as we are given the chance to glimpse them in a drawer on the Millennium Falcon, and they get more screen time and explicit mention when they play a significant role at the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker. Did Yoda transfer them there using the Force? Or had Rey already taken them, with or without Yoda’s permission? The actions of Luke, Yoda, and Rey in The Last Jedi all provide a ready opportunity to discuss the value placed on sacred texts and/or their contents. These details in the films also provide important analogies that can serve a useful function for exploring the role of canon in the fandom and official franchise of Star Wars itself.

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Yoda calls into question the value Luke had placed on the books as objects, asking Luke how much he had actually read them and how valuable their contents had been to him. Rey’s actions of taking off with at least some and perhaps all of the Jedi canon of sacred scriptures and piloting the Millennium Falcon are poignant and highly symbolic. The entire sequence could be taken as an allegory for the Star Wars franchise becoming the property of Disney: when this happens, the Expanded Universe is killed off, or perhaps we should say it “becomes one with the Force.” There can, in such moments, be a hope for continued existence, much like deleted scenes which likewise bring questions about canon and canonicity into the picture (or rather leave them on the cutting room floor). The obliteration is certainly not total, as details from the old Expanded Universe surface regularly in more recent stories so that at the very least fragments of its texts survive the conflagration. Nevertheless, those texts are at least officially and as a whole set aside as apocryphal, replaced by a new canon in which, for the moment at least, Rey is in the pilot’s seat. Yoda says that Rey has already taken everything that she needs with her, and if at first we understand this to be about the things she learned and carries in her heart and mind, we also learn that it refers literally to the physical objects of the texts themselves as well. Yoda also says of the relationship between master and student, “We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” Is that statement similarly true about any attempt to define a canon, since it represents another form of master or teacher, albeit a textual one? It would seem to apply, at the very least, to the understanding of canonical texts, which cannot help but change as those who value them grow and mature over the course of their lives. One can allow one’s perspective on the texts to grow and change, or attempt to preserve a childlike enchanted experience of them even in adulthood. Both these stances involve change, whether acknowledged or not.1 The idea that sacred texts are something for those who learn from them to transcend is not universal, whether among Jedi, Christians, or the members of any other real or fictional religious tradition. The most recent movies raise questions about whether those of us who grew up loving Star Wars were right to idolize the Jedi as heroes in quite the way that we did and to the extent that we did. This is not to say that they were not on the whole heroic and valiant forces for good in the galaxy. But we tended to assume that the Jedi were entirely trustworthy, reliable narrators about matters pertaining to the Force, about good and evil, and so on. When the prequel trilogy revealed the extent to which the Jedi council was itself divided, and sometimes willing to compromise its own professed moral principles, this challenged the assumptions of many longtime fans. The original trilogy had already moved in the same direction, as The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi exposed Obi-Wan’s misleading of Luke concerning what had happened to his father. The perspective of the Jedi order as a whole

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might consistently be true “from a certain point of view,” but accepting that requires a more nuanced view of truth and falsehood than the approach that simply idolizes heroes and trusts them as though they are incapable of letting us down. This applies not only in-universe to the Jedi but also in our world to George Lucas and his franchise. Is the view of truth as more nuanced, of good and evil as more complex, in fact central to the Star Wars story throughout? The different ways we might potentially tackle this question parallel quite precisely the different ways that scholars and laypeople approach the biblical canon. If one seeks a unifying narrative that encompasses the entire collection of texts, then one may draw one conclusion or at least one particular type of conclusion. If one digs behind the texts to ask questions about the process that led to their formation, then matters will look quite different. In the interpretation of both literature and film, whether ancient or modern, the question of how relevant authorial intent is to their meaning has been a subject of much debate.2 In this case, rather like Obi-Wan Kenobi, George Lucas himself appears to offer statements about and interpretations of his own opus that are at best true “from a certain point of view.” As Mark Kaminski has explored in his book A Secret History of Star Wars, the shape of the franchise’s narrative arc changed significantly in the course of their drafting and realization—as is true of all human storytelling, if we are honest. Yet certain claims by Lucas (and the affirmations of certain fans) suggests otherwise, insisting that Lucas had the entire story, from Episode I through Episode IX (or perhaps even Episode XII), sketched out in broad outline if not in detail from the very beginning. By way of comparison, some assert that the biblical literature in its finished forms, treated as an ensemble, has a single unifying story arc as well. That is often portrayed as a story centered around fall and redemption, with the Trinity at work in creation from the first chapter, and Christ predicted in response to the “Fall” of Adam and Eve as the one who will crush the head of the serpent, Satan. Yet none of those things—the Trinity, a messianic savior, or Satan—is there in Genesis when considered in its original context. (Nor is an apple, while we’re on the subject). In much the same way, the story of Star Wars that comes to be known as A New Hope was not originally a piece of the story of fallen Jedi Anakin Skywalker, but becomes that as a result of a later decision made in the process of scripting The Empire Strikes Back, in which the previously distinct father of Luke Skywalker is not merely revealed, but altered, so as to be none other than Darth Vader.3 To be sure, the idea of a Sith turning to side with the Jedi was there early on in drafts. This, however, involved a character that did not survive into the final screenplay, Prince Valorum—although his name would subsequently be used for the chancellor of the republic in Phantom Menace.4

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We can leave it to others to trace the history of the drafting and rewriting of the Star Wars scripts, and focus instead on the broader questions related to the relationship between a story that comes together over time, the scripts and sources that precede it, and the interpretations offered from a later perspective that seek to weld the diverse episodes into a coherent unified framework. Whether it is biblical literature that is being discussed or Star Wars, both collections of stories drew on and made use of earlier sources and drafts that are no longer available to us (whether because they were lost in the sands of time, or because they are safely guarded in Lucasfilm archives). In some instances, we can see clearly where one text draws on or rewrites another. In others we can deduce the existence of precursors through careful study of the text available to us. Perhaps to some limited extent, our ability to study the changing form of Star Wars installments from rough draft to complete script to revised script may allow us to test some of our approaches to and conclusions about ancient texts, especially when the purported precursors are scholarly reconstructions rather than materials we can study directly (such as the Book of Jashar or the J, P, and Q sources). Some question the appropriateness of seeking to understand the final forms of texts in relation to earlier sources, even when these are known to have existed. Should a canon, once defined, be treated in isolation from other texts, even texts that it itself alludes to? On what authority is such a decision to be made? A canon of scripture composed by multiple authors over time by definition cannot include within itself the grounds for its own authority nor for defining its own boundaries. Even if someone who compiles a collection of revered texts adds a table of contents and proclaims it as definitive, final, and authoritative, those who revered the texts in question are still free to reject this addition—even if they accept the authority of all the texts on the list. The list itself is connected to the one who makes it. On the other hand, can a canon contain within itself the basis for its own relativization? This seems more readily conceivable, at least initially. To be sure, there are those who manage to treat the Bible as though it had one unified voice, despite its diverse contents reflecting the views of many authors and their differing perspectives. The diversity is still there, however, liable at any moment to confront the reader with evidence that challenges their perspective directly from within the canon itself. In such instances, ironically, one may find that the reader falls back on a definition of what scripture is, what it is and is not allowed to be and do, that is not found within the scriptures themselves (and by definition could not be). That framework is imposed on the canon in an effort to mitigate the impact of the evidence that would otherwise cause cognitive dissonance with respect to one’s understanding of its coherence. It would take a broader survey of a variety of kinds of canons and scriptural collections, and the history of their interpretation, if one wanted to try to make the case that what

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we observe here is a universal phenomenon in how humans treat and respond to collections of authoritative texts. But in this instance at least, it seems clear that a unified canon still requires an external action to hold it together (literally as well as metaphorically), and conversely, that a diverse canon can only be treated as though it were unified through a similar act of imposing an external definition regarding its authority and character. The efforts of Lucas and Lucasfilm, of popes and reformers and councils, to argue and impose such definitions make clear that the matter cannot be treated as self-evident, no matter how much anyone might claim otherwise. This mirrors things that we see within the Star Wars universe at multiple points. For Rey, Luke, and Yoda, the Jedi sacred texts only have whatever authority they grant to them. If they steal them and translate them or revere them while leaving them largely or entirely unread on shelves in a sacred space, if they cherish them or burn them, if they read them and pick and choose from their contents or hold in tension the diversity of perspectives found within them (if such there is), it is the individual reader and the community that ultimately decide which of these approaches is appropriate. This is not the only place where we see this kind of thing in the Star Wars universe. If the disagreements on the Jedi council surprised some who assumed there was a clear and rigid Jedi path, there is also a positive message in that diversity. The Jedi are committed to debate and discussion in a manner that the Sith are said not to be—as for instance when Anakin, now Darth Vader, tells Obi-Wan, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” to which Obi-Wan replies that only a Sith deals in absolutes. This too may have surprised some viewers. The discipline required to train as a Jedi and their eschewal of the Dark Side can seem pretty absolute, while Palpatine had encouraged Anakin to explore beyond one narrow view of the Force. However, not dealing in absolutes itself requires a great deal of commitment and training. Embracing diversity and remaining open to debate is only possible where the value of doing so is a shared conviction that is agreed to be of paramount importance. The diversity and debates of the Jedi council stand in noticeable contrast to the Sith “rule of two.” The Sith are absolutists in the sense that their approach leaves no room for living with disagreement or holding multiple perspectives in tension. There is also in their values a constant desire to undermine the very one to whom one has pledged allegiance and submission as apprentice. For the Jedi, on the other hand, whether it reflects words found written in the sacred Jedi texts or not, we see a commitment to diversity reflected in their institution, if not always in every detail of their lived practice. For the most part, the viewer and fan is not given direct access to the sacred writings of the Jedi. This is not because no such works have been published, but because their status as canonical or otherwise is ambiguous, creating a situation that is simultaneously both ironic and telling, and highly relevant

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to our current exploration of the topic. Daniel Wallace’s book The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force attempts to depict what a “textbook” for a Jedi student might look like. As one would expect, this is a composition created to fill in the background of the Jedi way after the fact, rather than something that existed first within the fictional canon and only subsequently came to be reflected in the way of life and experience of characters. Ironically, Wallace also wrote a chronology of the Star Wars universe covering the Expanded Universe, which has now been declared not to be canonical. Wallace said in a 2010 interview with Time magazine, “Officially everything in the Star Wars publishing universe is canon, though George Lucas retains creator privileges to override anything he wants. Lucasfilm employs a ‘Keeper of the Holocron,’ namely Leland Chee, to keep it all straight. In this Star Wars is unique from most other franchises.”5 Within the book The Jedi Path the reader is presented with a heavily annotated textbook that has belonged to multiple owners. The quasi-Talmudic commentary around the margins meshes nicely with the depiction of the Jedi council in the prequels that we discussed earlier. If there is hierarchy, it is not one that quells all dissent. Students push back against things they learn from their teachers and ask probing questions about their textbook. Perhaps also telling is that there is a section that was crossed out so as to be unreadable, and that this was done by none other than Palpatine, who eventually came into possession of the volume. The way of the Sith is to censor and silence, while the Jedi remain committed to dialogue as part of “the Jedi path.” In an interesting twist, The Jedi Path received renewed attention after the release of The Last Jedi. In response to fans who questioned the Force ability used by Luke Skywalker in which he projects a likeness of himself onto another planet, Rian Johnson tweeted a picture of a page from the book which mentioned Doppelganger or Similfuturus as the ability of a Jedi “to create a short-lived duplicate of himself or herself or an external object that is visually indistinguishable from the real item.”6 And so this guide that overlaps not only the movies but also the no-longer-canonical Expanded Universe was cited by the director of a movie that has now become part of the canon, in response to criticism by fans who consider it their job to safeguard the canon! Then, to make matters still more interesting, Johnson subsequently deleted his tweet. One can find screenshots of it, however, on the internet, and so it is not truly gone. This raises the fascinating (if unanswerable) question of what the authority of a tweet is in relation to a canon, and how if at all that status is impacted by the deletion of the tweet. The canonical status of comic books and graphic novels can vary from franchise to franchise. In the case of Star Wars, there are canonical, noncanonical, and formerly but now no longer canonical works in this genre. In Poe

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Dameron #28 (which is canonical, at least as of the writing of this chapter), Rey gets C-3PO to help with attempting to translate the texts she took from Ahch-To in The Last Jedi. The robot indicates that the language is obscure and difficult, but offers the following by way of translation: “The force is the light. The force is the dark. Jedi choose the light, for all it reveals.”7 Is this an accurate translation? How could we hope to assess it? Could the translation of a sacred text require something more than mere linguistic proficiency, something that only a living thing might possess, perhaps even requiring Force sensitivity? There are parallels that can be drawn with the translation and study of the Bible. Some believe that moving word by word through a text with the assistance of a lexicon or interlinear provides access to the “real meaning” of the text, beyond what is found in an ordinary English translation. Others believe that being attuned to the Spirit can allow one to understand deeper meanings that go beyond the words and grammar. A good translation from a linguistic perspective requires both expertise in languages and a sensitivity to nuance beyond the capacity of any machine currently in existence in the real world. Does Rey make genuine progress in her understanding with C-3PO’s assistance, or does she fall into a similar trap to many users of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible?8 When he declared the entire Expanded Universe to no longer be canonical, J. J. Abrams arguably destroyed far more of the Star Wars (expanded) universe than Lucas did with his special edition tampering. And so, we should ask why some have warmed to Abrams’s treatment while rejecting Lucas’s edits. Nostalgia does not seem an adequate explanation, since many felt and feel nostalgia for the Expanded Universe. Was it merely the fact that in one case the tampering was with the original trilogy, the centerpiece and most universally accepted part of the Star Wars canon? When the decisions of the creator of the franchise can be rejected outright by fans, it tells us a great deal about the nature of canon. To be sure, authorial intent is never part of a canon, at least when defined textually as is usually the case. It is nonetheless surprising that Lucas’s statements carry so little weight in some instances, while in others Lucas’s affirmations are accepted as “gospel” even if they appear to be at odds with the available evidence.9 These seemingly divergent tendencies are the result of one key underlying fact: “Star Wars does not belong solely to Lucas anymore; its characters and stories have escaped the original text and grown up with the fans, who have developed their own very firm ideas of what Star Wars is and is not about.”10 For our purposes, a key question is what parallel ought to be drawn with the Bible at this point? To whom did or do the texts, or the people described in them, belong? Whatever one’s answer to that question, clearly a parallel phenomenon can be seen at work. Reactions to new movies over the course of the history of Star Wars also makes us aware

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of the challenges that come with a continually developing canon, as opposed to what is involved in embracing a stable established one. The debates about canon in the history of the church illustrate this well. SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES? In the case of both the Bible and Star Wars, there are radically divergent views about whether these are stories aimed primarily at adults or children, or perhaps both. Empire is often the most popular Star Wars film from the original trilogy with adults, yet the least popular with children, while Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace are found perfectly engaging and indeed preferable from the perspective of young audiences.11 The Bible has engaged audiences both young and old, if sometimes more through junior novelizations and cuddly toys than the stories in their canonical form. Those who read the stories of Noah or David and Goliath as adults after hearing them as kids are often shocked to discover that key elements of destruction, slaughter, and decapitation were conveniently left out when they were presented them as children. Revenge of the Sith was somewhat controversial when it became the first Star Wars film to have a PG-13 rather than a PG rating. Some of the material from the Bible that is most commonly presented to children, on the other hand, would certainly be rated R if presented in an uncensored version, if indeed it were allowed to be shown at all.12 The Bible and Star Wars appear to face similar challenges of engaging audiences of all ages. The canonical ensemble means different parts are popular with different audiences. This leads to complaints from some fans and religious people about specific contents, but it may at the same time be the key to success for the franchise as a whole. SOURCE CRITICISM, CANONICAL CRITICISM, AND RETCONNING The mere existence of a book with a title such as Michael Kaminski’s Secret History of Star Wars makes a comparison with the Bible apt. There have been many books (and even more frequently, TV documentaries) purporting to offer hidden books of the Bible, to reveal the Bible’s secrets. These range from conspiracy theories about the Bible that reject everything mainstream scholarship has to say about this collection of texts, to presentations of mainstream scholarship as something surprising to those who have read the Bible without previously listening to scholars. As Kaminski notes, it is very common for fans of Star Wars to be unaware of what is readily known about the

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process of writing drafts and conceptualizing Star Wars that George Lucas worked through, or to fail to realize how subsequent films (the sequels and later the prequels) did not merely continue the story of the original movie, but reinterpreted it and changed it. The same thing happens throughout the Bible and in relation to the Bible. On the one hand, embedded within the text we regularly encounter indications about source material as well as things that can accurately be called “drafts,” sketches, or precursors of the works in the Bible in the form that we now know them.13 Much like the opening crawl text, to say nothing of the movie scripts more generally, the Biblical texts we know may be so profoundly influential precisely because they have benefited from multiple revisions and the input of multiple authors and perspectives. The way a story comes together using existing material crafted and drafted by its author or others, and the way a story becomes a different story when it is later continued with sequels and prequels, makes a connection between Star Wars and the Bible. Before proceeding, we may also note how a “canonical” account of how a canon formed may be promulgated by a particular authority. In the case of Star Wars, as we have already noted, there is an official stance which purports that the current story arc is what was always intended. Yet some past statements by Lucas himself appear to be at odds with that official talk of canon formation. Comparisons deserve to be made with ideas of how the Bible came to be that are themselves accepted “as gospel.” In some circles, the table of contents is assumed to have been divinely revealed or at least self-evident. In others, the contents are thought to have been imposed by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea. Neither of these views reflects what we know from relevant historical sources. If someone has an inaccurate understanding of how a set of stories came to be collected together in a canon, could they be able to offer a plausible interpretation of that set of stories nevertheless? THE DEVELOPMENT OF DARTH VADER AND SATAN The way characters change as a result of ongoing storytelling provides another example of a phenomenon related to both the biblical and Star Wars canons. Originally, Darth Vader began as an imperial bureaucrat and not as a knight of the Sith, much less the father of twins Luke and Leia. The process whereby a character who is understood one way is transformed retroactively by subsequent storytelling in the same franchise can be seen in the biblical literature as well.14 If we consider the character of Satan, we might begin either with the snake in the Garden of Eden, who is emphatically said in Genesis to be an animal rather than a malevolent spiritual being; or with “the

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Satan” (i.e., “the Accuser”) who appears as a member of the heavenly court in the Book of Job. In Job, this figure is perhaps a trickster among the “sons of God,” perhaps the appointed prosecuting attorney and/or chief inspector looking into human affairs, but in either case is not yet a fallen angel or representation of evil diametrically opposed to God. It was through the process known as “retconning” that Vader and Anakin became the same person, changing the meaning of first Star Wars film. That term denotes “retroactive continuity,” that is the reinterpretation of earlier story elements by crafting a narrative within which those story elements take on new meaning. It is a term that frequently seems applicable to the Bible as well. Sometimes, details in an earlier text cry out for further elaboration— whether that be the talking snake in the garden, Enoch’s mysterious disappearance, or the mysterious figure encased in a high-tech suit of armor that also assists him with breathing. Sometimes those elaborations take place within the authorized story, however that is defined. In other cases, they are explored in works that might be categorized as fan fiction or pseudepigrapha. What begins as pseudepigrapha or fan speculation can become headcanon (i.e., the mental framework that readers/viewers bring to the canonical stories). Details from there may then be referred to in subsequent canonical works. Sometimes this occurs so seamlessly that we fail to notice it has happened, as with the designation of the capital planet of the Republic as Coruscant. In other instances, it happens abruptly and leaves later readers puzzled, as by the reference to Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3:8, placing within the Christian canon for the first time names that were given to the Egyptian magicians in Jewish tradition. As Brooker writes, “This may speak to the resonance of the secondary texts and quasi-canon in the collective consciousness of these and many other fans: after reading all the secondary texts and visualizing their internal world, you may well think you’ve seen something on-screen even if it has never actually appeared.”15 But does the inclusion of “Jannes and Jambres” or “Coruscant” within a canonical story canonize the source from which those names are drawn, or only the included details themselves? And which represents a “better” reading of the Bible or Star Wars: one informed by an understanding of the history of script revision, or one blissfully unaware of that complex history of development and seeking to treat it as a coherent whole without contradictions? Should interpreters of Star Wars be informed by the Expanded Universe and/ or comic books and cartoons, understanding their influence even when the works are not or are no longer regarded as canonical, or ignore them to focus exclusively on the movies and authorized sources in their final form? Can one ever hope to keep such additional material entirely out of one’s awareness as interpreter? The history of the church, especially since the time of the Protestant Reformation, has been shaped by debates about whether the

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Bible should be read alone, with tradition, and/or with extracanonical texts that are alluded to in its pages or which subsequently reinterpret the biblical texts. But as becomes especially clear when one considers the Bible and Star Wars in comparison and conversation with one another, the “final form” of a text is never truly final, and even its earliest definitive form is never “alone” in the sense of completely separable from influences, drafts, people, cultural context, and much else. TEXTUAL CRITICISM Textual criticism explores the changes that texts undergo as they are transmitted after reaching what we presume to be their “final” form. Within the Bible, Christians may universally agree that the Gospel of John is canonical, and yet disagree about the status of the story of the woman caught in adultery, because it is not found in our earliest manuscripts. Likewise, Star Wars fans may agree without hesitation that the first Star Wars movie ever made is “canonical” and yet disagree about whether the reference to it being “Episode IV” is canon, never mind whether Han shot first. Whether it be changes made by scribes to the text of the New Testament, or changes made by George Lucas himself to the original trilogy in creating the Special Edition, those who find themselves confronted with variant readings in manuscripts of the same text may not know how to most appropriately respond to them, whether to embrace the plurality or reject one version or the other. On what basis might one decide which approach to divergent copies of the same work is “better”—or indeed, whether a revised edition should in fact be considered “the same work” at all? In the case of the New Testament Gospels and the Star Wars films, matters become still more complex, because we may not only investigate changes made subsequent to the official release, but also prior to that, as different versions were drafted, sources were used, and so on. This in itself is an instructive insight that emerges from a comparison between Star Wars and the Bible. There seems not to be an absolute, hard and fast distinction between changes made before a work was finished and changes made subsequently. This state of affairs presents challenges to anyone asking about the canonical status of a work, since both the process leading up to the production of the “definitive version,” and the changes it nonetheless underwent after appearing in that form, make it necessary for the very notion of canon to entail more than a mere list of titles.16

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REDEEMING STAR WARS AND THE BIBLE One of the individuals that Will Brooker interviewed for writing his book, a fan named Andrea Alworth, spoke of being “desperate to redeem my Star Wars.”17 Readers of the Bible often face the same challenge, whether because they dive into Leviticus and realize that they simply do not understand what it is supposed to be about or how it relates to their lives today, or because they read texts that reflect ancient norms concerning gender roles, slavery, genocide, rape, or other matters, and struggle with how to interpret them in a manner compatible with their ethical sensibilities. If their response is to read against the grain, seeking an interpretation that makes the text seem more relevant, ethical, and/or intelligible, are they doing the text a favor by making it seem like something that can be embraced by a contemporary audience? Or are selectivity and reinterpretation responses that ultimately do a disservice to the text? Would it be better to simply acknowledge all the high points and lows of the story, the moving material and the disturbing, with brutal honesty, and learn to live with the tension this creates? The challenge for readers of the Bible and viewers of Star Wars is, arguably, the fact that acknowledging the role of fallible and imperfect human authors in creating them breaks the spell that we prefer to enchant us when experiencing myths and sacred stories of any sort. Perhaps this is the most interesting question that emerges from an effort to wrestle with the concept of canon in conversation with both the Bible and Star Wars. Is it possible to have a “high view” of the Bible or the Star Wars franchise, and at the same time acknowledge its frailties and the limitations of its authors? George Lucas has said more than one thing to this effect: “I’m not a good writer . . . I don’t have a natural talent for writing . . . I think I’m a terrible writer.”18 Some fans agree completely with respect to scenes involving Jar Jar, but will refuse to do the same with the original trilogy. Along the same lines, Tom Bissell says of the author of the Gospel of Mark, “Mark is many things; narratively sophisticated is not one of them. He was known in antiquity as ‘stump-thumbed’ due to his clumsiness and love of redundancy. His idea of an elegant transition is ‘and’.”19 Whether it would be helpful to compare the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to “fan edits” or “special editions” of Mark, it is certainly the case that modern interpreters have turned Mark’s apparent shortcomings into positive features. To give one example, it is now popular to turn what looks like a missing ending into an open-ended invitation to the postmodern reader to take up the challenge to not let fear keep us from sharing our story.20 For some, the most important thing appears to be to find a way of understanding the text, for all its awkwardness, as nonetheless having a depth of intended meaning in the form in which we now have it. For others, it is preferable to embrace the notion

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that the text is imperfect, but to appreciate it even so, warts and all. There is something appropriate about Christians and Star Wars fans alike approaching their beloved franchises in the same way that characters within those stories approach those who turn astray. For some, the choices are between an inerrant text and considering them worthless works of ignorant “bronze age goat herders.” More challenging is to find a path of balance that can recognize evil and yet say of the text what Padmé says about Anakin: “There’s still good in it. I know . . . there’s still good in . . .” Hopefully the end result of doing so will not be that we die of a broken heart, to the bewilderment of an attending medical droid as well as perhaps a wider audience. CONCLUSION Star Wars fandom and adherence to a religion are not precisely parallel phenomena, even in the case of the most devout individuals who declare themselves Jedi on a census.21 That, however, is what makes the comparison between them so interesting and instructive. Yet, as we have highlighted here, one facet of the comparison is too often neglected: the relationship between attitudes toward canon expressed by characters within the text, and among those who revere and/or study them. There is far more that we could say about how Moses is treated as author in the Pentateuch and beyond, and about Jesus’s distinction between God’s intention and what Moses allowed when crafting Israel’s legislation, just as there is more that we could say about Rey’s statements about Luke Skywalker already having become the stuff of “myth” by her time, and Han’s insistence that the stories that she has heard are all true even while not knowing all the details of what she may have heard.22 If J. J. Abrams’s shift of female and ethnically diverse characters to the foreground represents an innovation, he could claim it represents continuity with Lucas’s vision by appealing to drafts in which Luke became a female character.23 In response, others may insist that the final version is all that matters. These debates about defining the true character of a tradition, and attempts to claim one’s own perspective as the most faithful to that tradition, closely parallel debates from the history of the church, whether about the apostle Paul’s efforts to find arguments to include Gentiles on an equal footing in the definition of the people of God, historical efforts to combat slavery and foster a diverse community, or contemporary efforts to include gays and lesbians as fully accepted members of the Christian church. Star Wars and the Bible both reflect efforts to define a unified official canon, and both offer evidence that such efforts confront seemingly insurmountable difficulties that emerge from the diversity of the material that canonization efforts seek to tame and control.24 And so to return to the question of whether

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a canon can ever be defined from within a canon, the answer appears to be “no” (at least as far as the examples considered here are concerned). Some flaw in the very fabric of the canon inevitably leaves it as vulnerable as the Death Star. Perhaps authors or compilers deliberately sought to leave room for later creative challenges against whatever imperial forces might seek to crush their puny rebellion. Studying the attempts at achieving unity, and the diversity that is sometimes obscured but occasionally highlighted even in the very process of trying to achieve that unity, can help us understand the implications of canon more broadly, whether in connection with the biblical tradition, or the canon of the Star Wars franchise, or the canon of sacred Jedi texts within the Star Wars universe. In some instances, examination of canon in the realm of Star Wars helps bring into clearer focus aspects of the function of canonicity in the realm of religion. In others, insights gleaned from extensive study of religious canon prove applicable to Star Wars and offer new perspectives on its complex network of stories. The similar ways in which some human beings seek to defend the enchantment associated with the stories that are important to them at all costs, while others are driven by curiosity to dig behind the stories looking for historical explanations of the tensions and alterations found within them, at the very least reveals important things not only about the workings of human theological systems, but also the human desires and ways of thinking and navigating uncertainty that drive them. Although it may seem ironic to some, it appears likely that it will be those who are most familiar with the Star Wars and biblical canons, however those are defined, who will be the least surprised by any new developments and directions that emerge from the creative tensions and loose ends found within them. NOTES 1. On the difference between natural and conscious literalism see Borg, Reading the Bible, pp. 8–9. 2. See Lomax’s creative use of multiple methods in an effort “to address the presence of the singular author in the context of a complex transtextual structure like transmedia storytelling” (“‘Thank the Maker!’” p. 36). 3. Kaminski, Secret History, pp. 77, 87–90, 110–126. 4. See Kaminski, Secret History, p. 75. 5. Peter Ha, “Q&A With Jedi Path Author Daniel Wallace,” Time, August 24, 2010. http://techland.time.com/2010/08/24/qa-with-jedi-path-author-daniel-wallace/. 6. Wallace, Jedi Path, p. 132. The tweet was on January 19, 2018. 7. Soule, Poe Dameron #28. 8. James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1890).

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9. See Mullis, “Ritual,” on Lucas (and storytellers in general) as hierophant, fandom as at least quasi-religious, and the surprising willingness of fans to rebel against the express will of the creator of the stories they claim to love (pp. 111–112). On the unwillingness of fans to adjust their own interpretation to authorial intent even when it is made explicit see Brooker, Using the Force, p. 76. 10. Brooker, Using the Force, p. 77. 11. Hurley on LOST is only one of many who has spoken disparagingly of Ewoks, although one of very few to try to utilize time travel to suggest “improvements” to George Lucas. 12. Netflix might be a more appropriate venue than movie theaters for much of it. 13. Even if the final story is a deliberate contrast to the earlier prototype or antitype—as in the case of the stories of the births of Sargon and Moses—the question remains as to how the canon is changed when the negative image is forgotten, or alternatively, whether the story that provides the context and explanation needs always to be mentioned hand in hand with the persisting one. 14. See Lomax, “‘Thank the Maker!’” p. 45 for another example of retroactive interpretation in light of subsequent canonical storytelling. 15. Brooker, Using the Force, p. 72. 16. On this topic see further McGrath, Theology and Science Fiction, pp. 11–24. 17. Brooker, Using the Force, p. 92. 18. George Lucas, Interviews, pp. 18, 110. 19. Tom Bissell, Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve (New York: Vintage, 2017), p. 15, note. 20. For a strong argument for the Gospel of Mark having originally featured an ending that was subsequently lost, see Croy, Mutilation. See also McGrath, The Burial of Jesus. 21. On this topic see further Fabrizio Vecoli, La religione; De Sanctis, “Star Wars as Religion.” 22. See further the exploration of this in Jaubert and Delgado, “Star Wars,” pp. 58–60. See as well the internet meme in which Rey and Finn respond to Han’s assertions that are all true by asking about the Expanded Universe. The deletion of a planet from the Jedi archive (Attack of the Clones) also presents an opportunity for further exploring “canon” within the Star Wars story. 23. On this detail in the second draft see Kaminski, Secret History, pp. 164, 468, 508. On strong female character in canonical films see in particular Wood, “Feminist.” 24. Parker, “Millions of Voices,” p. 156, 167.

WORKS CITED Borg, Marcus J. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. Brooker, Will. Using the Force: Creativity, Community, and Star Wars Fans. New York: Continuum, 2002.

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De Sanctis, Gianluca. “Star Wars as Religion: Jedismo e cultura convergente.” Quaderni di Studie Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 81 (2015): 130–153. Jaubert, José Marco Segura, and Mitzi Magallón Delgado. “Star Wars, una galaxia muy cercana: Un mito moderno y su construcción social.” Teoría y Praxis 30 (2016): 51–83. Kaminski, Michael. The Secret History of Star Wars. 3rd edition. 2008. Lomax, Tara. “‘Thank the Maker!’: George Lucas, Lucasfilm, and the Legends of Transtextual Authorship across the Star Wars Franchise.” In Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, edited by Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest, p. 35–48. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. Lucas, George. Interviews. Edited by Sally Kline. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. McGrath, James F. The Burial of Jesus: What Does History Have To Do With Faith? Patheos, 2012. McGrath, James F. Theology and Science Fiction. Eugene: Cascade, 2016. Mullis, Justin. “Ritual, Repetition, and the Responsibility of Relaying the Myth.” In The Myth Awakens: Canon, Conservatism, and Fan Reception of Star Wars, edited by Ken Derry and John C. Lyden, pp. 106–132. Eugene: Cascade, 2018. Parker, Felan.“Millions of Voices: Star Wars, Digital Games, Fictional Worlds and Franchise Canon.” In Game On, Hollywood!: Essays on the Intersection of Video Games and Cinema, edited by Gretchen Papazian and Joseph Michael Sommers, pp. 156–168. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013. Soule, Charles. Poe Dameron #28: The Awakening, Part III. Marvel, 2018. Vecoli, Fabrizio. La religione ai tempi del web. Bari: Laterza, 2013. Wallace, Daniel. The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force. becker&mayer! 2012. Wood, Mara. “Feminist Icons Wanted: Damsels in Distress Need Not Apply.” In A Galaxy Here and Now: Historical and Cultural Readings of Star Wars, edited by Peter W. Lee. McFarland, 2016.

PART II

Theologies of the Jedi

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Chapter 2

Use (the) Force Jedi, Monks, and Unexpected Violence Zachary B. Smith

Once, a young Padawan approached a Master in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, seeking from her some of the deeper secrets of the Force. He struggled with attachments to others—in a discipline designed to remove attachment, he maintained a romantic relationship with someone from Dantooine. So, he asked the Master how to remove the desire for others. She said, “To advance as a Jedi, go to Kashyyyk, stand before a Wookie, and insult him.” Mystified, the Padawan caught the next transport to Kashyyyk and did exactly as the Jedi Master had told him. When he returned three weeks later, the Master asked if the Padawan had carried out her instructions. The Padawan took off his new gloves and pulled up the sleeves of his cloak to show her the two robotic arms that replaced his original arms, ripped off by the angered Wookie. The Jedi Master shook her head sadly and said, “Anyone who wishes to follow the light side and become a Jedi but keeps anger or passion or hatred in their hearts, will be torn worse than this by the dark side of the Force.” While not canonical, this story might not be out of place in a Star Wars novel about the extremes of the Jedi Order under the Galactic Republic. What it is, however, is a rescripted story about the famous monk Antony of Egypt as found in the late-fifth-century text Sayings of the Desert Fathers.1 In this story, Antony suggested actions to a young monk that led him to be mauled by dogs and birds, all to teach him a lesson about attachment to worldly things. And this is not a unique story—in the texts of early Christian monasticism, we find monks deploying violence to teach lessons about not following the ascetic path of self-denial, removing distractions, and elevating the soul. Similarly, the Jedi in the Star Wars universe employed violence, not just to teach but also to enforce their view of the correct universal order. Obi-Wan 25

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Kenobi used a droid with a miniblaster to teach Luke Skywalker how to fight without sight in A New Hope. Yoda hit Luke on the head with his cane to emphasize a point in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke himself slapped Rey with a frond when she failed to understand his very unclear lesson in The Last Jedi. While these may seem somewhat minor, violence and pain are inimical to real learning or real change in a person. Other examples are more extreme. The blind, Force-sensitive Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One repeated, “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me” while engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan, and Luke each use mind control, violently changing the thoughts of another,2 in The Phantom Menace, A New Hope, and Return of the Jedi, respectively. Throughout the Star Wars ennead, the Jedi use their ubiquitous lightsabers to enforce their idea of the correct social order. Moreover, the problematic of the Jedi Order deploying violence is amplified when we consider who they really are—less of a community of wise space-monks in tune with the deepest parts of the universe and more a band of armed enforcers sent to the far corners of the universe to use mind control, laser swords, and threats to enforce their ideal social order. Using the Force means, in many instances, deploying force and violence against others. This chapter explores the trauma and cognitive dissonance created by holy heroes (monks or Jedi) using violence. Furthermore, it provides a possible way to resolve the tension between expectations and realities of holiness by using the stories of Star Wars and early Christian monasticism to demonstrate that depictions of violence in the two worlds help the audience see that holiness is not the domain of the elite, but is possible for all. So, this chapter tries to answer two related questions: What happens when heroes fail? How can the audience of these stories deal with the trauma and cognitive dissonance of failed heroes? Failures in leadership, failed heroes, are not unique in human history.3 Nor are they unique in the large-scale narrative myth of the Star Wars universe or in the literature of Christian monasticism—in fact, in these two cases they are presented explicitly and intentionally as disappointments. The failure of heroes appears at the heart of how the Star Wars ennead portrays the Jedi Order and is part of the major arc of the films. Likewise, the compiler of the Sayings of the Fathers likely placed the failed monks intentionally in his text. The audience expects monks and Jedi to look, speak, and behave in particular ways—in the vein of holy heroes. The failures of these holy heroes, especially in the deployment of violence, traumatizes other characters and the audience interacting with the media. Both Star Wars and the Sayings allow this cognitive dissonance and trauma to teach about the nonidealized identity of holy heroes, democratizing them to the audience itself. My entry into Star Wars for this chapter is the ennead and Rogue One. In the first section, I examine the conceptual and structural parallels between

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the Jedi Order and Christian monks and monasticism—while seemingly different, the two worlds are related by their common worldviews, premises, and methods. In the second section, I explore the visual cues that serve to subvert characters’ or viewers’ expectations. The third section demonstrates how the warrior-monk in both Star Wars and early Christianity can traumatize others who seek them out for help. Finally, I close with some reflections on how both narratives turn the holy hero on its head, from the select few to the average person. THE WORLDS OF STAR WARS AND LATE ANTIQUE ASCETICISM The whole of the Star Wars universe is premised on the interplay between two polar quasi-metaphysical opposites: the light and dark sides of the Force. People existed along a spectrum between these ends of light and darkness, presented generally (from the side of the Jedi) as good and evil. The Jedi were, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said in A New Hope, “The guardians of peace and justice. . . . Before the dark times, before the Empire.” The Galactic Empire, led by Darth Sidious as Emperor Palpatine, represented to Obi-Wan all that was evil in thought and action. Each side (Sith or Jedi) intended to bring into the universe more of their chosen expression of the Force, dark or light. Interestingly, the Jedi believed in the coming of a “Chosen One” who would bring balance to the dark and light sides (the first three movies of the ennead deal with this mythology). Note that the Jedi Order does not envision the destruction of the dark side as the goal, but a harmonious balance between the two (though near the end of Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan reveals that it is partly through destroying the Sith themselves that balance is restored, and the destruction of Darth Sidious and his followers on Exegol at the end of The Rise of Skywalker seemingly fulfills this). Because of their belief about the triumph of balance through the destruction of the Sith, the Jedi intervened consistently to ensure the victory of the light over dark. Likewise, Christian monks saw their world in dichotomic terms—there was good and evil, virtue and vice, salvation and sin. Like the Jedi and Sith waging centuries-long battles, Christian monks considered themselves as frontline soldiers on the battle between the forces of the Christian God and the forces of Satan. In one saying from the desert, the monk Moses saw battalions of angels fighting the hordes of demons on behalf of the monks. The collective armies of God and Satan appeared to him in the air, the demons bringing temptation and the angels helping combat it.4 The entire monastic worldview centered around these two opposite, combating groups. Like the Jedi, Christian monks intervened to ensure the victory of Christianity over the

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forces of Satan. In one story, Macarius the Great saw Satan carrying temptations to the monks, trying to find which ones they liked the best. Macarius intervened directly with one monk who was most willing to accept the temptations, thus thwarting Satan’s plans.5 Unlike the Jedi, however, they believed that the future was the destruction of evil, not balance or harmony between good and evil. The monks continually looked toward perfection, though they often fell short of the goal. The monk Poimen put it succinctly: “People speak about perfection, and work at it the least.”6 Perfection was the goal, but often that goal went unrealized. Because of their intensely dichotomic worldviews, both the Jedi and Christian monks act in their disordered or unbalanced worlds with the idea that they are the only ones who can bring order or balance. Obi-Wan screamed at Anakin Skywalker, recently turned to Darth Vader, “You were the Chosen One! You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them. You were supposed to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.” Only the Jedi, through their actions in training the Chosen One and advancing the light side of the Force, could bring about balance in the universe. Likewise, late antique Christian monks believed that it is through their actions, especially through their prayers and ascetic lives, that God’s side wins and Satan’s side loses. Macarius the Great’s intervention directly against Satan is one example of this. Other examples include fighting demons through prayer,7 casting demons out of people or places,8 praying for themselves and others,9 and teaching each other how to live as monks10—all of these were the domain of monks trying to effect real change in themselves, others, and the world around them.11 They viewed themselves as uniquely qualified to change their world, better qualified than other Christians (including bishops and priests) or the philosophers of their time.12 Monks worked and prayed and perfected themselves in order to be the most effective soldiers in the fight to save others, against Satan and the demons. Antony gave the monk Paphnutius the highest praise when he said, “Behold a real man! One able to care for and save souls!”13 Monks were the frontline, highly effective, best-trained soldiers in the fight against Satan, the ones to bring the order to themselves, others, and the world around them. Because of their dichotomic worldviews and premises of exclusive action, the monks and Jedi do whatever they can to advance their goals in their worlds. Their actions are similar, and in their similarity create the cognitive dissonance experienced by audiences. Both groups incorporate technologies for attaining their desired end, and both deploy violence to achieve their goals of ensuring the light side or virtue wins over the dark side or vice. By technologies, I mean the tools utilized in an art, craft, or skill (technē). Both the Jedi and monks used specific technologies (including meditation/contemplation, training to attain mental and physical discipline, and practicing renunciation)

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to prepare them for the fight in which they saw themselves engaged—a fight that required the deployment of violence against others and even against their own. For the Jedi, the technology most frequently used in the service of violence was a lightsaber. For monks, the technology most frequently used in the service of violence was words they spoke, which could damage others’ bodies (as in Antony 20, the saying upon which the opening is based) or even potentially condemn others to punishment (as in the idle words in Isaac the Theban 1).14 Both the monks and Jedi deployed their technologies to advance the light side of the Force or God’s forces winning against Satan. And not infrequently, these technologies involved violence. These actions, taken to advance their side of the universal dichotomy, are somewhat incongruous with the actors themselves. The Jedi, as “guardians of peace,” consistently acted violently toward their adversaries. Monks, as holy and (theoretically) peaceful figures, consistently deployed violence in their activities both against evil beings and against their own monks in training. This incongruity appears not just in their actions, discussed more below, but also in their appearances. SHORT FOR STORMTROOPERS The idea of broken expectations or unexpected presentations permeates the Star Wars ennead. An iconic example is Princess Leia’s sarcastic line in A New Hope: “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Stormtroopers, and heroes, were supposed to look a particular way. Absent that appearance, characters became dubious. Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, was discovered on an unlikely Outer Rim planet. Obi-Wan was a hermit in a torn and dirty cloak in A New Hope. Yoda, a Grand Master in the Jedi Order, appeared even less appealing in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker first found him on Dagobah. The characters and audience were supposed to reject these figures initially because of their appearance. They do not fit the standard archetype of a hero—even Han Solo, an antihero, appears more polished when he first enters the narrative than Obi-Wan or Yoda. Their hideousness, or perhaps hiddenness, belies the insidious reality that their attitudes and actions are not fully heroic. In the first three movies of the ennead, the polished appearance of the Jedi Order before the rise of the Galactic Empire lulls the viewer into a false sense of security. However, their eventual downfall reflects the reality—while they look good, their actions and their use of force and violence inflict abuse and trauma on others. In The Last Jedi, Yoda (as a Force spirit) made this point and suggested that the Jedi Order was now bankrupt and no longer needed.

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While they appeared good, or when they appeared bad, their actions and orientation betray them as agents of abuse and trauma. The monks, likewise, subverted expectations in both their appearances and actions, and in so doing became agents of trauma. The monk Moses described himself as an “imbecile” (salos) when speaking to someone who did not know who he was, sowing confusion.15 Macarius the Great’s technology of bodily renunciation (drinking putrid water) led his visitors to suggest that they could get him clean water, so Macarius mocked them—the visitors expected one thing of the monk, tried to help, and received mockery for it.16 The monk Simon offended a visiting dignitary by sitting outside his cell eating bread and cheese when the official arrived.17 The visitor came expecting to see a monk in prayer, but saw a monk in the middle of a heavy meal (which was, in itself, unexpected given the monks’ reputation for gustatory paucity). Ammonas pretends to be insane to keep people from visiting him.18 In each of these stories, the visitors and the audience reading the stories expected monks to look and behave in particular ways. Instead the monks deceived, confused, mocked, or intentionally offended others. There is an idealized monk in the characters’ and readers’ minds, an ideal that the monks subverted in their appearances and behavior. USING FORCE Both monks and the Jedi Order deployed force to win, so they traumatized the other characters and the audiences, and created cognitive dissonance around how respected and holy figures ought to look and ought to behave. This abuse of the other characters or of the audiences creates trauma, from something as mild as the trauma of broken expectations to the extremes of physical or severe psychological trauma. We have already seen examples of physical trauma experienced at the hands of the Jedi in the Star Wars universe, from their use of the Force and lightsabers. This kind of physical force is more in line with what we would expect from soldiers than from wise space-monks. Even the space-monk consistently presented as wisest and most powerful, Grand Master Yoda, used a lightsaber in Attack of the Clones and struck Luke on the head when he failed to understand a lesson in The Empire Strikes Back (and again as a Force spirit in The Last Jedi). While he led the Jedi Council, and as such was one of the main leaders of the Jedi Order writ large, he was also an agent of physical trauma. From the perspective of trauma, one of the most interesting arcs in the Star Wars ennead is the romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. This was an illicit relationship for Anakin, and the end of the first third of the

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ennead shows how the trauma of the requirement to keep their relationship secret slowly tormented him. The extremes of the Jedi Order, later repudiated by both Luke Skywalker and Yoda in The Last Jedi, traumatized Anakin and helped him turn to the dark side of the Force. This was further complicated by an earlier event in Anakin’s life, depicted in The Phantom Menace, when he was freed from servitude while his mother was not, and he left her behind to train as a Jedi. Qui-Gon Jinn, as a Jedi Master, might have arranged Shmi Skywalker’s freedom through a payment from the Jedi Order, the Galactic Senate, or even supreme chancellor’s office (Shmi’s owner, Watto, being impervious to mind control). However, Qui-Gon did not. Anakin was traumatized by this experience, one that could have been mitigated by the Jedi. Ultimately, the traumas (lost mother, secret wife, visions of Padmé dying in childbirth) are what drove Anakin into the counsel of Sheev Palpatine, who lured Anakin to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith by playing off his traumas and anxieties with a story about Darth Plagueis “the Wise” being able to prevent death. Ultimately, these traumas came at the hands of the Jedi Order. The audience, likewise, is forced to watch the psychological torture that Anakin suffered as both a small child and as a young adult in love. The audience also watches as Obi-Wan turned away from Anakin, sans legs by Obi-Wan’s hand, as he screamed in agony while graphically burning alive on the volcanic planet Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith. This happened in the aftermath of Anakin severely injuring his wife after mistakenly believing that she had betrayed him (more psychological torture for Anakin). All of these traumas, all this suffering and violence and force, happened because of the failures of the Jedi Order. Yoda told Luke in The Last Jedi that Luke failed in Yoda’s last instruction (from Return of the Jedi) to “pass on what you have learned.” And the most important lesson Luke should have learned and passed on was failure, as emblemized by the failure of the Jedi Order when they clung too closely to the literal words of “a pile of old books” (as Yoda called the Jedi texts). The holy space-monks of Star Wars (whom Luke called “romanticized, deified” in The Last Jedi) did not behave as their own teachings would have them, and in so doing traumatized both characters and the audience. As Luke taught Rey, “The legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris.” Christian desert-monks, likewise, did not behave as others in the stories or the audience reading the text necessarily think they should act, and those experiences traumatize the characters and audience. Some of the best examples come from the relationships between masters and disciples. In one example, a master mocked his disciple in order to teach other monks about obedience—the interaction hurt the disciple, but the master did not care sufficiently.19 Another master never praised his disciple during all of his years of training, leading the disciple to psychological trauma.20 In a story traumatic

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to both the characters and the readers, a senior monk tested a potential monk by telling him to throw his son in the river (another monk stopped him).21 Another story finds a master who is so hard on his disciple that the disciple viewed his master as Satanic and considered even his master’s praise as bad.22 The monks traumatized others and used force to achieve their goals, for example, by destroying buildings used by other religious groups23 and perhaps even murdering a non-Christian female philosopher.24 In another example, the monk Arsenius refused to greet visitors (though hospitality was a value in Egyptian monasticism), confusing their expectations and potentially creating a dangerous travel situation for the visitors by making them undertake the return trip late and without refreshment.25 In this case, Arsenius refused the visitors because he was afraid it would lead to more visitors later—he chose his own desire for solitude, and potentially harmed others. While some of these instances are not as dire as failing to help a legless Anakin Skywalker, they all speak to how others reacted to the Jedi and the monks failing to live up to both external and internal expectations for conduct. And these failures traumatize or damage both characters in the stories and the audience’s own perceptions of the holy heroes. However, the power of these stories lies not in their ability to reflect failure but in their ability to turn failure into successful teachings. “ALWAYS IN MOTION IS THE FUTURE” It seems that one of the overarching narratives of the Star Wars ennead is one of failed expectations, fallen heroes, and rebirth from the ashes. Both Yoda and Luke Skywalker suggested that their time, the time of the Jedi Order, was over. They existed now as the stories of failure, stories that motivated others to do better and to live up to the best parts of the past. This is the point of the closing scenes of The Last Jedi, showing a slave boy with a secret Rebellion ring and slave children retelling the story of the fall and redemption of Darth Vader at the hands of Luke Skywalker. In these stories, the failures fall away to reveal the core—the stories existed to motivate. As Yoda said to Luke as the sacred tree burned, “The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond.” Failed expectations permeate the pericopes and the overall narrative, but the failures of the Jedi Order revealed a way to grapple with the failures of fallen heroes. We can galvanize the pain of trauma and abuse, learn from the failures of past heroes, and take the good of the fallen heroes and construct it as something better. The monks of Egypt have been revered for a millennium and a half as examples of holiness, but their failures offer ways to understand how to recover from failed expectations. Since Christianity attempted to assert the

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Christian person as the ultimate human, especially in its earliest stages,26 seeing the holiest Christian person in ways that emphasized their commonness27 created cognitive dissonance, as we see in the stories. This may be an overarching narrative of the Sayings, that holiness is found in commonness. Polished perfection, unadulterated contemplation, exacting adherence to all rules and norms—these were not the domains of most monks. The very existence of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, showcasing both the rare perfect ascetic and the monastic failure, demonstrates that monks were always persons in becoming. Their failures were part of their progress, and their disciples had to learn from their imperfections more than from their perfections. The heroes of the ascetic life were imperfect heroes. From their failures came the best teachings, that the life lived toward perfection was not solely the domain of the monks. It was the domain of all. The Sayings demonstrate this through not only the failures of the monks, but through telling the stories of common people attaining the highest levels of holiness. The famous monk Antony was shown a vision in which a physician living in the city was his equal in holiness.28 Another example is of Eucharistus, a shepherd, and his wife Mary, who lived more holy lives than the monks separated from society.29 In Star Wars, the failure of the Jedi Order (the violence and trauma that they perpetrated) led to the realization that the future of their galaxy was in moving on from what the Jedi had meant and done—exemplified in The Rise of Skywalker by Rey burying the Skywalkers’ lightsabers on Tatooine as the Force ghosts of the last two Jedi watch her. As Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back, “Always in motion is the future.” The past died for a future that took the best of the Jedi and left behind their worst. In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the failures of the monks indicate that holiness was not an exclusive domain—anyone could access it through training in holiness. The trauma created by encountering Jedi and monks allows reflection on holiness, heroism, and correct conduct. The Sayings was intentionally a text about both success and failure, just as the Star Wars ennead was a story about success from failure. The holy heroes of Star Wars and the Christian monks were not perfect, but they reflected the imperfections of individuals striving toward perfection. In the stories of their failures, and in the trauma and dissonance experienced by the audience in seeing the use of force, the audience learns how to move past failure and into success. Perhaps this is part of what Yoda meant when he told Luke in Return of the Jedi, “There is another Skywalker.” Not only that Leia was his sister, but that there was another way to live—not as a Jedi, but as a Skywalker. One who learned from their mistakes and moved past failure, or more importantly, one who learned from the failures of others. This is certainly part of the legacy of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which contains stories of great holiness, of trauma and broken expectations, and of failure. In

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reading about the failures of the holy men and women of the Egyptian desert, the audience learns to see the failures for what they were and move past them. In order to attain the highest levels of holiness, to be “Spirit-carried” and walk physically in the heavens with God as Antony did,30 one had to learn from the successes and failures of monks. Antony was a sky-walker, and it was through learning about Antony and his fellow monks that the reader of the Sayings discovered how to build on their successes and learn from their failures to become another sky-walker, a person of holiness. NOTES 1. Antony 20 (PG 65.81). The Greek alphabetical collection is the version of the Sayings I utilize, and is the earliest version. Citations are by character and number, followed by location in the editions. Although John Wortley provides a serviceable, if ideological and cumbersome, English translation, all translations in this chapter are my own. 2. Slavoj Žižek, working off of Jacques Lacan, spoke about language as a violent activity because it forces change in the hearer’s mind (Žižek, “Language”; Žižek, Violence, esp. ch. 2; Lacan). How much more violent is the direct, forceful (or Forceful?) change of a person’s thoughts through mind control! 3. We could turn, for example, to Cicero’s De officiis, in which he expounded to his son various moral duties and points to failures by their own leaders as the reason for their crisis (1.8, 1.25, 3.1). Caesar’s civil war and the collapse of the Roman Republic was the collapse of leadership, the collapse of real heroes, so Cicero turned to Greek and Roman “history” to find heroes worthy of emulation and villains worthy of reproach to urge his son toward higher moral duties in villainous times. 4. Moses 1 (PG 65.281). 5. Macarius the Egyptian 3 (PG 65.261–264). 6. Poimen 56 (PG 65.336): Οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἐν τῷ τελείῳ λαλοῦσι, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐλαχίστῳ ἐργάζονται. 7. Agathon 9 (PG 65.112). 8. Bessarion 5 (PG 65.141); Macarius the Egyptian 13 (PG 65.268–269). 9. Antony 16 (PG 65.80). 10. Antony 19 (PG 65.81); Poimen 128 (PG 65.353). 11. Fighting against demons was a large part of what made monks who they were (see Brakke). 12. See my book Philosopher-Monks. 13. Antony 29 (PG 65.85): Ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος ἀληθινὸς, δυνάμενος θεραπεῦσαι καὶ σῶσαι ψυχάς. 14. See also my chapter on violence in monastic speech, “Early Monastic Practices.” 15. Moses 8 (PG 65.285). 16. Macarius of Egypt 30 (PG 65.273).

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17. Simon 2 (PG 65.412–413). 18. Ammonas 9 (PG 65.121). 19. Agathon 28 (PG 65.116–117). 20. Isaac the Theban 1 (PG 65.240). 21. Sisoes 10 (PG 65.393–396). 22. Ammoes 2 (PG 65.125). 23. Theophilus the Archbishop 3 (PG 65.200). 24. Evelyn White, 146–148. See also Watts. 25. Arsenius 34 (PG 65.101). 26. See Buell. 27. Or their difference; see the problematic ways that early Christianity employed the existing ethnic rhetoric to speak about insiders/outsiders and perceived (or actual) threats in Byron, esp. 104–129. 28. Antony 45 (PG 65.84). 29. Eucharistus the Secular 1 (PG 65.168–169). 30. Antony 30 (PG 65.85); Antony 28 (PG 65.84–85).

WORKS CITED Brakke, David. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Buell, Denise Kimber. Why This New Race? Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Byron, Gay L. Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature. New York: Routledge, 2002. Cicero. De officiis. Translated by Walter Miller. Loeb Classical Library. New York: Macmillan, 1921. Evelyn White, Hugh G. The Monasteries of the Wâdi ʼn NatrÛn. Part 2: The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and Scetis. Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition 7. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1932. Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Popular Patristics Series 52. Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014. Lacan, Jacques. “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis.” In Écrits, translated by Bruce Fink, pp. 192–268. New York: Norton, 2006. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, Apophthegmata Patrum, in Patrologia Graeca 65:71–440. Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1864. Ed. Jean-Claude Guy, Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum. Subsidia Hagiographica 36. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1962. 13–58. Translated by John Wortley. Smith, Zachary B. “Early Monastic Practices of Strategic Speech and Selective Silence to Limit Violence.” In The Surprise of Reconciliation in the Catholic Tradition, edited by J. J. Carney and Laurie Johnston, pp. 62–81. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2018.

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———. Philosopher-Monks, Episcopal Authority, and the Care of the Self: The Apophthegmata Patrum in Fifth-Century Palestine. Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 80. Turnhout, Bel.: Brepols Publishers, 2018. Watts, Edward J. Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities. Transformation of the Classical Heritage 46. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Žižek, Slavoj. “Language, Violence, and Non-violence.” International Journal of Žižek Studies 2, 3 (2008): 1–12. ———. Violence. London: Profile Books, 2008.

Chapter 3

And What More Shall I Say? Heroism in Hebrews 11 and Star Wars Bethany Keeley-Jonker and Robert Keeley

Hebrews 11 contains a long list of those who were “commended for their faith.”1 The writer, however, goes on to say that they did not actually see the fulfillment of what they had been promised. Chapter 12 of Hebrews opens with “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. Let us throw off everything that hinders and so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”2 That’s the point of the list of “heroes” that the author had just brought to mind. These heroes become this great “cloud of witnesses” who serve to inspire us and encourage us to run the race set before us. These are not just a random list of stories. These are true stories from the history of Israel. These are stories that the readers would likely have known well. These are stories that lived in the collective memory of the first-century Jewish people and had great significance to them. There is a key moment in Star Wars Episode VII, The Force Awakens that is analogous. Soon after Han Solo and Chewbacca board the Millennium Falcon piloted by Rey and Finn, we see a conversation between them at the fiftythree minute mark in which Han begins to tell them about what we fans know from the first trilogy (Episodes IV–VI). Han mentions that Luke Skywalker had disappeared and the following conversation takes place: Rey: Why did he leave? Han: He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy—an apprentice— turned against him. Destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything. 37

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Finn: Do you know what happened to him? Han: There are stories. The people that knew him best think that he went looking for the first Jedi temple. Rey: The Jedi were real! Han: I used to wonder about that myself. I thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil—the Dark Side and the Light. The crazy thing is: It’s true. The force . . . the Jedi . . . all of it. It’s all true.3

At this point in the movie, Rey and Finn find new identities and a new mission. They believe they can be part of a bigger story once they realize that story is real, and full of real people, just like them: a cloud of witnesses. Rey and Finn are not inspired by a careful argument about the force—the light and the dark side—they are inspired by their own “cloud of witnesses.” While plenty of ink has been spilled on the intersections between Star Wars and traditional religious beliefs, we believe the role of narrative and character is one area with significant depths left to plumb. It is our contention that theological truth comes not only through explicit statements about reality but also through many aspects of narrative. Paying attention to narrative helps us not only see the reality expressed in a story, but experience the emotional movements and different roles and relationships available within that story. We choose to focus on narrative elements, first because of the nature of the Bible. While the Bible contains a variety of genres, narrative persists in both the Old and New Testaments, and makes up the bulk of the gospels. Jesus himself frequently spoke in parables rather than declarations. While this form of writing was common in the ancient Middle East, the prominence of narrative in the Bible suggests that the particularities of narrative form also have something to teach us today that is important to God and to humanity. Secondly, we focus on narrative elements because it seems a charitable way to engage the Star Wars universe on its own terms. Star Wars presents itself to us as narrative, and increasingly as a collection of related narratives. To engage the particular contours and characteristics of those narratives is an important way to take the work seriously. NARRATIVE PARADIGM In 1984, communication theorist Walter Fisher was concerned that argumentation scholars were too preoccupied with proposition and direct argument (what he calls the “rational paradigm”). This rational paradigm assumes that “logical argument and process is the means of being human, the agency of all that humans can know and realize in achieving their telos.”4 His critique

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is that this rational paradigm is not an accurate reflection of human culture and reasoning. As a corrective, he suggested a “narrative paradigm” of human rationality. While the assertion that humans are fundamentally story-telling and story-shaped is relatively uncontroversial today, Fisher claims, “In theme, if not in detail, narrative, then, is meaningful for persons in particular and in general, across communities as well as cultures, across time and place.”5 He goes on to write that “stories [are] meant to give order to human experience and to induce others to dwell in them to establish ways of living in common, in communities in which there is a sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life.”6 Fisher’s contribution is not just noting the centrality of narrative, but in defining how stories have their own rationality. He notes that historical and fictional narratives might be evaluated by two aspects: narrative probability and narrative fidelity.7 That is, these stories must have an internal consistency, what he calls “narrative probability” or “coherence,” and it must also have an external consistency, a sense that not only do these stories make sense within their own story structure but that they ring true for the way the world works. He calls this “fidelity.” Fisher’s intervention is not specifically about theological thinking, although his larger questions about how humans communicate and make decisions are certainly relevant to religion. The accusation he makes of argument scholars, however, might equally be applied to some strains of Protestant theology: a preoccupation with a particular type of reasoning leads to ignorance of, Fisher claims, the dominant form of human reasoning: through story. This “rational paradigm” seems prominent even in Christian engagement with contemporary narratives such as the Star Wars film series. Scholars risk missing a lot when they mine a movie for explicit statements about reality while skimming past plot, character, setting, and action. Many Christian analyses of Star Wars hone in on explicit statements about The Force and relate those statements to a Christian understanding of God, especially the Holy Spirit. In fact, many published analyses start with a theological question, like the nature of the Holy Spirit, and then draw on Star Wars to both illustrate and contrast that approach. We do not deny that it is important to address the claims about spiritual reality made explicitly within the Star Wars films. However, we argue that Christians especially should notice that the relationships and roles offered in stories are equally important in shaping our beliefs, relationships, and actions. In an analysis of fan culture, religion scholar John Lyden argues that fandom is similar to religions like Christianity because “the narratives in question have potentially contributed in some significant way to the formation of communal identity, a set of shared ideas about ultimate meaning and values, and a set of practices that reinforce or express these.”8 If religious narrative

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is what shapes theology or worldview, then Fisher’s approach to understanding narrative reasoning might help us acquire a more robust and fair understanding of how that meaning is developed in the Star Wars universe and in Christian religious formation. We will take Hebrews 11 as a representative summary of much of the narrative of scripture, especially the Old Testament, and consider how it shows both coherence and fidelity with respect to the way heroism is defined. We will then show similar structures in the Star Wars canon. HEROISM The Biblical narrative goes out of its way to point out that the heroes referenced in Hebrews 11 are, by and large, regular people. These are flawed individuals and unlikely heroes. The author of Hebrews, whose identity remains a mystery and who wrote somewhere in the middle of the first century, follows a call to perseverance in faith with a litany of those who demonstrated faith in action, including Abel, Noah, Abraham, and Rahab. We don’t have to look far to find the flaws in these characters. Abel, while he made a sacrifice that God honored, was soon killed by his brother. Noah, father of the one family worth saving from the flood, got so drunk that he ran around naked.9 Abraham, the father of nations, twice pretended that his wife was his sister to save his own skin.10 Rahab is a native of Jericho who is a prostitute and hides Israelite spies. Because of this, she is saved when the Israelites conquer Jericho.11 While this is a subset of the list in Hebrews 11, it is representative of not only most of the characters in the list, but most of the stories in the entire Old Testament. In contrast, Anakin Skywalker follows a common fantasy hero sequence where he demonstrates unusual aptitude and skill. He’s special. He’s chosen. The larger narrative later undermines that logic, since Anakin becomes the villain Darth Vader. Newer installments of the story give more focus to the everyday heroes, without midichlorian counts or power or family connections. While Ben Solo wrestles with his inheritance, Finn’s special knowledge comes from his experience as a janitor. In Rogue One most of the characters contribute to a larger cause, but also perish in the process of triumph. HEROISM IS COMPLEX: FAMILY In both Star Wars and the Old Testament, the notion of family is strong but not absolute. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram (soon renamed Abraham) out of Ur to travel to a foreign land. The rest of the book of Genesis, indeed, the bulk

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of the rest of the Bible, is in many ways, the story of Abraham and his family. Much of Genesis 11 through 20 is taken up with the promise of children for Abraham. This promise is first given to childless Abram and his wife Sarai in Genesis 11, even though Abram and Sarai are already quite old. The promise is renewed multiple times (once in almost every chapter) until Isaac is born in the early verses of Genesis 21. The notion of Abraham being the father of many nations is central to Abraham’s story arc. The rest of Genesis directly follows Abraham, his son Isaac and Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob and his twelve sons (particularly Joseph) are featured in the last half of Genesis. As the rest of the Old Testament unfolds, God’s promise to Abraham, that Abraham would be blessed to be a blessing to other nations, finds its ultimate fulfillment in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. While the lineage of Abraham is central to the story, the Bible explicitly includes others. Two of those others are Rahab and Ruth. When Israel reenters the promised land after forty years of wandering in the desert, one of their earliest battles is for the city of Jericho. Rahab, a prostitute, helps the Israelite spies and is then rescued from Jericho during the attack. She becomes part of the Israelite people.12 Ruth, a young woman from Moab, is honored for the way she sticks with her mother-in-law, Naomi, when Naomi’s husband and her son, Ruth’s husband, die when the family is in Moab. Upon returning to Israel, Ruth and Naomi are rescued from their life of poverty by Boaz—one of Abraham’s descendants. Boaz (also one of Rahab’s descendants) marries Ruth and they have a son, one who becomes an ancestor of both King David and Jesus.13 While the notion of including others is not unheard of, Jews tended to put a very high premium on being children of Abraham and looking down on those who were not. They even have a special word for non-Jews: Gentiles. But God once again makes explicit that this promise is not just about bloodlines. At Pentecost the gospel message preached by the Apostle Peter is heard in all the languages of those gathered in Jerusalem.14 Peter also has a dream in which God tells him that even food previously seen as unclean is now available to him.15 Peter sees this as directly telling him that the gospel is not just for Jews. If the inclusion of those like Rahab and Ruth do not make it clear, the teachings of Jesus and the early chapters of Acts do: this story is for all people. Star Wars includes a strong family story as well. The original trilogy is the story of three young people who play a pivotal part in the rebellion against the Empire. These three strangers turn out to include a brother and a sister who are the children of the antagonist, Anakin Skywalker, known as Darth Vader. The original trilogy, also known as Episodes IV, V, and VI, are not only the story of how the rebellion successfully pushes back against the Empire but of

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how Luke saves his father. To make that point clear, Episode VI, the final film of the original trilogy carries the title, The Return of the Jedi. The prequel trilogy, Episodes I–III, tells the story of how young Anakin Skywalker grows to be a Jedi knight and eventually gives in to the Dark Side of the Force, reinforcing that this saga is a story about both an empire and a family. The final trilogy carries this theme further. We see Luke, Leia, and Han as older, wiser rebels but the son of Leia and Han, Ben Solo, the grandson of Anakin, turns to the Dark Side and is the primary antagonist of the films. Rey, whose parentage is a mystery for most of the series, is the person who carries the hopes of the rebellion on her shoulders. In a surprising twist, family continues to be a primary theme when Rey identifies herself as a Skywalker, not because of genetics, but because of relationships that exceed biology. Non-family plays a pivotal role as well, just as in the Bible. Obi-Wan Kenobi serves as one of the main figures, as does Han Solo. The movie Solo reveals that both Han Solo and Chewbacca escaped from difficult circumstances where they were held because of their low social status. Essential characters in the final trilogy come from various backgrounds—many of the kind of outcasts and nobodies the Bible celebrates. Finn is a former stormtrooper; Poe has a past in the spice trade; Rose grew up in a mining colony. Much fan debate about the possible past of Rey reflected hopes or assumptions on either side of this tension in the series. A pivotal scene in The Force Awakens could be read as an affirmation of either perspective. When Rey and Kylo Ren (Ben Solo’s alias) both reach toward Luke’s lightsaber with force strength, the lightsaber, which had apparently called to Rey earlier in the film, flies to her, not to Ben. Those who assume Rey is a relative might take this moment to indicate her genetics—she is chosen because she is a part of the family. Those who assume she is not take it to mean something along the lines of Ruth’s and Rahab’s inclusion in Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew 1: membership is about more than genetics, it is about faithfulness. Indeed, that is how J. J. Abrams ended the trilogy. While there are certainly differences in the exact character of the kind of choosing that God does in the Bible and the kind that happens through The Force in the Star Wars series, the complexity of heritage, connections, faithfulness, and chosenness are similar. Traditions and family matter, but not as much as love and righteousness.

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HEROISM IS COMPLEX: LOSS, SACRIFICE, AND FAILURE Hebrews 11 is full of the names of those whose stories show loss, sacrifice, or failure. These examples remind us that loss, sacrifice, and failure have been part of the biblical story since the book of Genesis. The story of Uzzah is one such story, but to understand it we need to go back to the story of Joshua. When Joshua is told about how to defeat the city of Jericho, it involves taking the Ark of the Covenant into the battle with them.16 Many years later, when much of Israel has forgotten about serving the Lord, the Israelites—specifically the sons of the priest Eli—take the Ark with them into battle with the Philistines. Rather than seeking guidance from God, they use the Ark as a sort of good luck charm with the hopes that it will bring them victory. It doesn’t, and the Ark is captured by the Philistines.17 In the very next chapter, we read that holding on to the Ark was no picnic for the Philistines and it soon ended up back in Israel at the house of Abinadab.18 David, one of the most revered kings in the history of Israel, decides that it is time to get the Ark back in Jerusalem, but even this noble gesture is fraught with failure. David first places the Ark on an oxcart but, when the Ark shifts on the cart, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, only to be struck dead instantly.19 David realizes that he was not doing things the way God required. Moving the Ark on a cart was never one of the accepted ways to move it. So David got his act together and did it the way God said to. This thread of the use of the Ark of the Covenant show failure after failure with significant loss along the way. God does not shy away from showing where his people fail or experience loss. We see similar hits and misses in the Star Wars saga. The first major loss that fans noted was the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi at the hands of Darth Vader. This loss takes place far enough into Episode IV that we came to have a relationship with the character but also in the middle act of the film so that we were stunned by how quickly it happened. A parallel loss takes place in Episode VII when it seems that Han Solo’s face-to-face plea will win his son back to the light, but instead costs Han his life. One of the most heroic characters in Episode XIII is Holdo, a relatively minor character, presented at first as a commander who seems to be leading the rebels down a path toward destruction. She is placed in the story in direct opposition to hero Poe Dameron and, consequently, for much of the film is seen as someone who is standing in the way of our heroes doing what they need to. It is only in her last moments of life that we see that she had more information than we did and was setting herself up as a personal sacrifice to save what is left of the rebel fleet.

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Sacrifice and failure figure perhaps most prominently in Rogue One which features mixed success by nearly every character. It begins with Galen Erso’s mixed success: while he acquiesced to the empire and engineered the death star, he also put an Achilles heel in the design. His daughter, Jyn, helps the rebels by acquiring the plans and redeems his legacy (at least part way), but she and her friends all perish in the effort. Rogue One is a particularly interesting entry in the Star Wars canon because of its relatively melancholy story. It’s about heroism, no doubt, but it’s heroism that’s complicated. Everything doesn’t work out for the heroes in the end. Other Star Wars films tend to follow the more common formula visually even if the narrative has complexity. In A New Hope Luke faces the death of his guardians (his uncle and aunt) in addition to Obi-Wan, but the final scene shows the central characters cleaned up, grinning, and wearing medals. The celebration at the end of Return of the Jedi even restores dead Jedi masters Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin in ghostly form. HEROISM IS COMPLEX: SMALL CONTRIBUTIONS MATTER The Bible is full of the names of people whose part in the big story is either very small or it is barely mentioned. Enoch, one of the first names mentioned in Hebrews 11, is a prime example. Here is the complete text about Enoch from Genesis 5: When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.20

That’s it! The summary in Hebrews 11:5–6 of what Enoch did is nearly as long but it adds a bit more detail: By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.21

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Hebrews 11 makes explicit what is hinted at in Genesis 5, that Enoch was such a friend to God that he did not die (much like Elijah22). The Genesis passage is part of a genealogy, and the phrase “then he was no more because God took him away” replaces the phrase “and then he died” in the listings of Enoch’s ancestors and descendants. It is curious that such a minor character becomes a focus of the writer of Hebrews. Judges 11 contains another character who shows up only briefly (although not nearly as briefly as Enoch) and is also mentioned in Hebrews 11. Jephthah is introduced with a very brief biography: “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.”23 It seems curious that the writer of Judges would include such an unflattering detail about Jephthah’s parentage as a way of introducing the character to us, but the Bible never seems to avoid showing that the people God uses are flawed or come from less than wholesome backgrounds. But this turns out to be an important part of the story. Jephthah’s half brothers, the legitimate sons of Gilead, drive him away because of his parentage, and Jephthah ends up living in the land of Tob, about which little seems to be known. But Jephthah gathered a “gang of scoundrels” around him, which apparently gave him the kind of street smarts that the Israelites needed to fight the Ammonites. The elders call him back and ask him to lead the charge against the Ammonites.24 In an effort to manipulate God into giving Israel the victory, Jephthah makes a rash vow that, should the victory be theirs, whatever comes out of his house to greet him first would be his sacrifice to God. Jephthah perhaps intended this to be an animal, but the first greeter upon his return home was his daughter. He ends up sacrificing her to the Lord.25 This odd story comes shortly before the story of Samson, another deeply flawed Judge. How did someone who made such a minor impact end up in the list of heroes in Hebrews 11? This notion that some heroes are minor players, or in some cases almost unknown, is true in Star Wars as well. Saw Guerrera, a minor character in a handful of episodes in the fifth season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, shows up briefly in Star Wars Rebels and then plays a slightly larger role in Rogue One. Like Jephthah, his role is complex. He is on the right side but his methods are sometimes called into question. Every one of the films includes nameless, and sometimes faceless, rebel pilots whose lives are put on the line, and sometimes sacrificed, for the rebel cause. Mon Mothma, another minor film character, who ended up having a more robust part in the Clone Wars and Rebels, shows up again in Rogue One. But she is perhaps most well known for saying “Many Bothans died to bring us this information” in The Return of the Jedi. It is ironic that this character, who has a name but is certainly not well known, is most known for a quote about nameless and faceless characters.

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COHERENCE AND FIDELITY As noted earlier, Fisher’s narrative paradigm26 suggests that successful stories reflect both coherence (internal consistency) and fidelity (faithfulness to our understanding of how the world or people work). Star Wars functions with coherence because fantasy elements like lightsabers and The Force make sense within the world of the story (for the most part), but fidelity suggests successful narratives, even (maybe especially) science fiction and fantasy ones, reflect understandings of what people and the world are like. In this vein, both Star Wars and the Bible offer more complexity than many of us are comfortable with in terms of the size of the ultimate narrative compared to the role of particular characters or tales. For Christians, the biblical narrative is our primary source for understanding the nature of people and our relationship to God and the world. Contemporary stories that complicate what heroism is, what a happy ending looks like, and the size of the bigger story might offer the cultural equipment to ask and engage these questions in ways that both resonate with and sometimes conflict with a Christian view. The writer of Hebrews 11 suggests that the sometimes loosely connected stories that make up the Old Testament make a central point about the Christian faith. After referencing many of these stories, the writer exhorts readers, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.27

These stories, the writer tells us, make up one story, a story that has a specific arc and a specific outcome: the death and resurrection of Jesus. If Star Wars has a specific outcome, it is less clear than the Christian one. Early on, Anakin Skywalker is called him who was to bring balance to The Force. Darth Vader’s turn back to the light side of The Force in Episode VI was once understood as a completion of the story. Rey’s ascendance to defeating Palpatine and the Dark Side and taking the name Skywalker completes the third trilogy and the whole saga. But it is also clear that, while the biblical narrative and the Star Wars series have little in common on the surface, there are deep narrative structures in place that give readers of both cause to compare them. There are plenty of science fiction films out there that have all the lasers and spaceships often associated with the genre, but a number of them fall flat. Star Wars does not.

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One aspect of the Star Wars narrative that sets it apart is the richness of the world and the way that supports narrative coherence and fidelity. George Lucas and those that followed first of all told stories that were internally consistent. For example, the care with which Clone Wars and Rebels were constructed to use planets and characters introduced in the first six films shows an attention to detail that has seldom been matched in popular culture. Secondly, Star Wars has resonated because the stories the creators told actually rang true. Despite laser cannons and TIE fighters, these stories (for the most part) work the way we think life works. That’s why we accepted them. Luke, Leia, and Han were people we knew and wanted to be with. So were Rey, Finn, and Poe. As the universe expanded, the stories allowed for all kinds of heroes: insiders and outsiders, loyalists, rebels, misfits, dramatic characters and everyday ones. The very complexity of the heroes in Star Wars supports the narrative’s fidelity. We like it because the heroes are complex. They are both like us and not like us. Hebrews 11 does the same thing. The stories work because we see that they make a whole and also work because the whole makes sense to us. It represents the heroism we recognize as familiar, the heroism we aspire to, and heroism that is hard for us to imagine. It reflects the richness and complexity of the real community the author was writing to then, and now. A funny thing about narratives is that they need fidelity to succeed, but they also shape our understanding of the world in the first place. Thinking about Star Wars and the Bible together emphasizes this push-pull—how do we judge what the world is like without turning to our preferred stories about what the world is like? And this is also where the similarities in the stories of heroism between Star Wars and Hebrews 11 gets interesting. While the Star Wars narrative may have been shaped on some level by the stories of the Bible, it also reflects an understanding that sometimes gets flattened by the moralized, storybook versions of those heroes. Thinking about heroism between these two collections of stories helps us to see uncontested realities about human life and diversity. It also shows us the promise offered by Christ’s death and resurrection. Taking the time to get to know the characters in both Star Wars and the biblical narrative is a project that pays off. Even though one is self-acknowledged fiction, it feels like we’re encountering something true in both of them. NOTES 1. Hebrews 11:39 (NIV). 2. Hebrews 12:1–2a (NIV). 3. Kennedy, Kathleen, et al., Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, 2016.

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4. Fisher, Walter R., “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” Communication Monographs 51, no. 1 (1984): 4. 5. Fisher, 6. 6. Fisher, 6. 7. Fisher, 8. 8. Lyden, John C., “Whose Movie Is It Anyway: Canonicity and Authority in Star Wars Fandom,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 3 (2012): 782. 9. Genesis 9. 10. This happens in both Genesis 12 and Genesis 20. 11. Joshua 2. 12. The story of Rahab is found in Joshua 2. 13. The story of Ruth is told in the book of Ruth in the Bible. 14. This story is found in Acts 2. 15. Acts 10. 16. Judges 3. 17. I Samuel 4. 18. I Samuel 6. 19. II Samuel 6. 20. Genesis 5:18–24 (NIV). 21. Hebrews 11:5–6 (NIV). 22. In 2 Kings 2:10 we read that Elijah was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. 23. Judges 11:1. 24. Judges 11:3–6 (NIV). 25. Judges 11:29–40. 26. Fisher, “Narration,” 8. 27. Hebrews 12:1–3 (NIV).

WORKS CITED Fisher, Waller R. “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument.” Communication Monographs 51, no. 1 (1984): 1–22. Lyden, John C. “Whose Movie Is It Anyway: Canonicity and Authority in Star Wars Fandom.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 3 (2012): 782.

Chapter 4

Rediscovering the Sith and the Jedi A Spiritual Analogy in Renaissance Humanism and Desert Asceticism Nathan Garcia

The popularity of the Star Wars mythology pervades the globe. Iconic personalities such as Yoda and Darth Vader are immediately recognizable to even those without familiarity with the films. Jedi and Sith lords have achieved archetypal status. Luke Skywalker represents all that is good in his effort to foil the villainous Darth Sidious. What many don’t realize, however, is that the Star Wars mythology transcends the golden screen. A plethora of Star Wars novels, video games, comic books, and more orbit the stellar franchise. The noncinematic universe creatively expands the history and intellectual content of the films. One of the greatest contributions by the noncinematic works is exploring the nature of the Force. Beneath all the familial complications and battles in the films, the cosmic framework is quite simple: the Light Side is good; the Dark Side is bad. The Light Side is life-giving and nurturing. Meanwhile, the Dark Side is malevolent and egotistical. The Dark Side is inescapably defined as the Light Side’s opposite. If the mythology of Star Wars ceased with the films, fans would be deprived of a philosophical richness and complexity. A closer inspection to the peripheral mythology invites a more nuanced interpretation of the cinematic account.1 I argue a deeper look into the noncinematic Star Wars mythology, specifically into the history and creed of the Sith and Jedi communities, reveals a fundamentally anthropological difference amid a shared faith in the Force. 49

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Hence, a more nuanced relationship shows not two cosmic enemies, but a singular faith in the Force lived out in two very different ways. To better contextualize the dynamics between their anthropological differences, I offer a helpful analogy found in the history of Christianity. I demonstrate that the Sith community is analogous to the Renaissance Christian humanist movement, while the Jedi are analogous to the desert monastic movement in early Christianity. Both historical movements share the same faith but express their spiritualities in divergent ways according to their anthropologies. This is a helpful paradigm for excavating the philosophical richness unmined in the Star Wars films. I begin by outlining the Jedi history and code. Their spirituality is communal and promotes self-debasement to achieve self-mastery. Next, I briefly examine the history and philosophy of early Christian desert monasticism, focusing on the famous text Apophthegmata Patrum and the dualistic anthropology. Afterward, I outline the Sith history and code. Sith spirituality is individualistic and embraces one’s passions to achieve freedom. Then, I lay out the history and philosophy of the Renaissance Christian humanists. I focus on the Italian humanists Petrarch, Ficino, and Pico who stress a dignified anthropology and its empowering implications. Finally, I reflect on the ways this spiritual analogy is beneficial for Star Wars fans. PART I: THE JEDI The Jedi lore briefly encountered in the Star Wars films grants only snippets of the origins and evolution of the Jedi order. Nevertheless, a brief stroll into the multimedia Star Wars cathedral reveals a Tolkein-esque ornateness of canonical significance. The earliest Jedi community was founded approximately 25,000 years before the events of Episode IV: A New Hope. The earliest understanding of the Force was as a universal spiritual phenomenon, understood as “an energy that binds together time, space, and living beings.”2 Everyone has the potential to harness it, but some are keener than others. According to the Great Holocron,3 the first society of Force-sensitive beings might have been on the planet Tython. This incipient Jedi community discovered a fundamental realization of the Force, namely, that it possesses both a light and dark side. They called the light side Ashla and the dark side Bogan, after the twin moons of Tython.4 They developed a philosophy depicting Ashla as synonymous with creation and growth, while Bogan represented destruction and selfishness. As the early Jedi explored the Force more deeply, they discovered that through concentration and discipline they could avoid emotional distraction and grow deeper into Ashla. This caused many Jedi to shun public and marital

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life in favor of a private life of spiritual discipline. In fact, most early Jedi practitioners led monastic lives.5 Legend tells of early Jedi knights traveling to the planet Caamas to immerse themselves in the light. Yet this retreat into Ashla did not mean abandoning civilization altogether; many Jedi formed small, close-knit communities that practiced service and selflessness. Soon, a Jedi school opens on the planet Ossus that preached the only path to the Force was through Ashla. The curriculum emphasized patience, humility, and self-sacrifice.6 Only later did the school begin articulating a worldview that depicted light and dark as intertwined, two sides of the same coin. For a fleeting moment, the Jedi philosophy recaptured the original sense of balance between the light and dark sides. Thousands of years later, however, this balanced understanding becomes lost as the Jedi schools reinstitute rigorous practices and beliefs demonizing the dark side of the Force. The darkness was again seen as foreign and parasitic to the light. Hence, the light side required laborious maintenance and protection from darkness’s corruption. The dualistic hostility in Jedi philosophy between light and dark takes shape in two concrete ways. First, the Jedi adopt the practice of recruiting infants into the Jedi order. The Jedi fear that older beings are more emotionally susceptible to the dark side. Rather than contend with destructive emotions, the Order believes it easier to preemptively subvert negative feelings by conscripting children. Hence their dualism is such that it compels the attempt to completely bypass any trace of the dark side. Secondly, a few years before the events of the A New Hope, the Jedi Order draws up a code. It reads: There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; only knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force.7

Notice the contrast from the earliest understanding of the unity between light and dark. The Jedi Code uncompromisingly polarizes the essence of the two. Beginning with a monastic community and intensity of concentration on the light side, the Jedi had become akin to a religious order with a definite philosophy, dogma, and practices. Fear of the dark side of the Force became such that it led the Jedi Order to adopt questionable practices and attitudes. Jedi philosophy professed service toward community but a distrust toward oneself, particularly one’s emotions. I argue in the following paragraphs that the Jedi history and creed uncannily reflect desert monasticism of early Christianity.

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PART 2: DESERT MONASTICISM In Western Christianity, an important movement emerges primarily between the third and fifth centuries in North Africa. St. Antony and other Christians flocked to the desert sands of Egypt to live out a spiritual life. Many rejected ordinary ways of life and reclused themselves in solitary cells most of the day to grow closer to God. Unconcerned with the Christological debates of their time, they believed in a strict disciplinary regimen for living a good life. Some of the best historical testimony we have is from the Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers (hereafter referred to as Sayings). The Sayings is a collection of stories and aphorisms that reveal the lives and teachings of desert monks. Three major characteristics of desert monasticism overlap with and elucidate its fictitious counterpart. Firstly, the desert monks similarly practiced service to the community. Secondly, the Christian monks articulated a view of emotions as corrosive to the human person, bespeaking a pessimistic anthropology. Lastly, the desert reaction to this pessimistic anthropology was to exercise rigid self-discipline and mastery to overcome sin. First, the desert monks surprisingly lived out a deep sense of community. While attention never waned from facing one’s challenges in his or her cell, the spiritual lives of the monks were buoyed by the community. A desert monk typically had a teacher whom s/he would turn to for help. The phrase “Abba, give me a word” was an institutionally recognized request for a word of wisdom or advice. Scripture in desert monasticism, however, is the true locus of community. The power of scripture was not written, but oral. It wasn’t studied, it was lived.8 The holy words were meant to be lived out in a shared community of faith. Routine in desert spiritual life was the synaxis. Meaning “gathering together,” it was a predominantly public gathering of monks to recite and reflect on scripture readings.9 This was typically a weekly occasion, but it was not unusual to hold daily synaxis as well.10 Inverting the illusion that desert monastics were solitary individuals, the monks in fact held a deep sense of community through their common emphasis on scripture. Even beyond the monastery, the desert monks would venture to nearby towns, perform labors with townsfolk, and frequently receive guests from afar. The fundamental ethic informing the importance of community for desert monks was the commandment to love. The supreme ideal for the monk was to be transformed by love.11 They were expected to always put their neighbor before themselves, as this trumped all other practices and rules. The Sayings gives a typical short story to illustrate. “A brother asked a hermit, ‘Suppose there are two monks: one stays quietly in his cell, fasting for six

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days at a time, laying many hardships on himself: and the other ministers to the sick. Which of them is more pleasing to God?’ He replied, ‘Even if the brother who fasts six days hung himself up by his nose, he wouldn’t be the equal of him who ministers to the sick.’”12 The desert monks orient themselves toward the good of others. Hence, the desert monks cannot be understood as anything less than a group of community-saturated persons who believed their mission was preparedness to love others in community. Secondly, let us look at desert anthropology. The desert monks believed that being transformed by love was never an easy feat. This is because all persons are naturally bedeviled by tumultuous passions. A central theme throughout the Sayings is the threat of logismoi, or “thoughts.” These thoughts typically connoted negative thoughts about a variety of things. They could include the desire to escape one’s cell, or thoughts of slander, sexual temptation, etc.13 In the heat of the cell one was forced to confront one’s demons. Interestingly, the most beguiling demon was not sloth or lust, but anger. The temptation was to be frustrated at one’s incapacities, with one’s neighbors, or anything at all. One story tells of a monk who was constantly angry that he decided to leave his desert community and live in complete solitude. One day he fills himself a jug of water. It spills, and he refills it. It spills again and he refills again. It spills once more. He proceeds to fly into a rage and destroys the jug of water. Afterward, he realizes that the battle isn’t with others but with himself. He then returned to his old community.14 The story illustrates the true antagonist for the monk: his corrupt nature. Finally, the desert monks tried to solve this anthropological struggle (between body and soul) with self-mastery and asceticism. With asceticism they cast off material goods and lived a spiritual existence. With self-mastery they overcome inner turmoil. The goal was to become someone who could lead a spiritual life free of bodily distraction. The loudest voice in the desert on this point was undoubtedly Evagrius of Pontus [345–399]. In a fierce mind/spirit dualism, he believed passions were demonic temptations of matter to enslave the soul. In fact, his famous index of eight evil thoughts [logismoi],15 a precursor to the seven deadly sins, locates evil not in sinful action but in psychology. For Evagrius, to master oneself was to strive for apatheia, the Greek word for apathy. Though not a disinterested resignation, Evagrius argued that complete control of the passions enabled a holy life.16 Asceticism was the hallmark of the desert lifestyle. Self-flagellation and fasting were common practices, while forfeiting all possessions was expected. Even owning the Bible could be a hindrance. A story tells of a brother who informs an elder monk that he has single-handedly copied the entire Old and New Testaments down on paper. The elder monk replies, “You have filled the cupboards with paper.”17 But the goal was to shun worldly

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temptation as Jesus had done. Another story in the Sayings, “A brother asked a hermit, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ He took off his clothes, and put a girdle about his loins and stretched out his hands and said, ‘Thus ought the monk to be: stripped naked of everything, and crucified by temptation and combat with the world.’”18 The similarities between the Jedi and desert Christians are palpable. The desert Christians rigorously lived out a virtuous life mirroring the early Jedi community. The Jedi similarly retreated to monastic sanctuaries. The Jedi similarly developed a pessimistic anthropology. The Jedi similarly responded with an asceticism that required mastering themselves and renouncing worldly temptation. The Jedi philosophy finds historical and theological support from the desert Christians, who similarly tried to carve out a holy existence amid a hostile world. This attitude is in stark contrast to the philosophy and practice of another Christian movement with very different presumptions and responses. PART 3: THE SITH If we consider the Jedi as monks of the Force, the Sith can aptly be called its artists. The Jedi use the Force for purification, while the Sith channel it for inspiration. The noncinematic Star Wars universe reveals that the Sith community possesses a remarkable history, though much of the historical record of the Sith remains a mystery largely because of the scorched-earth policies of the Jedi. The Jedi, as we have seen, aimed for eradication of its shadow, not understanding. Through the years of battles with the Sith, the Jedi destroyed many of their temples and records. The remaining historical records hidden in holocrons uncover that the Sith community is, in fact, a historical melding of two people, the native Sith population on the planet Korriban and rogue Jedi known as Dark Jedi. About 100,000 years before A New Hope, the Sith civilization emerged on Korriban. Described as brutish and warlike, they developed Force-sensitive alchemical abilities. About 7,000 years before A New Hope, a group known as Dark Jedi emerged within Jedi ranks. These Jedi were unafraid of the dark side of the Force and, compelled by their ambition and thirst for knowledge, began studying it in secret. They discovered there was great untapped power to the Force that could manipulate even life itself. When they were discovered, however, a battle ensued, and the Dark Jedi were defeated by the Republic’s Jedi knights. Instead of executing the Dark Jedi, they purged their names and activities from galactic records, and banished them by ship to an

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undetermined location. Unbeknownst to the Jedi knights, the location was to be Korriban.19 After a contentious confrontation, the Dark Jedi quickly subjugated the native Sith population. Afterward the Sith Order was formed, maintaining a vendetta against the Jedi. Nevertheless, the Sith continued to express their knowledge and creativity. They constructed temples and articulated a philosophy. They prized individual achievement over the community. They professed that unrestricted faith in the Force would bring about one’s liberation and greatness. Like their Jedi brethren, so too did the Sith codify their beliefs in a credo. Their code is as follows: Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.20

This exalted individualism is light-years from what cinematic viewers would expect from a Sith lord like Darth Sidious. Whereas violence and vendettas mark the cinematic portrayals of the Sith, here there is an intriguing story and distinct philosophy of the Force. To the Sith, the dark side is not separate from the Force, but its enigmatic component. In the words of former Dark Jedi turned Sith lord, Ajunta Pall, who landed unpredictably on Korriban and helped institute the Sith Order: “Certainly our so-called banishment was not the consequence of the Jedi, but the will of the Force.”21 The Sith and the Jedi share a deep faith in the power of the Force. What differs, however, are their developed anthropologies and practices. While certainly Sith lords have assumed nefarious purposes, it cannot be forgotten that the Sith aren’t deranged malcontents without philosophical framework or cause. Laid out in Sith history and code, we find a diverging response to the monastic repressiveness of the Jedi order. A useful real-world analogy of Sith ideals and anthropology is the Renaissance Christian humanist movement. PART 4: RENAISSANCE CHRISTIAN HUMANISM As their Sith counterparts, the Christian humanists tended to stress individuality and human accomplishment. The first notable Christian humanist of the

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Medieval era was Petrarch [1304–1374]. He believed in the moral capability of the human person against the backdrop of a hostile world. He glorified learning and prized ambition as the path to virtuous living. What unfolded after him was a tradition of vibrant humanist scholars who interpreted the normative spiritual life with humanity as the focal point. I argue that the Christian humanist movement possesses three characteristics that overlap with and frame the philosophy of the Sith Order. Firstly, the humanists were similarly radical in their individualism. Secondly, the humanists emphasized the inherent goodness of the human person. Finally, the response to this optimistic anthropology was creative freedom. In these ways, humanists were very much opposites of the desert monastics in anthropological interpretation and therefore spiritual practice. First, to understand the inherent individualism of the Christian humanists we need look no further than Petrarch. In the fourteenth century, European pillars were crumbling. The nominalist revolution, the failure of the Crusades, the political battles between emperor and pope, and economic struggles all undercut the medieval Scholastic belief that the world was naturally ordered and well-disposed. Petrarch himself and his mother were born into exile. He struggled to make friends, and when he did, most died of the plague. Amid such turmoil Petrarch wondered where one could find peace and goodness. He turned within himself for the answer, “finding an island of stability and hope not in citizenship but in human individuality.”22 Petrarch’s individualism is highlighted in two ways, against Scholasticism and in his deep introspection. Medieval Scholasticism was championed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who envisioned a naturally good and ordered universe encompassing nature and the individual. All things are created and drawn to the good. But the Nominalist critique, which Petrarch sympathized with, argued that Scholasticism reduces humanity to a species, neglecting personal identity.23 In other words, there is no sense of individual purpose beyond the goal of the species. Petrarch could not accept such a formulation. He believed that fostering virtue in society required incomparable virtuous leaders who could inspire the individual’s sense of virtue. The other dimension of Petrarch’s individualism is his deep introspection. Best illustrated in his book My Secret, Petrarch imagines a lengthy dialogue between St. Augustine and himself. Petrarch mercilessly scrutinizes his weaknesses and failures, looking to Augustine for guidance. Petrarch’s rumination helps him discover a solution. The answer is self-improvement. Notice the importance of both introspective method and his conclusion. The answer is not redemption but self-perfection.24 This conveys how seriously he envisioned the individual’s capacity and responsibility. Petrarch’s journey would encourage future humanists to spiritually excavate the inner recesses of the individual.

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Secondly, another hallmark of Renaissance Christian humanism was the emphasis on the goodness of human nature. While this conclusion seems in lockstep with the Scholastic conclusion, the humanist deduction was quite different. Namely, human beings are good not because of universal laws of nature, but rather an interior recognition of divine dignity. Arguably the most influential humanist promulgating this message was Italian priest and scholar Marsilio Ficino [1433–1499]. Ficino was the major force in Neoplatonism’s prominence in Renaissance thought. He translated most of Plato’s work into Latin and wrote his great work, Platonic Theology, as a grand synthesis of Platonism and Christian philosophy. Key to his theology was his exalted notion of the human person. Humankind is privileged because they are uniquely made in God’s image. Divine origin translates to intrinsic dignity and capability.25 Ficino says, “It was not for small things but for great that God created men, who, knowing the great, are not satisfied with small things.”26 Humanity’s exalted claim rests on God’s decisive love. In fact, God creates only through love, which means all creatures “must be governed and guided by love.”27 Since all are inwardly propelled by love, then human behavior, instinct, and passions are also good because they guide us to God.28 Ficino’s logic is clear: human creation from pure love can only be guided by and toward the very same love. Hence, human beings and their interior realities are manifestly good. Notice the absence of self-doubt and self-debasement. What plagued the desert monks had no bearings in humanist concerns. The humanist faith in God rests securely in humankind’s noble dignity. Finally, the humanist response to this anthropological optimism was self-creation. If good creation is God’s gift to humankind, then the logical response is to cultivate one’s drives with maximal freedom. The scholar who most succinctly articulated this humanist conclusion was Ficino’s student, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola [1463–1494]. Pico was a brilliant scholar who believed all wisdom in history had a similar origin. At twenty-four, he invited anyone in Rome to listen to his defense of 900 theses he argued distilled the world’s religious and philosophical wisdom. Imagine the boldness and effort of one who translated Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic texts and claimed to compress the world’s wisdom in a single book! He never delivered his defense as Pope Innocent VIII put his theses on trial instead. The opening remarks to his theses was published posthumously and would become itself famous, Oration on the Dignity of Man.29 Some have called it the premier philosophical text of Renaissance philosophy, but in the Oration it is Pico’s reimagining of God’s creation of Adam that is immensely insightful. He writes God proclaiming to Adam:

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“Thou, impeded by no restrictions, according to thine own free will, in whose hand We have place thee, shalt define thyself. We have put thee at the centre of the world, so that from there thou mayst with ease observe around thee all that is contained in the world. We have made thee a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that, with freedom, honor and pride, as maker and moulder of thyself, thou mayst fashion thyself in whatsoever form thou dost prefer.”30

For Pico, freedom is not only a gift but a power that can make us like God. He shares this valuation of freedom with his teacher, Ficino, but Pico goes further to argue that God sanctions human beings to create themselves according to their passions. Pico elevates the person to divine status, not in the afterlife but now. Pico divinizes not merely the concept of the person but their actions. One can surely see the potential abuses with this mind-set. Someone who can justify any action can be dangerous. Pico went further theologically than almost any other Christian humanist. He was condemned by the Catholic Church for his views. Pico’s divine anthropology is the radical conclusion of a devout Christian humanist. But there is a coherent culmination in Pico’s biblical narrative. Adam becomes Petrarch’s individualist, not a bygone ancestor but each living person. God’s creation of humanity in his image becomes Ficino’s self-loved person. God’s declaration to Adam is Pico’s logical conclusion to the creation story. Human beings can become as God. The humanist faith in God means to have absolute faith in oneself. Similarly, the Sith have shown an undeniable trust in the Force. They similarly associate the Force with inner passion. The dark side of the Force becomes merely the unrestricted exercise of the spiritual life in the Force. This humanist context gives a coherent and historical framework to the Sith faith in the Force. CONCLUSION I have attempted to illuminate the similarities between the Jedi and desert monastics as well as the Sith and Renaissance humanists. My spiritual analogy is by no means immaculate, as there are anomalies in each of the communities I’ve described. However, my proposed historical paradigm is useful in three important ways for those desiring to know more deeply the light and dark sides of the Force in the greater Star Wars universe. Firstly, it offers a real example in history that can intelligently accommodate two vastly differently movements within a shared tradition. The desert monastics and Christian humanists, while separated by a millennium, hailed from the very same Christian faith. This spiritual analogy accommodates the

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different anthropological approaches amid a shared spiritual background. Likewise, the Jedi and Sith both have deep faith and employ spiritual practices according to their diverging interpretation of the Force. Secondly, my spiritual analogy helps explain how anthropological presumptions might lead to potential abuses. The desert monks adopted a rigid dualism that separated the holy from emotions, or spirit from the body. Thus, the body is bedeviled with passion and must be purified. This logically produced practices that included self-denial and a pessimistic self-awareness. The Jedi certainly identified with these characteristics as their actions in the Star Wars films are riddled with uncertainty, driven by fear of the dark side, and yet could inspire self-sacrifice. Contrarily, the Renaissance Christian humanists essentially collapse the divine and human together to birth an overly optimistic anthropology. This privileged view of the individual, while inspired by the Christian faith, possesses small recourse to correct itself in case of abuse. In short, the individual is so magnified their moral compass directs only toward what is within, making it difficult to locate either God or community. Such a warped egoism certainly explains how Sith history that was driven by freedom and knowledge could be inevitably consumed by base passions for revenge and destruction. Finally, my spiritual analogy sheds a complex light on the Star Wars films. The greater mythology illumes cinematic events with numerous references and possibilities for interpretation. For instance, what if Darth Vader’s ultimate rejection of Darth Sidious was not a betrayal of the “Dark Side” but a free choice found in greater knowledge of the Force and its complexities? What if Yoda’s famous remark—“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering”—misunderstands the dark side as egregiously as the Jedi misunderstood the prophecy of the Chosen One. The entire Star Wars mythology is so rich it enables complex interpretations. This versatility speaks to the pedigree of the story. Not unlike the story of Jesus Christ and Christianity, Star Wars houses many different schools of thought and is open to a multitude of interpretations. NOTES 1. In fairness, the 2019 Rise of Skywalker film abruptly introduces the concept of a “Force dyad.” This term implies a unitive connection between Kylo Ren (the Sith) and Rey (the Jedi). However, there is no real explanation or history given to this term in the movie. We are left to wonder if the “Force dyad” bespeaks a connatural relationship between the dark side and the light, or if it merely occurs between two Force-sensitive users. It is a lost opportunity in the film to not explore the deeper

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nature of the Force, especially since this has intimately connected Kylo and Rey since 2015 The Force Awakens. 2. Windham, Ryder, Chris Trevas, and Tommy Lee Edwards, Star Wars: Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force (New York: Lucas Books/Del Rey Books, 2007), 53. 3. A holocron is a portmanteau of the term holographic chronicle. The Star Wars cinema introduced holograms as communication devices, whereas the noncinematic universe built on that idea and introduced holographic devices that could record Sith and Jedi histories and practices. The Great Holcoron is the most valuable Jedi Holocron, containing extensive information about Jedi military history, lightsaber construction, Jedi techniques, and the like. 4. Ostrander, John, and Jan Duursema, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, 2012. 5. Windham, Star Wars, 54. 6. Windham, 55. 7. This is the most famous variation of the Jedi code. The code is hinted at in the Star Wars movies but never recited. 8. Harmless, William, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 244–45. 9. Burton-Christie, Douglas, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest of Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York: Clarendon Press, 1999), 117. 10. Burton-Christie. 11. Burton-Christie, 261. 12. Ward, Benedicta, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 180–81. 13. Harmless, Desert Christians, 229. 14. Harmless, 237. 15. His eight evil thoughts were gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. Cf. Harmless, Desert Christians, 322. 16. Merton, Thomas, and Jon M. Sweeney, A Course in Christian Mysticism: Thirteen Sessions with the Famous Trappist Monk Thomas Merton (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 61. 17. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 115. 18. Ward, The Desert Fathers, 57. 19. Windham, Star Wars, 156. 20. Windham, 158. 21. Windham, 156. 22. Gillespie, Michael Allen, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 46. 23. Gillespie, 60. 24. Gillespie, 59. 25. Gillespie, 84. 26. Ficino, Marsilio, Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1996), 25. 27. Gillespie, Theological Origins, 84. 28. Gillespie.

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29. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, Charles Glenn Wallis, and Sebastian Michael, Oration on the Dignity of Man (Optimist Books, 2018). 30. Pico, Oration, 20. I would like to note that the King James Bible-styled rendition of this passage is one made deliberately by the editor, Sebastian Michael. He reasons that the King James vernacular is poetic, stands the test of time, and can be used as a bridge between Renaissance Humanism and the English-speaking world (cf. x–xi).

WORKS CITED Burton-Christie, Douglas. The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest of Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism. New York: Clarendon Press, 1999. Ficino, Marsilio. Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino. London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1996. Gillespie, Michael Allen. The Theological Origins of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Harmless, William. Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Merton, Thomas, and Jon M. Sweeney. A Course in Christian Mysticism: Thirteen Sessions with the Famous Trappist Monk Thomas Merton. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017. Ostrander, John, and Jan Duursema. Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, 2012. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, Charles Glenn Wallis, and Sebastian Michael. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Optimist Books, 2018. Ward, Benedicta. The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Windham, Ryder, Chris Trevas, and Tommy Lee Edwards. Star Wars: Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. New York: Lucas Books/Del Rey Books, 2007.

‌‌C hapter 5

From Padawan to Jedi The Theological Premise for the Necessity of the Master-Apprentice Relationship in the Path of Spiritual Ascension Abdallah Rothman

It is well known within the Star Wars universe that integral to both the Jedi and Sith orders is the dynamic of the master-apprentice relationship. It is perhaps less known, however, that this same relationship of tutelage in the path of personal development and spiritual attainment is a crucial and arguably necessary aspect of most if not all real-world religions. In many traditions a student’s quest to raise in ranks, breaking through spiritual, mental, and physical limitations, requires that he or she become a disciple of one who has mastered the path and mastered their own self. This process of self-mastery is one that requires a committed journey into the depths of the psyche, which without guidance one can get lost and stray from the path. Religions throughout time and spanning the globe have always had such initiates into orders of the spiritual elite, which often exist on the fringe of mainstream religious communities but whose philosophy and practices are firmly rooted in their respective theologies.1 The Jedi-Padawan relationship is reflected in, to name just a few, Hinduism’s Swami-Sadhu,2 Buddhism’s Shifu-Tudi,3 and the Murshid-Murid relationship within the Sufi orders of Islam.4 The story of Musa (Moses) and Al-Khidr, from the chapter of the Qur’an titled Al-Kahf (The Cave), and traditional exegesis on these verses, has long been used to support the need for and understand the dynamic of the submission of a disciple to a master and how the relative success or failure of such submission 63

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can affect one’s relative station of spiritual attainment.5 Within the character arcs of both Anakin and Luke Skywalker we see how their rise and downfall was affected by their submission or disobedience to their masters in their respective journeys on the path from Padawan to Jedi. ORIGINS OF THE MASTER-APPRENTICE RELATIONSHIP The Padawan-Jedi relationship portrayed in the Star Wars movies reflects a familiar theme in popular culture, with particular relevance to Kung Fu films and TV shows—that of the wise old Kung Fu master and his naïve young apprentice. There exists an entire genre of these films, many with cult status for their epic fighting choreography and superhuman heroic feats. However, like we will see with the Jedi-Padawan relationship, there is much more to this master-student relationship than physical training in fighting an external opponent. As can be found in many of the world’s spiritual traditions across cultures and religions, the real training of the student in these relationships of tutelage is in the fight against their own self limitations. The creators of Star Wars, like the creators of Kung Fu movies, drew on ancient traditions and long-standing real-world practices as their inspiration for the master-apprentice dynamic in their mythical tales. Whereas the science-fiction world of Star Wars was a fabricated universe which allowed for more freedom to pull from various traditions in a fusion of many spiritual and religious traditions, Kung Fu movies were based on the real-life Shaolin Kung Fu tradition. Shaolin is an ancient Chinese martial arts tradition that is based in and built upon Zen Buddhist principles.6 This tradition consisted of two elements: “Quan,” which refers to the martial arts training, and “Chan,” which refers to the religion of Zen Buddhism.7 Thus a person who mastered Shaolin martial arts would be known as a Shaolin monk, in other words a Buddhist monk, recognizing not only their physical mastery but spiritual mastery as well. It was said by a master of the tradition, “Shaolin is Chan, not Quan,” indicating that the true focus of the practice and training is in the religious principles that one learns in the process of mastering the self, more importantly than mastering the form of fighting. Similarly, many other spiritual traditions of self-mastery are rooted in the theology of their respective religious traditions,8 ultimately guiding a person to realize the lofty ontological systems of belief on a personal level within their own process of self-realization.

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THE MASTER-APPRENTICE RELATIONSHIP AS VEHICLE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH At the core of the master-student relationship across religions and spiritual traditions is the mechanism with which it constitutes a vehicle for the spiritual growth of the student. William Cenkner writes about the educational method of the traditional teacher of Hinduism in the view of eighth-century Indian philosopher of Advaita Vedanta, Adi Sankara, saying, “For Sankara and for much of Hinduism, the educational method itself comprises a spirituality within which the relationship between guru and disciple can be perfected and the disciple can achieve liberation.”9 Liberation as the goal of self-growth within the context of Hinduism can be equated with concepts of self-realization or self-actualization,10 and it is essentially characterized by the disciple freeing him or herself from the psychospiritual limitations of identification with the ego self or “lower self,” thus stepping in to or becoming their true or “higher” self. The path of training is that of the master guiding the student to attune to this subtler self that exists underneath the conscious self and for them to learn how to strengthen their inner spiritual senses.11 In the Star Wars films, we see this training process occur early on in the story of Luke Skywalker in one of his first moments of Jedi training with Obi-Wan Kenobi. In Episode 4: A New Hope, Obi-Wan says to Luke while practicing using a lightsaber for the first time, “Let go your conscious self and act on instinct,” as he puts a helmet on Luke blindfolding him. Obi-Wan tells Luke, “Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them. . . . Stretch out with your feelings.” When Obi-Wan tells Luke to “Let go your conscious self,” he is guiding him to a subtle aspect of himself that Luke has been otherwise unaware of. The principle alluded to here, and found paralleled in many ancient spiritual traditions, is the idea that only with the guidance of one who has mastered the self and can thus identify when and where the conscious self can become an obstacle, can one avoid the pitfalls of the lower self and come to know the higher self. THE INNER BATTLE AGAINST THE SELF The core utility of the master is in directing the student to the path toward ever increasing self-knowledge, which involves revealing the student’s inner state to him or herself and keeping the student from going astray on the spiritual path. To go astray is to become preoccupied and distracted with either worldly attachments or the desires and impulses of the ego self or lower self. It is about pursuing self-satisfaction rather than self-discipline and is a

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tendency that all human beings are known to be tempted with and consumed by without adherence to guidance and instruction.12 The instruction is usually thought to be found in a religious text which offers a literary articulation of the way to stay on the path. However, without proper guidance of how to read and interpret the text and put the principles into applied action, a seeker on the spiritual path can become deluded by their own egoic impulses in thinking they are on the right path, have understood the instruction, and that they have what they need within themselves alone. It is assumed by most religious traditions that it is a natural aspect of humanity, in its undisciplined form without submission to guidance, to follow the whims of the self and become absorbed in self-direction.13 We see this human tendency and the pitfalls that come from it illustrated in both Anakin and Luke Skywalker’s journeys, but it is Anakin whose consistent rebellion against his master is the reason for his downfall. In Episode One: The Phantom Menace, Anakin as a young boy was not permitted by the Jedi Council to be trained as a Jedi. This was due to his tendency toward preoccupation with his conscious self and his focus on his mother, an important relationship but ultimately a worldly attachment that was already distracting him from concentrating on his growth and development. There are conditions to entering into the master-student relationship that consider a person’s qualities, traits, personality and where their heart is, what their focus is on, which determines their relative state and ability to properly submit to the master.14 This can be seen in the classic example of the aspiring student waiting for days outside of the temple or master’s house only to be told to go away, as the master tests the potential student’s focus and clarity with which he is ready to submit, as depicted with the young Caine in the TV series Kung Fu, as well as films that have played on this dynamic such as the 1999 film Fight Club. Anakin was preoccupied with fear, which made him not fit for training. Despite that fact, he was trained by Qui-Gon Jinn against the better judgment of the council, and this unsanctioned start to his path of training foreshadowed his eventual inability to submit to the master. SUBMISSION TO THE MASTER AS A VEHICLE FOR OVERCOMING THE IMPULSES OF THE SELF In Episode Two: Attack of the Clones, as Anakin has grown into a young man and Padawan learner, we see him asserting his own opinion and challenging the authority of his new master Obi-Wan in regard to an instruction given by the Jedi Council. Obi-Wan says to Anakin, “We will do exactly as the Council has instructed . . . and you will learn your place young boy.” Anakin continues to be preoccupied with internal conflict within himself as he becomes

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increasingly distracted by his attachment to Padme, and his dreams of his mother. He is in conflict and constantly disappointed and upset, fueling his rebellion against his master and rendering him unable to reap the essential benefits of the master-apprentice relationship, which only bears fruit when the student is in submission and humbling himself to their direction and guidance. In a conversation with Padme, Anakin says in reference to Obi-Wan, “In some ways . . . a lot of ways, I’m really ahead of him. I’m ready for the trials but he feels that I’m too unpredictable, he won’t let me move on. . . . [getting angrier] He’s overly critical, he never listens, he doesn’t understand. It’s not fair.” Whereas the expectation is that a Jedi apprentice respects his master, thinks good of him, and moreover submits to his judgment and direction, here Anakin is demonstrating his outright disdain for and defiance against his master. Padme responds to Anakin saying, “Real mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults than we would like. It’s the only way we grow.” Padme identifies here a key factor in the master-apprentice relationship in that part of the master’s role is to make the apprentice aware of what they need to remove or resolve in their character in order to free themselves from the egoic drives and self-delusion. In discussing the need for guidance in the path of self-awareness, the twelfth-century Islamic philosopher Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali said: Don’t be angry or sulk if someone points out a fault of yours, for bad characteristics are snakes and scorpions that bite you in the Here and Hereafter. If someone alerts you to a snake in your clothes, accept his favour. If you are disgruntled with him, it is a sign of your weak belief in the Hereafter. Benefiting from it shows the strength of your faith.15

Anakin’s resistance to his master’s criticism of him stemmed from his unchecked and increasing ego-driven desire for self-direction. These early signs of rebellion continued to materialize, giving way to his developing and eventual downfall, the seed of which was in his defiance and unwillingness to surrender himself to his master, and thus The Force, and instead serve his own selfish drives. SELF-DIRECTION: THE PATH TO THE DARK SIDE Anakin’s struggle to submit to his master was so extreme that it led to him losing the battle against his lower self and instead completely submitting to it and becoming Darth Vader. For Luke Skywalker this inner conflict was less extreme and he more willingly submitted to guidance, but he still carried on the Skywalker legacy to some degree in his own defiance to his masters. In

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Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan (in spirit form) instructs Luke to go to the Dagobah system to learn from his master Yoda. Luke obeys without question or resistance or egoic impulse, demonstrating his innocence, humility, and mutability. However, Yoda senses in Luke similar tendencies like his father Anakin and in discussing with Obi-Wan whether he will train Luke, Yoda is apprehensive, saying that Luke is reckless. Nonetheless Yoda agrees to train Luke and in so doing instructs him to confront his father by going into a cave. Reflective of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,16 the cave represents the false perception of self and here Luke comes in contact with his shadow17 self in the form of his father. Among other things, Luke is fighting off his father’s legacy of disobedience to the master, which led Anakin to overidentify with his shadow self and become consumed by the dark side. Although he shows more promise than his father to resist the darkness, according to Yoda Luke fails this attempt, as similar to his father’s attachment to Padme and his mother, Luke is unable to fully rid himself of his attachment to his friends. When Luke finds out that Han and Leia are in danger, Yoda instructs him to stay and complete his training, but Luke is disobedient and insists on going to help them. Obi-Wan says to Luke, “This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of The Force,” to which Yoda adds, “Yes, yes, to Obi-Wan you listen. The cave, remember your failure at the cave.” Thus, while Luke does not follow the fate of his father and ultimately does resist the dark side, his disobedience to his master continues to plague him as it contributes to his own relative downfall later in his character’s arc. OBEDIENCE TO THE MASTER AS OBEDIENCE TO THE DIVINE It is not enough to have the guidance available in the form of a spiritual guide, the student must submit to the master in a process of humbling their individual egoic impulses to go rogue and chart their own path of perceived growth. The function of the master is to put the student in check, as their experience and wisdom allow them to see where the student still needs to align with the religious instruction or spiritual laws. In this way the obedience to the master is obedience to the Divine law, as the master becomes the mediator between the student and the Divine. Cenkner writes, “Devotion to the guru implies devotion to God in Sankara’s estimation, a belief that accords with the Hindu classical tradition.”18 We find a paralleled notion in the Sufi tariqas’ (paths/ lineages) tradition of the murid (seeker) taking bay’ah (pledge of allegiance) with a shaykh (spiritual master). In this tradition when a student pledges

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allegiance to the master, they put their hand in the hand of the shaykh with the understanding that God’s hand is above his hand, symbolizing the mediating role that the shaykh takes in the process of connecting the aspirant to God, rather than making them obedient to another human being.19 Ideally in this scenario the master has disciplined their own self to the point that they no longer have their own self-directed conscious self directing their life and instead have surrendered fully to God. This allegiance of the student to the master can go awry, however, when the master is serving his own shadow self, in which case it can become one human under the control of another human’s ego, as was the case with Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. Anakin refused to submit to his Jedi master’s guidance directing him to his own growth and liberation and instead wound up enslaved to the Emperor’s own selfish whims and evil inclinations motivated by the desire for power. While this is always a danger in submitting to another individual, the practice of bay’ah in the Sufi traditions is one of the safeguards they implement to ensure a relative level of purity in the relationship.20 It is within the Sufi tradition that we now turn to further elucidate the necessity of the obedience to the master in the examination of a series of passages from the Qur’an. PARALLELS BETWEEN SUFISM AND THE JEDI ORDER Many aspects and themes inspired by the Sufi tradition of Islam can be found throughout the iconography, symbolism, and stories in the Star Wars films. Not only is the master-apprentice relationship of spiritual guidance portrayed in the order of the Jedi Knights reflective of the Sufi shaykh-murid relationship, the iconic wool robes that the Jedi wear are reminiscent of the traditional attire of the Sufis. Within the Islamic tradition the process of disciplining the self is known as tasawuf, meaning to become a Sufi. The term Sufi is attributed to several root words in Arabic including safa (purity), safwa (the chosen ones), and most directly connected to the word suf, meaning wool.21 The term is thought to be a reference to the traditional robes worn by the saintly men of the desert regions, and the long, brown, hooded, wool cloaks worn by the Jedi are essentially the same worn by the Sufi brotherhoods of North Africa, particularly Morocco and Tunisia,22 where much of the original Star Wars films were shot. Among other similarities and connections between the Jedi and the Sufis is the character Yoda. Yoda, with his wool cloak, gray hair, and sage wisdom certainly embodies the iconic elements of a Sufi shaykh; however, even more auspicious, perhaps surprisingly so, is his green skin color. The centrality and importance of the submission to a master, or shaykh, in the Sufi tradition has historically been supported by a particular set of passages

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in the Qur’an which tell the story of Musa (Moses) and a wise sage named al-Khidr, or the “Green One.”23 THE QURANIC STORY OF MUSA AND AL-KHIDR The Qur’anic story of Musa and al-Khidr has been throughout Islamic history, as Shawkat Toorawa says, “influential in elaborations of the notion of the master-disciple relationship in Sufism.”24 In the story, Musa seeks the guidance of al-Khidr, positioning Musa as the student or murid and al-Khidr as the master or shaykh. In his doctoral dissertation Vincent Cornell25 wrote that “for early Sufis in both the Muslim East and the West, Khidr most commonly appeared as the Shaykh of Shaykhs and Supreme Spiritual Guide—the paradigmatic possessor of insight (basira) and esoteric wisdom (hikma).” The story not only becomes paradigmatic of the notion of a master-disciple relationship, but specifically illustrates the necessary quality of submission in the disciple, as Musa fails to obey the direction of his master: [and there] they found one of Our worshippers to whom We had given Mercy from Our self, and We had taught him Knowledge directly form Our Presence. Musa said to him, “May I follow you on condition that you teach me out of what you have been given of right guidance?” [He whom they found, the sage al-Khidr] said, “Surely you will not be able to be patient with me” “[For] how can you have patience with that which your knowledge cannot encompass?” [Musa] said, “Allah willing, you will find me patient; I will not disobey any orders of yours” [al-Khidr] said, “If you would follow me, then ask me no questions about anything until I myself mention it to you” So they set out until, [when] they were riding in the ship, he made a hole in it. [Musa] said, “Have you made a hole in it in order to drown those [who may sail upon] her? You have done a dreadful thing!” [al-Khidr] said, “Did I not say to you that you would not be able to be patient with me?”26

The story continues to describe two additional incidents where al-Khidr’s actions are subsequently questioned by Musa despite his pledge to remain silent. After the third incident al-Khidr reveals to Musa the meaning behind each action. He explains the incident with the boat saying, “As for the boat.

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It belonged to poor people working on the sea, and I wished to damage it, because there was a king coming after them who seized every [sound] ship by force.”27 After explaining the meanings of the other incidents, al-Khidr then says, “I did not do it on my own command. That is the inner meaning of [those things] which you were unable to bear with steadfast patience.”28 Many Sufi tafsirs (exegesis) of these ayahs (verses) from the Qur’an interpret and explain the deeper meaning behind the story and what it teaches us. While most of these commentaries come from Muslim scholars in the tenth and twelfth centuries, a relatively contemporary contribution worth noting was offered by a non-Muslim psychologist whose influence can be found in many themes and concepts throughout the Star Wars films; Carl Jung. In his essay of commentary on the Musa-Khidr story from the Qur’an, Jung said, “Moses accepts him as a higher consciousness and looks up to him for instruction. Then follow those incomprehensible deeds which show how ego-consciousness reacts to the superior guidance of the self through the twists and turns of fate.”29 Here Jung is identifying the nature of the reason for submission to the master; to submit the ‘ego-consciousness’ to the guidance of ‘higher consciousness,’ as embodied here by al-Khidr as the master. But what Jung also points out is how difficult it is for the ego self to surrender to a higher wisdom which results in a reaction of resistance. Jung goes on to say, “Khidr symbolizes not only the higher wisdom but also a way of acting which is in accord with this wisdom and transcends reason.”30 Obtaining Higher Spiritual Knowledge through the Master In many spiritual traditions there is a notion of a higher consciousness that one can attain through disciplining the self and thus uncovering the true self within which allows for accessing a type of Divine knowledge that is beyond the knowing of the mind and information based on sense experience.31 Within Sufism the training or disciplining of the nafs (lower self), or as Jung termed it ‘ego-consciousness,’ is what an initiate occupies themselves with at the beginning of the tariq (path) in order to remove the veil of the True Reality of God and witness (shuhud) God directly.32 This is the type of knowledge that the Sufi murid seeks, as the tenth century Muslim scholar Adab alMuluk said: The sciences of Sufism are esoteric knowledge, which is the knowledge of inspiration, and an unmediated secret between God (the mighty and majestic) and his friends [i.e., the saints]; it is knowledge from the presence. God the mighty and the majestic said [that Al-Khidr was one] “whom we taught knowledge from our presence” (Qur’an 18:65). That is the special knowledge which is the sign of the saints and the reality of wisdom.33

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The Sufi master then is one who has, through their own jihad an nafs (struggle against the lower self), achieved the spiritual station to have received “knowledge from Our presence” directly from witnessing God’s Reality and thus becoming a wali’Allah (friend of God), or saint as indicated in the above quote. In the Qur’anic narrative, Musa asks al-Khidr to teach him what he has been given of “right guidance,” positioning himself as an aspirant to pursuing the path of this higher knowledge of God, thus, from the Sufi perspective, becoming an archetypal model for the shaykh-murid relationship within the Islamic tradition. In his tafsir, translated by Hugh Talat Halman, the fourteenth century Sufi scholar Ruzbihan Baqli commented: Then God, glorified be He, wanted (arada) Moses to know this secret knowledge, the hidden light. So He [God] tested him through companionship with Khidr, in order to straighten the way (tariq), to establish the tradition (sunna) in following the masters (masha’ikh) so that he would be a model (uswa) for the aspirants (muridin) and for those who seek by serving the masters of the way (ashaykh al-tariqa).34

As Musa was already a prophet who had the favor of God and was rightly guided, what Baqli is positing here is that this story is presented in the Qur’an as a model for humanity in how to seek and access this “secret knowledge, the hidden light.” One of the key aspects that he points out in the above quote is that aspirants “who seek” do so by “serving the masters of the way.” In other words the submission to the master is positioned as the vehicle by which the seeker can arrive at that which is sought. QUIETING THE SELF IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MASTER As we saw above, for both Anakin and Luke, it was the unwillingness and lack of patience with the guidance from their masters that resulted in them choosing to disobey their instructions. Similarly, regarding the direction that he was given, Musa was, as al-Khidr described, “unable to bear with steadfast patience” due to the fact that Musa was ignorant of what he would have needed to be patient for. As al-Khidr said when Musa asked to follow him, “How can you have patience with that which your knowledge cannot encompass?” Thus the lack of knowledge is what necessitates the guidance from the master, but is also that which fuels the disobedience to the master’s guidance. It is therefore necessary for the disciple to override their own impulses of descent to allow for the master’s wisdom to lead them where they need to go in order to acquire the knowledge they lack. Ruzbihan Baqli says in his tafsir

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of the story, “It is the duty of discipleship to remain still during the spiritual exchange (tasarruf) with the teacher.”35 This is reflective of a central quality of the adab (manners) of the murid with the shaykh. The murid remains still and quiet in order to receive the guidance from the shaykh and not interfere with their own nafs or conscious self. This type of companionship is known as suhba and is often also paralleled with how the Prophet Muhammad was with the angel Jibril (Gabriel), sitting knee to knee, when he received the Message of Islam. This relationship was then reflected in how the companions were with the Prophet in learning from him. Abu Najib al-Suhrawardi compares companionship with one’s shaykh to the prophet by his companions saying: The master in the midst of his followers is like the prophet in the midst of his community. . . . He [a disciple] should behave toward the shaykh like the Companions with the Prophet in following the ethics of the Qur’an: “O you who believe! Do not assent yourselves before Allah and His Messenger, but fear Allah, for Allah is He who knows all things. O you who believe! Do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, nor speak aloud to him in talk, as you may speak loud to one another lest your deeds become vain and you perceive not.”36

Al-Suhrawardi is quoting an ayah from the Qur’an in Surat al-Hujarat to support the notion that there is a theological premise for remaining silent in front of the teacher, suggesting that this instruction of how to be with the Prophet should be extended to the master in the same way. The great Sufi mufassir (one who does tafsir) Ahmad ibn Ajibah in his exposition on the “adab of the seeker” gives further explanation of the necessity for the aspirant to remain silent in the presence of the shaykh, saying: One should not speak, when in the company of the folk of Allah, about goodly matters, let alone evil things. The condition of these folk is one of three things: remembrance, meditation, or teaching. [. . .] The Prophet (may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) said: “Blessed is he whose speech is remembrance of Allah, whose silence is meditation and whose speculation is learning lessons.” Hadith masters attribute this saying to our master Jesus, may Allah’s blessings be upon him. The novice should not speak about anything unless it is necessary. And even when it is necessary, he should do so sparingly. This is because speech is of the nature of the ego, and as long as the ego is speaking, it will predominate over the Spirit. When, however, it keeps silent and silence becomes its nature we know that the spirit has predominated over the ego, and that it is the spirit which is speaking.37

The term ibn Ajibah uses in Arabic, which has been translated here as spirit, is the word ruh, which is referenced in the Qur’an and is thought to be the

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higher self or aspect of the self that is directly connected with God.38 The goal of the spiritual aspirant is to struggle against the egoic impulses through the nafs al lawwama (self-reproaching soul) to uncover and align with the ruh, which, as ibn Ajibah is indicating, is a subtle process that is disrupted by overidentification with the nafs or ego. When Musa as well as both Anakin and Luke Skywalker do not quiet their ego impulses in the midst of their master, they disrupt the crucial dynamic in the master-student relationship which facilitates elevated spiritual growth and they miss out on their opportunity to advance on the path toward increased esoteric spiritual knowledge. For Luke this amounts to an eventual state of internal unrest and unresolved issues, as depicted in The Last Jedi, while for Anakin his persistent disobedience to right guidance led him to be consumed by the dark side. THE FALL OF SKYWALKER: SUBMISSION TO THE LOWER SELF (SELF AS MASTER VS. SELF-MASTERY) In Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, as Anakin’s anger and self-absorption have led him to further distance himself from Obi-Wan and the Jedi Council, he opens himself up to the influence of Darth Sidious and winds up beheading Count Dooku on Sidious’s command. Anakin feels guilty for killing an unarmed prisoner, against the Jedi code, and Sidious reminds him that it is not the first time, as he previously killed many people in a fit of rage over the death of his mother. Sidious is feeding into Anakin’s lower self’s (nafs) justification for continuing toward the Dark Side: he has done it before, so he is already tainted and might as well surrender his nafs and give in to his shadow self. Here Darth Sidious is representative of what is known in the Islamic tradition as waswasa (the whispering of the devil), as shaytan (the devil) feeds on the evil inclinations of the nafs al ammara bil su (self that inclines to evil) and tries to keep the seeker from the path of God. From the perspective of the Sufi tradition, this is what happens when an aspirant either does not have a guide or rejects the guidance from their rightly guided master, as the eleventh century Muslim scholar ‘Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani writes: Abu Yazidi al-Bistami said, “if a man has no master, his imam [Islamic religious leader] is Satan.” ‘Amr b. Sinan al-Manjibi, one of the great Sufi shaykhs, said, “a man who has not been to school with a master, such a man is an imposter.” The Sufi expositors of the True Reality are unanimous in declaring that he who has no shaykh is without religion.39

Rather than having the guidance of a master to help him avoid his own pitfalls of evil within himself, Sidious acts as the voice of shaytan and does

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the opposite of the Jedi or Sufi master, fueling the evil inclination of the nafs rather than disciplining it. Darth Sidious says to Anakin, “I can feel your anger, it gives you focus, makes you stronger,” which essentially gives Anakin the last push over the edge to fully submit to the Dark Side and become Darth Vader. Ironically Anakin is a better student in submission to Darth Sidious than he was able to be to his Jedi masters. This is because he is no longer struggling within himself in conflict or self-reproach as he has submitted fully to his lower self and shaytan has won the battle over his soul. GUIDANCE ALONG THE PATH TO PERFECTION Anakin’s failure is a warning of the extreme end to which humans have the potential to go if the egoic self is not put in check with discipline and guidance. Musa and Luke’s failures are examples of the human reality of imperfection and the inevitability of making mistakes along the path, which can be learning lessons which manifest to guide us in the right direction. In The Last Jedi, after the Jedi texts are burned and Luke is wallowing in his own self-pity about his failure, declaring that he cannot be the Jedi master that his hopeful apprentice Rey needs him to be, Yoda says, “Pass on what you have learned: Strength, mastery, but weakness, folly, failure also, yes failure most of all. The greatest teacher failure is.” Whereas submission to the rightly guided master is ultimately the best way to expedite growth along the path of spiritual ascension, it is known and expected that aspirants will not always be able to submit due to the human’s inherent individuated self-directed nature. As the Sufi commentators observed, the story of Musa is meant to illustrate not only the use and necessity of guidance but the inevitability of failure, as exemplified in Musa’s response to al-Khidr’s direction. The human predicament is one of ebbs and flows, remembering and forgetting, succeeding and failing, as our relative state of being is transient and regulation of it is determined by our relative focus and discipline or lack thereof. Having another person outside of our self to reflect where we need to pay attention and focus ourselves in order to see what we cannot see on our own is a crucial and arguably necessary mechanism that needs to be in place in order to achieve higher levels of liberation from our self-imposed limitations. While having a rightly guided master may be the ideal, it is rare that one has access to such guidance in the form of a true master. Al-Ghazali recognizes this and offers this insight in reference to the pursuit of higher knowledge of the self: For this knowledge there are Ways, the highest is for him to be in the hands of one of his shaykhs, and perform what he orders him to do, thereby receiving

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at times by revelation, or other times by what his shaykh reveals to him; this is the highest method and the noblest, but those who follow this Way, sadly, are few and far between in this age. Another way is to seek a sound companion, knowledgeable in the secrets of this matter, and appoint him as an observer of his self, to note his states and alert him to his faults. Thus did the great leaders of the religion.40

Al-Ghazali’s recommendation to take a sound companion who is “knowledgeable in the secrets of this matter” means someone who has engaged in the pursuit of higher knowledge and spent time disciplining the self, opening them up to perhaps a taste of, if not at least awareness of what al-Khidr was given by God: “knowledge from Our presence.” Thus, what al-Ghazali posits in this passage is that the pursuit of self-awareness, spiritual knowledge, and eventual self-mastery cannot be obtained by one alone without someone to act as a mirror, reflecting to the seeker the state of their self. This could conceivably amount to keeping the company of those who are consciously seeking spiritual growth and inviting such companions to challenge us and hold us accountable to our higher self and spiritual aspirations. This opens a gateway of hope and possibility for not only aspiring Jedi but us common folk as well. CONCLUSION As we have seen, the relative state of submission or disobedience to their masters had an impact on the rise and downfall of both Anakin and Luke Skywalker in their respective journeys. The relationship of how the Padawan, or apprentice, is to the Jedi, or master, in their manners and willingness to humble themselves is an important factor in the dynamic that this mechanism of spiritual tutelage offers in potentia, as exemplified in the story of Musa’s relationship with al-Khidr. Depending on the level of disobedience or failure, the student can either learn from the lesson as a vehicle of self-reflection, as in the case of Musa and Luke, or persist in disobedience, fueling the ego and losing the battle against the lower self, as in the case of Darth Vader. If successful in obeying the master, the apprentice avails the opportunity to maximize their potential and grow beyond the perceived limitations of their own self, and even that of their master. As Yoda says in The Last Jedi, “Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” The goal of the true master is to guide the student to surpass them, in acknowledgment of the infinite human capacity for growth and the power of the human spirit. In a 1999 interview in Time magazine Bill Moyers asked George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, about the core themes of the films and he said, “It’s about how you conduct yourself as you go through the hero’s journey, which

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in all classical myth takes the form of a voyage of transformation by trials and revelations.”41 The aspirant on the spiritual journey, in order to become a master, must first follow a master and conduct themselves with humility in order to truly transform from Padawan to Jedi. NOTES 1. Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal Shem Tov (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954); I. Hadot, “The Spiritual Guide,” in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, ed. A. H. Armstrong (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 436–59. 2. Daniel Gold, The Lord as Guru: Hindu Saints in North Indian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). 3. Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery (New York: Vintage Books, 1983). 4. Arthur Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998). 5. Toorawa Shawkat, “Khidr: The History of a Ubiquitous Master,” SUFI, no. 30 (1996): 45–49. 6. Andy James, The Spiritual Legacy of Shaolin Temple: Buddhism, Daoism, and the Energetic Arts (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). 7. James. 8. Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010); Gold, The Lord as Guru: Hindu Saints in North Indian Tradition. 9. William Cenkner, A Tradition of Teachers: Śaṅkara and the Jagadgurus Today (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1995), 60. 10. Eugene Taylor, “An Intellectual Renaissance of Humanistic Psychology?” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 39, no. 2 (April 1, 1999): 7–25, https://doi. org/10.1177/0022167899392002. 11. I. Hadot, “The Spiritual Guide.” 12. I. Hadot. 13. Ryan Connors, “Healing for Freedom: A Christian Perspective on Personhood and Psychotherapy,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 14, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 1345–49; Abdallah Rothman and Adrian Coyle, “Toward a Framework for Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy: An Islamic Model of the Soul,” Journal of Religion and Health 57, no. 5 (October 1, 2018): 1731–44; Padmasiri de Silva, An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005). 14. Gold, The Lord as Guru: Hindu Saints in North Indian Tradition; Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh; Buber, The Legend of the Baal Shem Tov. 15. Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, Imam Al-Ghazali Mukhtasar Ihya Ulum Ad-Din, 2nd Edition (Lympia, Nikosia: Spohr Publishers, 2014), 257. 16. A. S. Ferguson, “Plato’s Simile of Light. Part II. The Allegory of the Cave (Continued),” The Classical Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1922): 15–28.

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17. C. G. Jung, “The Shadow,” in Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 8–10. 18. William Cenkner, A Tradition of Teachers. 19. Arthur Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet. 20. Buehler. 21. Carl W. Ernst, Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2017). 22. Nakita Valerio, “Star Wars and Maghribi Sufi Islams: Reasons Why the Religious Studies Literature Overlooks an Obvious Comparison” (University of Alberta Religious Studies Symposium, Alberta: ERA, 2016), https://doi.org/10.7939/R3P80T. 23. Toorawa Shawkat, “Khidr: The History of a Ubiquitous Master.” 24. Shawkat, “Khidr,” 45. 25. Vincent J. Cornell, “Mirrors of Prophethood: The Evolving Image of the Spiritual Master in the Western Maghrib from the Origins of Sufism to the End of the Sixteenth Century” (PhD Diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1989). 26. “Surat Al-Khaf,” in Qur’an, 18:65–72. 27. “Surat Al-Khaf,” in Qur’an, 18:79. 28. “Surat Al-Khaf,” in Qur’an, vol. 18, n.d., 82. 29. C. G. Jung, “A Typical Set of Symbols Illustrating the Process of Transformation,” in Four Archetypes, trans. R. F. C. Hull, Revised ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 75. 30. Jung, 75. 31. Hampus Lyttkens, “Religious Experience and Transcendence,” Religious Studies 15, no. 2 (1979): 211–20. 32. Ernst, Sufism. 33. Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 1st edition (Boston: Shambhala, 1997). 34. Hugh Talat Halman, “Where Two Seas Meet: The Qur’anic Story of Khidr and Moses in Sufi Commentaries as a Model for Spiritual Guidance” (PhD Diss., Duke University, 2000), 122. 35. Halman, 126. 36. Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi, “Kitab Adab Al-Muridin,” in A Sufi Rule for Novices, trans. Menahim Milson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 46–47. 37. Shaykh Ahmad Ibn Ajiba, The Basic Research: Arabic Title: “Al Futuhat Al Ilahiyya Fi Sharh Al Mabaahith Al-Asliyya,” 1st edition (Kuala Lumpur: Madinah Press, 2004). 38. Rothman and Coyle, “Toward a Framework for Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy.” 39. ’Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani, “Complaint of a Stranger Exiled from Home,” in A Sufi Martyr: The Apologia of ’Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani, trans. A. J. Arberry (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1969), 33. 40. Al-Ghazali, Imam Al-Ghazali Mukhtasar Ihya Ulum Ad-Din. 41. Bill Moyers, “Of Myth and Men,” Time, April 26, 1999.

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WORKS CITED Ajiba, Shaykh Ahmad ibn. The Basic Research: Arabic Title: “Al Futuhat Al Ilahiyya Fi Sharh Al Mabaahith Al-Asliyya.” 1st edition. Kuala Lumpur: Madinah Press, 2004. Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid. Imam Al-Ghazali Mukhtasar Ihya Ulum Ad-Din. 2nd Edition. Lympia, Nikosia: Spohr Publishers, 2014. Buber, Martin. The Legend of the Baal Shem Tov. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Buehler, Arthur. Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. Cenkner, William. A Tradition of Teachers: Śaṅkara and the Jagadgurus Today. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1995. Connors, Ryan. “Healing for Freedom: A Christian Perspective on Personhood and Psychotherapy.” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 14, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 1345–49. Cornell, Vincent J. “Mirrors of Prophethood: The Evolving Image of the Spiritual Master in the Western Maghrib from the Origins of Sufism to the End of the Sixteenth Century.” PhD Diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1989. Ernst, Carl W. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. 1st edition. Boston: Shambhala, 1997. ———. Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2017. Ferguson, A. S. “Plato’s Simile of Light. Part II. The Allegory of the Cave (Continued).” The Classical Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1922): 15–28. Gold, Daniel. The Lord as Guru: Hindu Saints in North Indian Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Hadot, I. “The Spiritual Guide.” In Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, edited by A. H. Armstrong, 436–59. New York: Crossroad, 1986. Halman, Hugh Talat. “Where Two Seas Meet: The Qur’anic Story of Khidr and Moses in Sufi Commentaries as a Model for Spiritual Guidance.” PhD Diss., Duke University, 2000. Hamadhani, ’Ayn al-Qudat al-. “Complaint of a Stranger Exiled from Home.” In A Sufi Martyr: The Apologia of ’Ayn Al-Qudat Al-Hamadhani, translated by A. J. Arberry, 33. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1969. Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. James, Andy. The Spiritual Legacy of Shaolin Temple: Buddhism, Daoism, and the Energetic Arts. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Jung, C. G. “A Typical Set of Symbols Illustrating the Process of Transformation.” In Four Archetypes, translated by R. F. C. Hull, Revised edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. ———. “The Shadow.” In Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 8–10. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. Lyttkens, Hampus. “Religious Experience and Transcendence.” Religious Studies 15, no. 2 (1979): 211–20. Moyers, Bill. “Of Myth and Men.” Time, April 26, 1999.

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Rothman, Abdallah, and Adrian Coyle. “Toward a Framework for Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy: An Islamic Model of the Soul.” Journal of Religion and Health 57, no. 5 (October 1, 2018): 1731–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0651-x. Shawkat, Toorawa. “Khidr: The History of a Ubiquitous Master.” SUFI, no. 30 (1996): 45–49. Silva, Padmasiri de. An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005. http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230509450. Suhrawardi, Abu al-Najib al-. “Kitab Adab Al-Muridin.” In A Sufi Rule for Novices, translated by Menahim Milson, 46–47. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. “Surat Al-Khaf.” In Qur’an, 18:65–72, n.d. “Surat Al-Khaf.” In Qur’an, 18:79, n.d. “Surat Al-Khaf.” In Qur’an, 18:82, n.d. Taylor, Eugene. “An Intellectual Renaissance of Humanistic Psychology?” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 39, no. 2 (April 1, 1999): 7–25. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022167899392002. Teasdale, Wayne. The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010. Valerio, Nakita. “Star Wars and Maghribi Sufi Islams: Reasons Why the Religious Studies Literature Overlooks an Obvious Comparison.” Alberta: ERA, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7939/R3P80T.

‌‌C hapter 6

And Also with You An Examination of the Demystification of the Jedi and the Clergy Nettie Brock and Josiah Brock

Throughout the Star Wars texts of the twenty-first century—the prequels, the television shows, the video games, and the sequels—we can see multiple moments where, as Luke says in The Last Jedi, “the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure. Hypocrisy, hubris.” In the original trilogy, the Jedi were always presented with ecclesiastical austerity and moral absolutism; they were above all other people, pure, Christ-like. By using the prequels to relate the story of Anakin Skywalker’s break from the Jedi, the films explicitly evoke a binary: if you do not follow the rules of the Jedi, you are evil. As the video games, television shows, and new series have explored more about these characters and this universe, the fallibility of the Jedi has risen to the fore and alternative approaches to embracing the Force have been presented, culminating in Luke’s total rejection of everything the Jedi stand for. In this chapter, we will argue that such a rejection is not only emblematic of the story of the Jedi presented across all the Star Wars texts, but that it also mirrors a societal and ecclesial movement that is questioning the compulsory purity and sacredness of the clergy and the institutional nature of the Church. The trend in contemporary ecclesial practice is toward a grassroots, laity-led, leadership model. We will examine examples of this trend through the work of Christine Pohl, Bishop Grant Hagiya, and the rise in the United States of specialized orders of clergy post Second Great Awakening. We will show that these trends are due in part to the shift in focus from clergy as God’s divine, 81

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infallible representative on Earth to the view that clergy are, as Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15, “chief among sinners.” THE JEDI AS RELIGION From the very beginning of the Star Wars fandom, scholars have been debating the religiosity of the series. The series’ emphasis on faith, as well as the visual counterpoints of the all-powerful Darth Vader in his black ensemble and naive Luke Skywalker constantly sporting an entirely white costume (in A New Hope, at least), make such connections conspicuous. For instance, Allnutt1 almost immediately drew parallels between A New Hope and the coming of the antichrist. He suggests that “the Force is God, the Emperor is Satan, and the Rebellion represents the Church.”2 In fact, very few scholars or critics would not agree that the franchise is full of religious symbolism. The one exception to this is Lucas himself, who insists, I don’t see Star Wars as profoundly religious. I see Star Wars as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct. . . . I try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.3

He sees Star Wars as religious, but not any one particular religion, instead as a place to discuss religious ideals. Because of the shifting political dynamics of the Galaxy from one film to the next, the role that the Jedi play and their position within the Galaxy shifts. In the original series, the Jedi are very clearly positioned as the “good guys.” They are entirely outside of the political conflict plaguing the Galaxy; the only two apparent remaining Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, teach Luke about the Force, but without any political leanings. However, in the prequel series, the Jedi take an entirely different role. Schultes suggests that in these prequels, because of the connections between the Jedi and the Republic Senate, the Jedi, and thus religion itself, “is the tool of the state.”4 The Jedi serve as the peacekeepers of the Galaxy, but do so at the request of the Galactic Senate. This is extended even further in The Clone Wars in which the Jedi are not only “peacekeepers” but they are the Generals who lead the Clone army into battles. This stands in direct conflict with the peaceful hermits depicted in the original series. An additional extension of the role the Jedi play in the Star Wars universe is the way that the Force is represented. In the original trilogy, the Force is an

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“ancient religion” that only a handful of people still adhere to. It is something people believe in but not something people actively practice. Additionally, the Force itself is not something people have or don’t have, it is a religion. Han Solo vocalizes this stance in A New Hope, saying, “I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything.” However, in the prequel trilogy, the Force is an everyday phenomenon. There is no question of its power or the power of the Jedi who use it. The new series complicates this relationship even further by suggesting that Rey and Finn have never believed in the Force and that it has become something mythic in nature; Rey asks, “The Jedi were real?” Han again explains, “I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is it’s true. The Force, the Jedi. All of it. It’s all true.” In The Mandalorian, the characters are completely baffled by the Force. The Child frequently uses the Force to help the heroes of the series, but they comment about how they’ve never seen anything like this. Greef Karga even refers to it as “the magic hand thing.” GRASSROOTS CHRISTIANITY In contemporary Christian culture, there has been an emergence of grassrootsled ministries. This shift differs from the traditionally hierarchical ecclesial practices of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Even in Protestant churches there is, historically, an ordered hierarchy for leading churches and denominations. The United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Churches, the United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ, collectively called “the mainline American Protestant churches,” began in many different ways and yet have all come to some form of hierarchical polity. For instance, Baptists and Methodists both have their foundation in evangelical personal faith conversion growth, a concept anathema to the traditional Catholic and Orthodox understandings of faith. Despite these unique roots, both denominations have become globally recognized institutions with large-scale conventions, committees, and associated institutions. Bottom-up grassroots movements are not new ideas. The Cambridge Platform, a document written to defend the congregationalist model, appeared in 1648 and was the precursor to several American religious movements. Anabaptists, Quakers, and Congregationalists are just a few of the groups that moved away from what they saw as institutional governance. There was a rise in evangelical conversions, and thus evangelical leadership in America

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and the American South, in the years following the American Revolution. The evangelical revolution shaped the midwestern and southern states, where Protestantism is especially prevalent, for the next hundred years. The evangelical revolution was spearheaded by the Baptists and Methodists. Eventually, as with all institutions, the evangelical roots grew into hierarchical megadenominations. In recent years across the United States, mainline denominations have been struggling with their current state as large institutions in regard to their roots as small, individually focused groups of converts. As a result, they are at a crossroads in regard to leadership models that call for a return to their small, personal roots while still attempting to hold on to their national governance and connection. The evangelical grassroots beginnings and longings in these denominations are held in tension with the size and scope of their work around the country and the world. Within these megadenominations, a myriad of leadership models and practices are used. Two such widely read models depicting grassroots practices are Christine Pohl’s Living into Community and Grant Hagiya’s Spiritual Kaizen. Pohl and Hagiya both focus their leadership models on living as leadership and empowering and equipping the laity for leadership. The foci of the books are different but their premises are similar: that leadership based solely around a single person within the hierarchy is unsustainable and will ultimately crumble. There must be stories and leadership from within the community for the community to grow. Hagiya’s idea of Spiritual Kaizen is the idea that leadership is a lifelong journey of faith and learning.5 Throughout Evangelical Christianity, stories have been at the forefront— specifically, personal stories of God’s work in one’s life. The Gospels themselves are stories about Jesus and stories by Jesus about other individuals. At the beginning of the evangelical movement in America, stories of personal sin and salvation powered the mass conversion. Pohl discusses how shared community stories are a main factor leading to successful communities.6 Hagiya writes about the need to include the whole of the community in the story narrative.7 The shared community stories are inherently grassroots and demystify the church leadership precisely because they include the whole community rather than being told and controlled exclusively by the clergy person leading the congregation. Communities that value the whole community and are grassroots, bottom-up structures resist the traditions of their denominations being forced on them, they instead choose for themselves what their traditions will be and judge anew what traditions are healthy and good. These grassroots movements and the movement toward breaking from tradition parallels the actions of major characters within The Clone Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, and The Last Jedi. As a result of these paralleling narratives, the actions of the characters in these texts become justified

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and relatable to Christians who look to the media to understand their own behaviors and beliefs. LEADERS AND THE TRUTH One of the first elements of the grassroots Christianity movement is Pohl’s idea of the Truth-Filled Life.8 Pohl postulates that the best way for a Christian to live is to follow John 14:6, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Specifically, we “live truthfully as we fully embrace the purposes of God, experiences of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth guiding us into truth, and as we know Jesus, who is full of grace and truth.”9 In other words, striving to find truth in all things, seeing truth around us, and speaking truth to all. Pohl marks a distinction between having no filter or spouting harsh facts and pastorally striving to speak and act truthfully. She notes that often pastors are less able to admit or display any form of weakness to their congregations or superiors because of their fear of how they would be perceived. A major theme of both the Jedi and the Sith is that sinfulness derives from their lack of truthfulness. Anakin is seduced to the dark side through a tale about Darth Plagueis; Luke is tricked into fighting his father by being told Darth Vader killed his father. Leia Organa, on the other hand, insists on telling the truth to her followers, especially in the newest trilogy. In the original series, the Jedi are perceived as being the answer to the trouble in the galaxy. Leia has been sent to recruit Obi-Wan to the Rebellion because they have nowhere else to turn. In the prequels, we can see where such a belief comes from. Leia’s adopted father, Bail Organa, worked side-by-side with the Jedi throughout the Clone Wars to spread peace throughout the galaxy and was on the side of the Jedi after their annihilation by the newly minted Darth Vader. Bail is the one who encourages Leia to recruit Obi-Wan, as is implied in Rogue One. Bail Organa’s perception of the Jedi begins the Star Wars saga. However, the few Jedi that are left, ObiWan, Yoda, and eventually, Luke, consistently fail to be of any help to the Rebellion, gradually demonstrating to Leia that she does not need their help. In the new films, Leia, now General Organa, does not bother trying to recruit any Force-sensitive individuals or to look for Luke, who has abandoned the Resistance. Instead, Leia believes she has all she needs to resist the First Order and her own son, Kylo Ren, who has turned to the Dark Side. Leia is one of the few characters who lives a Truth-Filled Life. Leia does not believe in any superior hope to swoop in and save the galaxy. Instead, she knows that all she can do is make small changes and build up and train the next generation. There are no large imposing monikers we associate with Leia

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as opposed to Obi-Wan (You’re my only Hope), Luke (The Last Jedi), and Anakin (The Chosen One). Leia, despite her lineage, adopted pedigree, and education, leads the Resistance by seeking out those who can cause goodness to prevail by encouraging them to pursue their own goodness. She mentors Poe Dameron, a commander in the Resistance, and Vice-Admiral Holdo. We see her as a proactive leader within a small movement rather than a conceited royal demanding others act on her behalf. Even into death, Leia is not a large figure. She sacrifices herself when she sees that there is no other course of action for her. She dies peacefully with only R2D2 as a witness. Contrasting her death with her brother’s, Luke dies after Force projecting himself across the galaxy to hold off the entire might of the First Order. Leia only needs one person to see her death: Ben. Luke’s death was a spectacle while Leia’s was a tragedy. Despite the vast differences between the manner of these deaths, both resonate across the galaxy. Both leaders’ sacrifices hold the same weight. Much of Leia’s success hinges on her commitment to telling the truth. Specifically, she tells Poe why Holdo is fueling the transports. She knows that secrets will only lead to a divided community. Her community is where Leia derives her strength. She is a Princess of Alderaan and a General of the Resistance. The only time that Leia knowingly lies is when she tells Grand Moff Tarkin that the Rebel base is on Dantooine. Her lie does not produce any results different from what speaking truth would have produced: the destruction of her home planet and the extermination of most of her people. Another leader with a commitment to telling the truth is, surprisingly, Anakin Skywalker. The prequel trilogy—The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith—tell the story of how Anakin became Darth Vader. However, Anakin’s personality and motivations are more thoroughly investigated on The Clone Wars. On the series, Anakin has a very close relationship with the 501st Clone squadron assigned to him. Much of Anakin’s success during the Clone Wars is due to his relationship with these Clones. This strength is best exemplified through the one moment in the series when the 501st is no longer under Anakin’s control. In a season 4 story arc, Anakin is recalled to Coruscant and the squad is taken over by General Krell. Over the course of his story arc, Krell’s loyalties are aligned not with the Jedi, but with the Sith. He consistently lies to the Clones and hides his true motivations. In fact, Krell pits the Clones against each other, saying, in episode 4.10, “The Carnage of Krell,” “I will not be undermined by creatures bred in some laboratory!” He is out to destroy the Clones, because he thinks it will win him the favor of the Sith overlord, but also because he genuinely thinks he is better than the Clones. When two of Anakin’s most loyal Clones rebel against Krell, he summarily sentences them to death. It is only the efforts of the Clones themselves that prevent their death. The Clones are ordered into battle against a race that can change their

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appearance and are told that their enemy will take on the appearance of the Clones. However, it turns out that the army they are fighting are themselves Clones. Once this becomes clear, the Clones mutiny against Krell and end up executing him as a result. Krell’s logic is supported through his allegiance to the dark side of the Force and a disillusionment with Jedi ideals. However, the ideologies that Krell espouses are themselves in line with the Jedi—he is superior to those without the Force and they should unquestioningly obey him. Krell’s motivations align with the ways that established religion privileges their belief system over grassroots movements. Conversely, throughout the series, Anakin is given orders to take a base or apprehend a criminal, and so on, in a way that will endanger the lives of his Clones. He is unwilling to obey these orders and, instead, takes a more unconventional approach to the situation, always winning. Anakin will always privilege saving lives over defeating the Separatists. Anakin is a grassroots leader who leads in conjunction with his followers, listening to them and asking for their input. The idea of the Jedi as an organization who gains and controls power through manipulation and lies, as well as how this effort is not as successful as the community-organizing efforts of the Resistance, is manifest in the video games, Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel. These are role-playing video games that give the players the opportunities to play as Force-sensitive characters and navigate the process to become either a Jedi or a Sith. Each of these games features characters who are not all that they seem and deceptions by characters who are otherwise presented as “good” characters. Specifically the Jedi are responsible for erasing the memories of the player’s character in the hopes of turning them into a model Jedi, when they were actually a Sith master whom the Jedi were brainwashing through the efforts of Jedi Knight Bastila. The games themselves are centered wholly around the Jedi as liars. In contrast to Leia and Anakin’s truth-telling, we learn that Emperor Palpatine lies throughout the movies. The evidence of Rey’s parentage comes from Palpatine; he tells Kylo Ren who in turn tells Rey. The other evidence is, at best, circumstantial. Palpatine tells people what they want to hear, in order for them to join his side. He tells Anakin how to live forever, he tells Kylo Ren that his “nobody” nemesis is actually of a high force pedigree, and he tells Rey that he wanted her as a part of his family. The Jedi lie because they believe that they know what is best for everyone, the Sith lie because they think they can manipulate everyone. Leia and Anakin tell the truth because they believe that the needs of the individuals and the needs of the community are essential to living and leading. Lies divide the community and lies treat people as less than equal. However, beyond simply the Jedi as liars, these ideas all also center around the idea that the Jedi are privileged and know better how to lead than anyone

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else. The Jedi claim to be teachers and peacekeepers, but their ideologies and what they emphasize are more focused around an “our way or the highway” philosophy. SPIRITUAL KAIZEN The Jedi do not emphasize a lifelong teaching philosophy that is espoused by Leia. This idea is emphasized in Knights of the Old Republic and in Anakin’s growth in The Clone Wars. This idea is Spiritual Kaizen. Grant Hagiya takes the idea of Spiritual Kaizen from Japanese business models. The word roughly translated to English means “change” (kai) and “better” (zen), which the business model combines to mean “continuous improvement.”10 Specifically, the idea is a slow and steady improvement, as opposed to a single thing that can be done which will magically make a person into a leader. Spiritual Kaizen is simply applying the business model to one’s spiritual leadership journey. Hagiya says that he incorporates this into his life by doing one of the following everyday: learning something new, incorporating a new practice, or developing a new skill set.11 Another way of looking at Spiritual Kaizen is through John Wesley’s ideas of sanctification and perfection. Wesley believed that perfection was attainable, as evidenced by Jesus being perfect, and that the process by which we move toward perfection was called sanctification. Therefore, Wesley taught that we must strive to be more perfect, that is, grow in grace, knowledge, and love every day. Hagiya has taken Wesley’s sanctification and applied it to a leadership model for modern clergy. Leia’s relationship with Poe is representative of Spiritual Kaizen. Upon his introduction in The Force Awakens, Poe quickly became a fan favorite as a result of his charming demeanor, his unfailing belief in the Resistance, and his go-get-’em attitude. However, in the opening moments of The Last Jedi, Poe defies Leia’s orders to attack a First Order dreadnaught and, as a result, catastrophically destroys the Resistance’s entire bombing fleet. He’s thrilled to have also destroyed the dreadnaught. His enthusiasm is met with a slap in the face and a demotion from Leia. He spends the rest of the film undermining the leadership of the Resistance, which again has catastrophic results. Poe consistently believes he is in the right, even as everyone around him is dying as a result of his actions. He is not perfect. However, Leia keeps Poe by her side. Additionally, after he attempts to mutiny and is rendered unconscious, Admiral Holdo says of Poe, “That one’s a troublemaker. I like him.” Both Leia and Holdo recognize the potential in Poe to become the next leader of the Resistance and to take Leia’s place. Leia has found that the key to leading is knowing how to inspire your followers. In 1902, Finley Peter Dunne wrote that “newspapers comforts th’ afflicted,

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afflicts th’ comfortable.” This sentiment has been adapted to be about Christianity, most notably by Garrison Keillor on the Gospel12 and Bishop Will Willimon on Preaching.13 Dunne’s turn of phrase simply is a succinct way of speaking about adaptive leadership models, especially when it comes to the truth-telling process. Poe Dameron is a troublemaker, he is good at afflicting the comfortable. Leia sees in him the potential to be the next leader of the Resistance and so reins him in and teaches him to comfort the afflicted, to take care of their small, dying community. Leia is the strain that remains consistent across the entire series, through her adoptive father Bail Organa. Although Leia has Force powers, she only uses them when her life, or the life of someone else, is at stake. Leia would much prefer to use strategies and hope to triumph. She believes in the people and knows that when the chips are down, there will always be someone there to help. She has primed Poe for this role, but she also understands that there is a new generation of Force-sensitive children on the rise. Indeed, once Luke is gone, in The Rise of Skywalker, Leia takes over training Rey, because she sees Rey’s “spirit,” as Luke’s ghost later informs us. Leia understands how to tap into the potential of the new generation and form them into future leaders. And she does not believe that Luke is vital to raising that generation. Luke has turned his back on the Force, as a direct result of his learning more about how his “religion” actually works. Luke Skywalker is the main character of the original trilogy, and his original character arc is one of growing from a boy into a Jedi Master. In The Last Jedi, Luke is grappling with the very issues just discussed with regard to Leia. Luke was trained in the traditions of the Jedi. His two masters, Obi-Wan and Yoda, persisted in telling him lies about his parentage and his background. Only upon his deathbed is Yoda willing to reveal truths to Luke. Luke is a Jedi Master, so upholds the values of the Jedi—including the lies. That being said, Luke suffers from the same “weakness” his father did—he loves other people too much. Luke turns away from his training in The Empire Strikes Back to save Leia, Han, and Chewbacca. He is determined to bring Darth Vader back to the Light, not to destroy him. However, his defeat at the hands of Kylo Ren has made Luke rethink everything he has been taught and has taught to his own students. At the core of Spiritual Kaizen is the idea that those in leadership are not better than those that they lead. In Knight of the Old Republic II, if the player has played in such a fashion that they would be considered a light-side Force user, the Jedi Masters will rally together in order to kill the player, fearing that their severing of their force connection would be the basis for the next generation of Sith Lords. The events in both games take place approximately 4,000 years before the movies. Despite their differing epochs, the Jedi arrogance exists to their core. The Jedi Masters, Bastila, and General Krell all believed themselves better than the average person and believed that their method of

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leadership was the best option. As seen in Hagiya’s Spiritual Kaizen, a leader is not better than those whom they lead; in fact, Hagiya points toward the Servant Leader model to uplift and better the congregation and other staff persons not just as a means to be a better leader, but as an end unto itself.14 Hagiya outlines that one of the three foundations upon which spiritual leaders need to build is Emotional Intelligence.15 Emotional Intelligence is the development and maintaining of formal and informal relationships. Hagiya makes the distinction that building relationships is not simply a networking tool for leaders, but it is part of what it means to “feed my sheep” and “make disciples.” We are to build relationships and develop high emotional intelligence, both internally and externally, so that those relationships will flourish and make both sides of the relationship better for having formed it. One aspect of high emotional intelligence in relational community building is to understand when the community needs the leader’s hands-on expertise and when they can lead themselves. Hagiya points to the hands-on vs. hands-off distinction as a difference between a pastoral congregation (worship attendance ~150) and a programmatic congregation (worship attendance ~250). In other words, the larger a community is, the more leaders must rise up. Luke and Anakin both question the traditional leadership style and the “hubris” of the Jedi. Anakin, as the Chosen One, cannot help but believe himself to be “better.” Repeatedly throughout the franchise, Anakin is referred to as arrogant, usually by Jedi Masters. As demonstrated in The Clone Wars, Anakin’s arrogance is derived from the knowledge that his powers far outstrip his colleagues, and from a deep-seated love for other people and desire to do right. What the other Jedi perceive as arrogance is actually Anakin pushing against the strictures the Jedi Order have imposed upon him. Anakin firmly believes that his strength comes from his love and attachment to his mother, Padme, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, among others and that his powers should be used to help these people. Anakin’s status as the Chosen One is at the heart of his arrogance, as is his childhood on Tatooine. In Episode 3.15, “Overlords,” Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka go to a distant planet to respond to a 2,000-year-old Jedi distress call. Upon arriving on the planet, the trio are informed that the planet itself is an essence of the Force and the three residents of the planet—Father, Son, and Daughter—maintain the balance of the Force in the galaxy. Father is dying and calls upon Anakin to take up his role as the Chosen One by taking up his burden of maintaining that balance. Anakin refuses to do so, but when he is unable to leave the planet, he puts into motion a series of events that solidify his position as the Chosen One. At the end of the three-episode arc, the three Jedis’ memories are erased, but balance has, apparently, been returned to the galaxy.

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The Mortis arc demonstrates both that Anakin is the Chosen One and the depth of his powers. He is able to overcome all the tests from both the Dark and the Light sides of the Force to maintain balance. Anakin is very powerful with the Force. But because he was born on a distant, Outer Rim planet, his powers remained undiscovered by the Jedi until Qui-Gon Jinn happened to encounter him. That being said, in the first three episodes of season 2, the main characters are on the hunt for Holocron—essentially a computer drive— that has been stolen from the Jedi vaults which contains the names of every Force-sensitive child across the galaxy. The Jedi, by some means, keep track of all the people who are Force sensitive and, presumably, recruit them into the Order. They then, similar to seminaries run by mainline Christian denominations, perpetuate the idea that they are the only “correct” path to using the Force, thereby suppressing new ideas and questions. However, the fact that no one noticed Anakin Skywalker— who has a higher midichlorian count than any previous Jedi—implies that the list is not exhaustive. What excludes an individual from the Jedi’s notice? Anakin is neglected, presumably, because of his distance from Coruscant and his life in slavery. Who else has been neglected? What privileges an individual to be allowed into the Order? The Jedi seem to have one set way of approaching the Force, much as most Christian institutions approach calls to ministry. Anakin Skywalker defies that approach. Luke openly questions this approach in The Last Jedi in the monologue that opens this chapter. He also does so by teaching Rey about the Jedi through a more democratic leadership style and through his relationship with Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren is actually Ben Solo, son of Leia and Han, and nephew to Luke. Luke senses darkness in Ben and, upon realizing this, goes to Ben when he sleeps, intent on killing him and wiping out the Darkness. However, when he looks upon Ben, he does not see the future Kylo Ren; instead, he only sees the boy he has raised since childhood, his nephew, and he is incapable of following through with the murder. Luke then cuts himself off from the Force and withdraws from society. Rey hunts him down and demands that he teach her everything. Luke then adopts, perhaps, a different strategy toward teaching. He talks to her about the Force using democratic language. When Obi-Wan first teaches Luke about the Force, he says, “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power.” Similarly, Yoda says, “a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force.” When talking to Rey, she expresses a similar idea, that the Force gives the Jedi their powers; Luke responds, “The force is not a power you have . . . it’s the energy between all things. That Force does not belong to the Jedi.” Luke sees the Force as a power for the people, not for the Jedi. While the other two Jedi Masters are conveying much the same idea, their emphasis is on the Jedi, Luke’s is on the Force as the most important aspect.

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ANYONE AS LEADERS This emphasis on the Force and not the Jedi, as well as the questions that are raised in The Clone Wars, lead us to the final way that grassroots Christianity manifests in Star Wars and that is through the idea that everyone can become a leader.16 The more-community-origins idea of leadership manifests primarily in Rey, but we can also see this beginning in Luke’s characterization. Rey and Luke have several personality and background parallels. Primarily, they both come from basically nowhere, although both lineages are historically grounded in the Jedi tradition. Rey’s background has been a question since the opening moments of The Force Awakens. She is a child who was abandoned on an outer rim planet called Jakku and left to survive alone. In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren reveals that her parents are “junk traders” and, basically, “nothing.” The Rise of Skywalker complicates this history by divulging Rey’s true parentage: she is the alleged granddaughter of former emperor and Sith Lord Sheev Palpatine. However, as Rey turns her back on her parentage and decides to defeat Palpatine once and for all, all Palpatine reminds her of is her “nothingness.” He says, “You are nothing! A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me! I am all the Sith!” Rey may be a Palpatine, but as Luke observes earlier in the film, “some things are stronger than blood.” Luke was also raised on an outer rim planet, the same one his father was— Tatooine. He was raised by his aunt and uncle, who were moisture farmers. The only thing that makes Luke special is that his father was Darth Vader, but Anakin also came from nothing, quite literally. Neither Luke nor Rey had any sense of the Force when their stories began. It is only when they are put in extraordinary circumstances do their powers come through. Luke first uses the Force when he is a part of the Rebel forces attacking the Death Star. Rey uses hers when she has been captured and held by the First Order. The Last Jedi is focused very heavily on the idea that people from nothing and nowhere are Force sensitive and more than capable of changing the world. In the final moments of the film, the slave children on Canto Bight, who previously aided Finn and Rose in their escape from the planet, are discussing the Resistance. When the conversation ends, one boy steps out of the room and begins to sweep. But he summons the broom to his side using the Force. He uses the Force, as though it is perfectly normal for him to do so. This shifts the Force away from the specialized group of privileged individuals toward something that anyone and everyone can use. The final moments of The Last Jedi speak to that shift. Surprisingly, this same story idea is generated in The Clone Wars and Count Dooku. In episode 3.13, “Monster,” Count Dooku goes to the Nightsisters, asking them to find him a new apprentice. When Dooku asks for

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a new apprentice, he does not give any parameters as to what that apprentice should be like. The Nightsisters go to the far side of the planet to recruit one. They put the men through a series of trials to test their strength and cunning. At no point do they ask or test anyone’s Force sensitivity. Neither does Dooku when he meets his new apprentice. What matters is that Savage Opress is a fierce warrior, not that he’s particularly strong in the Force. Dooku works with Savage on using the Force, but never questions that he could. Dooku’s sense of Savage’s powers implies that the Sith do not feel the same privilege that the Jedi do over who is allowed to have the Force. The Jedi Masters want to reject eleven-year-old Anakin when he appears on the scene for being too old to train in the Force. Savage Opress is a fully grown man when he is recruited. And yet he is able to wield the Force, even after never exhibiting any abilities, after being trained in how to do it. CONCLUSION In The Last Jedi, Finn tries to save the day by blowing up a cannon, taking himself along with it. Rose saves him at the last minute. He questions this choice; she responds, “I saved you, dummy. That’s how we’re going to win, by saving what we love.” The opening tagline of the first episode of The Clone Wars reads, “Great leaders inspire greatness in others.” In Knight of the Old Republic II, Atton Rand is revealed to have been trained as a Jedi-Killer by the Sith because of the indifference of the Jedi Council to the deaths they had caused. Eventually he sees that his assassinating and converting of Jedi was leading to the same level of evil which he admits to the player, “The Jedi. The Sith. You don’t get it, do you? To the Galaxy, they’re the same thing: Men and women with too much power, squabbling over religion, while the rest of us burn!” This theme of love and leadership and breaking down the myth of the Jedi pervades the Star Wars texts of the twenty-first century. We have shown how moments across The Clone Wars, The Knights of the Old Republic, and The Last Jedi demonstrate a move away from the Jedi as the ruling religion of the Galaxy and toward a community-lead, grassroots movement. We have also demonstrated how these ideas parallel the realworld ideals of modern Christianity, as discussed in the works of Pohl and Hagiya. These parallels make the Star Wars stories relatable, and encourage discourse about the role that organized, traditional religion plays in society. In The Force Awakens, Finn and Rey speak about the Force as though it is a myth; in The Last Jedi, the phrase “May the Force be with us” continues to be used as a mantra and a rallying cry for the Rebellion. At the very beginning of the franchise, Obi-Wan Kenobi describes the Force as “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy

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together.” Even all these years later, the Force continues to do that, inspiring both its adherents and its skeptics. The Force is faith, and the representation of that faith is important. In the twenty-first century, faith is something everyone can have, something that everyone can talk about, and something that everyone can lead others through. NOTES 1. Allnutt, The Force of Star Wars. 2. Wetmore, The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films, 80. 3. Lyden, “Whose Film Is It, Anyway?” 6. 4. Schultes, “Any Gods Out There? Perceptions of Religion from Star Wars and Star Trek,” 25. 5. Hagiya, Spiritual Kaizen, 37. 6. Pohl, Living into Community. 7. Hagiya, Spiritual Kaizen. 8. Pohl, Living into Community, 111. 9. Pohl, 114. 10. Hagiya, Spiritual Kaizen, 4. 11. Hagiya, 5. 12. Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days. 13. Willimon, Upgrading Leadership in Churches. 14. Hagiya, Spiritual Kaizen, 73. 15. Hagiya, 53. 16. Hagiya.

WORKS CITED Allnutt, Frank. The Force of Star Wars. Bible Voice, 1977. Hagiya, Grant. Spiritual Kaizen. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013. Keillor, Garrison. Lake Wobegon Days. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Lyden, J. C. “Whose Film Is It, Anyway? Canonicity and Authority in Star Wars Fandom.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 3 (September 1, 2012): 775–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfs037. Pohl, Christine D. Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2012. Schultes, John S. “Any Gods Out There? Perceptions of Religion from Star Wars and Star Trek.” Journal of Religion and Film vol.7, no.2 (2003): 46–94. Wetmore, Kevin J. The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.

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Willimon, William. Upgrading Leadership in Churches. Interview by Hugh Ballou, February 7, 2018. https://synervisionleadership.org/upgrading-leadership-inchurches-interview-with-rev-dr-bishop-william-willimon/.

PART III

Political Theologies

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Subverting the Ancient Religion The Gray Ecclesiology of Ahsoka Tano and Old Man Luke Tim Posada

On Crossway, Brett McCracken outlines justifiable reasons to find a new church, first warning against any church that emphasizes “cultural relevance or social gospel initiatives above sound doctrine and biblical authority.”1 Meanwhile, Christianity Today’s Karl Vaters claims leaving a church “over hurt feelings” is not a valid concern.2 On the one side, social justice is considered an either/or dilemma, not an obligation of a Christian community. On the other, “hurt feelings” can easily become a euphemism for larger problems involving abuse and harassment of those who are different. Both cases soften the need for church reform, one claiming social justice is not a priority and the other possibly placing blame on the victim. Add to this “The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel,” a manifesto signed by conservative figures like John MacArthur, which adds another layer when it declares, “We reject ‘gay Christian’ as a legitimate biblical category.”3 I wonder if Vaters would validate a gay Christian’s decision to find a new church based on this statement, or if he would merely consider a church invalidating gay Christians a form of “hurt feelings.” Methodists faced this problem in 2019 when the denomination’s General Conference voted to implement harsher consequences for supporting LGBTQ+ clergy. In the aftermath, one bishop asked, “Can I stay in a repressive and oppressive church with integrity?”4 For LGBTQ+ Christians, the study of ecclesiology rarely acknowledges such a question. Other theological movements face isolation as well. As Christopher Demuth Rodkey notes, holding views counter to predominant Christian theology “forces a small 99

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group of radical thinkers to go underground and into hiding.”5 So Christians on the fringes hide, while others leave entirely. Revealing a dire situation, a 2014 Barna study reports only 20 percent of millennials attend church, while 35 percent “take an anti-church stance.”6 Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) premiered amid this backdrop, prompting John McAteer to note a similarity between the film and a growing number of “nones,” millennials who identify as “spiritual but not religious” in polling data.7 Pew Research more broadly defines “nones” as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular,”8 which includes the jaded Luke Skywalkers along with Force doubters more likely to say, “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side,” as Han Solo (Harrison Ford) does in A New Hope (1977). In a galaxy far, far away, a fringe group of Force wielders feel similar about institutional structures. Not dark or light, Gray Jedi present modern Christianity with a unique example of exodus from formal religion. These Force wielders often resist evil but do not comply with the rigid structure and politics of the Jedi Order. While never clearly or entirely considered Gray Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) provides a righteous indictment of the Jedi religion, and a former Jedi, Ahsoka Tano, leaves its ranks prior to Order 66, which marked all Jedi for death, thanks to a maniacal scheme by Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Both Luke and Ahsoka’s views on the Jedi religion and its formal places of worship resonate with current criticisms of Western evangelicalism. In particular, such criticism is given voice by those in the Exvangelical movement, a response to conservative Christian nationalism and contemporary Christianity’s history of “abuse and patriarchal exploitation of women,” says Chrissy Stroop, who continues: Exvangelicals, then, are by and large proponents of feminism, intersectionality, racial justice, and LGBTQ rights. We don’t seek a common metaphysics or (a) theology, but rather seek to build bridges between those of us who have left evangelicalism for no religion and those of us who have departed for healthy religion.9

Luke and Ahsoka follow a middle way, a term employed for Christians who wish to remain theologically, spiritually, and communally active but resist formal structures they consider corrupt, dogmatic, patriarchal, and theologically unsound. (The term middle way can often imply political centrism, but that does not influence the term’s usage here.) And so, Ahsoka leaves the Order because of its cozy working relationship with the Galactic Republic, blurring the lines between (Jedi) religion and state, while Luke criticizes the Jedi High Council for overconfidence—“hubris,” he calls it. The Council’s rigid ecclesiology results in clouded judgment, a familiar sentiment for Christian churches that confidently establish statements of purpose, officially

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support political candidates, or merely advocate what the Bible, a complex ancient text, clearly says about an array of topics. Together, the stories of Ahsoka and Luke propose a gray ecclesiology that acknowledges a religion’s complexities and contradictions. Amid such circumstances, clarity comes from discourse, transparency, and even exodus, not individual meditation and compliance. A GOOD BLASTER While the Jedi religion has been compared to Buddhism, I wish to consider it an analogy for Christianity. John C. Lyden undergoes a similar task, comparing the Force to God and Luke to a messianic figure, noting the role of both in “a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil.”10 Rather than understand Jedi Masters and Sith Lords as more generic categories of good and evil, however, what if both employ the same religion for good or evil purposes? In this analogy, the Force leads some to seek peace, balance, and internal harmony, while others tap into that same spiritual force for more nefarious goals. In this way, the Jedi Order represents the Force’s more altruistic side, always favoring peace but still willing to employ violent means if necessary, working alongside a ruling body (the Galactic Republic) to ensure harmony throughout the galaxy. This is a familiar challenge in American Christianity, considering the ongoing debate regarding the separation of church and state. Sith Lords, conversely, are best understood as extremists within the same religion, since they draw upon the Force as well. Compare this to Christianity. Stroop, an ardent critic of the Christian Right, is quick to condemn any progressive Christians who distance themselves from evangelical support for former President Donald Trump, because of his racist statements and systemic lying, by calling his supporters fake Christians. “There are no solid intellectual grounds for equating Trump support with ‘fake’ as opposed to ‘real’ Christianity,” Stroop writes. “Politically, such an approach may be cathartic. It may even be of some immediate tactical value in some engagements. But as the claim underlying this approach is patently false, I believe we will be better off in the long run without using it.”11 Progressive Christians who characterize racist, sexist, and homophobic Christians as fake miss an important lesson from Star Wars. The Sith do terrible things with the Force; the Jedi attempt to do good with the Force. The same Force belongs to both. “Good” Christians and “bad” Christians exist, and responsible Christians cannot reason away bad theology by merely ignoring its place under the Christian heading. The weaponization of Christian faith is an old concept, from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition to white Christian churches that distanced themselves

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from the Civil Rights Movement. Christians must acknowledge rather than ignore this history. Like the label fake news, simply calling something a fabrication does not erase its truth. Trump supporters are no more fake Christians than gay Christians are fake, based on this logic. If progressive Christians continue to call internal opponents fake they open themselves up to similar attacks. For example, Pulpit & Pen covered religion reporter Jonathan Merrit’s resignation from the Religion News Service with the headline, “Gay ‘Christian’ Journalist, Jonathan Merritt, Leaves RNS Amidst Contract Dispute.” Placing the word “Christian” in quotes here is an attempt to question the sincerity of Merrit’s faith, either because he might be “gay,” as the headline claims, or because he writes “leftist-slanted and progressive propaganda,” as the article states.12 Returning to Star Wars, referring to Sith and other villainous Force wielders as fake does not track. And claiming some folks are not truly Christian because they hold beliefs others consider scandalous, taboo, sacrilegious, contradictory, racist, sexist, and, broadly, unbiblical “is inaccurate from any empirical perspective,” as Stroop says. “In other words, what represents ‘true’ or ‘pure’ Christianity (or Islam or Judaism, etc.) can only be debated within the discourse of the religion in question, that discourse being inevitably multivalent, tension-ridden, and subject to reinterpretation and internal contestation.”13 I do not wish to be a Sith apologist but to provide one possible application of Star Wars to current events that both takes seriously the source material (the Star War universe) and the most prominent religion in the country that birthed Star Wars. In The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Yoda says the dark side is not more powerful but “more seductive,” and as the stories of Ahsoka Tano and an aged Luke Skywalker reveal, even heroes can fall prey to this seduction, which does not make them fake Jedi. In some cases, a lack of democratic structures—an ecclesiology based on hierarchy, either as a Jedi council of few not many or pastors given too much control—allows the dark side to win, even when every choice seems right. I CAN’T STAY HERE Ahsoka Tano, first introduced in The Clone Wars (2008–2014) as Anakin’s padawan, serves as a different kind of Gray Jedi. Throughout Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018) season 2, she enters alliances with unsavory figures like Maul, no longer a Sith Lord, knowing how unstable such unholy unions are. In the wake of the Jedi Order’s demise, gray moral areas are a necessity, and Ahsoka enters them filled with a conflict that began in the finale of Clone Wars season 5 when she is framed for a bombing and expelled from the Order

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without trial. Once Anakin helps clear her name, however, she declines the Order’s request that she return. “The Council didn’t trust me, so how can I trust myself?” Ahsoka says, later adding, “I can’t stay here any longer. Not now.” She remains an avid Force wielder, but her faith in the institution that raised her is gone, thanks to its betrayal, its decision to deem her necessary collateral damage in a political game. The Jedi Order is already involved in moral compromise by the start of The Phantom Menace (1999) when the Jedi serve as conflict resolvers for the Galactic Republic. Belief in a common goal (peace) clouds all. Something similar occurred in twentieth-century Christian history with the formation of the Religious Right, which brought together Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, and conservative Jews to champion certain moral issues.14 Most notably, the Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell, blurred the gap “between religious fundamentalists and the Republican Party.”15 The union between religion and state undid the Jedi Order, mutating its commitment to peace as Jedi became the Republic’s chief military leaders. Such mutations are easily on display in contemporary politics. For example, Wyoming state senator Lynn Hutchings, a Christian, theologically justifies her support for the death penalty with a shocking interpretation of the crucifixion. “If it wasn’t for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope,” she said.16 Hutchings molds her theology around her party’s interests, and in so doing, she can justify many more actions with the proper theological spin. Partisan definitions of morality are not new. In early film history, organizations like the Production Code (which would later become the MPAA) regulated content based on a very specific definition of morality. Alas, promoting content suitable for “a family audience” was actually “a means to control the content of films by having them cater to a white middle-class audience, the purpose being to use movies to recreate mythical consensus in American life to obscure racial, cultural and class conflicts that exist in reality.”17 Morality defined in this way is merely a tool for cultural dominance. Morgan Guyton comes to a similar conclusion when describing what occurs in hell houses, Halloween-season reenactments of sins like gay weddings and teen suicide meant to scare attendees into religious conversion. Guyton notes how these attractions never “involve anything that the creators . . . could possibly imagine themselves getting tangled up in.”18 Churches that use hell houses weaponize morality, never finding fault in their own pews. The Jedi know this trick well. CBR’s Thomas Groneman provides a list of the Jedi Order’s faulty actions, ranging from authoritarian governance to indoctrinating children. In particular, he says the Order became an accomplice in its own demise: “As the Jedi Order grew more corrupt, the ideas of power, security, and tradition became more important. By refusing to look inward at their organization’s own decadent way of life, they failed to take a stand for peace.”19

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Amid bad public theology and toxic Christianity, the Ahsoka approach (exodus) might be best, according to the Exvangelical movement. Following trauma and betrayal caused by the Council, Ahsoka leaves, but she does not remain in isolation, finding allies in the Rebel Alliance. As Stroop says, Exvangelicals encourage “healing through mutual understanding and the validation that comes from knowing we’re not alone. Leaving hardline faith communities can, after all, be extremely isolating.”20 Ahsoka avoids isolation by surrounding herself with a new community. Applying my analogy, consider the rebels allies beyond formal Christian borders. Many believe in the power of the Force, as the common phrase “May the Force be with you” makes clear, but their engagement with it is quite different, beyond formal borders. Within Christianity, Natalie K. Watson explores the prospect of a feminist ecclesiology, which necessarily ruptures formal borders: “A feminist reconsideration of ecclesiology has to take account of both institutional and parainstitutional discourses of women’s faith and spirituality.”21 This reimagines a “church for others” as a “church with others,” which prefers justice to charity and wholeness to male hierarchy, since all matter equally and are invited into community.22 Unlike the Religious Right, Ahsoka’s alliance with the rebels is not based on a compromising union between Jedi (church) and state but a desire to build a more whole galaxy in community, unencumbered by hierarchy. And by the Rebels series finale, she appears to have become the iconic Jedi sage in look as well, donning a staff and the cloak akin to Jedi masters. The Order might be gone, but she still finds a way to make peace with herself and help those around her. She embodies a third way not the Council’s muddied obligations to the state or the Sith’s selfish desire for conquest. Ahsoka is not the only one to find Force-friendly allies beyond the Jedi Temples. As the Star Wars franchise grew, new characters with unique abilities began to appear, from a Force-sensitive blind Guardian of the Whills, Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), in Rogue One (2016) to sage Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) in The Force Awakens (2015). As Luke says in Last Jedi, the “Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity.” If this is true, Ahsoka is one of the first to uncover a much broader Force ecclesiology, a gray ecclesiology that is more inclusive. If we take seriously how large the Christian kingdom can and should be, those deteriorating church numbers are not a sign that Hell will soon overflow. Perhaps, considering my analogy, popular Western Christian churches are too close to an Empire that is causing their own demise. As Rogue One reveals, the Empire builds the Death Star in secret, and once the Galactic Republic learns of its existence, the Emperor dissolves the Senate in A New Hope. Luke is entirely aware of this history, and he fears what could happen if the Jedi rise again and repeat the cycle.

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FAILURE, HYPOCRISY, HUBRIS Following an unthinkable act—a momentary temptation to kill young Ben Solo (Adam Driver) before he embraces the dark side completely and becomes Kylo Ren, the primary villain of the third Star Wars trilogy—Luke shuts out the Force. He might resonate with a Gray Jedi’s criticism of the Jedi Order, but the decision to suppress his powers (to remove a direct link to his religion) is not a Gray tactic. When Jedi-hopeful Rey (Daisy Ridley) locates the legendary Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi, the former master wishes to continue his solitude, though he eventually promises to teach her three lessons. His second lesson pointedly critiques the Jedi High Council: Now that they are extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris. . . . At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.

Luke’s criticism goes much deeper than merely blaming a corrupt Jedi, his father Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Instead, he chastises the system that failed the galaxy. This systemic condemnation resonates with Lauren F. Winner’s critique of Christian practices that become “deformed,” not merely through the actions of a few folks improperly employing them but because of “the practices themselves.”23 A practice can be deformed from the start since the Fall makes all things on earth imperfect: “Because nothing created is untouched by the Fall, Christians should not be surprised when lovely and good, potentially gracious Christian gestures are damaged, or when human beings deploy those Christian gestures in the perpetuation of damage.”24 Prophecy is a compelling example of this. Because Anakin is the Chosen One who will bring “balance” to the Force, he is allowed to join the Order, despite the Council’s initial reservations. Religious devotion dictates practice, even if red flags abound. For example, based on passages like Deuteronomy 30:3, evangelical eschatology tends to demand Jewish reunification in Israeli, opposing Palestine’s claim to the region. As one pastor told CNN, “Jerusalem has been the object of the affection of both Jews and Christians down through history and the touchstone of prophecy. But most importantly, God gave Jerusalem—and the rest of the Holy Land—to the Jewish people.”25 Employed in this way, prophecy, as a damaged gift, removes ethical considerations in service of dogmatic belief. Trust in prophecy would lead to a type of balance the Jedi Order never foresaw: balance in the Force resulting from mass genocide of the Jedi. But

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the training of young Anakin and other younglings is something entirely under the Order’s purview. For example, when young Anakin (Jake Lloyd) is first separated from his mother in Phantom Menace and presented to the Council, he lies about feeling fear. This concerns the Council, even though fear, psychologist Stephen R. Wester notes, would be a common reaction to leaving his mother.26 For that matter, the Code’s refusal of all emotions, including love, in favor of harmony, balance, and control is a naive practice that ignores the subjectivity of all beings; emotions are as natural as the Force. Not everyone has the centuries of experience Yoda enjoys. So the Jedi Code demands control of emotions—a problematic concept for children and adults—because loss of control is the path to the dark side. According to Jedi training, Force wielders only have two options: Jedi or Sith. Alas, Jedi employ the same contradiction as their enemy: speaking in absolutes. A humorous meme notes this contradiction. In two film stills from the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) on the fiery planet Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith (2005), Obi-Wan says, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” an actual line from the film. Anakin then responds in the meme, “That, itself, is an absolute.” Wester puts this another way: “The Star Wars sexology is replete with absolutes—good versus evil, light versus dark, technology versus nature, freedom versus oppression.”27 Jedi ignore the double standard in their theology, blinding themselves to how it might influence them unconsciously. Pete Ward notes a similar problem in churches that gradually adapt to an evolving congregation without noticing such changes. When this occurs, the church “mutates” in an unhealthy way, unaware of cultural forces now at work, dictating their priorities.28 Deformed church practices are not hard to identify, from the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal to the 2019 sex abuse charges against male church leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In 2019, the Houston Chronicle broke the story of 700 sexual abuse victims from more than 400 practitioners in the SBC. Rather than institute requested changes, like create a sex offender registry, SBC leadership claimed its “hands are tied” since each church functions independently, even though the SBC intervened in the past when churches supported “LGBTQ people, ordination of women, or more progressive interpretations of the Bible.”29 Anakin shows signs of psychological unbalance in Attack of the Clones (2002), yet his enablers believe in his exceptionality and help him move up the ranks; similarly, corrupt priests and pastors still have entire religious organizations willing to compromise for them too. On the SBC, Rachel Shield Gustafson believes male headship is the problem. “These systems say that male ‘headship’ offers protection,” she says. “And yet, victims are the ones encouraged to protect their abusers, the church’s ‘witness,’ or even God’s reputation by standing down and letting

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church leaders deal with the problem internally.”30 Some systems breed abuse, which aligns with Winner’s claim that all things, even Christian institutions, are affected by the Fall, becoming deformed. Luke’s criticism of the Jedi Order would chastise such Christian practices as well. The hubris of the Council, its confidence in its ability to understand the Force and the galaxy’s future, leads to its undoing. Similarly, individualized male headship relies on unchecked power, assuming someone—a man—has spiritual authority based on birth, not merit. Luke saw firsthand what occurs when a system can be undone by a few bad seeds, which makes the entire system flawed. Rather than rely on the joint wisdom of the community, the Council favors the wisdom of twelve masters. Even Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), in Phantom Menace, is deemed a radical who once “[defied] the Council” and has trouble “[following] the code,” his padawan Obi-Wan says. Christians who confidently claim they have sole access to a truth others do not—a point often thwarted in biblical passages when God speaks through those outside the chosen people, from inanimate objects (Exodus 3:1–17) to animals (2 Peter 2:16) to actual people (Joshua 2:1–7)—become seduced by hubris. As for the Council’s ability to learn a new trick, the final episodes of The Clone Wars: The Lost Missions (2014) reveal Qui-Gon’s fringe views actually allow the Jedi to progress to a new stage of enlightenment: becoming Force ghosts. The Council, far from all knowing, never predicts that a recluse, Gray-leaning Jedi would introduce the Order to the tools necessary for its members to communicate from the beyond. WHAT THEY GROW BEYOND Once Rey decides to leave Luke in Last Jedi, he faces a final emotional arc. Luckily, his old master Yoda appears to provide him a final piece of wisdom: “Heeded my words not did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm, but weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” The final lesson of Luke’s life is the burden of legacy, namely allowing the next generation to build and expand upon what came before. Luke is jaded, unwilling to see a future for anyone who desires to follow a similar path. He is wise, his criticism important, but he must allow the next generation of Jedi to make their own choices, freed from binding prophecies and bloodlines. According to McAteer, The Last Jedi “rejects the Star Wars prequel trilogy’s idea that there is a single messianic ‘Chosen One’ who must come from the Skywalker ‘bloodline.’”31 In place of a singular hero, the resistance is a collective (though this idea would be softened through story revisions in

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2019’s The Rise of Skywalker). The savior figure is quite alluring in Western popular culture, from superhero films to stories of rugged heroes who can think quickly to resolve unique conflicts. At the core of this concept is individualism, as Adam Possamai learns through his research on a rather unique religion: Jediism, a real-world Jedi religion. Possamai highlights how popular religions like Jediism are “individualized, and thus have more relevance to the self than to a community and/or congregation.”32 So while the original Star Wars trilogy depicts a government overthrow, so-called Jediists prefer “individualized spiritual training rather than collective political development.”33 Individualism is a problematic concept for Western culture that too easily blames the individual rather than the collective for social wrongs. Understood this way, individualism allows corrupt, deformed structures to continue unreformed. Our Empire is not an abstract idea of domination, the result of a few bad seeds mucking things up for everyone else. For Exvangelicals, the Empire represents the close ties between Christianity and sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry that fester within church walls. Exvangelicals took to social media, for example, when Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, assumed a position at a private Christian school with policies that suppress LGBTQ+ students. In response, Mike Pence claimed “attacking Christian education is deeply offensive.”34 Rather than respond to criticisms of the evangelical school’s policy, he framed the discussion as a religious freedom issue. Christians threatened by Exvangelicals likely see them as the villain, a modern-day Kylo Ren. “It’s time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels: let it all die,” Ren says of the old ways in Last Jedi, perhaps symbolically responding to contemporary matters as well. Alas, Exvangelicals and others dissatisfied with and traumatized Christian communities are only growing, and to see them as the villains is a stall tactic at best until the next generation completely grows beyond them, as Yoda would say. Otherwise, those who leave the church might be the only survivors of Christendom’s own Order 66. NOTES 1. Brett McCracken, “7 Good Reasons to Leave a Church,” Crossway, Sept. 19, 2017, https://www.crossway.org/articles/7-good-reasons-to-leave-a-church. 2. Karl Vaters, “7 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church,” Christianity Today, Dec. 27, 2015, https://www.christianitytoday.com/karl-vaters/2015/december/7-badreasons-to-leave-your-church.html?paging=off. 3. “The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel,” https:// statementonsocialjustice.com.

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4. Hailey Branson-Potts, “As United Methodist Leaders Tighten LGBTQ Ban, Churches Struggle with Path Forward,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-methodist-church-lgbtq-20190319story.html. 5. Christopher Demuth Rodkey, “Extraordinary Ecclesiology: Radical Theology in Practice,” in Resurrecting the Death of God: The Origins, Influence, and Return of Radical Theology, ed. Daniel J. Peterson, G. Michael Zbaraschuk, and Thomas J. J. Altizer (New York: State University of New York Press, 2014), 126. 6. Barna Group, Americans Divided on the Importance of Church, March 24, 2014, https://www.barna.com/research/americans-dividedon-the-importance-of-church/#.V-hxhLVy6FD. 7. John McAteer, “The Last Jedi: A Star Wars Movie for the Era of ‘the Nones,’” CRI, Jan. 2, 2018, https://www.equip.org/article/last-jedi-star-wars-movie-era-nones. 8. Becka A. Alper, “Why America’s ‘Nones’ Don’t Identify with a Religion,” Fact Tank, Aug. 8, 2018, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/08/ why-americas-nones-dont-identify-with-a-religion. 9. Chrissy Stroop, “5 Key Moments from the Year of the ‘Exvangelicals,’” Rewire.News, Dec. 26, 2018, https://rewire.news/ religion-dispatches/2018/12/26/5-key-moments-from-the-year-of-the-exvangelicals. 10. John C. Lyden, “The Apocalyptic Cosmology of Star Wars,” Journal of Religion & Film 4, no. 1 (2000), https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol4/iss1/2. 11. Chrissy Stroop, “About Those Trump Voters for God? Stop Calling Them ‘Fake Christians,’” Not Your Mission Field, May 3, 2017, https://cstroop.com/2017/05/03/ about-those-trump-voters-for-god-stop-calling-them-fake-christians. 12. “Gay ‘Christian’ Journalist, Jonathan Merritt, Leaves RNS amidst Contract Dispute,” Pulpit & Pen, July 9, 2018, https://pulpitandpen.org/2018/07/09/ gay-christian-journalist-jonathan-merritt-leaves-rns-amidst-contract-dispute. 13. Stroop, “About Those Trump Voters.” 14. David Whitten Smith and Elizabeth Geraldine Burr, Understanding World Religions: A Road Map for Justice and Peace, 2nd ed. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 129. 15. Jim Wallis, “Falwell’s Legacy,” Sojourners, July 2007, 5. 16. Nick Reynolds, “Wyoming Senate Defeats Death Penalty Repeal Bill,” Casper Star Tribune, Feb. 14, 2019, https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-andpolitics/wyoming-senate-defeats-death-penalty-repeal-bill/article_0603777b-40595101-ab92-3731036c4478.html. 17. William D. Romanowski, Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996), 159. 18. Morgan Guyton, How Jesus Saves the World from Us: 12 Antidotes to Toxic Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 60. 19. Thomas Groneman, “Blight Side of the Force: The 15 Most Evil Things about the Jedi Order,” CBR, June 6, 2017, https://www.cbr.com/most-evil-things-about-jedi-order. 20. Stroop, “5 Key Moments.” 21. Natalie K. Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996), 46.

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22. Watson, 47. 23. Lauren F. Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 14. 24. Winner, 4. 25. David Burke, “Why Evangelicals Are ‘Ecstatic’ about Trump’s Jerusalem Move,” CNN, Dec. 6, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/americanevangelicals-jerusalem/index.html. 26. Stephen R. Wester, “The Circle Is Now Complete: Anakin Skywalker, Relationships, and the Psychology of Men (Part II),” PsycCRITIQUES 50, no. 40 (2005). 27. Wester. 28. Pete Ward, Liquid Church (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002), 25–26. 29. Jonathan Merritt, “The Lessons Southern Baptists Need to Learn,” The Atlantic, Feb. 20, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/ baptists-can-learn-catholic-sex-abuse-scandal/583111. 30. Rachel Shield Gustafson, “The Poisonous Fruit of Bad Theology: A Response to Abuse in the SBC,” CBE International, Feb. 13, 2019, https://www.cbeinternational. org/blogs/poisonous-fruit-bad-theology-response-abuse-sbc. 31. McAteer. 32. Adam Possamai, “Gramsci, Jediism, the Standardization of Popular Religion and the State,” in Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology, ed. Jack Barbalet, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S. Turner (London: Anthem Press, 2011), 247. 33. Ibid., 248. 34. Morgan Gstalter, “Pence to Critics of Wife’s New Job: ‘Attacking Christian Education is Deeply Offensive,’” MSN, Jan. 1, 2019, h t t p s : / / w w w. m s n . c o m / e n - u s / n e w s / p o l i t i c s / p e n c e - t o - c r i t i c s - o f wifes-new-job-attacking-christian-education-is-deeply-offensive/ ar-BBSorbB.

WORKS CITED Alper, Becka A. “Why America’s ‘Nones’ Don’t Identify with a Religion.” Fact Tank, Aug. 8, 2018. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/08/ why-americas-nones-dont-identify-with-a-religion. Barna Group. Americans Divided on the Importance of Church. March 24, 2014. https://www.barna.com/research/americans-dividedon-the-importance-of-church/#.V-hxhLVy6FD. Branson-Potts, Hailey. “As United Methodist Leaders Tighten LGBTQ Ban, Churches Struggle with Path Forward.” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2019, https://www. latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-methodist-church-lgbtq-20190319-story.html. Burke, David. “Why Evangelicals Are ‘Ecstatic’ about Trump’s Jerusalem Move.” CNN, Dec. 6, 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/americanevangelicals-jerusalem/index.html.

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“Gay ‘Christian’ Journalist, Jonathan Merritt, Leaves RNS amidst Contract Dispute.” Pulpit & Pen, July 9, 2018. https://pulpitandpen.org/2018/07/09/ gay-christian-journalist-jonathan-merritt-leaves-rns-amidst-contract-dispute. Groneman, Thomas. “Blight Side of the Force: The 15 Most Evil Things about the Jedi Order.” CBR, June 6, 2017. https://www.cbr.com/most-evil-things-about-jedi-order. Gstalter, Morgan. “Pence to Critics of Wife’s New Job: ‘Attacking Christian Education is Deeply Offensive.’” MSN, Jan. 1, 2019. h t t p s : / / w w w. m s n . c o m / e n - u s / n e w s / p o l i t i c s / p e n c e - t o - c r i t i c s - o f w i f e s - n e w - j o b - a t t a c k i n g - c h r i s t i a n - e d u c a t i o n - i s - d e e p l y - o ff e n s i v e / ar-BBSorbB. Gustafson, Rachel Shield. “The Poisonous Fruit of Bad Theology: A Response to Abuse in the SBC.” CBE International, Feb. 13, 2019. https://www.cbeinternational. org/blogs/poisonous-fruit-bad-theology-response-abuse-sbc. Guyton, Morgan. How Jesus Saves the World from Us: 12 Antidotes to Toxic Christianity. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. Lyden, John C. “The Apocalyptic Cosmology of Star Wars.” Journal of Religion & Film 4, no. 1 (2000). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol4/iss1/2. McAteer, John. “The Last Jedi: A Star Wars Movie for the Era of ‘the Nones.’” CRI, Jan. 2, 2018. https://www.equip.org/article/last-jedi-star-wars-movie-era-nones. McCracken, Brett. “7 Good Reasons to Leave a Church.” Crossway, Sept. 19, 2017. https://www.crossway.org/articles/7-good-reasons-to-leave-a-church. Merritt, Jonathan. “The Lessons Southern Baptists Need to Learn.” The Atlantic, Feb. 20, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/ baptists-can-learn-catholic-sex-abuse-scandal/583111. Possamai, Adam. “Gramsci, Jediism, the Standardization of Popular Religion and the State.” In Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology, edited by Jack Barbalet, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S. Turner, 245–262. London: Anthem Press, 2011. Reynolds, Nick. “Wyoming Senate Defeats Death Penalty Repeal Bill.” Casper Star Tribune, Feb. 14, 2019. https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/ wyoming-senate-defeats-death-penalty-repeal-bill/article_0603777b-4059-5101ab92-3731036c4478.html. Rodkey, Christopher Demuth. “Extraordinary Ecclesiology: Radical Theology in Practice.” In Resurrecting the Death of God: The Origins, Influence, and Return of Radical Theology, edited by Daniel J. Peterson, G. Michael Zbaraschuk, and Thomas J. J. Altizer, 125–140. New York: State University of New York Press, 2014. Romanowski, William D. Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996. Smith, David Whitten, and Elizabeth Geraldine Burr. Understanding World Religions: A Road Map for Justice and Peace, 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. “The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel,” https://statementonsocialjustice. com. Stroop, Chrissy. “5 Key Moments from the Year of the ‘Exvangelicals.’” Rewire.News, Dec. 26, 2018. https://rewire.news/

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religion-dispatches/2018/12/26/5-key-moments-from-the-year-of-theexvangelicals. ——. “About Those Trump Voters for God? Stop Calling them ‘Fake Christians.’” Not Your Mission Field, May 3, 2017. https://cstroop.com/2017/05/03/ about-those-trump-voters-for-god-stop-calling-them-fake-christians. Vaters, Karl. “7 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church.” Christianity Today, Dec. 27, 2015. https://www.christianitytoday.com/karl-vaters/2015/december/7-badreasons-to-leave-your-church.html?paging=off. Wallis, Jim. “Falwell’s Legacy.” Sojourners, July 2007, 5. Ward, Pete. Liquid Church. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002. Watson, Natalie K. Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996. Wester, Stephen R. “The Circle Is Now Complete: Anakin Skywalker, Relationships, and the Psychology of Men (Part II).” PsycCRITIQUES, 50, no. 40 (2005). Winner, Lauren F. The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.

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In Defense of the Nonviolent Luke A Confrontation between Niebuhrian Realism and Christian Nonviolence in The Last Jedi Andrew J. Kuzma

“You don’t need Luke Skywalker. You think what? I’m going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order? You think that I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy for no reason at all? Go away.” “Go away,” is how Jedi Master Luke Skywalker answers Rey’s pleas that he leave his self-imposed exile on Ahch-To. Rey quickly grows frustrated. At this point in The Last Jedi the Resistance stands on the brink of obliteration, and Luke, despite his great power, refuses to help. Thirty years previously, Luke would have shared her frustration. He made a similar plea to Han Solo to help the Rebellion attack the Death Star in A New Hope: “Why don’t you take a look around? You know what’s about to happen, what they’re up against. They could use a good pilot like you. You’re turning your back on them.” Rey accuses the older Luke of the same irresponsibility of which Luke once accused Han. He knows that he could help, but he chooses not to. What changed between Episode IV and VIII? Is this the same Luke who destroyed the Death Star and defeated the Sith? One of the criticisms leveled against The Last Jedi was this supposed change to Luke Skywalker’s character. In the original trilogy, he’s the greatest hero of the Rebellion. With blaster, X-Wing, and lightsaber he fights across three films to topple the Empire. By the time of the sequel trilogy, Luke seems to have become a curmudgeonly old hermit who has forsaken his responsibility to the galaxy. After hiding for the seventh film, he spends the eighth repeatedly refusing Rey’s request that he return to the Resistance to lead the 113

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fight against the First Order. Even in his confrontation with Kylo Ren, Luke does not actually fight—he doesn’t even leave Ahch-To. Does this refusal to use violence mark a fundamental shift in his character from galactic savior to irresponsible cynic? I contend that Luke’s nonviolence in The Last Jedi represents the natural progression of his practice of the Jedi religion. Indeed, the seeds of this nonviolence were planted all the way back in The Empire Strikes Back. We can explain the difference between young Luke and old Luke as a change in political theologies. While Rey and the young Luke follow a Niebuhrian realism, the older Luke practices a type of theological pacifism. First, I will show how Luke in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back begins his journey following a form of Niebuhr’s realism. While he endeavors to become a Jedi, he also assumes that it is always necessary to use violence to oppose evil. Rey believes in a similar form of realism, which is why she finds Luke so frustrating. From this perspective, his refusal to confront the First Order is politically irresponsible. Second, I will appeal to the work of Stanley Hauerwas to show that Luke’s refusal to kill Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi signifies his rejection of Niebuhrian realism and his adoption of a form of theological pacifism. Indeed, Luke specifically connects his refusal to use violence with his identity as a Jedi. His complete refusal to fight in The Last Jedi, accordingly, marks the culmination of this nonviolence. I conclude that far from a change in his character, Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi displays the mature practice of the nonviolence that he is taught in The Empire Strikes Back, and finally embraces in Return of the Jedi. MORAL JEDI, IMMORAL REBELLION: REINHOLD NIEBUHR’S POLITICALLY RESPONSIBLE VIOLENCE Moral conflict in the Star Wars universe is not murky. Yes, some characters switch sides, betray their friends, or occupy a “gray” area between light and dark. Rogue One introduces the idea that the Rebellion was not entirely morally pure. The Clone Wars TV series shows the Jedi order, at times, making compromises in the name of political efficacy. Despite these instances of moral ambiguity, for the most part it is always easy to tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” In Star Wars the conflict between good and evil (or light and dark) almost always plays out as a literal conflict. If the Rebels win, then good wins. If the Empire wins, then evil wins. So of course the use of violence is taken for granted. We do not question the rightness of the Rebellion destroying two Death Stars or the Resistance blowing up Starkiller Base. There is no hand wringing over collateral damage or noncombatant immunity; the Empire and the First Order are evil and

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should be destroyed. So when Han refuses to take part in the attack on the first Death Star, he is refusing to oppose evil. Luke spells out this selfishness plainly: “Take care of yourself Han. I guess that’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?” Likewise, when the older Luke refuses to help the Resistance, Rey demands an explanation: “Leia sent me here with hope. If she was wrong, she deserves to know why. We all do.” Both young Luke and Rey assume that violence is not only the right course of action, but also the only right course of action. Refusing to use it is a tacit acceptance of evil. There is no Switzerland in a galaxy far, far away. Reinhold Niebuhr can help us to flesh out these political theologies. Opposing what he saw as the naïve optimism and idealism of the Social Gospel movement, Niebuhr developed a position called “Christian realism.” What made this political theology “realism” was that it takes a hard, honest look at human nature and then asks what Christians can actually accomplish in the world. (Not as much as some would hope, it turns out.) In Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr argues that politics is inherently and inevitably violent. He points out, as the title of the book suggests, that there is a difference in the way that individuals and groups behave. As individuals, we can use reason or religion to shape our attitudes and behaviors. We can progress beyond egoism toward the highest ideal of “unselfishness.”1 Some of the best parts of human life—love, forgiveness, and mutuality in intimate relationships—rely on the ability of one to deny the self.2 Individuals, in short, can be ethical. Social behavior, on the other hand, tends to be governed by “self-interest and collective egoism” and violent conflict between groups is an “inevitability.”3 Can societies improve? Maybe. But Niebuhr would point out that we should recall human history and the limitations of human nature. It is hard enough for individuals to be ethical. How much more difficult is it for a society where “there is less reason to guide and check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others”?4 How can society be moral when it lacks all the things necessary for moral improvement? While individuals can be ethical, societies, at their best, can only be “political.”5 Politics is inherently violent because all social cooperation, says Niebuhr, “requires a measure of coercion.”6 Individual human beings can be ethical, they can achieve that ideal of unselfishness, but few actually reach this goal. Even if they do, they only have control over how they, as individuals, interact with other individuals. But the only way to bind together a large number of self-interested, egoistic individuals is through power, force, or threat (which might not be physically violent, but is still coercive; e.g., excommunication or banishment). Violence creates order. Even just societies are maintained by power. But when power meets power, conflict ensues.7 Niebuhr describes

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peace as that precarious position between “the Scylla of despotism and the Charybdis of anarchy.”8 Is it possible to achieve? Yes. Is it possible to maintain forever? Realistically, no. The most society can hope to achieve is justice (not peace) teetering on that precarious point.9 Niebuhr wants to correct what he sees as the naïve belief that societies can be just as moral as individuals. “Every effort,” he points out, “to transfer a pure morality of disinterestedness to group relations has resulted in failure.”10 If we truly want to create justice and maintain peace, then we must use methods that work in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. Niebuhr certainly does not view the world in the binary terms that Star Wars presents it. Societies are not wholly good or evil. It is this sort of simplistic dualism that he was trying to oppose. For Niebuhr, every society uses coercion because every society is touched by sin. He insists upon recognizing this inevitability so that we can better guide the uses of coercion. For example, “A war for the emancipation of a nation . . . is thus placed in a different moral category from the use of power for the perpetuation of imperial rule.”11 While Niebuhr would say that both the Rebellion and the Empire are coercive and sinful, he would not say that they are morally the same. The Rebellion aims for justice. The Empire aims for domination. Both resort to war, but only one is morally justified. In the real world, things are not usually so clear-cut. Nevertheless, Niebuhr would agree with the gist of Maz Kanata’s summation of galactic politics in The Force Awakens: “Through the ages, I’ve seen evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First Order. Their shadow is spreading across the galaxy. We must face them. Fight them! All of us.” Violence, used for the right reasons, is a moral obligation. Here, then, is where Niebuhr helps us to understand Luke and Rey. Neither ever feels the need to justify the use of violence itself. When Luke chastises Han in A New Hope, it is enough to know that the Empire is evil to see why Han is wrong. Rey, similarly, is confounded when Luke flings his long-lost lightsaber over his shoulder. The First Order is evil. Luke knows it. So why won’t he fight? Luke, after all, assumes the efficacy of violence throughout A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. He has no compunctions about blasting stormtroopers or blowing up the fully-manned Death Star. In The Empire Strikes Back he is still committed to the use of violence. On Dagobah, when he is about to enter the cave of evil, Yoda tells him: “Your weapons. You will not need them.” Luke, undeterred, fastens on his blaster and lightsaber. (Although his refusal to rule out violence here might be more about self-defense than politics). It does reveal, nonetheless, just how much faith Luke puts in violence. He won’t give up his trust in it, even when his 900-year old Jedi master tells him to. After all, the Rebellion is built upon the assumption that

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war is necessary to restore peace and justice to the galaxy. How can Luke question that? We should note that Niebuhr builds on a long tradition of Christians justifying violence. He explicitly cites Augustine as foundational for a realistic approach to politics.12 Any number of just war theologies could explain the young Luke, Rey, or the Rebel Alliance. But Niebuhr’s rejection of pacifism is particularly helpful for understanding Rey’s frustration with Luke in The Last Jedi. In “Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist,” Niebuhr rejects pacifism as politically irresponsible. Some pacifists insist that “if only men loved one another, all the complex, and sometimes horrible, realities of the political order could be dispensed with.”13 Niebuhr has no time for these fairy tales. They ignore sin and human nature. These “heretical” pacifists would have us believe, he notes, that “if Britain had only been fortunate enough to have produced 30 percent instead of 2 percent of conscientious objectors . . . Hitler’s heart would have been softened.”14 This attitude is self-righteousness at its most delusional. In the real world we must steer the narrow course of justice that lies between tyranny and anarchy. Yes, it requires violence, but it is the “closest approximation” to the law of love that Christ preached and embodied.15 Niebuhr does laud those he considers to be true pacifists. These saints do not claim that their nonviolence will make the world a better place and they remind us that war, though necessary, is always evil.16 We can easily imagine Niebuhr’s rejection of pacifism behind Rey’s demand that Luke explain himself. Hiding on Ahch-To, Luke does not represent the heretical or true pacifisms that Niebuhr identifies. He never promotes nonviolence as the way to defeat the First Order, which may place him closer to true pacifism in Niebuhr’s eyes. At the same time, the fact that no one knows where he is or what he is doing eliminates the possibility he is trying to remind the galaxy that war is evil. Rey’s frustration—and perhaps the viewer’s—stems from her Niebuhrian conviction that pacifism is, at best, impractical and, at worst, irresponsible. THE JEDI WAY: STANLEY HAUERWAS AND LIVING THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM “What do you know about the Force?” Luke asks Rey in The Last Jedi. “It’s a power that Jedi have that lets them control people and . . . make things float,” she answers. “Impressive,” Luke responds, “every word in that sentence was wrong.”

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The first thing that Rey learns from Luke is that the Jedi are not what she thinks they are. She came to Ahch-To to convince Luke to bring back the Jedi as a means to defeat the First Order. In her Niebuhrian thinking, she was looking for a warrior who might train more warriors. Luke the hermit was not what she expected to find, just as Yoda was not the “great warrior” that Luke expected to find in The Empire Strikes Back. Rey is not wrong about the First Order or what it can do. But Luke forces her to reconsider what she thinks a Jedi is supposed to be. Stanley Hauerwas, likewise, provides an account of Christian nonviolence that responds to Niebuhr’s realism, in part, by reframing the question. Hauerwas does not reject Niebuhr’s account of the world. In fact, he thinks Christian realism offers valuable insights about “how the world works.”17 His point is that the world should not determine how Christians choose to act. Being a Christian in a world of war does not mean that one must embrace war. Being a Jedi is not about making rocks float or fighting bad guys with laser swords, even if that is what the galaxy expects. In The Peaceable Kingdom, Hauerwas argues that Christians first must recognize that they are part of a story.18 Christian ethics, the analytical work of understanding Christian identity and action, thus always has a narrative character. Hauerwas sets this narrative approach in opposition to ethical theories that attempt to achieve a kind of objectivity. These theories want to produce an ethic that anyone, anywhere could understand. But Hauerwas points out that “all ethical reflection occurs relative to a particular time and place . . . the very nature and structure of ethics is determined by the particularities of a community’s history and convictions.”19 We only understand who we are and what we should do in light of our story—the story we are trying to live. Of course, we might not consciously know what story we are part of. At the beginning of A New Hope, Luke thinks his story is small. He does not realize that he has a key role in a much grander narrative. Even when he joins Obi-Wan and takes up his father’s lightsaber, Luke has no idea what it means to be a Jedi. Christians, too, “know who we are only when we can place ourselves—locate our stories—within God’s story.”20 What story is this? It is that “God has revealed himself narratively in the history of Israel and in the life of Jesus.”21 To be part of this story, we cannot be Christians in isolation. We each define our characters from the story of which we are just one part. “We find ourselves,” Hauerwas says, “part of a community with a very particular kind of citizenship.”22 Once we know our story, which we receive from that community, we can begin to know who we are. Luke does not know what it means to be a Jedi by the end of A New Hope, but he knows that he must learn the ways of the Force from a community, which is why he goes to Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back.

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Christian ethics, according to Hauerwas, is ultimately about who we are. Yes, we can talk about specific actions. We can debate what we should and should not do. But, “Christian ethics is concerned more with who we are than what we do.”23 Whatever we end up doing reflects our identity. Ideally, it reflects and enacts that story of which we claim to be a part. Along these lines, in Resident Aliens, Hauerwas and William H. Willimon contend that Christianity is “mostly a matter of politics.”24 They neither accept nor reject Niebuhr’s vision of politics; they offer an alternative. We do not need to choose between politically responsible violence and politically irresponsible pacifism. Niebuhr is focused on results. They argue, instead, “the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than to transform the world.”25 Christians cannot act like Christians unless they are Christians. Being a Christian is an action in itself. We learn how to be Christians by learning a specific story. Some Christian theology focuses on the idea of Jesus (i.e., the mere fact of his existence), but Hauerwas asserts that we must focus on what he actually did.26 To be like Jesus we must know who Jesus was, not just that he was. We must grapple with his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. We must then enact this story as our own. Performing this story “is to join him in the journey through which we are trained to be a people capable of claiming citizenship in God’s kingdom of nonviolent love.”27 Christians act nonviolently because nonviolence is at the heart of the Christian narrative. The goal of being a Christian is not to make history come out right; the story that Christians enact is one in which God has already saved the world. Jesus’s life is not an impossibility, as Niebuhr would argue.28 Quite the contrary, Jesus’s life is the way we should be. That way is fundamentally nonviolent. One might think that Hauerwas stands in fundamental opposition to Niebuhr. He does not. In no way does Hauerwas suggest that the world is any less sinful or violent than Niebuhr claims. But he insists that how the world is does not determine who Christians are. Christians follow a different story than the rest of the world. “We believe,” Hauerwas explains, “that forgiveness and love are alternatives to the coercion the world thinks necessary for existence.”29 Jesus responded to the world’s violence with forgiveness and love—that is the Christian story. The resurrection shows that it is true. We can, consequently, practice this nonviolence without anxiety about eschewing our political responsibilities: “Jesus proclaims peace as a real alternative . . . we are no longer driven by the assumption that we must be in control of history, that it is up to us to make things come out right.”30 Is it not hubristic, he might add, to assume that we can? A Christian realist might grimly take up arms with the hope of steering the world toward justice only to fail spectacularly.

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Nonviolence is the way Christians are supposed to be “Christian.” Jesus’s resurrection shows Christians that peace is the true reality of the world— despite all the violence between immoral societies.31 Being a Christian means witnessing to that peace. “Being,” though, does not mean doing nothing. Hauerwas maintains that Christians should still “find the means to promote justice in the world.”32 They can do so without making “effectiveness . . . our primary goal,” but instead, “faithfulness to God’s kingdom.”33 Hauerwas rejects Niebuhr’s measure of success: political efficacy. Christians embody peace because that is what Jesus did and that is what it means to be part of the Christian story. It is not an abstract peace: “The peace for which we hunger and thirst is determined and made possible only through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”34 Christians must measure “effectiveness” in light of this story. Hauerwas does not think that this peaceableness will necessarily lead to a less violent world. In fact, he says that it may actually bring about more violence and conflict.35 The point is not to do something but to be something, to let go of the desire for violence, which is really the desire to control. Once we acknowledge that we are not in control—that we cannot fix the world or even make it better with violence—we can live with a joyful disposition. It will not be easy and it will not be free of pain. “We do it,” he says, “not because it is effective, but simply because it is true.”36 “Being,” in this respect, means forming one’s character to embody the truth. When it comes to Star Wars, we can explain Luke’s journey in terms of Hauerwas’s narrative approach to ethics. Luke, in this model, embraces a particular narrative about the Jedi and the Force, is formed by a community to become part of that story, and eventually enacts nonviolence as the expression of his identity as a Jedi. In this framework, his choice to refrain from violence completely in The Last Jedi is the culmination of a conversion that began in A New Hope. Luke begins A New Hope as a Niebuhrian realist. But when he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, he decides to become part of a new story, the Jedi story. Obi-Wan gives him basic details of this narrative: For over a thousand generations the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. . . . The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

Luke vows to learn the ways of the Force, but this is only his “first step.” In order to learn the rest of the story and become a Jedi, he must seek out a community: Yoda. Just as it is for Christians, community is essential for the Jedi. It is not simply a matter of acknowledging truth; one must be formed by

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a community. Yoda not only tells Luke the rest of the Jedi story, he also trains Luke in light of that story. Forming Christians is precisely what Hauerwas says the church is supposed to do. From Yoda, Luke learns that “peace” is at the core of what it means to be a Jedi. Obi-Wan already told him that the Jedi were “guardians” of peace. Still, when Luke comes to Dagobah, he assumes that Yoda must be a “great warrior.” Like Rey in The Last Jedi, Luke assumes that “Jedi” is about what a person can do. Given his commitment to Niebuhrian realism, it is not surprising that he thinks of the Jedi primarily as warriors. Yoda quickly disabuses him of this notion: “Wars not make one great.” Admittedly, the Jedi are not entirely opposed to using violence; a lightsaber is standard issue. But Yoda teaches Luke that this use is not primary (or even secondary) to the Jedi identity: “You will know [the good side from the bad] when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Luke struggles with the choice between being peaceful and using “effective” violence throughout The Empire Strikes Back. When he has visions of Han and Leia suffering on Bespin, he cuts short his training to try to save them. Yoda warns him: “If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.” What it means to be a Jedi, he told Luke earlier, is not to take the “quick and easy” path. “Anger, fear, aggression” lead to the dark side of the Force; this is a key part of the Jedi story. Luke refuses to embrace that story here. Instead, he falls back on his Niebuhrian trust in violence. (We should note too, in terms of how “realistic” realism is, that Luke’s actions do not end up helping Han or Leia in the slightest.) The more Luke grows as a Jedi, the more he focuses on being faithful to the Jedi story. At the end of Return of the Jedi, the Emperor tempts him to use violence. “I am defenseless,” he coaxes, “take your weapon, strike me down.” What better use of violence is there? How better to shift galactic politics away from tyranny than to remove the evil tyrant? From a Niebuhrian point of view, the choice is obvious: kill Palpatine. But if he gives in to fear and aggression, he would no longer be following the Jedi narrative. (Remember: a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.) The Emperor makes it clear that once Luke takes up his lightsaber, embracing anger and hatred, then his “journey to the dark side will be complete.” Luke faces a dilemma: try to kill the Emperor and give up his faith in the Jedi story or embrace that story fully and die as a Jedi. The moment Luke refuses to use violence is the moment that he becomes a Jedi. This decision, more than anything else, clearly marks his transition from Niebuhrian realism to the peaceableness that Hauerwas advocates. Standing

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over Darth Vader, poised to land the killing blow, Luke instead casts aside his lightsaber and declares: “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” He only becomes a Jedi when he fully embraces the Jedi narrative and focuses on being peaceful rather than trying to fix the galaxy. Remember, controlling the galaxy is exactly how Vader tries to tempt Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. Note, too, that he does not expect nonviolence to save his life; it almost leads to his death. Luke ends Return of the Jedi by embracing the nonviolence of the Jedi religion. Luke’s refusal to fight in The Last Jedi and even his regrets all follow directly from this choice. Rey eventually learns the reason Luke came to the “most unfindable” place in the galaxy was because he was momentarily tempted to kill his student, Ben Solo: Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction, pain, death, and the end of everything I love because of what he will become. And for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow. And I was left with shame and with consequence.

Luke becomes a Jedi when he throws down his lightsaber, but he creates Kylo Ren when he takes it up again. In that “briefest moment,” Luke reverted back to his old Niebuhrian realist way of thinking. He was tempted to save the galaxy with violence. His mocking question to Rey—“You think what? I’m going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?”— indicates just how much scorn he has for that stance now. Indeed, in his final confrontation with Kylo Ren, Luke finally is the Jedi he was trying to be in Return of the Jedi. There, he only threw down his lightsaber after momentarily giving in to anger and fighting Darth Vader. Here, Luke never picks up his laser sword and is not even physically present; he’s using the Force to project himself from Ahch-To. He gives Kylo Ren the chance to embrace the Jedi story again. He warns him: “Strike me down in anger, and I will always be with you.” Having overcome his doubts about the Jedi order (he proclaims to Ren: “I will not be the last Jedi”), Luke becomes one with the Force. Opposing the dark side, rejecting anger and fear, using the Force to defend the Resistance—in his last physical moments, Luke perfectly embodies the Jedi story. When he returns as a Force-ghost in The Rise of Skywalker, he encourages Rey to continuing following the Jedi story: “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny.” She finally defeats Palpatine once she is able to (almost literally) see herself as part of this story: with a chorus of Jedi behind her, she declares “I am all the Jedi.”

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CONCLUSION Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas do not translate perfectly onto the Star Wars universe. The morality of this fantasy world is much more black-and-white than it is in the real world, which makes Niebuhr far less persuasive in the galaxy far, far away. Moreover, Luke and the Jedi are not the Christian pacifists that Hauerwas has in mind. They are called “knights,” they have swords, and they lead entire armies in the Clone Wars. Luke, for all his nonviolence, wants the Resistance to win The Rise of Skywalker (he gives Rey his old X-Wing and Leia’s lightsaber so that she can confront Palpatine and end the war). Nevertheless, Niebuhr and Hauerwas offer us a useful way to describe the evolution of Luke’s character. Luke, in turn, illustrates the difficulty of practicing a nonviolent faith. He is never perfect. Sometimes his faith wavers and he makes mistakes. Seeing Ben Solo’s future as Kylo Ren, Luke comes very close to killing his student and nephew. (To be fair, though, he was facing the “would you kill Hitler as a baby?” dilemma.) In short, Luke sometimes struggles to follow the commitment that he made to his faith. All people of faith can relate to this experience. Of course, whether you ultimately find Luke to be inspiring or depressing depends largely upon whether you find Niebuhr or Hauerwas more persuasive. It depends, in other words, on what you consider to be true. I say that Luke was a success . . . from a certain point of view.37 NOTES 1. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 257. 2. Niebuhr, 264–66. 3. Niebuhr, xxx. 4. Niebuhr, xxv. 5. Niebuhr, xxxi. 6. Niebuhr, 3. 7. Niebuhr, 16. 8. Niebuhr, 21. 9. Niebuhr, 257. 10. Niebuhr, 268. 11. Niebuhr, 234. 12. Reinhold Niebuhr, “Augustine’s Political Realism,” in Christian Realism and Political Problems (New York: Scribner, 1953), 119–46. 13. Reinhold Niebuhr, “Why The Christian Church Is Not Pacifist,” in The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 109.

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14. Niebuhr, 105. 15. Niebuhr, 116. 16. Niebuhr, 119. 17. Stanley Hauerwas, War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity (Baker Academic, 2011), 34. 18. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983). 19. Hauerwas, 1. 20. Hauerwas, 27. 21. Hauerwas, 27–28. 22. Hauerwas, 33. 23. Hauerwas, 33. 24. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition) (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), 30. 25. Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 38. 26. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 72–73. 27. Hauerwas, 76. 28. Niebuhr, “Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist,” 103. 29. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 87. 30. Hauerwas, 87. 31. Hauerwas, 89. 32. Hauerwas, 105. 33. Hauerwas, 105. 34. Hauerwas, xvii. 35. Hauerwas, 145. 36. Hauerwas, 151. 37. Thank you to Madeleine and Lisa Kuzma for their help in reviewing the material (i.e., rewatching the Skywalker saga). The Force will be with you, always.

WORKS CITED Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. ———. War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity. Baker Academic, 2011. Hauerwas, Stanley, and William H. Willimon. Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition). Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014. Niebuhr, Reinhold. “Augustine’s Political Realism.” In Christian Realism and Political Problems, 119–46. New York: Scribner, 1953. ———. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

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———. “Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist.” In The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses, 102–19. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Chapter 9

Undoing the Memory Wipe Metz, Droids, and the Victims of History Edward Dunar

In the course of their preaching and instruction, pastors and teachers often draw upon imaginary universes from popular culture to illustrate Christian teachings about virtue, sacrifice, and redemption. Narratives from these universes provide rich material for approaching questions of faith and responsibility from a fresh perspective. For example, a colleague of mine uses the Star Wars films and television series as texts for a course on Catholic theology and spirituality. She leads students through a comparison of the Jedi Code and the Sith Code as a means of understanding the Ignatian practice of the discernment of spirits, in which spiritual directors guide practitioners to notice the “motions of the soul” and determine which inner motivations and desires come from the movement of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the semester, the moral dilemmas faced by the Jedi and rebels serve as case studies for examining ethical deliberation in the life of discipleship.1 In communities of faith and in the classroom, fandom can serve as a sort of sandbox where members can think through their convictions amid life’s complexity in terms that cast critical perspective on actual situations. In this chapter, I seek to build upon this pedagogical possibility through a thought experiment about how a theological engagement with popular culture can sharpen Christian practices of social criticism and solidarity. To gauge this possibility, I will conduct a reading of Star Wars in light of the political theology of German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz. Specifically, I will consider the experience of droids as illustrative of Metz’s description of dangerous memory as reviving hope in the face of totalizing ideologies and 127

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social injustice. In this course of this analysis, I will not argue that the Star Wars Universe is necessarily illustrative of Metz’s thought. Rather, analyzing Star Wars through the lens of Metz’s categories reveals the radical possibilities of interpreting the world with the eyes of faith. With such an orientation, we can identify the scotomas of the societies within beloved imaginary universes and our own actual social structures and cultures.2 Within the Star Wars Universe, even the heroes of the saga are mostly oblivious about their participation in the oppression of droids. I focus in particular on the experience of C-3PO (or Threepio) as a character who is crucial for the narrative framing of the films but whose well-being and subjecthood are violated by heroes and villains alike. Threepio’s subjugation reveals deep flaws in the foundational ideology of the Force that the narrative of the franchise, for the most part, expects the audience to accept without question. I argue that this exercise calls attention to the eschatological edge of Metz’s thought and the radical potential of his account of subjecthood for social witness.3 SUBJECTHOOD AND DANGEROUS MEMORY IN METZ Metz argues that Christian belief and practice have profoundly political implications. In the midst of a world of suffering, Christians cannot be content to find solace in privatized religion, but instead must realize that their experience of God’s grace involves a commitment to embracing hope by struggling for a world in which all human beings can realize their potential as intended by God. Metz judges that many theologians accept too much of modernity’s articulation of the bourgeois subject as autonomous and therefore insulate faith from political involvement and the challenges of history. The Enlightenment sense of the individual subject emphasizes personal autonomy and economic agency while reducing religion to “ornamentation or as background scenery.”4 In response, he seeks a political theology that makes public claims and includes a robust sense of the human subject as oriented toward solidarity. In doing so, Metz aims not to demolish the helpful developments of the Enlightenment, but instead to discern how to carry its more helpful insights forward in a way that recognizes the broadness of human freedom and its orientation toward relationship rather than isolation.5 Metz poses an alternative definition of subjecthood to accomplish these goals. He defines the subject as one who stands as a person in the sight of God,6 who has the freedom to join his or her life with the eschatological narrative of hope as expressed in the gospel,7 and who carries “an inkling” that God desires all human beings to be subjects.8 One implication of this

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definition is that individual subjecthood is not fully attained until all people have become subjects. Subjecthood requires a commitment to solidarity with other human beings, and its culmination arrives as a collective experience of the fulfillment of God’s eschatological promises. Subjecthood is realized communally because it depends on a sense of hope that is under siege by the oppressive and totalizing social systems of the world. Injustice is made possible by the severing of relationship between human beings and the restriction of the freedom to be human in a holistic sense. Therefore, the call of Christian discipleship is to remove the barriers to hope in the present society. Drawing from the social analysis of the Frankfurt School, Metz observes the tendency of human society to seek totalizing solutions to the problems of evil and suffering that depend on the designation of certain people as scapegoats.9 This tendency, expressed in modernity through narratives of evolutionary or technocratic progress, leads to violence and limitations on human freedom. Social narratives tend to emphasize some freedoms at the expense of others that do not fit the priorities of progress or subjective autonomy. For example, Metz identifies the need for a Christian witness to the freedom to grow old, the freedom to engage in contemplation, and the freedom to mourn in the face of loss.10 In the context of social structures and ideologies that restrict human hope and freedom, Metz interprets the mission of the church in terms of Walter Benjamin’s notion of “dangerous memory,” fragments of knowledge or experience that challenge totalizing systems because they cannot be integrated into a broader system.11 The Church practices a distinct form of “memory looking forward,” committing itself not only to the remembrance of the past but also to understanding the sufferings of history in terms of the future.12 It is called to “understand itself and prove itself as the public witness and bearer of a dangerous memory of freedom in the systems of our emancipatory society.”13 This dangerous memory belongs to the victims of history, whose experiences reveal the hidden logic of sin in the world. For Christians, the dangerous memory of the crucified and resurrected Christ holds particular power. The church enacts the memory of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and promised return in a way that reminds the world of freedom and hope against the backdrop of systems and ideologies that tend to take authoritarian turns. The doctrines of the church integrate this memory into the daily lives of Christians seeking to witness to God’s eschatological promises by advocating liberation from systems that limit human agency and freedom. The dangerous memory of Jesus Christ provides a narrative with which individuals can contextualize their lives; their own struggles and suffering might be understood in terms of the one who suffered, died, and experienced resurrection as a sign of God’s will that humanity experience salvation.14

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DROIDS AS THE VICTIMS OF HISTORY In asking what Metz might have to say about Star Wars, we might immediately notice that this sprawling universe has no shortage of case studies for oppression. The prequel trilogy depicts a decadent republic that is so complacent in its administration of justice that slavery is allowed to flourish on planets such as Tatooine, where Anakin Skywalker grows up in bondage. To defend itself against a violent separatist movement, this same Republic deploys a massive army of clones controlled by coercive conditioning and brainwashing. In the original trilogy, the Galactic Empire functions through the restriction of political freedoms, the threat of technological terror, and a rigorous program of human supremacy, a vision later pursued by the First Order in the sequel trilogy. One form of oppression in which both the Dark Side and the Light Side are complicit, however, is the status of droids. With a few notable exceptions, droids usually exist as property—bought, sold, and modified for the purposes of organic beings. At the same time, most droids exhibit self-consciousness. Philosopher Robert Arp poses the question of whether the droids in Star Wars who appear to act and feel similarly to human beings might be considered persons and therefore entitled to certain rights. He defines a person as a being with the capacity for: “(1) reason or rationality; (2) mental states like beliefs, intentions, desires, and emotions; (3) language; (4) entering into social relationships with other persons; and (5) being considered a responsible moral agent.”15 Drawing specifically upon liberal thinkers such as John Locke, Arp accepts that each person possesses natural rights that a society must acknowledge and protect. By his judgment, droids clearly meet the criteria for being entitled to these rights. They reason creatively, use language dynamically, and form relationships of care with each other and organic creatures. Nonetheless, most droids have no choice but to work for organic masters. Arp argues that droids should be given at least limited rights—namely, the decision of whether to work for organic beings or not, a step of self-determination that would surely lead to more sweeping legal recognitions. It is notable how many features of Arp’s definition of personhood share affinities with Metz’s description of the subject as both capable of agency and self-definition and fundamentally oriented to relationship with other beings. One core difference is that Metz offers an eschatological perspective in which subjecthood is achieved collectively and requires the embrace of hope in this outcome. Using Arp’s judgment as a starting point for recognizing that droids appear to meet a common definition of personhood yet do not receive their deserved rights, we might ask the further question of what a practice of solidarity with droids might look like in the context of Star Wars. Perhaps the

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experiences of these mechanical persons can serve as a dangerous memory that reveals the contradictions and violence of the unquestioned ideological framework of galactic society. The question of the subjecthood of droids is rarely explored directly in the episodic films of the Skywalker saga, but does arise in the two anthology films and the television series. Even in these cases, however, the narrative’s recognition of droids’ subjecthood is ambiguous. In Rogue One, K-2SO is a reprogrammed Imperial security droid who performs intelligence missions for the fledgling Rebel Alliance. His laid-back humor and sarcasm throughout the film reveals a distinctive personality made possible through a freer existence with the Rebellion. Nonetheless, the exact extent of K-2SO’s freedom is unclear throughout the film. When he remarks to Jyn Erso that he will support her mission because “Cassian said I had to,” it is unclear whether this is a sardonic quip that reflects a voluntary loyalty to a commanding officer or a recognition of his lack of choice whether to participate in the Rebellion at all. Still, the film depicts K-2SO as choosing a self-sacrificial death that is treated as equal in importance to that of the human rebels. He is a member of the team that chooses death for the sake of hope against overwhelming odds. Solo more explicitly calls attention to the fact that droids perceive themselves as oppressed in galactic society. Lando Calrissian’s copilot L3-37 vocally advocates for droids’ rights. She has assumed control over her own freedom, engineering modifications to her own body and bristling at any suggestion that Lando owns her. She even leads an uprising on Kessel in which she frees droids at a mining facility from their restraining bolts and encourages them to rise up together in rebellion. The freed droids’ eagerness to follow her suggestion indicates a deep desire for freedom and self-definition, as well as a capacity for solidarity as they facilitate the spread of the uprising to the prisoners in the mines. In Last Shot, a tie-in novel released shortly after Solo, L3 elaborates on her worldview in a poignant conversation with Lando: “And anyway,” L3 went on, “who is the Maker but our own selves, really? Sure, some guy in a factory probably pieced me together originally, and someone else programmed me, so to speak. But then the galaxy itself forged me into who I am. Because we learn, Lando. We’re programmed to learn. Which means we grow. We grow away from that singular moment of creation, become something new with each changing moment of our lives—yes, lives—and look at me: these parts”—she ran her hand along the mesh of wiring and the rebranded astromech of her midsection—“I did this. So maybe when we say the Maker we’re referring to the whole galaxy, or maybe we just mean ourselves. Maybe we’re our own makers, no matter who put the parts together.”16

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In this passage, L3 describes her experience of self-transcendence. Because she holds the ability to learn and grow, she does not need to be confined to the intentions of her original manufacturers or programmers. Rather, she is continually formed by experience and her own practice of self-definition. She is also describing her realization of responsibility as a subject, which is oriented toward solidarity in her courageous acts of self-sacrifice in Solo. Film critics generally celebrate the ways in which L3’s presence explicitly introduces the question of droid rights to the canon, but some point out that the film’s narrative continues to treat her dismissively. For example, Steven Scaife notes that L3’s declarations of her beliefs are presented as comic relief. Her pursuit of freedom for droids appears as a quirk. Scaife writes, “We are meant to believe that these are sentient creatures, and we are also meant to believe that their sentience doesn’t actually matter so that we may laugh about it.” Both anthology films raise questions about the treatment of droids in the episodic films yet ultimately reinforce a sense that droids’ concern for liberation is a charming personality quirk rather than a viewpoint that viewers should take seriously. The Mandalorian approaches the question of droid subjecthood in a way that reflects the show’s broader explorations of relationships and ethical codes of care. At the beginning of the series, the violent bounty hunter droid IG-11 is disabled by Mando after trying to kill the Child. Later, he is found by Kuiil and reconstructed with a mission to “nurse and protect.” This is not a mere reprogramming, but instead a gradual process of repetition, affirmation, and patience in which the Ugnaught teaches the droid how to walk, move, and ultimately serve as a caring protector. He comes to develop a personality not through mechanical means but instead through the attention and care of his guardian. Reborn through Kuiil’s daily acts of compassion, IG-11 later shows his commitment to his nurturing mission through his protection of the Child, healing of Mando, and act of self-sacrifice in the finale of the first season. Although he undertakes similar acts of care and self-sacrifice as K-2SO and L3, IG-11 introduces a complicated twist to the question of droid subjecthood and oppression in that he does not try to imitate organic cultural modes of personality. Indeed, he justifies his service and heroism by reference to the fact that he is not an organic creature. He describes his protection of the Child in terms of his “core function.” He convinces Mando, whose code does not permit exposing the face to any living being, to remove his helmet for medical treatment by declaring, “I am not a living thing.” When the team is trying to escape from an underground lava river but realizes that a large group of stormtroopers stands in its way, IG-11 uses his knowledge of his own programming to argue for a strategic deployment of his self-destruct protocols. When Mando tries to dissuade him from sacrificing himself, he replies, “There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.” On one

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hand, IG-11 demonstrates his subjecthood, which emerges from a relationship of care, through creative acts that reflect responsibility and love. On the other, the droid does not see his own value as a subject and downplays his awareness of his own agency. The droid is a hero in a universe that does not permit him to see himself as one. THREEPIO AS THE MARGINALIZED NARRATOR To pursue the question of droid subjecthood and the possibility of droids’ dangerous memory further, I will focus on the experience of C-3PO (Threepio). In some ways, his perspective serves as a common thread for the franchise. He is the only speaking character who appears in all of the episodic films and therefore might be considered a functional narrator. He is built by Anakin Skywalker, accompanies Padme Amidala through the events leading to her death, and follows R2-D2 in his quest to deliver the stolen Death Star plans to the rebellion. In Return of the Jedi, his role as narrator becomes explicit as he recounts the story of the rebellion to the Ewoks to enlist their assistance in the battle against the Empire. In The Last Jedi, he is the last member of the Resistance with whom Luke interacts (with an affectionate wink) before a final showdown with Kylo Ren. Within and across the trilogies, Threepio serves as narrative companion for the audience and a common presence across multiple generations of heroes and freedom fighters. His own life, however, is confined by oppression. He is kidnapped and sold as property by Jawas before being purchased by Owen Lars in A New Hope, switched off against his will when he irks Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, and kept in the dark on the mission details for Han’s rescue from Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi, an operation that puts him at substantial risk. Threepio lacks control over even his own ability to relate his experiences to the broader narratives of freedom in the galaxy. After accompanying Padme through her betrayal by Anakin and her resulting death in Revenge of the Sith, he is subjected to a memory wipe that eliminates his recollection of his origins, his relationships, and his role in the preservation of hope against the backdrop of the rise of the Empire. In The Rise of Skywalker, he is pressured into sacrificing his memory (albeit temporarily) to make possible a translation of the Sith language so that the heroes can locate the wayfinder that will lead them to the Sith planet Exegol. The films offer minimal acknowledgment of the brutality of Threepio’s experience or the ways in which it calls into question the morality of the heroes. Indeed, his suffering often serves as comic relief. For example, his dismemberment in the Battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back depicts a terrifying experience as

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slapstick humor. However, one helpful characteristic of expansive popular culture universes such as Star Wars is that they make available a multitude of stories (authorized and unauthorized) that comment upon and even call into question the prominent themes of the overall franchise.17 In some cases, the supplementary canon of the Star Wars Universe, expressed through novels, comic books, television shows, and video games, provides opportunities for authors to gesture toward alternative interpretations. Such a possibility arises in the 2016 Marvel comic book C-3PO: The Phantom Limb, written by James Robinson.18 In this story, Threepio reaches a deeper realization of his own subjecthood as a result of a relationship of solidarity with an enemy droid. This book dares to raise fundamental questions about the status of droids in a serious manner and specifically appeals to the notion of memory as offering a way forward for Threepio’s realization as a subject. At the beginning of this story, Threepio and a team of droids from the Resistance find themselves stranded on an inhospitable world. The organic crew members of their ship have died in a crash, so the droids hold responsibility for the completion of their mission: escorting a captured First Order security droid named Omri to Resistance agents so that his memory bank can be analyzed to determine where Admiral Ackbar is being held prisoner. As they walk across a rocky landscape, Omri begins to ponder aloud about what he perceives as the absurdity of their situation: the droids are programmed to behave like human beings, often to the point of sentience and self-consciousness, but they have no choice over the causes for which they fight and die. Nonetheless they serve these causes with dedication and commitment. He muses, “Any one of you could have been serving the other side at some point. As droids, our memories are often wiped.”19 While rejecting this cynicism, Threepio remains intrigued by Omri’s argument. The security droid continues by revealing that he has fleeting flashes of memory from his past life that cause him to interrogate the meaning of his circumscribed existence. He says, “I think that added awareness causes us to question. Flashes of past events—were they grand events or nothing to speak of? How important have I been? These questions nag at me.”20 Threepio replies fatalistically, acknowledging his own curiosity but resigned to “a droid’s lot in life to be in service of its master.”21 The team’s fortune soon takes a turn for the worse. A monster devours all of the surviving droids except for Threepio and Omri, and Threepio loses an arm. As they continue their trek to safety, Omri comments that organic beings who lose limbs often feel as though the limb is still attached. He continues, “Having my memories erased is like having a phantom limb inside my memory banks.”22 Threepio’s own mind turns to a fragmented memory of the capital city of Naboo, an image that he cannot understand or contextualize. As the droids walk quietly, an acid rain begins to fall, and their situation grows

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more desperate. Knowing that neither of them will survive without intervention, Omri steps out into the acid rain to send a signal to the Resistance, his enemy, so that Threepio might be rescued. Threepio asks in surprise if he is changing sides, to which Omri replies, “I’m not choosing sides, I’m choosing friendship.”23 His last act is to offer Threepio his arm as a replacement for the one he lost. The book ends with Threepio standing before a starship viewport next to BB-8. Gazing into space, he decides that he will keep the red arm for a while “to remember.” This is not a story of liberation for Threepio. He ends as he started: indentured to a cause he did not choose and perplexed by the ghosts of fleeting erased memories. He has grown, however, in his actualization as a subject. He carries the memory of his companions who did not survive the mission and the sacrifice of the enemy droid who saved him to “choose friendship.” He has grown more tolerant of ambiguity, both in the form of the red arm that reminds him of Omri and the questions raised by the fragmented memories that continue to call attention to his own lack of agency and incomplete grasp of his role in the grand narratives of galactic history. He has witnessed a fellow droid’s choice to reject the confines imposed by the society of organic persons. THREEPIO’S DANGEROUS MEMORY AND THE IDEOLOGY OF THE FORCE Within the storyline of the comic book, the fragmented memories of Threepio and Omri operate dangerously, leading the droids to raise critical questions about their experience. Presumably, the purpose of a memory wipe is to sever any relationships or attachments that might introduce a conflict between the droid’s personality and the interests of a new master. As Omri observes, it is possible that a droid committed to one faction previously fought for the other. Droids represent the persons whose freedom, agency, and subjecthood are limited for the sake of a grand vision—the dismantlement of the Republic, the galactic order of the Empire, or even the steadfast commitment to “restoring balance to the Force” that preoccupies the Jedi. It is suggestive that exceptions to this experience, droids who are able to avoid memory wipes such as R2-D2 and Chopper in the Rebels TV series, are most likely to improvise, defy orders, or show irreverence toward organic beings. In this story, it is the fragment of old, erased memories that lead Omri and Threepio to affirm one another’s value and act out of freedom. To limit an interpretation of droids’ dangerous memory to the literal data in their processors, however, would miss an even deeper implication for the recognition of their experiences for the ideological framework posed by the

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franchise. Whether their memories have been wiped or not, droids serve the roles necessary for the interests of the organic beings of the Star Wars universe. The experience of Threepio might stand as a dangerous memory that presents a challenge to the Force-centric ideologies to which the heroes and villains of the series subscribe. Given that droids too can reason, love, and stand in self-sacrificial solidarity with others, perhaps the vision of the Force as applicable only to biological life is incomplete and insufficient. It is reasonable to speculate that a Jedi’s account of eschatology would involve balance in the Force and the elevation of all life that participates in it. For the Jedi, the Force serves as the condition of the possibility for decisions of responsibility and freedom. However, the spiritual underpinnings of Star Wars through the operation of the Force explicitly exclude the possibility of droids’ participation in this realm of higher meaning and concretizes this exclusion in the social patterns of the Jedi, the Republic, and the Empire. Even if an organic person is not Force-sensitive, he or she is understood as participating in it. The Force, according to Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope, is an “energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” Notably missing from this understanding are the mechanical beings who can be affected by the Force but can never wield it and stand outside of its generation by organic life. According to the spiritual narrative of the series, Threepio cannot participate in the reality of the Force to the degree that organic beings can despite the fact that he can love, commit acts of heroism, and experience personal growth. Although the Force is roughly correlated with ultimate reality and being for many of the organic persons in Star Wars, the witness of droids who can think, feel, grow as persons, and commit acts of love and self-sacrifice suggests that the association of the Force with organic life excludes certain authentic expressions of personhood. According to the Jedi concept of the living Force, the droid is never a subject within the Force, only an object who is bounded by the will of organic beings. Threepio’s witness, taken seriously, suggests that the franchise’s focus on balance in the Force, as defined as an energy force generated by organic life, is incomplete. Through the lens of Metz’s observation about the tendency of totalizing systems to depend on scapegoating, dehumanization, and suffering victims, perhaps the well-meaning Jedi quest to project their notion of peace and justice across the galaxy contains its own totalizing tendencies that depend on the diminishment of freedom and subjecthood of certain victims. In the sequel trilogy, the fact that the Resistance continues to deploy droids as expendable and treat mechanical persons as property suggests that the heroes of the saga will not fully succeed at their task in bringing peace, freedom, and solidarity to the galaxy. We might imagine an eschatological future in Star Wars in which the subjecthood of all is attained through the achievement of full

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subjecthood on the part of droids, the victims of history at the hands of both the Dark Side and the Light. CONCLUSION: CRITIQUING GALACTIC SOCIETY—AND OUR OWN Metz’s account of dangerous memory can help us identify the contradictions and exclusionary elements of the ideology of the Force underlying Star Wars. In offering this reflection about Threepio’s experience of subjecthood, I suggest that the lush and elaborate imaginary universes offered by franchises such as Star Wars provide texts with which we might experiment with our skills of social critique and virtues of compassion in light of the gospel. I do not mean to imply that the narrative structure of Star Wars reflects the values of theologians such as Metz or those of the Christian message more generally. Nor do I think that the imaginary universe should necessarily reflect these values. Rather, such an exercise offers an opportunity to cultivate skills of social critique in the church hall or the classroom in preparation for doing the same with reference to the social structures of a fallen and sinful world. A conversation about droids and Jedi ideology can hopefully lead to new insights about the ways in which even well-intentioned ideologies and social structures in our own day (perhaps even within the church) contain oversights of exclusions and depend upon the limitation of the human freedom to be a subject. Ultimately, dangerous memory leads Christians to place their hope in a situation in which all might stand before God as subjects, free to embrace narratives of solidarity with the inkling that all persons are called to be subjects before God. The rich imaginative universes of popular culture can provide us with an additional opportunity to reflect upon these possibilities and to realize the radicality of Jesus’s resurrection and the work of the Spirit in the world today that we might struggle to see ourselves even as we, like the Jedi, seek to walk in the light. NOTES 1. This course is taught by Steph Puen and Miko Galvez at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. For a media account of their approach, see Jillian Bianca Carpio, “Seeing God in Everything—Even in Star Wars,” LifeStyle.Inq, October 15, 2016, https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/240608/seeing-god-ineverything-even-in-star-wars/.

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2. I refer to “scotomas” in the sense described by Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan uses the term to note the human tendency to ignore evidence and insights that contradict one’s self-serving biases. This error in reasoning begins deliberately but gradually becomes ingrained in unconscious patterns of thought and social structures. See Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 271. 3. One difficulty involved with writing about an ongoing popular franchise such as Star Wars is that new stories appear by the day. My analysis is based on official “canon” films, television series, novels, and comic books as of February 2020. It is likely that the questions that I raise in this chapter, particularly those of droid rights, will be further explored in upcoming television series and films. Nonetheless, I hope that my core argument—that imaginative universes like Star Wars can provide a helpful text for practicing or teaching Christian modes of social analysis and critique— remains credible regardless of the creative directions in which the Star Wars Universe will surely develop in the years to come. 4. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. J. Matthew Ashley (New York: Crossroad, 2007), 42. 5. Metz, 59. 6. Metz, 71. 7. Metz, 75. 8. Metz, 76. 9. Metz, 118. 10. Metz, 90. 11. Metz, 66–67. 12. Metz, 173. 13. Metz, 88. 14. Metz, 200. 15. Robert Arp. “If Droids Could Think . . . : Droids as Slaves and Persons,” in Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine, ed. Kevin Decker and Jason Eberl (Chicago: Open Court, 2008), 121. 16. Arp, 121. 17. Arp, 131. 18. Daniel José Older, Last Shot: A Han and Lando Novel (New York: Random House, 2018), 222. 19. Steven Scaife, “The Muddled Politics of ’Solo: A Star Wars Story,’” Hollywood Reporter, May 30, 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ solo-a-star-wars-story-muddles-l3-37s-message-droid-independence-1115474. 20. Rachel Barenblat suggests that fanfiction operates analogously to midrash in the Jewish tradition in broadening interpretations of the original text in light of the concerns of history and experience. Given the usefulness of the ancillary novels and comics to my analysis, I think that official derivative works can play a similar function, albeit within the commercially prescribed boundaries of “canon.” See Rachel Barenblat, “Transformative Work: Midrash and Fanfiction,” Religion & Literature 43:2 (2011), 171–177.

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21. James Robinson, C-3PO: The Phantom Limb (Marvel Comics, 2016). Cited page numbers by location are based on the Kindle edition. 22. Robinson, 9. 23. Robinson, 16. 24. Robinson, 16. 25. Robinson, 24. 26. Robinson, 26. 27. Robinson, 31.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arp, Robert. “If Droids Could Think . . . : Droids as Slaves and Persons.” In Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine, edited by Kevin Decker and Jason Eberl, 120–130. Chicago: Open Court, 2008. Barenblat, Rachel. “Transformative Work: Midrash and Fanfiction.” Religion & Literature 43, no. 2 (2011), 171–177. Lonergan, Bernard. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Metz, Johann Baptist. Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology. Translated by J. Matthew Ashley. New York: Crossroad, 2007. Older, Daniel José. Last Shot: A Han and Lando Novel. New York: Random House, 2018. Robinson, James. C-3PO: The Phantom Limb. New York: Marvel Comics, 2016. Scaife, Steven. “The Muddled Politics of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story.’” Hollywood Reporter, May 30, 2018. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ solo-a-star-wars-story-muddles-l3-37s-message-droid-independence-1115474

Chapter 10

Mysticism and Resistance Theology of The Last Jedi Rostislav Kůrka

Just like its predecessors, the Star Wars sequel trilogy is interwoven with spiritual elements. For the audience used to traditional “Jedi theology” as presented in George Lucas’s two trilogies, however, The Force Awakens (TFA) and especially The Last Jedi (TLJ) present some challenging aspects, from the relativization of “traditional Jediism” to a before-unseen presentation of the Force. If we want to speak about “theology” of TLJ—or, to be precise, the way its protagonists relate to the Force—we notice several differences from the former Star Wars trilogies. Chief among them is the protagonist’s independent access to the Force. In The Force Awakens, Rey was able to activate her Force powers consciously without former training. That is something previously unattested in the films. Both Luke and Anakin Skywalker, hailed as exceptionally strong in the Force thanks to their bloodline, learned to use the Force consciously only after undergoing their training by the Jedi Masters. Luke needed Obi-Wan’s guidance for the first steps and Yoda’s training for actual mastery. In little Anakin’s case, the Force manifested itself before training, but only in his fast reflexes and “luck,” not as an outcome of his conscious effort. Even though The Rise of Skywalker (TROS) eventually showed Rey’s connection to a Force-sensitive bloodline, providing an explanation for the potency she exhibits, it did not reveal any training she would have undergone as a child. The narrative of the first two films presents Rey as a true nobody who was able to master the Force out of nothing. After adding TROS into the picture, Rey represents the case of a person predisposed toward using the Force, but unlike all other heroes, she does not need the help of anyone but the Force itself to take her first steps. 141

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Another remarkable difference in the sequels is the lack of focus on the Force-attuned protagonist’s internal struggle. Luke and Anakin had both faced the temptation of the Dark Side in the form of anger and hatred, in both cases placing the fate of the Galaxy at stake. TFA and TLJ absolved Rey from this struggle. Just like the revelation of Rey’s bloodline, the issue came up only in TROS, and even there only briefly. It occurred rather as a response to the revelation, with Rey fearing that she might become like her ancestor. However, in her final confrontation with the Emperor, she did not have much trouble resisting her anger, and unlike in Luke’s case, this was not preceded by a long struggle or setup for it in the preceding story. Rey’s fear of falling to the Dark Side was more pronounced than the temptation itself. In the first two sequels, the main focus largely shifted from the internal (personal) to the external (political) level, from overcoming the dark emotions to rising against the tyranny of the First Order.1 Rey’s temptation after experiencing her first contact with the Force was not to turn to the Dark Side, it was to run away and not participate in the fight. Avoiding the conflict is a motive that is expressed even more powerfully in TLJ in the story of Luke Skywalker. It is this theme along with the untutored access to the Force that I shall focus on in exploring the “theology” of the sequels and especially TLJ. In my endeavor to explore the spiritual aspects of the sequel films, I have employed the use of two key terms: mysticism and resistance. I have borrowed these words from the title of a book by Dorothee Sölle (Soelle).2 Sölle was a German Protestant theologian and an activist in peace and ecological movements. Following the same tradition as her compatriot Dietrich Bonhoeffer or liberation theologians, Sölle emphasized the need for connecting theology with activism in the public sphere. She understood the function of personal, mystical faith with its direct, unmediated access to God as a liberating element that empowers one for action. I believe that the idea of mysticism in this sense may offer a key to understanding the spirituality of the 2010s Star Wars films. “THE FORCE DOES NOT BELONG TO THE JEDI” According to Dorothee Sölle, mysticism is cognitio Dei experimentalis, a perception of God through experience. This means an awareness of God gained not through books, not through the authority of religious teachings, not through the so-called priestly office but through . . . experiences that are articulated and reflected upon in religious language but that first come to people in what they encounter in life, independent of the church’s institutions.3

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Following a traditional division of Christian spirituality, Sölle associated mystical path with the Johannine form of spirituality, as opposed to “Petrine” (based on institution and ritual) and “Pauline” (based on rational, speculative understanding of faith). The Johannine form transcends traditional, conventional boundaries. It is prophetic, independent of all structures, and therefore free for action. As opposed to conventional understanding of mysticism as a discipline reserved for some sort of spiritual elite, Sölle wanted to show that it was the most accessible way of relating oneself to the divine, open to everyone. She repeatedly stated that the purpose of her writing was “democratizing mysticism.”4 In the same vein, the recent Star Wars films very much “democratize the Force.” The independent, personal understanding of the Force echoes throughout the sequel trilogy as well as the stand-alone film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In TFA, Maz Kanata tells Rey: “I am no Jedi, but I know of the Force.” The final scene of TLJ shows the character of the “Broom Boy,” a slave child who cannot be suspected of having any formal Jedi training, using the Force to pull a broom to himself before he starts to sweep the floor. Likewise, Rogue One shows several of its protagonists relating themselves to the Force, even though they are not Jedi. Chirrut Îmwe, a representative of a religious order still existing in the post-Jedi world, walks through the battlefield reciting a mantra: “I’m one with the Force, the Force is with me.” Rogue One’s lead protagonist, Jyn Erso, “prays” while holding a necklace made of kyber crystal—a crystal used in Jedi lightsabers. The story leaves the Force’s response intentionally ambiguous and open to the audience’s interpretation. Whatever the case, the characters’ faith, however expressed in unorthodox forms or “folk belief,” is indisputable. They are forced to find their spirituality in the universe where the Empire has wiped out the Jedi and are doing so in ways that would likely be considered unorthodox or possibly “heretical” by many actual pre-Clone Wars Jedi. The story seems to support the view that regardless of the degree of their doctrinal purity, the Force “listens” to these characters’ pleas. These cases bear witness to the idea, formulated by Luke in TLJ, that “Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi died the light dies is vanity.” NONDENOMINATIONAL SPIRITUALITY The fact that this shift from orthodox to less orthodox Jedi spirituality appears not only in the sequel trilogy proper but also in Rogue One supports the notion that it reflects the trends of real-world spirituality in the screenwriters’ cultural context at the time. Luke’s training in The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) possessed strong elements from Eastern religious traditions, especially Zen

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Buddhism, that had some popularity in the United States at the time. Irvin Kershner, the director of TESB and himself a practitioner of Zen spirituality, has stated that it was his intention to make Yoda a Zen-master figure.5 TFA and TLJ, on the other hand, seem to reflect rather the trend toward individualized, nondenominational spirituality that has been steadily growing in the Western context in the past decades. TLJ does retain some of the elements inspired by Eastern forms of spirituality. The spirit of Yoda (and Luke, to a degree) maintains the unpredictable, sometimes shocking methods of teaching used by Zen masters to throw their students off balance—such as when Yoda sets the ancient library on fire or when Luke pokes Rey with a reed, making her think she is touching the Force. The focus on breathing in Rey’s meditation resembles the core meditation technique of Theravada Buddhism. At the same time, the mosaic on the Jedi temple floor shows similarity to traditional yang-yin iconography known from Chinese philosophy. In comparison to TESB, however, all these similarities are rather superficial. There is very little teaching similar to traditional orthodox Buddhist or Taoist doctrine. Jedi Masters in the first two trilogies had instructed the Skywalker boys to let go of their emotions, especially of anger, and of their worldly attachments—one of the fundaments of Buddhism. In Star Wars, this is most powerfully reflected in Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin discusses his worries about Padmé’s death with Yoda. We find nothing similar in TFA, TLJ, or TROS, and in fact we find no doctrine being taught at all. This fact may have understandably caused bewilderment among some of the audience who were used to “traditional Jediism.” In a similar vein, for example, John C. McDowell has critically observed in his theological analysis of TFA that apart from a brief comment from Maz about the Force, the writers have chosen to dispense at this point with any sense of mentoring, discipling the Force. . . . This is, of course, a new development that is well-equipped to pander to the optimistic message of North American and North West European hyperindividualism that appeals to self-reliance, and to various New Age self-help spiritualities.6

The similarity to “various New Age self-help spiritualities,” however vague such a term might be, is correctly observed. Nevertheless, for the purposes of examining what kind of spirituality is portrayed in the films, speaking about unmediated spirituality in the broader sense is more appropriate. Various forms of nondenominational and “self-help” spirituality have much in common with mysticism, mainly, the independence from traditional religious structures. The important difference lies in the fact that while “selfhelp spirituality” is mainly interested in self, mystical spirituality is not—or

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at least, it does not end there. Experience is the means, not the goal, of a mystical approach to the transcendent. In Sölle’s words, “A genuine mystical journey has much larger goal than to teach us positive thinking and to put to sleep our capacity to be critical and to suffer.”7 In the broader context of the sequel trilogy, Rey does not use the Force for “self-help,” but to help others. That is the link between mysticism and resistance that I shall still return to. More becomes evident when we focus on Rey’s relationship to the Force. Rey is not in search of some kind of spiritual entertainment, the kind of experience that Dorothee Sölle dubs spiritual “fast-food.”8 Rey’s first encounter with the Force takes place in Maz Kanata’s castle, as the Skywalkers’ lightsaber “calls to her.” In the wake of her experience, she first wants to flee and refuse the path set before her—in a manner resembling the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Also the title “The Force Awakens” implies that it is the Force that is somehow at work through Rey, not the other way around. The nuances are subtle, and perhaps the difficulty to discern mysticism from pure self-indulgence is part of the reason mystics have, historically, always been suspect. They bring an element of unpredictability into the existing structure, just as, we might say, the sequel trilogy brings an element of uncertainty to us as the audience who are used to “how the Force works.” THE CONNECTION TO ALL LIFE The mystical nature of Rey’s connection to the Force is attested by the spirit of Yoda in what is probably the most theologically loaded scene in TLJ. That comes to play after Yoda sets the ancient Jedi library on fire. Seeing Luke’s horror at the assumed loss of the Jedi texts, Yoda responds calmly: “That library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.” Yoda’s proclamation is true on two levels: Rey had, in fact, already managed to carry the books to safety (as is revealed later in the film), so she possesses them on the physical level. However, she also already possesses the sum of everything that was important in the books, the “one thing needful.” In Dorothee Sölle’s terms, Rey has already become a mystic. In TFA Rey began to feel the connection to the Force, and in TLJ she learns to interpret it. She does have a mediator for this one step: it is Luke who helps Rey understand that the Force is not “a power that Jedi have that lets them control people and make things float.” However, Luke does not, strictly speaking, teach Rey anything new. Using Sölle’s terminology, he only provides religious language so that Rey can articulate the experience she already had. She, however, needs to make sense of what she has been feeling. At the

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same time, Rey could not do just with empty phrases of the Jedi catechism that she could not connect to her own, personal experience. Even in the pivotal scene of Rey’s meditation on the ledge above the sea, she does not seem to understand what the Force is as long as Luke is trying to put it into words. There is a disconnect between the words and her own experience. When Luke tells her the classic definition of the Force (“the energy between all things . . . that binds the universe together”), Rey nods, but responds in a way that makes it clear that she still does not understand: “Okay . . . But what is it?” Only when Luke guides her into the meditation, her experience and the definition finally fall into place. What is it that happens to Rey, exactly? One thing is clear: Luke does not initiate her into any kind of special esoteric experience. He only helps her understand the simple idea that the Force connects everything. LUKE: “What do you see?” REY: “The island. Life. Death and decay, that feeds new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence.” LUKE: “And between it all?” REY: “Balance. An energy. A Force.” LUKE: “And inside you?” REY: “Inside me . . . the same Force.” LUKE: “And this is the lesson.”

The language used in the scene may vaguely remind one of pantheism. However, on close inspection, it is not so. The Force, the divine element in Star Wars, is not equated with nature. It is a completely different thing to perceive the creation as divine and to perceive all of its elements as being related to the transcendent in the same way. Together with Dorothee Sölle, we could find numerous examples of Christian mystics, from Bernard of Clairvaux to Hildegard of Bingen or Julian of Norwich, who express their experience in a similar manner as Rey does. The common part between all mystics, irrespective of their religious context, is the feeling of oneness with creation as well as closeness to God or the transcendent. In theistic religions, the fundamental truth Rey realizes could be expressed as understanding oneself to be a part of Creation, with the same kind of relationship to the Creator as the rest of it. Francis of Assisi’s way of calling birds and flowers, the Moon and the Sun his sisters and brothers comes to mind. In Sölle’s “outline of a mystical journey for today,”9 with which she hoped to present mysticism in a way accessible to everyone, the relationship with creation holds a prominent place. The path starts with amazement, which is

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exactly the moment Rey experiences on the meditation ledge. As Rey comes to the realization that Luke has been trying to guide her to, an unwitting smile appears on her face. She experiences amazement upon her understanding of being connected with the rest of the Galaxy. This corresponds well to Sölle’s description of basic mystical experiences: “a feeling of being one with all that lives, an immersion or diving into a hitherto unknown whole, a cessation of the ego and a simultaneous discovery of the self, amazement, and an intensive, unfathomable joy.”10 By placing amazement at the starting point of a mystical journey, Sölle is offering an alternative to the traditionally endorsed mystical practice that has existed for hundreds of years especially in the Western world. That path, inspired by Neoplatonism, demanded strict asceticism and began with purgatio, self-purification, as the necessary start for a fallen human being. Sölle questions this path for two reasons. Firstly, she asks whether the Fall is not too late a point in the God-human relationship to start a mystical journey. Drawing inspiration from the spiritual theology of Matthew Fox, Sölle wishes to shift the focus of the first step from original sin toward “original blessing” of the good creation. That allows for the experience of oneness just like Rey experienced it. It is also something universally relatable. Anyone can experience this amazement when facing the beauty of nature. “In amazement, whether we know it or not, we join ourselves to the heavens ‘who declare the glory of the Eternal One’ (Ps 19:1).”11 Equally important, the common basis provides the grounds for mystical ethics or for discerning true from “false” mysticism. True mysticism can never negate “the foundations of an ethic that rests in the affirmation that we are all creatures. . . . Whatever destroys this basic experience, as is done in racist, classist and patriarchal systems of domination, or in mystical ego-mania, suspends this commonness of God and, hence, also destroys the very writing of ontology and ethics that genuine mysticism searches for and lives out.”12 Secondly, the demanding approach of asceticism may prevent many from even starting on the mystical journey. On the contrary, amazement is something anybody can experience, as Rey—“a nobody,” as presented by TLJ— also attests. Sölle dubs this first step via positiva. It can occur in everyday situations when one suddenly sees even familiar things anew. “To be amazed means to behold the world and, like God after the sixth day of creation, to be able to say again or for the first time, ‘Look! How very good it all is!’”13 Sölle hastens to add that “it is not enough to describe this amazement as an experience of bliss alone. Amazement also has its bleak side of terror and hopelessness that renders one mute.”14 In Rey’s case, we can perceive this as her vision shows her not only life, but also death; not only peace, but also violence. The holistic perspective also acknowledges the suffering caused by sentient beings without relativizing or downplaying it. True mystics are aware

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that “[d]arkness, night and suffering cannot be excluded from the wholeness of God as some New Age piety promises.”15 In fact, it is exactly because of having experienced the wonder of creation that the mystics can feel the creation’s destruction and suffering more personally. Rather than rendering them helpless, this awareness helps them to continue the journey onward. The following step means relativizing the worldly realities of egoism, possession, and violence. Unlike in the traditional scheme, where letting go was the first step, in Sölle’s path the mystic has the experience with the transcendent that helps them relativize the worldly structures and orders. The third step, via transformativa, is finally connected with resistance. “Everything that is within needs to be externalized so it doesn’t spoil, like the manna in the desert that was hoarded for future consumption.”16 “[I]n being healed (saved), [humans] experience also that they can heal (save). . . . Being-at-one is not individualistic self-realization but moves beyond that to change death-oriented reality. Being-at-one shares itself and realizes itself in the ways of resistance.”17 RESISTANCE VERSUS FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD Internal mystical experience and external action are intertwined in Luke Skywalker’s story in TLJ, both in the positive and the negative senses. During his first appearance, Luke is presented as a disillusioned hermit who has retreated from the rest of the Galaxy in the face of his failure. The retreat from the world is an act commonly connected to the popular image of mystics who withdraw from the world into their private sphere of contemplation. That is not Luke’s case, however. He did not leave for Ahch-To to commune with the Force. As we are informed, he had closed himself to the Force. This is an interesting element that tells a lot by means of negative definition. Luke’s ceasing to be a Jedi goes hand in hand with his withdrawal from the Galaxy and its problems. In parallel, his return to the stage at the end of TLJ to aid the Resistance is closely connected with him reopening to the Force. It illustrates the close relationship of mysticism (in the broader sense as communion with the Force) and resistance in TLJ. As I have already noted, the same goes for Dorothee Sölle’s interpretation of mysticism. A mystic is not inattentive to the wrongs of the world or, to use a theological category, to the presence of sin—by which Sölle means also social and ecological injustice. Sölle cites numerous historical examples of mystical spirituality that prove this, in contrast to the image of a mystic as a detached hermit. These examples include individuals like Thomas Müntzer, the medieval Beguines, and Quakers; but also non-Christian mystics like the Sufi Mansur al-Hallaj or the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Sölle finds that

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there is one common thread in their relation to the world, “whether it be withdrawal, renunciation, disagreement, divergence, dissent, reform, resistance, rebellion, or revolution . . . there is a No! to the world as it exists now.”18 It would be a misinterpretation to equate Sölle’s ideal of resistance, interpreted in modern society, for example, through nonviolent forms of civil disobedience, with actions of the Resistance as a paramilitary group of fighters. That would present the same kind of discrepancy that exists already in the first six Star Wars films, which praise the ideal of Jedi nonviolence but spend a lot of screen time showing the heroes using violence to achieve their goals. The ideal of resistance and Resistance get considerably closer, however, if we take the Resistance as a symbol—and the sequel trilogy seems to often treat it as such. TLJ several times repeats the line that the Resistance is only the spark to ignite the fire, notably in Admiral Holdo’s first speech to her crew: We’re the very last of the Resistance. But we’re not alone. In every corner of the galaxy, the downtrodden and oppressed know our symbol and they put their hope in it. We are the spark that will ignite the fire that will restore the Republic. That spark, this Resistance, must survive.

The idea of the Resistance is something to inspire those who would otherwise silently accept the domination imposed by the First Order.19 The complacent attitude is showed by Finn during the middle part of TFA, culminating with his decision to simply run away as far from the First Order as he can. Finn’s true act of resistance happens in the beginning: his “no to the world as it exists” is his escape from the First Order military. Afterward, however, he retreats into his private sphere and would not continue if it was not for the bond he had formed with Rey. At his lowest point, Finn, just like Luke in his exile, moves “from an unconscious, unsuspecting, tolerated impotence into a paralysis of analysis that leads to despair and to the resigned exclamation, ‘there’s nothing you can do about it.’”20 That is how Sölle illustrates the pitfall for many who face the harsh reality, and the alternative to it is claiming “the power that has been given to all created beings,”21 the discovery of one’s own ability to resist. That is what the Resistance, as a symbol, helps the rest of the Galaxy to find. It may be of note that Finn’s experience and process of realizing his own latent Force-sensitivity seems to correlate with his focus turning outward throughout the story, away from being merely centered on his own self-preservation. While talking about the symbolic union of mysticism and resistance, I cannot omit TLJ’s final scene, which is imbued more with symbolic meaning than literal. It shows the “Broom Boy” using the Force, after which he observes a Resistance ship in the sky. The camera then zooms on a ring with the Rebel symbol on his hand (which was given to him by Rose). The boy

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can be said to represent many things at once: the innocence of childhood, the longing for adventure, the connection to the Force, the suffering of the oppressed, the ideal of a Jedi, and the ongoing fight against forces of domination that gets passed on to every next generation. It may be equally relevant that the boy’s location is Canto Bight, the luxurious resort built on the backs of poor servants like him. It is also the place where the important act of liberation and resistance was performed by Rose and Finn—freeing the horselike fathiers that were kept in captivity and mistreated. The scene may be the one with the most explicit ethical overtone: when Finn claims that it “was worth it” to hurt the heartless business-owners, Rose corrects him by freeing the last fathier and stating: “Now it’s worth it.” The presence of both the spiritual element and the element of resistance together in the “Broom Boy” scene are significant, especially after everything that transpired in the film and after Luke’s words that he “will not be the last Jedi.” The terms “hero,” “Rebel,” and even “Jedi” become blurred. It underlines the way the Jedi are presented in the sequel trilogy: being a “good Force-user” is not self-serving, and a Jedi is not one who follows a doctrine, or wields a lightsaber, or lifts rocks. Being a Jedi is essentially connected with the act of resistance. THE CENTRAL CONFLICT This brings us back to what the sequel trilogy perceives as the central conflict for the majority of screen time. As mentioned above, there is a remarkable absence of the hero’s internal struggle against the Dark Side. Rey does not battle her anger or hatred except for a few short moments in TROS. If we compare her stay on the island of Ahch-To to Luke’s stay on Dagobah, and their eventual departure to help their friends, we notice the differences in the context. In TESB, young Luke left Yoda because he felt that his friends needed him, but promised that he would return to complete his training. Yoda and Obi-Wan’s ghost attempted to stop him, fearing that he might let his anger corrupt him. To prevent young Luke from giving in to the pull of violence, Yoda emphasized the passivity of the Jedi during the Dagobah training. “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Yoda urged Luke to be “calm, at peace. Passive.” Even though a different kind of passivity may be on Yoda’s mind here, it is in stark contrast to TLJ’s emphasis on activity. In TLJ, Rey leaves disappointed with old Luke, concluding that if he does not act, she has to. Unlike in young Luke’s case, the temptation of the Dark Side or the level of Rey’s training are not matters of discussion. Luke fears Rey’s powers briefly during her meditation, as they remind him of Ben Solo,

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but the fear of Rey turning to the Dark Side does not resurface again until TROS—and there it is Rey, not her teachers, who doubts herself. As for her training, everything implies that Rey is ready to be called a Jedi, at least ready enough for all practical purposes. Once again, her mystical connection to the Force substitutes for disciplined training, until she gets the time to actually exercise her skills in TROS. That training is more of a technical kind, honing and perfecting her abilities, and it has nothing to do with her readiness to use the Force to do good and protect peace the way any Jedi would. This is further illustrated on the narrative level. Even though Rey’s stay on Ahch-To mirrors young Luke’s Dagobah experience, the subsequent events show parallels rather between Rey and RotJ-Luke than between Rey and TESB-Luke. Just like RotJ-Luke, whom Yoda fully acknowledges as Jedi, goes on a quest to turn his father from the Dark Side, Rey in TLJ, also acknowledged by Yoda to possess what is necessary, leaves on a mission to turn Kylo Ren. The parallels continue: voluntarily giving oneself up to be captured, appealing to the villain, refusal, being brought before the “master of the Dark Side,” and holding fast despite such intimidating presence. There the parallel ends. Rey is not being tested in TLJ as Luke is in RotJ. She eventually merely gets an offer from Kylo Ren, which does not concern the Dark Side on the metaphysical level. It concerns joining him personally and his side on the political level. In other words: the internal metaphysical conflict is sidelined for the sake of an external one. Likewise important for the topic we are following is that Rey initially does not want to turn Kylo Ren in order to save him. She does believe in the good in him, just as Luke felt the good in his father. However, her purpose in TLJ is first global and only then personal. She explicitly states that she wants to seek Kylo Ren because after Luke’s refusal, “he is our [i.e., the Resistance’s] last hope.” This sentiment directly follows the reason why she first came to the island: not to be trained, but to convince Luke to leave his exile and join the Resistance. Along with other examples cited above, the difference between the focus on passive introspection and the external action reflects a generic shift in the entire “theology” of the new trilogy, at least until the final climax of TROS. The battle against the Dark Side has now first and foremost practical, visible effects. A hero, especially a Jedi, is expected to step up and take the side of the “downtrodden and the oppressed,” in the words of Admiral Holdo. In theological terms, in TLJ, sin is not perceived primarily as a personal and moral category, but as a social and political category. At the risk of oversimplification, one might say that the spirit of “Jediism” in TLJ has now moved further from a Buddhist theological orientation and much closer to a form of liberation theology—or, as Sölle puts it, theology of resistance.

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IS IT TIME FOR THE JEDI TO END? There is one more question directly related to the “change of paradigm” presented in the sequel trilogy. That question is: does the “new” mean the end of the “old”? TLJ seems to favor grounding spirituality in one’s experience rather than simple acceptance of tradition. Does it disqualify tradition itself, however? The question whether the Jedi must end is on Luke’s mind throughout a large part of the film. He contemplates the failures of his predecessors and those of his own, resulting in the fall of Ben Solo. The conviction forces him to abandon his faith, to close himself to the Force, and to retreat into his voluntary exile. This entire arc culminates in Luke’s decision to burn the ancient Jedi tree and the library containing ancient Jedi texts. As Luke hesitates in the last moment, Yoda’s ghost appears and sets the place on fire himself. Luke’s reaction is to jump to the conclusion that solidifies his previous view: “So it is time for the Jedi Order to end.” Yoda, however, gives a different answer: “Time it is, for you to look past a pile of old books!” That is an implicit “no” to the question. In the following discussion, Yoda clarifies to Luke that the tradition is worth passing on, especially the failures that the future generations can learn from. That is a rather optimistic picture. Luke himself later shows he has appropriated this picture when he tells Kylo Ren: “I will not be the last Jedi.” Despite the change of paradigm in the approach to the Force, the Jedi tradition is not condemned. Even its written doctrine is not discarded, contrary to the expectation: already one of the final scenes of TLJ shows the ancient Jedi books safely stored aboard the Millennium Falcon. TLJ does not disqualify the Jedi faith, not even its ritualistic or scholastic side. It merely very strongly stresses the legitimacy of its mystical element. It is as if TLJ echoed a proclamation of Karl Rahner about Christianity that was also appropriated by Sölle, which I could paraphrase here as: “The Jedi of the future will be mystics, or they will not exist at all.”22 NOTES 1. For further reading on that subject, see Rostislav Kůrka, “From Dark Side to Grey Politics: The Portrayal of Evil in the Star Wars Saga,” in A Shadow Within: Evil in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T. Barbini (Edinburgh: Luna Press, 2019), 169–188. 2. Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001). 3. Dorothee Soelle, The Strength of the Weak: Towards a Christian Feminist Identity (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984), 86.

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4. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 97. 5. Timothy White, “’Star Wars’: Slaves to the ‘Empire,’ Rolling Stone, July 24, 1980, h t t p s : / / w w w. r o l l i n g s t o n e . c o m / c u l t u r e / c u l t u r e - n e w s / star-wars-slaves-to-the-empire-61931/. 6. John C. McDowell, The Gospel according to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force, Second Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 156. 7. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 89. 8. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 50. 9. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 88. 10. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 20. 11. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 91. 12. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 54. 13. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 90. 14. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 90. 15. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 142. 16. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 3. 17. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 93. 18. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 3. 19. This theme is explored even more powerfully in the Star Wars Resistance animated series, whose plot is concurrent with that of the sequel trilogy. Despite being aimed also at younger audiences, the show portrays the wider sociopolitical context of the First Order’s rise as well the “common people’s” reactions to it in a surprisingly deep and realistic manner. 20. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 205. 21. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 204. 22. Cf. Soelle, The Silent Cry, 108, and Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations Volume VII: Further Theology of the Spiritual Life I, trans. David Bourke (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971), 15.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Kůrka, Rostislav. “From Dark Side to Grey Politics: The Portrayal of Evil in the Star Wars Saga.” In A Shadow Within: Evil in Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Francesca T. Barbini, 169–188. Edinburgh: Luna Press, 2019. McDowell, John C. The Gospel according to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force, Second Edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017. Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations Volume VII: Further Theology of the Spiritual Life I. Translated by David Bourke. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971. Soelle, Dorothee. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

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——. The Strength of the Weak: Towards a Christian Feminist Identity. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984. White, Timothy. “‘Star Wars’: Slaves to the ‘Empire’.” Rolling Stone, July 24, 1980. h t t p s : / / w w w. r o l l i n g s t o n e . c o m / c u l t u r e / c u l t u r e - n e w s / s t a r - w a r s slaves-to-the-empire-61931/.

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Bringing Balance to the Force George Lucas’s Politico-Critical Refiguring of Salvation John C. McDowell

EDIFIED BY STAR WARS? In the Preface to his Sickness unto Death the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard drew a distinction for Christian writing between rigor and edification. “From the Christian point of view, everything . . . ought to serve for upbuilding.”1 What he has in mind should not be misunderstood lest the demand for edification become a subjective one, thereby displacing the rigor of proper testing of its capacity to be truth-telling, and simultaneously pandering to any antiintellectual impatience with an indication of the material complexity of things or the scholarly rigor of form. Rather, he suggests, a certain kind of rigor constitutes “a kind of inhuman curiosity.” In contrast, just such a contribution to the flourishing “relation to life” is actually demanded of “everything essentially Christian.” The image of the latter type of work is that of “the way a physician speaks at the sickbed; even if only medical experts understand it.” What would it mean to read cinema edifyingly, or for a theology of global flourishing? There is a range of pressures for considering cinema as conducive to flourishing. Time spent with Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment would suggest as much. One thing that characterizes their famous reading of cinema is a concern for that which contributes not so much to an inhuman curiosity as to an inhuman distraction from inquiring into what the conditions that prevent flourishing may be. Their 155

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worry is over all matters that contribute systematically to “the indefatigable self-destructiveness of enlightenment,” and therefore to the darkening of the conditions for the realization of a healthy human life.2 When considering cinema as a product of the culture industry, they demand that their readers “discard the last vestiges of innocence to the habits and tendencies of the spirit of the age.” In fact, their illuminations enable insight into how the very mechanical reproduction of dominant social and political ideologies, particularly that of “the absolute power of capitalism,” enables cinema “to evade responsibility for lies,” the lies that idolize “given existence and . . . the power which controls technology.”3 The question for the theological reader of Star Wars, then, is whether, and in what way, the cinematic saga can contribute to human flourishing or what Kierkegaard calls upbuilding. Critique impacts in a negative fashion by attending to all that contributes to the negation of flourishing, to the disruption of the livability of life, including the very systems that guide performance and the ideologies that sustain and promulgate those systems. Yet the question is pressing for another reason than that of the negative direction of critique gleaned from Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading of “candy-floss entertainment” as contributing to the Enlightenment’s “mass deception.”4 Where they demand that intense attention be paid to the sources of the darkening of the project of appropriate humanization, some comments from George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise itself, would suggest that it may well be possible to consider cultural artifacts such as film more positively—as a franchise designed to encourage the flourishing of life together. Can its cognitive estrangement or “realistic irreality . . . [of] humanized nonhumans, [and] this-worldly Other-worlds” contribute more substantially to the flourishing of all things?5 Lucas certainly thinks so, formed as he was within the context of the socially and politically aware ‘New Hollywood’ (more specifically, within the group of filmmakers at American Zoetrope). Consequently, he proclaims cinema to be a productively constructive pedagogical tool. In whatever way the “mechanical reproduction of . . . art” in the culture of cinema may be determined to pacify audiences, Lucas imagines that his ‘art,’ then, is not implicated in that process of subject-production, in the “modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made into subjects,” but instead provokes moral attentiveness.6 The filmmaker’s work, then provides “artistic practices [that] can contribute to unsettling the dominant hegemony.”7 To this end Lucas himself appealed to the term ‘myth’ to depict what his Star Wars, later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, was doing a month prior to the movie’s release.8 His moral urging here is ‘religious’ in spirit in the broad sense in that it has to do with his evaluative understanding of what the Good is. His conception of that Good, of what is ultimately worth valuing and living and dying for, predicates it as lying beyond the particularities of concrete

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traditions. Consequently, he claims that “I have strong feelings about God and the nature of life, but I’m not devoted to one particular faith.”9 It is worth noting Lucas’s own reactions to the church in this particularitytruncating religiously pluralizing admission. Peter Biskind refers to what he calls “the chilly Lutheranism” of Modesto, Lucas’s hometown, and while that church provided a fascination with the importance of ritualized behavior, it also contributed to the young man’s moral concerns over what he perceived to be “self-centered religion.”10 It was in contrast to both that kind of ultimately narcissistic religiosity and the moral cynicism of post-Vietnam America, that Lucas deigned to “introduce a kind of basic morality” into his movies, initially doing so through Star Wars’s confident moral consciousness.11 Various critics claim that the way Star Wars does this is by responding to the need for Americans to renew faith in themselves as the ‘good guys’ on the world scene.12 Yet this reading is markedly different from Lucas’s own conception for several reasons, one of which is worth indicating at this point. For the maker of 1971’s critically dystopian THX 1138 the imprint of the Vietnam conflict is all over the space opera design in a different way, even if it had to take the Ewoks’ guerrilla warfare of the Return of the Jedi to make it a little clearer. The 1974 notebooks used to develop Star Wars reflect that “the empire is like America ten years from now, after gangsters assassinated the Emperor and were elected to power in a rigged election. . . . We are at a turning point: fascism or revolution.”13 In fact, the novelization that anticipated the release of the movie itself opens with just such a claim.14 The then recent Nixon scandal and its implication of American political life was not far from the surface. For Lucas, the movie is based around postcolonial worries about “a conflict between freedom and conformity,” themes so starkly exhibited earlier in THX 1138.15 Lucas, nonetheless, laments that “nobody was aware of that.”16 LUKE SKYWALKER’S LEARNING TO UNLEARN Prior to the cinematic release of The Phantom Menace, Lucas announced that “somebody has to tell young people what we think is a good person. I mean, we should be doing it all the time. That’s what the Iliad and the Odyssey are about—‘This is what a good person is; this is who we aspire to be.’ You need that in a society. It’s the basic job of mythology.”17 The ethicist Bernard Williams warningly observes, however, that one of the problems with moral discourse is the “remarkable assurance with which people think they already know what moral questions are about and consequently what can and what cannot be called ‘moral.’”18 Accordingly, the crucial question becomes: what does Star Wars provide an education in?

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The original Star Wars movie, later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, was received by many critics and fans as a confidently old-fashioned conflict between good and evil. For Keith Booker, for instance, “its old-fashioned, nostalgic appeal also marked the beginning of a rightward turn in American politics that would lead to the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980.”19 This is an understandable reading. The darkness of the Empire, with its black knight character Darth Vader, unveils the weapon of mass destruction (the Death Star) that would maintain imperial order in the galaxy with the totalitarian dissolution of the politically advisory body (the Imperial Senate). That the imperial officer class was garbed in Nazi-like costumes, that the infantry’s personnel was named “stormtroopers,” and that the helmet of the menacingly masked Vader had the Stahlhelm curvature of the twentieth-century German military helmets provided visual clues as to where the audience’s sympathies were being directed. The cartoonish screen crawl adapted from the adventure serials of Lucas’s youth says so much. The lens it provides invites the audience to responsively view the Empire with exclusionary derision via the decisive morally emotive rhetoric of “evil,” with its leaders being depicted as “sinister agents.” Even the references to the Republic, the Senate, and the Empire resonated with ancient Rome more than it did with contemporary America, and this in itself has a significant emotive implication for audiences who would associate it with “a degenerate totalitarian society characterized by militarism, slavery, religious persecution, bloody games, sexual debauchery, and spiritual emptiness.”20 In this adventure of Luke Skywalker, the audience is directed to cheer for the small band of rebels in the sacrificial logic of heroically risking their lives in an assault for galactic freedom from tyranny and its control through the utilization of a world-destroying superweapon. So far so very Flash Gordon! It is precisely this sense of the good-us-versus-evil-them that results in Ronald Reagan’s appeal to Lucas’s Star Wars saga and in particular the rhetoric of the “evil empire” to dichotomously depict the Soviet empire in contradistinction to the presumed good of the soviet-resistant free-world and the good America. Yet critical reception of the franchise can hardly stop there, since over the coming movies in the series, Lucas disrupted the ease of this Manichaean-like depiction that “projects evil onto its ‘other’” and began to offer something a little more subtle and complex.21 While the necessity of resistance to coercive and self-aggrandizing unjust governance looms large in the original trilogy of Episodes IV–VI, there are suggestions that even there “evil” is not something that can be comfortably projected externally, and therefore any self-assured good-us-versus-evil-them is subverted. After all, Lucas has declared that he had the Vietnam conflict in mind all along, and had projected President Nixon and his support into the design of the

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Empire itself. Accordingly, there is sense in McVeigh’s claim that “the opening crawl of the film places the narrative in a telling context: ‘It is a period of civil war.’ . . . [T]he Empire is no less a representation of an aspect of America than the rebel heroes.”22 In Episode IV the wise mentor figure, Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, reveals to the inquisitive and galactically naïve young moisture farmer two parallel ‘fall’ stories—that of the “more civilized age” of the generationally millennialist Republic, with its Jedi guardians of “peace and justice,” falling with the rise of the Empire (a story patterned somewhat on Hitler’s rise to power in the Weimar Republic, and on the replacement of the Roman Republic by the order of the Roman Imperium); and the fall of the young Jedi pupil of Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi named “Darth Vader” who when he “turned to evil” “helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights.” By focusing on Luke and his journey, this particular episodic series parallels the liberation of the galaxy from unjust imperial rule and his successful character growth. Not only is he himself instrumental in the eventual destruction of the imperial order, but his is a microcosmic story that focuses and represents the macrocosmic tale of the fate of the political system. Increasingly, however, the films become aware of the danger of desensitizing their audience to suffering. The blasé portrayal of Luke’s rather emotionally tidy and child-friendly response to the loss of both his guardians Owen and Beru Lars and his best friend Biggs Darklighter (A New Hope) is replaced with the rush to risk himself when Force-sensing the trouble his friends are in (The Empire Strikes Back) and the eventual refusal to capitulate to Palpatine’s temptations to act violently on his growing hatred of the Sith master and to treat Vader as a purely disposable object of egoistic action (Return of the Jedi). On casting away his lightsaber, Luke defiantly announces, “You’ve failed, your highness. I am a Jedi like my father before me.” In this last scene Luke’s action, inviting the interpretation of him as a sacrificial pharmākos, stands in marked contrast with that of both the Emperor and Vader who cheapen others’ lives by using and disposing of them as waste when their usefulness as an extension of the technologies of the self or the flourishing of the self is used up. The challenge of the drama here is itself the fruit of the retraining of the coupling of dramatic heroism with a mythic warrior-code in the context of the deconstructive work of the Jedi Master Yoda on Dagobah (The Empire Strikes Back). To Luke’s shallow talk of a “great warrior,” the mentor reveals that “wars not make one great.” The young apprentice’s narcissistic appetite for “excitement [and] adventure” is met only with scorn. Instead, being one with the Force involves a responsible sense of the symbiosis with all things that the Force penetrates and binds together. This is an ego-disposing education rather than what Christopher Lasch calls “ego-strengthening education.”23 What occurs in his Jedi training then, to adapt the words of André Gorz, is

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the realization of “social relations that elude the grasp of value, competitive individualism and market exchange.”24 AN INVERTED RECAPITULATION: ANAKIN SKYWALKER’S TRAGIC FALL Dramatically, there is little new in the prequel trilogy, apart from a number of noticeable retroactive reconfigurations (such as the immediate postnatal fatality of Padmé). The original trilogy contains enough retrospection as to enable the broad piecing together of the recent rise of the Galactic Empire from the ashes of the old Republic. Already with A New Hope’s backstory of Vader there is a highly significant inverted metanoia. It is this that the prequels develop.25 Yet the way they, and in particular Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, do so is highly significant. During the Bush-Cheney years, in Douglas Kellner’s terms, “an older and more politically astute George Lucas” conceives of a macro-(galactic politics) and micro-genealogy (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader) that intensifies the banalization of wickedness and repeats the political responsiveness of the saga in political conditions that possess some ideological overlap in the modern history of the belligerent realpolitik of the ‘American empire.’26 In this regard, there is much fruit to be gained from McVeigh’s argument that Episodes I–VI provide “a singular set of commentaries on war and the United States.”27 The prequels also cast something of a reinterpretive shadow over the original trilogy. So, for instance, while these Episodes IV–VI focused on Luke’s adventures, Episodes I–III demand that the whole saga be complicated by Anakin’s tragedy. Where the original trilogy’s dominant arc was hope-with-loss, the prequels are directed toward catastrophe-yet-hope. It is crucial to notice how Lucas designs the redemptiveness of the story through typological figuration in a series of parallels between Anakin and Luke, a “kind of duplicating. . . . [I]t’s like poetry, they rhyme. Every stanza rhymes with the last one.”28 However, it is not merely in the prequels that this inverse figurative relation becomes perceptible, since in the original trilogy Luke begins to take on Vader-like characteristics as a parallel-and repeat-Vader, all the way down to the darkening of his clothing and mechanized hand, with Palpatine’s hope that he eventually will become his father’s replacement. Yet the parallel runs in different directions—one toward the healing of galactic peace, the other contributing to the catastrophic conflict itself. This means that Luke remains a redemptive figure because it is his dramatic journey that enables a final contesting of the lure of self-aggrandizing values and functions to make him a recapitulatory figure, a kind of new

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Anakin one might say. Consequently, it is Luke (and his twin sister, Leia, according to Yoda) who becomes the “New Hope.” According to Lucas’s biographer, Dale Pollock, “Lucas . . . wanted his version of the Christ story in Empire. Luke beheads Vader in an underground cave, only to find his own head inside Vader’s black helmet, and at two other moments he is urged to give up his heroic path in order to seize the Emperor’s power and rule with his father (The Empire Strikes Back) and to seize Vader’s position and become the Emperor’s apprentice (Return of the Jedi). These scenes function as nods to the temptations of Jesus in the desert.”29 Interestingly in this regard, there is a scene in Dan Stover’s novelization of Revenge of the Sith that does not appear in the movie in which from the expansive gaze across the cityscape window in his skyline chambers Palpatine offers Anakin power if only he would bow the knee to his elder mentor.30 The saga arguably possesses a multiplicity of Christ-forms (can Padmé and even C-3PO be read as suffering servants, especially given the wise resistance of the former to the growing conflict? Yoda as spiritual guide, particularly given his being raised into the Force? Obi-Wan giving his life for others and being raised into Force-presence?). Even so, it is specifically the every person character, Luke, who is the character whose actions are preeminent bringing redemption—refusing the tempting call to adventure when he had previously, albeit reluctantly, promised to help his uncle on the farm (A New Hope); provoking Han Solo to renounce his evasion of moral responsibility in the conflict (A New Hope); risking his life for his friends (The Empire Strikes Back); rejecting the temptations thrown at him to take a politically/morally different route (The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi); and determining to strike down his enemy Palpatine while refusing to give up hope on Vader’s redeemability (Return of the Jedi). This connection is somewhat undermined when his characterization is read in the context of his thematic connection with the ‘virgin birth’ of The Phantom Menace’s Anakin. Here Anakin takes on an important theo-ontological characteristic when birthed in and by the Force itself through the servant mother. Nonetheless, the ‘virgin birth’ theme used to depict Anakin’s birth-heritage not only positions him, and consequently his son Luke, within a christic-frame of imagistic reference, but suggests further that the movies are not clearly presenting some kind of humanistic anthropology in which all can easily become ‘Christ-figures’ through identifying with the typical everyperson hero. Anakin’s uncommonly high midichlorian count indicates his exceptionality. While they may be ‘ordinary’ heroes in some sense, they are ‘supernaturally’ extra-ordinary in another. Accordingly, in Return of the Jedi Luke reveals to his sister the genetic connection to the

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Force: “The Force is strong in my family. My father has it; I have it; my sister has it.” Given Lucas’s admission of a kind of religiously pluralist commitment, it would be a mistake for the theologically minded to become both animated about, and fixated on, the Christian dimension of these images in Star Wars. After all, the nature of the redemptive action in A New Hope is a violent one, and it is so in a way that disturbs any Christian narration of the Gospel of the making of peace together. This is no incidental matter, and it has led to considerable angst among commentators as to the values being propagated by the film. Things begin to look a little different, though, but only a little, if and when it is read through the lens of the Vietnam political setting, with the violence being one of resistance to oppression and injustice that is therefore very different in scope from that of the violence of the oppressors. On the other hand, the violence of retributive justice at least perpetuates the cycle. This may not be the self-aggrandizing violence of the oppressor, nor the violence of a certain political realization of the notion of the survival of the fittest, but it nonetheless normalizes violence by providing a mythicization of military action and principles for civic commonweal and a “cultural script that links manhood and public respect [and the healing liberation] with violence.”31 Here Lucas’s launching of the narrative straight into the conflict indicated by the Star Destroyer’s pursuit of the fleeing Tantive IV is in danger of doing precisely that. In fact, Kellner reads Episodes IV–VI as “a comforting set of redemptive myths” “after the traumatic defeat in Vietnam.”32 As Kellner argues, “A warrior culture is inimical to a democratic society and should be countered by democratic values of dialogue, consensus, and nonviolent conflict resolution, as well as positive values like peace and community.”33 Only the appeal to the image of millennial republican peace operates to contest the ontologicalization of belligerent relations in A New Hope, and it takes two further movies to reach the rather simplistic eschatological resolution (since it provides the ‘happy ever after’ sense) in the postbellum of a peaceable order in the New Republic. Nonetheless, it does remain the case that The Phantom Menace’s image of ontological uniqueness provides a certain messianic location to the characterization of Anakin. He is uniquely conceived in the cosmic Force while yet remaining human, and, crucially, his fate becomes consequently grandly significant for the fate of the entire galaxy. Like Luke, he is an archetypically representative figure, an everyperson struggling to make his way and his mark on life, while succumbing unwittingly to what Lucas as early as 1981 anticipates to be the “Machiavellian” theme of the insidious self-interested plotting of the mysterious Palpatine.34 There are conspicuous messianic echoes in the rhetoric used by Qui-Gon of Anakin as “the Chosen One,”

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language that has become something of a recent staple of hero-focused cinema in the likes of Harry Potter and The Matrix (Neo is “the One”), whose coming to “bring balance to the Force” had been “prophesied” long before. This fits in particularly well with Carl Jung’s claim that the hero (and here, the villainous antihero) is a “greater man . . . semidivine nature.”35 Probably more likely than the first and third Gospel it was Joseph Campbell’s influence and therefore a more general mythic provenance that was paramount for Lucas here, with the mythicist having argued that the story of a virgin miraculously bearing a child is a key part of the heroic monomyth. In fact, this connection with Campbell would equally explain the reworking of the Christian conception of the virginal conception of Jesus, with the image being useful to do a certain kind of figuration of Anakin as uniquely placed in galactic history while himself becoming an inversion of Christ, the fallen one whose fall has resulted in countless deaths and the very destruction of the Jedi Order itself. HEALING A POLITICS OF COMPLEX EVIL The provenance of the multiplicity of borrowings in the pastiche that Lucas’s Star Wars appears to be is actually not terribly theologically interesting. Little theological value is gained from tracing the Christian, Buddhist, or Taoist origins of ideas, teachings, and concepts other than to recognize the fusion cuisine in Lucas’s cinematic kitchen.36 What is more promising is the way the good life and its diminishment are construed, even if the ingredients demonstrate little of what it is that provides an appropriately nourishing conception of the Good. Terry Eagleton laments that “in the so-called war against terror, ‘evil’ is used to foreclose the possibility of historical explanation.”37 The ideological process takes shape in portraying the notion of moral “monsters [who] are other people.”38 In contrast, however, Lucas takes the saga after A New Hope in a direction that suggests that the enemy can be “ourselves,” and therefore that we can “lose our humanity to greed and a selfish quest for power—symbolized by the Dark side.”39 Evil, and its diminishment of life, does not come from nowhere. It is not hidden in irredeemably ‘evil’ people waiting to be unleashed necessarily. It is the product of the way ordinarily flawed people learn to negotiate their way in a morally complex world from the shape of relations and encounters they have, and the conditions they are set in and the decisions they make within those conditions, leading to fear, anger, violence, and the self-aggrandizing manipulation of others for one’s own ends. The prequels attempt to reveal this through the tragic fall of Anakin and to provide resistance by placing hope for a new liberative or healing way on the shoulders of his son in such a fashion as to climax in a reconciliatory moment

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between the fallen one and his younger savior. In this way, “these [prequel] movies unsettlingly begin to strip some of the pantomime-like ideological readings of the ‘classic trilogy’ from their simplistic dualistic approach to good and evil, and explore in more complex ways causation in human and nonhuman relations than the earlier movies do. One’s whole approach to the saga has to be relearned, although popular readings of the ‘classic trilogy’ itself may themselves be insufficiently nuanced.”40 At its best it can provide a provocation toward healing the cultural imagination in terms of appreciating how decisions and relations can, particularly unwittingly, contribute to the diminishment of our moral responsibility and the destruction of others’ lives. The story of the tragedy of Anakin and the Jedi Order in particular indicates the ease with which even the well-intentioned can be deceived and manipulated for destructive ends. This aspect of Lucas’s work functions on the critical or negative side of a Kierkegaardian sense of edification. As McVeigh argues, “Now he [viz., Lucas] is not attempting to heal but to energize his audience, not attempting to offer a salve for the aftermath of a misguided military action but to prevent the conditions for the onset of a future one.”41 However, Pollock claims of the earliest trilogy that “Lucas offers more than just escapist entertainment; he gives us a vision of what should be.”42 The difficulty is that an edifying hope is less well developed in the saga largely because of the narrative setting in the midst of the conflict and the rather simplistic sense of the climactic healing or resolution. The fairy tale conditioning circumvents the messiness of the reality of political disagreement and compromise. It involves, in the words of Frederic Jameson, “inventing imaginary or formal ‘solutions’ to unresolvable social contradictions.”43 On the one hand, it occurs through a form of apocalyptic violence that marshals forces of resistance to unjust governance in destructive conflict. Yet, there is that other note, the refusal of violence on the part of Luke. Of course, it takes the assassination of Palpatine by Vader to save Luke, but something interesting has nonetheless occurred in Luke’s nonviolent turn and in his father’s transfigured sense of himself and his place as an agent with political and moral responsibility for his son. In this regard, Bill Moyers recognizes the cultural therapy that Star Wars presents with its “romance based on selflessness rather than selfishness,” and its symbiosis of all life-forms (in the Force) in the fragile existent ecosystem.44 As Lucas observes, “We saw why you cannot blindly set off an atomic bomb, for example. It is one planet and what you do on one side of the planet will affect the entire planet.”45

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NOTES 1. Søren Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, ed, and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), xi. 2. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkeimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London and New York: Verso, 1979), xi. 3. Citations from Adorno and Horkeimer, 120, xvi. 4. Citations from Adorno and Horkeimer, xv, 120. 5. Citation from Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Genre, ed. Gerry Canavan (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979), 8. 6. Citations from Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 218; Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 208–26 (208). 7. Citation adapted from Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism (London and New York: Verso, 2018), 91. 8. George Lucas, in Sally Kline (ed.), George Lucas: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 53. 9. Lucas, in Alan Arnold, Once upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of The Empire Strikes Back (New York: Ballantine, 1980), 189f., cited in Brian Jay Jones, George Lucas: A Life (London: Headline, 2016), 19. 10. Citations from Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Touchstone, 1998), 317; Lucas, in David Wilkinson, The Power of the Force: The Spirituality of the Star Wars (Oxford: Lion, 2000), 63. 11. Lucas, cited in Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, the Creator of Star Wars (Hollywood, New York, London, Toronto: Samuel French, 1990), 144. 12. See Andrew Gordon, “Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time,” Literature/Film Quarterly 6, 4 (1978), 320–25. 13. Cited in J. W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story behind the Original Film (Ebury Press, 2008), 26. 14. See George Lucas, Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (London: Sphere Books, 1977), 1f. 15. Cited in Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 27. 16. Lucas, in Chris Taylor, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 2. 17. Lucas, in Tim Rayment, “Master of the Universe,” Sunday Times Magazine (May 16, 1999), 14–24 (20). 18. Bernard Williams, cited in S. L. Goldberg, Agents and Lives: Moral Thinking in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), xiv.

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19. M. Keith Booker, Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 13f. 20. Martin M. Winkler, “Star Wars and the Roman Empire,” in Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema, ed. Martin M. Winkler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 272–290 (275). 21. Citation from Douglas Kellner, Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era (Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 8. 22. Stephen P. McVeigh, “The Galactic Way of Warfare,” in Matthew Wilhelm Kappell and John Shelton Lawrence (eds.), Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, and Critics (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 35–58 (39, 41). 23. Christopher Lasch, The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1984), 205. 24. André Gorz, cited in Mouffe, For a Left Populism, 87. 25. For further elaboration of this point see John C. McDowell, The Gospel according to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), ch. 3. 26. Citation from Douglas Kellner, Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era (Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 174. 27. Stephen P. McVeigh, “The Galactic Way of Warfare,” 36. 28. George Lucas, “The Beginning: The Making of Episode I,” The Phantom Menace, DVD 2 (1999). Cf. John C. McDowell, “Star Wars’ Saving Return,” Journal of Religion and Film 13, 1 (April 2009), http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13.no1/ StarWars.htm. 29. Dale Pollock, Skywalking, 211. 30. Matthew Stover, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (London: Century, 2005), 278f. 31. Newman, et al., cited in Douglas Kellner, Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre (Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2008), 23. 32. Kellner, Cinema Wars, 182. 33. Kellner, Guys and Guns Amok, 152. 34. Citation from Lucas, in interview with Kerry O’Quinn in 1981, in Kline, Interviews, 107. 35. Carl Gustav Jung, “On the Nature of Dreams,” The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8, ed. Herbert Read et al. (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1960), 293. 36. This failure to recognize the operative pluralism is a common feature of religious readings of the saga, with traditions attempting to harness the material for illustrative effect. 37. Terry Eagleton, Holy Terror (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 106. 38. Terry Eagleton, Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic (Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 165.

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39. John C. Lyden, Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals (New York and London: New York University Press, 2003), 27. 40. John C. McDowell, The Politics of Big Fantasy: Studies in Cultural Suspicion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2014), 81f. 41. McVeigh, “The Galactic Way,” 49. 42. Pollock, Skywalking, 271. 43. Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 79. 44. Bill Moyers, in Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 145. See Lucas in interview with Stephen Zito, 1977, in Kline, Interviews, 53. 45. Lucas, in interview with David Sheff, 1987, in Kline, Interviews, 154.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor W., and Horkeimer, Max. The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by John Cumming. London and New York: Verso, 1979. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. New York: Touchstone, 1998. Booker, M. Keith. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Campbell, Joseph, and Moyers, Bill. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Eagleton, Terry. Holy Terror. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ———. Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic. Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Foucault, Michel. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Edited by H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Goldberg, S. L. Agents and Lives: Moral Thinking in Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Gordon, Andrew. “Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time.” Literature and Film Quarterly, no. 6 (1978): 314–26. Jameson, Frederic. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981. Jones, Brian Jay. George Lucas: A Life. London: Headline, 2016. Jung, Carl Gustav. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8. Edited by Herbert Read et al. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1960. Kellner, Douglas. Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

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Kellner, Douglas. Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre. Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Kierkegaard, Søren. Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Kline, Sally, ed. George Lucas: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. Lasch, Christopher. The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1984. Lucas, George. “The Beginning: The Making of Episode I.” The Phantom Menace, DVD 2. 1999. Lyden, John C. Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals. New York and London: New York University Press, 2003. McDowell, John C. The Gospel according to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. ———. Identity Politics in George Lucas’ Star Wars. Jefferson: McFarland, 2016. ———. The Politics of Big Fantasy: Studies in Cultural Suspicion. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2014. ———. “Star Wars’ Saving Return.” Journal of Religion and Film 13, 1 (April 2009). http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13.no1/StarWars.htm. McVeigh, Stephen P. “The Galactic Way of Warfare.” In Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, and Critics. Edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kappell and John Shelton Lawrence, 35–58. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. Mouffe, Chantal. For a Left Populism. London and New York: Verso, 2018. Pollock, Dale. Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, the Creator of Star Wars. Hollywood, New York, London, Toronto: Samuel French, 1990. Rayment, Tim. “Master of the Universe.” Sunday Times Magazine (May 16, 1999), 14–24. Rinzler, J. W. The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story behind the Original Film. Ebury Press, 2008. Stover, Matthew. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. London: Century, 2005. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Genre. Edited by Gerry Canavan. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979. Taylor, Chris. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Wilkinson, David. The Power of the Force: The Spirituality of the Star Wars. Oxford: Lion, 2000. Winkler, Martin M. “Star Wars and the Roman Empire.” In Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema, edited by Martin M. Winkler, 272–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

PART IV

Engaging Classical Thinkers

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Chapter 12

The Modern Manichaeans Binaries of Light and Dark in Contemporary Culture Jonathan Lyonhart

Balance is the only absolute in the Star Wars universe. Qui-Gon Jinn dies, so Darth Maul also has to die. Darth Tyranus (Count Dooku) is defeated at the beginning of Episode III, so Darth Vader rises to replace him by the end. The light side destroys a death star, so the dark side builds a death planet. The Empire is finally defeated in Episode VI; oh wait, they’re back again in Episode VII as if nothing happened. Good, then evil, then good again, then back to evil. The light side scores a victory only for the dark side to come back and rebalance the universe. Yin and yang, light and dark, Sith and Jedi, up and down, back and forth, on and on it goes, rinse and repeat. This is the dualism of George Lucas’s universe, where two equal and opposite forces exist in an eternal, never ending struggle. The absolute, eternal origin of all is not good or evil, but the balance between them. As Lucas has said over and over again: “The overriding philosophy in . . . all the Star Wars movies . . . is the balance between good and evil.” —George Lucas, Star Wars: The Making of Episode 11 “In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything.” —George Lucas, Time Magazine2 171

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“The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film.” —George Lucas, quoted in Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays3 “I wanted to have this mythological footing because  I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it’s called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars.” —George Lucas, Time Magazine4

The two sides are genuine equals, standing opposed to one another in a dualistic, binary conflict of light and dark. Now, this bears a striking resemblance to the ancient religion, Manichaeism. Based on the teachings of the Iranian prophet Mani (AD 216–274), Manichaeism professed belief in a dualistic picture of the cosmos, with a light and dark force in constant tension. In Manichaeism, both good and evil have always existed as equal and opposite powers, forever stuck in an eternal—yin and yang—conflict. Light is the spiritual side at war with the darkness of the material world (with its vices and fleshly temptations). This philosophy was quite convincing, spreading across the known world, even persuading the brilliant Saint Augustine, for a time. As a youth, Augustine found himself torn away from the Christianity of his mother, Monica, and inclined toward the dualism of the Manichaean cosmos. For if instead of one good God on the throne there are rather two equal and opposite kingdoms of good and evil at war,5 then this makes sense of why there is so much pain and cruelty mixed into our world. While an all-powerful and all-good God would seem to have much to atone for, two warring deities make much more sense of our worldly chaos. If there is only one good God, then the evil we experience in the world does not make sense, but if there are two equal powers—one good, one evil—then that explains why reality is a mixed bag. The two sides fight back and forth, and human suffering is simply the collateral damage. Thus, for ten years Augustine remained a Manichaean, satisfied with its answer to the problem of evil. Yet all the while other unanswered questions lingered in his mind. He hoped a meeting with the Manichaean bishop, Faustus of Mileve, might help relieve his concerns, for Faustus was known to be a wise and brilliant man. But upon their encounter, he realized this bishop could not answer his other questions,6

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and so Augustine began an intellectual journey that ultimately led him back to Christian faith, truly knowing it for the first time. One can imagine the sorts of questions Augustine might have had for the Manichaean bishop, questions that seem equally applicable to the dualism of light and dark in Star Wars. First, if light and dark are equal and opposite forces, with neither higher or truly superior to the other, then why is goodness objectively better than badness? For as Anakin cried out to his former master: “[You say the Sith are evil but] from my point of view the Jedi are evil.” There is not one ultimate truth in the universe, but rather two truths, and so neither side can actually claim superiority, for neither one is actually more right or “higher” than the other. The light seems bad to the dark, and the dark seems bad to the light, and there is no higher authority to decide between them, because there is nothing ontologically higher than the dualism itself. As Lucas has said: “The Force has two sides—[Light and Dark]. It is not a[n inherently] malevolent or a benevolent thing.”7 Senator Palpatine says in the prequels, and then repeats again in the sequels, “The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” And those people would be wrong to “consider” it so, for the dark side is as natural as the light. Both light and dark are equally baked into the cosmos, so neither is superior or more “natural” than the other. Now, perhaps one could instead say that the balance between light and dark is the true source of morality. While neither light nor dark is objectively better than the other, the balance between them could be considered the ultimate source of morality. All things in balance and harmony. But if balance is the only true good, then when the light side prevails, it is actually good that darkness returns to slash, shoot, and murder the universe back to its natural state of equilibrium. When Anakin murdered the “younglings,” he brought balance back to the force, helping even out the scales after decades of peace in the Republic. Of course, one sees the problem. A dualistic cosmos cannot provide any ultimate standard of morality. Darkness and light cannot be on equal footings, or else right and wrong become meaningless. There cannot be two absolutes. Rather, there has to be one sole absolute at the pinnacle of all things, one higher source of goodness that is not rivaled or equalled by darkness.8 There cannot be two equal and opposite forces at the heart of existence. In other words, morality requires monotheism. This is one of the realizations that likely helped lead Augustine back to Christianity. For while the Greek pantheon and Manichaean dualism seemed to have numerous gods and so equally numerous and competing definitions of right, the Judeo-Christian tradition seemed to honor one, sole, absolute at the pinnacle of all things. There are not two things at the heart of existence, but one (mono). But if there is one good God at the source of all things, then where does evil come from? In Manichaeism the light could remain unimpeached, for

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darkness accounted for where all the pain and suffering came from. But if there is only one absolute—if there is only an all-good and all-powerful God who has no rivals—then why is there so much evil and pain in the world? If all things are sustained by one good God, then why is there evil? Why does God allow cheating, stealing, manipulating, murdering, and so on? Indeed, Judeo-Christian monotheism may explain morality, but in so doing it seems to make God morally responsible for evil. This likely weighed on Augustine’s conscience, explaining why he was so slow to return to the Christian faith of his mother. However, he managed to come up with a way around this, inventing an explanation for evil that is still prominently discussed today. Augustine argued that evil is nothing in itself.9 Evil has no being, no ontology, no real substance or existence. There is no ‘thing’ that exists in the world called evil, which a good God would have to explain the existence of. Rather, evil is the absence of being. Just as darkness is nothing in itself but merely the absence of light, so too evil is nothing in itself, but merely the absence of God’s goodness and being. In this sense, God is not responsible for creating evil, for there is nothing to create; evil doesn’t really exist. Evil is merely the absence of real existence, the absence of God’s being and goodness. There thus can be one true and good God at the heart of all being, for evil is not part of being, but the absence of being. In this sense, evil is accounted for without diluting the goodness of the One nor returning to a dualism of Two. There is still only One good entity at the heart of existence, for evil does not really exist. In this sense, evil is like the cracks in a broken window. The cracks are not something in themselves, but merely the absence of glass, merely the places where the glass has separated and come apart. The cracks are where the glass is not. This explains how evil can continue to exist in the world, without its existence being sustained by a good God. Evil is not a being but the absence of being, and so does not need to partake in the one God as the source of all being in order to continue to ‘be.’ God does not sustain or maintain the ongoing existence of evil, for evil doesn’t really exist. However, while this may explain how evil continues to exist without tarnishing God, it does not quite explain how it began to exist (or rather, not exist) in the first place. How could God allow his creation to shatter to begin with? Yes, perhaps the cracks are merely the absence of the glass, and yet the question still occurs to us: who cracked the glass? The answer is found in the human will. Human beings (at least, pre-fall) have free will, and so we have freely chosen to “crack” creation—chosen to be less than the goodness we are capable of, and so our very being is lacking. This lack is what we call evil. When one’s choices lead to a lack of humility, this crack in our human fabric leads to arrogance within us. When one’s choices form within them a lack of compassion, this absence leads to harshness, cruelty, and a lack of mercy for others as well as for ourselves. When

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one lacks joy, this absence causes even our good attributes to wither, taking our discipline and hard work and turning it into exhaustion, overwork, and misplaced priorities. Thus, God did not create something called evil in the world—for evil is merely the absence of the good things He created—nor does he cause these cracks to form in us, for we cause it by our choices. Freedom formed the cracks. As Augustine writes of his former time as a Manichaean: I still [then] thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it, . . . I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.10

Evil begins with us. We freely chose to give birth to sin. The Judeo-Christian account begins with us sinning in the garden, freely choosing to eat of the fruit of the tree, cracking creation. The story is the macrocosmic myth that is recapitulated each day in microcosm within us. To illustrate this, Augustine recounts his personal story of how, as a child, he stole a pear from someone’s garden. He was not hungry, so the deed could not be explained as motivated by desire.11 Rather, it was motivated by sin itself, the desire to do something evil. He chose to do evil, without any extraneous factor like hunger justifying his decision; it was a sheer act of will. This crack within us begins early on and gets bigger and bigger with every evil choice (and can only be bridged by Christ). Thus, God did not create evil nor does evil partake of his being, for evil begins with us and is the absence of being. This allows there to be one ultimate, good, monotheistic source of all things and of morality, while also explaining the existence of evil. Now, Manichaeism explained the existence of evil, but it failed to show why evil is morally wrong. Having only one monotheistic absolute avoids this issue, but then the question becomes: where does evil come from if there is no dark side of the force? Augustine’s brilliant answer shows that evil does not need to come from God nor partake in God’s being, for evil is nothing in itself but rather the absence of goodness, and so was not placed within us by God but freely chosen by our human will. (Of course, the nuances of the will are quite complex in Augustine, especially in his dialogue with Pelagianism about grace and works, but that is beyond our purview here.12) Hence, the Judeo-Christian tradition delivers a potent critique of Manichaeism and, by extension, the binary of light and dark in Star Wars, providing an alternative monotheistic account of morality, evil, and free will. But what is more, it also offers a hope and eschatology (study of the end of

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the world or eschaton) that is lacking in the Manichaean worldview. For if light and dark are equal and opposite forces, then neither one will ever truly triumph. The two sides are locked in an eternal struggle that cannot and will not end, for their conflict is baked into the inescapable nature of the Star Wars universe. There will be no end time when justice is served and every tear is wiped away, for every victory of the light will swiftly be followed by the revenge of the dark. Every time we reach out for a new hope, the empire strikes back. There is the return of the Jedi, only for the force to awaken with darkness and another Sith. On and on it goes; an eternal sprint against evil, with no victory or well-deserved collapse into rest at the end. (Yes, in The Rise of Skywalker the Sith seem to be defeated once and for all, but the Sith represent merely one manifestation of the dark side, not the dark side itself. In the same way, Luke admits in The Last Jedi that to “say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity.” The eternal struggle between the Light and Dark sides continues after the Jedi and Sith are gone. Some new evil will soon rise to replace the Sith, bringing balance back to the force once more.) In this sense, binary worldviews cannot offer genuine hope nor any true eschatology, for light is ever contingent upon the dark, and could not exist on its own. As the Father says in the Clone Wars: “A family in balance. The light and the dark. Day with night. Destruction, replaced by creation. . . . Too much light or dark would be the undoing of life as you understand it.”13 Light is essential for the dark, and darkness is essential for the light. Sadly, many Christians actually talk like ‘Star Wars Manichaeans,’ saying things like: “Yes, it was sad he died, but I guess we have to go through the bad things so we will appreciate the good.” Many today have what is a dualistic—essentially Star Wars—ontology, where evil is necessary to balance out the good, for we cannot appreciate the light in itself without the contrast of the dark. This inadvertently makes the idea of a heavenly place where evil does not exist sound implausible and even dull, for the value of the light is somehow contingent upon its partner, darkness. In this way, modern Christians have in many ways unwittingly adopted the language of dualism. But Augustine rectifies this with a strong emphasis upon the coming city of God (which is, of course, the title of one of his most famous works). Indeed, Augustine died with the barbarians at the gates of Hippo in AD 430, and so was unusually aware of this longing for a time beyond struggle and war and darkness, this longing for something more than the warring cities of man. This longing for the city of God, in all its glory and uncontrasted. An eschatological longing and hope that is essentially negated by dualistic worldviews but can be affirmed by monotheism. While Augustine ultimately transcended his Manichaean past, he also seems to have carried some of its assumptions into his theology. Of particular note is the Manichaean attitude toward the body, earth, and all things flesh.

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The Manichaean dualism of light and dark is actually configured as a dualism of spirit and body, with the flesh representing our evil temptations. The body taints the soul with its desires, lusts, and filth, and in this way light is diluted by darkness. Of course, this seems quite antithetical to the Christian story, where God created the world and called it “Good,” where Christ incarnates in flesh, where the resurrection is not to some never-never land in the clouds but the resurrection of the body to a new earth. And yet, Augustine seems to carry over a Manichaean and Greek opposition to the body into his Christian theology, taking a somewhat harsh view of sexuality and earthly temptation14 (perhaps also in reaction to his wilder days of youth and his years with a mistress).15 While some have recently debated Augustine’s exact view of the body, it has long been thought that his attitudes to the flesh inserted a seed of Manichaeism (and/or Platonism) into his Christian theology. Since Augustine is possibly the most influential thinker in Christian history, he contributed to a spirit/body dichotomy that has permeated much of subsequent theology, arguably helping lead to priestly celibacy, a world-weariness that rejects the ‘now,’ and perhaps even an approach to science where physical explanation excludes a spiritual one, among others. Interestingly, one can see similar aspects of such Manichaean in Star Wars, for the Jedi are spiritual soldiers who must reject the temptations of the body. The Jedi must discipline their fleshly desires, rejecting marriage and sex to live a celibate life. It is Anakin’s very inability to live up to this spiritual standard that causes him to marry Padme in secret, ultimately setting him on the path to the dark side, for Darth Sidious uses this physical relationship to lead Anakin astray. In conclusion, Augustine’s rejection of Manichaeism has much to say about the dualism of light and dark in the Star Wars universe. Further, his subtly Manichaean assumptions continued to reoccur in the theological tradition (and even show up in the asceticism of the Jedi) due to Augustine’s enormous influence on Christian, and even secular, history. Thus, Augustine, in both his rejection and subtle embrace of Manichaeism, helped shape—for better or worse—the modern world. NOTES 1. Laurent Bouzereau and Jody Duncan, Star Wars: The Making of Episode 1. The Phantom Menace (New York: Lucas Books, 1999). 2. George Lucas, “Episode 1,” Time Magazine, 29 April 2002, vol. 159, no. 17. 3. Laurent Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays: Star Wars—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, 1st ed (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997). 4. George Lucas, “Episode 1.”

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5. Saint Augustine, Confessions, 8.10, 7.2. 6. Saint Augustine, Confessions, 4.1, 5.6. 7. George Lucas, “The Empire Strikes Back!” Time Magazine, 19 May 1980, vol 115, no. 20. 8. Saint Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaeans, Chapters 1–9. 9. Saint Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaeans, Chapters 2, 8; Confessions, 3.7. 10. Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin, Repr, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1982), Book V, Section 10. 11. “I became evil for no reason. The only motive I had for this wickedness was the wickedness itself” (Confessions, 2.4). 12. For example, On the Proceedings of Pelagius, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, and also throughout The City of God. 13. Dave Filoni, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” (LucasFilm, 2010). 14. Saint Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.19–31; Confessions 8.2, 12; A Treatise against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.27. 15. Saint Augustine, Confessions, 6.15; “The thorns of lust rose up over my head and there was no one to root them out” (Confessions 2.2).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin. Repr. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1982. Bouzereau, Laurent. Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays: Star Wars—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. 1st ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997. Bouzereau, Laurent, and Jody Duncan. Star Wars: The Making of Episode 1. The Phantom Menace. New York: Lucas Books, 1999. Filoni, Dave. “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” LucasFilm, 2010. Lucas, George. “The Empire Strikes Back!” Time Magazine, 19 May 1980, vol. 115, no. 20. ———. “Episode 1.” Time Magazine, 29 April 2002, vol. 159, no. 17.

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Thomas Aquinas’s Account of Hope as a Hermeneutical Lens for Star Wars Shaun C. Brown

Hope is a central theme in the Star Wars films. It is associated with the work to overthrow the Empire and bring peace and justice to the galaxy. It is also associated with various people within the films, such as Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luke, Leia, Rey, Finn, and Poe. They are seen as symbols of hope for others, but also as people who, in varying degrees, have hope themselves. This chapter will utilize Thomas Aquinas’s account of hope as a hermeneutical lens by which to analyze the presentations of hope in the Star Wars franchise. For the purpose of brevity, it will focus primarily on Luke in the original trilogy, but will also reference other characters and films in the saga. It will begin by providing an account of Thomas’s perspective on hope before discussing how hope is portrayed within the films. The chapter will then assess how hope is treated within Star Wars in light of Thomas’s description of hope. THOMAS ON HOPE AS PASSION AND VIRTUE In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas describes hope as a passion and a virtue. Thomas says that a passion is “a movement of the sensitive appetite,”1 while he defines a virtue as a habit that “denotes a certain perfection of a power.”2 A virtue is, therefore, a good habit—a “quality of the mind by which we live righteously.”3 Servais Pinckaers notes that “for St. Thomas the term ‘passion’ does not carry the pejorative connotation that it does in the modern era.”4 Passions or emotions are not in and of themselves good or evil, but 179

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some passions are only in reference to good or to evil, while virtues are only in reference to good. Passions begin in the appetite and move toward reason, while virtue “begins in the reason and ends in the appetite.”5 If passions are upright, they can be consistent with virtue.6 While not all virtues relate to the passions, those that do can perfect the passions.7 In his treatment of hope as a passion, Thomas gives four conditions for hope’s object. First, it is a good and not an evil. Second, it is for something in the future, for one does not hope for something one already possesses. Third, the object hoped for is difficult to attain. Fourth, while the object is difficult to attain, it is also possible to attain.8 Hope has two contraries, one in the relation of approach and withdrawal, and the other in the relation of good and evil. The first he describes is the contrariety of hope and despair. The object of hope is that which is attractive to a person, and therefore something one wants to approach, but if that object becomes completely unobtainable, it can lead one to withdraw from it and despair.9 The second is the contrariety of hope and fear. He says that fear is contrary to hope “because their objects, i.e., good and evil, are contrary.”10 Thomas concludes his discussion of hope as a passion by arguing that hope leads one to action. Hope is conducive to action for two reasons. First, because of the object of hope, which is difficult but possible to attain. Second, the effect of hope brings about pleasure, and therefore leads people to action.11 Later Thomas turns to his discussion of hope as a virtue. Hope is, along with faith and love, a theological virtue—a virtue that “has God for its object.”12 He defends his argument that hope is a virtue by saying that a good human act corresponds to a virtue. He says that “the good is that which attains its proper rule.” So just as a coat is good if it “neither exceeds nor falls short its proper measurement,” so a human act is good if it meets its proper measure. Human acts have a “twofold measure.” One of them is “proximate and homogeneous, viz. the reason, while the other is remote and excelling, viz. God: wherefore every human act is good, which attains reason or God Himself.” Here he repeats the conditions of the object of hope from his previous discussion: that it is good and future, difficult but possible to attain. But here he builds upon his discussion of hope. Things are either possible for us if we are able to do them ourselves or if we are able to do them with the assistance of others. He then says, “Wherefore, insofar as we hope for anything as being possible to us by means of the Divine assistance, our hope attains God Himself, on Whose help it leans. It is therefore evident that hope is a virtue, since it causes a human act to be good and attain its due rule.”13 Thomas argues that the infinite good one ought to hope for, the proper object of hope, is eternal happiness or eternal life, which “consists in the enjoyment of God Himself.”14 God is “the principal object of hope, considered as a virtue.”15 One can attain this end only through God’s assistance. So

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while Thomas discusses the passion of hope as a movement of the sensitive appetite, he says that the virtue of hope is not sensible, for the principle object of the virtue “is not a sensible but a Divine good.”16 It is not fitting for us to place hope in any person as the primary cause of this eternal happiness. He says, “It is, however, lawful to hope in a man or a creature as being the secondary or instrumental agent through whom one is helped to obtain any goods that are ordained to happiness.”17 It is for that reason that one should turn to others for assistance. Servais Pinckaers says that Thomas “added to each of the virtues a gift that perfects it.”18 To hope he added the gift of the fear of the Lord. So while Thomas provides a negative account of fear in his account of hope as a passion, in his discussion of hope as a virtue, he speaks of fear as a gift. God, who is goodness itself, is not an evil that one should flee from, but at the same time one may fear God because one may fear punishment from God (servile fear), or one may fear committing a fault or offending God as one may offend their father (filial fear).19 As the psalmist says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10a; cf. Prov 9:10, 15:33).20 Thomas then considers two contraries of hope—despair and presumption. He argues that despair “is not only a sin but also the origin of other sins.”21 Sins like despair are “contrary to the theological virtues” and “are more grievous than others,” for because the theological virtues have God for their object, their contrary vices “imply aversion from God directly and principally.”22 Thomas then turns to presumption, which is a form of hope that lacks moderation. It either assumes that something is possible that is beyond one’s own power, which is vainglory; or it assumes that something is possible by the power and mercy of God that is not, such as “pardon without repenting, or glory without merits.”23 STAR WARS Star Wars begins with the Empire attacking a Rebel ship with Princess Leia aboard. The princess gives a message to R2-D2, who then leaves the ship with C-3PO in an escape pod. The pod lands on the planet of Tatooine. There the droids are captured by Jawas that sell them to Owen and Beru Lars. Their nephew, Luke Skywalker, lives with them. Luke is a restless young man who wants to leave the planet and enroll in the Academy. He is seen looking off to the horizon with hope for a better future. Thomas’s description of youth as a cause of hope applies to Luke (and Anakin in the prequels). Thomas says youth is a cause of hope for three reasons, and they are the conditions for hope: that the object of hope is future, difficult, and possible. He says,

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For youth has much of the future before it, and little of the past: and therefore since memory is of the past, and hope of the future, it has little to remember and lives very much in hope. Again, youths, on account of the heat of their nature, are full of spirit; so that their heart expands: and it is owing to the heart being expanded that one tends to that which is arduous; wherefore youths are spirited and hopeful. Likewise they who have not suffered defeat, nor had experience of obstacles to their efforts, are prone to count a thing possible to them. Wherefore youths, through inexperience of obstacles and of their own shortcomings, easily count a thing possible; and consequently are of good hope.24

While youth can lead to hope, it can, like drunkenness, also lead to foolishness, for the young are often unaware of their own shortcomings. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally uncovers part of Leia’s message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi knight living on the planet. That night R2-D2 leaves the farm in search of Obi-Wan, but it is too dangerous for Luke to go after him. The next day, Luke and C-3PO go off in a speeder in search of R2-D2. They are attacked by Tusken Raiders, but Obi-Wan comes and scares the Sand People off. After they retreat to Obi-Wan’s home, R2-D2 turns on the message. In it, Leia asks Obi-Wan to bring R2-D2, who is holding plans essential to the future of the rebellion—plans to the Death Star, to her father on Alderaan. She says in the message, “Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” Here, according to Thomas’s account of hope, Obi-Wan serves as a secondary or instrumental object of hope. Leia sees Obi-Wan as someone who can help the Rebel Alliance bring about a “good,” a task that is difficult but possible to attain—the overthrow of the Empire and the restoration of peace and justice in the galaxy. Obi-Wan informs Luke that his father was a Jedi Knight. He fought in the Clone Wars until he was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader, a Jedi Knight who was seduced by the dark side. He asks Luke to come with him to Alderaan, but Luke initially declines. After Luke discovers that his uncle and aunt were killed by Imperial stormtroopers looking for the droids, he accepts Obi-Wan’s invitation. They go to Mos Eisley and hire a ship, flown by Han Solo and Chewbacca. They arrive at the coordinates for Alderaan but discover that the planet has been destroyed. They are then brought by tractor beam into the Death Star. Once onboard, they discover that Princess Leia is being held captive on the station. While Luke, Han, and Chewbacca rescue Leia (or is it the other way around?), Obi-Wan goes to turn off the station’s tractor beam. He is confronted by his former apprentice, Darth Vader. Obi-Wan sacrifices himself so that the others can escape. Leia’s “only hope” is lost. They reach the rebels on Yavin 4, and there the Rebel Alliance accesses the plans to the Death Star and discover a weakness. Meanwhile, the Empire follows the tracking device upon the Millennium Falcon to Yavin in order

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to destroy the Rebel Alliance. As Luke and the fleet take off to face the Imperials, Obi-Wan says, “Luke, the force will be with you.” As the rebels struggle in their fight, Obi-Wan tells Luke, “Trust your feelings.” As more pilots die, all hope seems lost. Obi-Wan tells Luke to trust the force and turn off his targeting computer. Just as the Imperials are about to fire on the planet, Luke destroys the Death Star. Obi-Wan then tells him, “Remember the Force will be with you always.” Luke brings hope to the rebel cause—hope that this difficult course of action, the overthrow of the Empire, is possible. For this reason, Star Wars was later given the subtitle, A New Hope. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK In The Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan appears to Luke and instructs him to go to the Dagobah system and seek out Yoda, the Jedi master who had trained him. When Luke meets Yoda, he is unaware that he has met him. He assumes a great Jedi master must not be of such small stature. Yoda initially does not want to train him, but Obi-Wan convinces him to give Luke a chance. Yoda points out that Luke always had his mind on the horizon—to the future, and not in the present—what was in front of him. He reminds him that Jedi do not undergo their training in order to search for adventure and excitement. Luke says, “I’m not afraid,” but Yoda tells him, “You will be.” Yoda tells Luke, “A Jedi’s strength flows from the force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression—the dark side of the force are they, easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.” In these two discussions of fear, Yoda provides a positive perspective of fear as a healthy respect, as well as a negative account of fear as that which leads to the dark side. He reassures Luke that the dark side is not stronger. It is instead “quicker, easier, more seductive.” He will come to know the good side from the bad when he is “calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Despite these lessons, Luke fails the test in the cave. Though Yoda tells him he will not need his weapons, he takes them with him anyway. The figure of Darth Vader appears to him, and after he knocks off Vader’s head, he sees his own face under the mask. Soon after, Luke’s X-wing sinks into the water. Luke assumes that lifting the ship out of the water is impossible. He tries to lift it but fails, assuming it is too big. Yoda says that he must “feel the Force around you.” Luke still continues to lack faith, saying, “You want the impossible.” Yoda, however, demonstrates that it is possible by lifting the ship out of the water. Luke has, to this point, demonstrated a hope that arises from

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youth. Here, however, his failure leads him to withdraw—to despair. Yoda, in contrast, exemplifies what Thomas calls a hope that arises from experience. If one has often been victorious over difficult opponents, then one is more likely to think a difficult thing is possible. This is not because of one’s experience alone, but also because of one’s power—one’s strengths and resources.25 After Luke’s two failures, he sees his friends, Han and Leia, in a vision. They have been captured in a city in the clouds. Yoda tells him it is likely in the future. Luke asks him if they will die, and Yoda says it is “difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.” Yoda reminds him that while he may be able to help them, he will by leaving “destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.” Yoda encourages Luke to stay and finish his training, but Luke insists he must go out of a concern that Han and Leia will die if he remains. Obi-Wan appears and reminds him, “This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.” Yoda adds, “Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.” Luke still insists on leaving, but promises he will return. As he flies away, Obi-Wan says, “That boy is our last hope.” To which Yoda says, “No, there is another.” Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO go to Bespin where Lando Calrissian runs a mining colony. There, they are captured by Darth Vader, who set a trap in order to capture Luke. As Luke attempts to rescue his friends (minus Han, who is frozen in carbonite and carried off by Boba Fett), he is lured into a fight with Vader. During the fight, Vader encourages him to draw upon his anger. He says, “Only your hatred can destroy me.” Though Luke impresses Vader with his skill, it is clear that Luke is not prepared to fight Vader. Luke loses a hand due to his foolishness and presumptuousness. Vader then reveals that he is Luke’s father. Luke is devastated by the news. He does not give into Vader’s temptations to destroy the Emperor and join him in ruling the galaxy. He escapes and then communicates with Leia telepathically and the Millennium Falcon flies back for Luke. They escape from Bespin and meet up with the rebel fleet to prepare their plans to rescue Han. ANAKIN’S TURN TO THE DARK SIDE In various places in the first two films, Yoda and Obi-Wan hold up the fall of Darth Vader as a negative example, one that Luke should avoid. The prequel trilogy narrates Anakin’s fall from a boy of youthful hope on Tatooine to the dark side. This turn does not necessarily result from one isolated event, but an important point in his turn can be seen in Attack of the Clones. Anakin begins having dreams that his mother is in danger. He disobeys orders and flies off

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to Tatooine, but arrives too late to save his mother from a band of Tusken Raiders that kidnapped her. After her death, he slaughters the entire village of Raiders, including the children. Padme tries to comfort Anakin by reminding him that there are things no one can fix. Anakin reacts to this with anger, saying, “I will be the most powerful Jedi ever. I promise you. I will even learn to stop people from dying.” He then confesses to her that he killed the villagers. He says, “They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals. I hate them.” This brings to mind Yoda’s warning in The Phantom Menace: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Anakin’s fear has led him to anger, which has led to hate, which does not bring him comfort, but suffering—despair. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin begins having dreams that Padme—whom he wed in a secret ceremony, will die in childbirth. Chancellor Palpatine, who is secretly a Sith Lord—Darth Sidious, uses Anakin’s fear to turn him against the Jedi council and toward the dark side. He does so by telling him that through the dark side of the Force, one can learn to keep people they love from dying. Though initially horrified by the revelation that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, Anakin submits to Palpatine, who names him Darth Vader. Anakin helps Palpatine hunt down the Jedi. Though he turned to the dark side in order to save Padme from death, he loses her anyway. She dies shortly after childbirth, devastated by the recent turn of events. Anakin’s downfall arose from a mixture of fear and presumption. This is demonstrated in Attack of the Clones when he loses part of his arm fighting Count Dooku, or in Revenge of the Sith when he leaps at Obi-Wan from a position of weakness and sustains devastating injuries—injuries that make him, in Obi-Wan’s words in Return of the Jedi, “more machine than man.” RETURN OF THE JEDI After Luke helps Han escape from the clutches of Jabba the Hut on Tatooine, he returns to Dagobah. There he finds Yoda weakened and tired. Yoda informs Luke that if he is to become a Jedi, he must first confront Vader. He reminds him that the strength of a Jedi comes from the Force, and that he should beware anger, fear, and aggression, for they will lead him to the dark side. He should not underestimate the Emperor’s powers, for if he does, he will go down the path his father did. Yoda also informs Luke that the power of the Force is strong in his family and that he should pass on the lessons he has learned. With his dying breath Yoda says, “There is another Skywalker.” Yoda then disappears. When Luke walks outside, he is met by Obi-Wan, who recalls what Anakin was like when he first met him. Luke tells Obi-Wan, “There is still good in

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him. I felt it.” Though Luke does not want to face Vader again, Obi-Wan says that he must. When Luke asks who Yoda was speaking of when he said there was another Skywalker, Obi-Wan informs him that Leia is his twin sister— that they were separated and hidden when they were young to protect them from the Emperor. Obi-Wan tells him to hide his feelings for her, for they serve the Emperor. As Luke and the team come to Endor to turn off the shield generator and make a way for the rebel fleet to come fight the second Death Star, Darth Vader and the Emperor make another plan to capture Luke. Before the battle begins, Luke informs Leia that she is his sister. He must now go and face Vader and try and bring him back to the good side. After Luke surrenders to the Imperial troops on Endor, Luke informs Vader he has accepted that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, his father. Luke also tells Vader that he still sees the good in him, which is why Vader did not destroy him before. Vader demurs, reiterating the power in the dark side. It is too late for him to turn back. Luke says, “Then my father is truly dead.” Vader brings Luke to the Emperor, saying that Palpatine will teach Luke the true power of the Force. Luke says that he will not turn, but the Emperor says he is wrong. Palpatine has lured the rebel fleet there, leading them into a trap. He encourages Luke to give into his anger and hate and strike out at him. After repeated taunts, Luke strikes out at Palpatine with his lightsaber, but his saber is met by Vader’s. The Emperor encourages Luke to give in to hate, but Luke comes to his senses. He turns off his lightsaber and refuses to fight Vader. He does defend himself but continues to tell Vader that he still senses the good in him. Vader learns, by sensing Luke’s feelings, that Luke has a twin sister. When Vader says that perhaps she can turn to the dark side instead, Luke again lashes out in anger, cutting off Vader’s hand. The Emperor is entertained by this. He calls upon Luke to kill Vader and take his place, but Luke declines. Meanwhile on the planet of Endor, the Ewoks join the fight, defeating the imperials on the planet, which helps Han and Leia turn off the shield generator. At that moment, the shield generator is turned off and the rebel fleet begins their attack upon the Death Star. When the Emperor attacks Luke, Luke calls for help. Vader comes to his defense and defeats the Emperor. Though Anakin returns to the light side, he sustains great injuries that lead to his death. Lando and the rebel fleet then destroy the Death Star. Leia can sense that Luke survived, demonstrating again that she also has the power of the force. The film ends with the Ewoks and members of the alliance celebrating together on Endor. They have brought about the seemingly impossible—the defeat of the Empire. During the celebration, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin appear to Luke.

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ANALYSIS Hope is seen within the films as both a passion and a virtue. Given the Jedi focus on reaching out with your feelings, their ethos differs from Thomas’s prioritizing of the intellect over the appetite. At the same time, Star Wars depicts hope as not only a passion or a movement, but a habit. Yoda exemplifies this in his hope that comes from experience. Luke too comes, throughout the original trilogy, to grow in his practice of hope from his hope of youth in A New Hope to his more mature hope in Return of the Jedi. In either case, the hope of the protagonists within the Star Wars films, including Rogue One, leads them to action. As mentioned previously, Thomas argues that there are four conditions for hope’s object—that it is good, future, difficult, and possible. The primary object of hope in the original trilogy of Star Wars films is the defeat of tyranny and the restoration of peace and justice in the galaxy. The secondary or instrumental objects, like Obi-Wan, Luke, and Leia, are in service of this good. There are also some lesser goods that are in service of the primary object of hope, such as Luke’s hope that his father will return to the light side. This depiction of the good falls short of the infinite good that Thomas describes—eternal life or the enjoyment of God. One should not, however, necessarily expect Star Wars to conform so closely to Christian norms. One could perhaps say that though Star Wars does not emphasize the remote good, that it does emphasize a proximate good, a good according to reason—the end of tyranny. It would, though, depend on how one defines peace and justice.26 Though Star Wars does lack a depiction of a deity, one could also say that as Thomas says the ultimate hope is only possible because of Divine assistance, that characters like Luke are only able to attain the object of their hope by the assistance of the Force. The dissimilarity is, however, greater than the similarity. The good for which the protagonists hope is indeed in the future. It is not something that they presently possess. It is also something difficult to attain. The odds against them seem insurmountable. The Rebel Alliance is outnumbered and lacks the technological sophistication of the Empire. Fourth is the question of whether or not the object of their hope is possible. It appears in a sense that it is. The Rebel Alliance overcomes difficult odds and destroys two Death Stars. Emperor Palpatine, the mastermind behind the defeat of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire, has been defeated. Luke has faced Vader and is now a Jedi. He has been tasked with teaching Leia and others what he has learned. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, as well the novels that span the period between Episodes VI and VII, show that these victories were

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short-lived. The First Order arose from the ashes of the Empire. Also, Luke’s hopes to establish a new Jedi order were dashed when Ben Solo was seduced by Snoke and the dark side. Luke is left believing that it would be better for the Jedi to die off with him. Though Luke and Leia are seen as symbols of hope, and new heroes rise, The Last Jedi ends with the Resistance’s resources drained. There is, however, a glimmer of hope. Luke did train Rey before he disappears looking to the horizon, so he will not be the last Jedi. A rag tag group remains on board the Millennium Falcon and poor children on Canto Bight tell tales of Luke’s exploits. Even though The Rise of Skywalker ends with the defeat of the First Order, what will stop a Second Order from arising in its place? NOTES 1. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 22, A. 3, s.c. In particular, Thomas refers to hope as an irascible passion. See Q. 23 for his discussion of how the passions differ from one another. 2. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 55, A. 1. 3. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 55, A. 4. Thomas distinguishes between moral and intellectual virtues. See Q. 58. 4. Servais Pinckaers, The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, eds. John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus, trans. Mary Thomas Noble et al. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 274. 5. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 59, A. 1, co. 6. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 59, A. 2, co. 7. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 59, A. 4, co. 8. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 1, co. 9. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 4, co. 10. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 4, ad. 1. See ST I-II, Q. 23, A.2, co for more on contrarieties of passion. See also QQ. 41–44 for Thomas’s discussion of fear. 11. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 8, co. 12. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 17, A. 5, co. See also Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 62. 13. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 17, A. 1, co. 14. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 17, A. 2, co. 15. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 17, A. 5, co. 16. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 18, A. 1, co. 17. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 17, A. 3, co. 18. Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 178. 19. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 19, A. 1–2. Thomas says that servile fear will be done away with in heaven, while filial fear, “as it increases with the increase of

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charity,” will be perfected. It will, however, “not have quite the same act as it has now” (A. 11, co.). 20. See Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 19, A. 7. 21. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 20, A. 1, sc. 22. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 20, A. 3, co. 23. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, Q. 21, A. 1, co and A. 4, co. 24. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 6, co. 25. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 40, A. 5, co. At the same time, however, Thomas says that experience can also lead to a lack of hope: “Because just as it makes a man think possible what he had previously thought impossible; so, conversely, experience makes a man consider as impossible that which hitherto he had thought possible.” Despite this, Thomas still places more weight on the idea that experience causes hope, for it can cause hope in two ways, but can only create despair in one way. 26. There is also the issue that they seek to accomplish this good by means of violence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae Prima Secundae, 1–70. Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 15. Edited by John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón. Translated by Laurence Shapcote. Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012. ———. Summa Theologiae Secunda Secundae, 1–91. Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 17. Edited by John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón. Translated by Laurence Shapcote. Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012. Pinckaers, Servais. The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology. Edited by John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus. Translated by Mary Thomas Noble et al. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. ———. The Sources of Christian Ethics. Translated by Mary Thomas Noble. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.

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An Archē Not Anarchic Enough A Spirited Critique of the Force Ryan G. Duns

Although the Force never appears in any of the films’ credits, it would be hard to deny that it is one of the key players in the Star Wars saga. Unseen yet ubiquitous, the Force is the energy that sustains and binds together the whole universe. Some, such as the Jedi, are trained to use the Force to serve and support just and noble causes. At times—when Luke destroys the Death Star, when Rey first battles Kylo Ren—the Force seems to act through the Jedi. Yet there are others, the Sith, who manipulate the Force for nefarious purposes. Rather than an unalloyed good or evil, the Force possesses both a dark side and a light. The goal of this chapter is to disambiguate the Force from the Holy Spirit. Given the resurging popularity of the franchise, it is not uncommon to find students, if not preachers, who have been seduced into seeing the Force as an equivalent of Trinity’s Third Person. While the critique we offer of this conflation is serious, we feel it should be made in a spirit befitting one of the great adventure stories of our age. Thus, we take some creative liberties to raise and address the relationship between the Force and the Holy Spirit. So, as we begin, we ask the reader to imagine that what follows is a chronicle recovered from a rogue Viper Imperial probe droid that a few Christian theologians used to document their reflections on a codex found amid the ashes of the Jedi tree on Anch-To.

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IT IS A PERIOD OF THEOLOGICAL UNCERTAINTY . . . After Luke Skywalker’s disappearance, two Lanai made an astonishing discovery amid the charred remains of the Jedi tree on Anch-To.1 In a niche beneath the shelf holding the incinerated Jedi texts, the Caretakers found a box containing a codex of unknown provenance. No one knows how the codex left the planet; it may have been traded, stolen, or accidentally discarded. Somehow it made its way to earth where scholars deciphered. Time had blurred some pages and passages were hard to read, but it seems that some Jedi had doubts about the Force. Many accepted the Force as the universe’s archē or principle of order, but others doubted. This skepticism is reflected in the codex’s opening question. “What if the Force is an archē not anarchic enough? What if there exists a more primordial principle?” Lamentably, the full contents of the Jedi archives on Coruscant are lost. Thus, to make sense of this nascent theological critique of the Force, we need to do some reconstructive work. Padawans, we must begin by consulting celluloid records—Star Wars movies—to learn how the Jedi understood the Force. We then turn to consult a figure absent from the Star Wars universe: Master Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The codex rescued from the Jedi tree, it turns out, contains fragments drawn from the Angelic Doctor’s writings on Creation and the Holy Spirit. Tutored by Master Thomas Aquinas, we will see how a “Spirited” critique of the Force awakens us to an even more anarchic power. True: Aquinas cannot teach us to raise an X-wing from Dagobah’s swamp, but he can help us to discern the presence of, and commend ourselves to, the anarchic power of the Triune God. TROUBLING, THE AMBIGUITY IS The codex identifies places where the Force’s nature is discussed. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Master Kenobi introduces Luke to it: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.” The Force, as Obi-Wan describes it, appears to arise from the natural world. Later, in The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda reinforces this impression of the Force as an archē. Failing to raise the X-wing from the swamp, a panting Luke falls to the ground: “I can’t, it’s too big.” Yoda remonstrates him: “Size matters not. Look at me, judge me by my size do you? And well you should not. For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it . . . makes it grow . . . its energy surrounds us and binds us.” The Force, if we accept the teachings of

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Yoda and Obi-Wan, is an impersonal power binding and governing all living beings which enables users to perform feats beyond their normal capabilities. Beneath these first references, the writing on the codex grows harried. The author adverts attention to The Phantom Menace and a discussion between Qui-Gon Jinn and young Anakin Skywalker. Anakin: “Master, sir, I heard Yoda talking about midichlorians. I’ve been wondering . . . what are midichlorians?” They are, Master Jinn replies, “a microscopic lifeform that resides within all living cells and communicates with the Force.” The writing becomes frenetic as it records Qui-Gon’s attempt to explain how we are symbionts and that “without the midichlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear them speaking to you.” So, whereas Yoda and Obi-Wan portrayed the Force as impersonal and derived from living beings, Qui-Gon now describes it as having a role in the creation of life and as possessing a will. In this way, the Force as archē becomes an even more primordial ordering principle. Rather than arising impersonally from living beings, this description portrays it as preceding the created order and exercising some degree of agency within it. In the latter depiction, the Force is envisioned as more of an intentional power capable of deliberate action than an impersonal or neutral energy derived from living beings. We must be cautious, for now the handwriting is nearly illegible, but we find references to more Star Wars vignettes. The first reference is to Yoda in The Revenge of the Sith: “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.” In the margin the author scrawls: “Is the Force, then, both origin (archē) and end (telos) of all life?” This question is followed by another quote drawn from an exchange between Luke and Obi-Wan on the Millennium Falcon. Obi-Wan: “Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.” Luke: “You mean it controls your actions?” Obi-Wan: “Partially, but it also obeys your commands.” Two more scenes, also from A New Hope, are cited and contrasted. On one side, Darth Vader, who, disturbed by General Motti’s “lack of faith,” uses the Force to choke him. On the other side, as Luke makes his way through the trenches of the Death Star, Obi-Wan’s disembodied words counsel Luke to turn off the targeting device and “Use the Force.” The author’s writing trails off. At the page’s bottom in an exasperated script there we find, “The Force . . . troubling, the ambiguity is.” Much to untangle, we have. Is the Force the ordering principle or is it but one principle of order within the Star Wars universe? Is it created or creative, impersonal or personal, open to manipulation or a will capable of directing others’ actions? The codex’s dissident Jedi author intuited these ambiguities, recognizing certain irreconcilable differences between how the Force can be

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understood. If the Force is the by-product of living things, then one could regard it, à la Martin Heidegger, as a “standing reserve” (Bestand) which can be managed and exploited. In this case, then, one’s Jedi training would not be an aid to discerning the Force’s will but would cultivate a technē allowing one to harness its power and use it for one’s own purposes. Jedi mastery would be akin to a modern technology “which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such.”2 Think of Count Dooku’s duel with Yoda, or the Emperor’s use of Force lightning against Luke in The Return of the Jedi: each villain somehow learned to gather the Force’s power and turned it to his own nefarious uses. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan speaks of the Force as partially controlling a Jedi’s actions, and Yoda describes it as an ally. Maybe Qui-Gon is correct: rather than being derived from living beings, the Force intentionally brings life into existence by willing life and communicating its will to creatures through the midichlorians. Here the Force appears a primordial, and almost personal, archē or life-giving, life-ordering, principle. But ascribing intentionality to the Force only serves to raise more problems. A Jedi, says Yoda, uses the Force “for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Knowledge of the Dark Side, however, warrants Vader to use the Force to choke Motti. If the Force has a creative will, then this will can be subverted with the right know-how. The very Force Dooku directs against Yoda is the one Obi-Wan urges Luke to “use” to destroy the Death Star. A remarkable, if troubling, ambiguity: The Force that strangles is the Force that saves, but whose end does this strangling or saving serve? We continue reading the codex and find written, in a more subdued script, “In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.” Below Yoda’s words, the Jedi has copied several passages from the Summa Theologiae. These texts intimate a power greater even than the Force, a creative archē encountered in and through theological reflection. Indeed, in these passages about Creation and the Holy Spirit, Master Aquinas alerts us to a power greater than the Force. By attuning us to the power of the Creator, Aquinas invites us to become theological Padawans capable of offering a critique of the Force as an archē not anarchic enough. Unlike the Force, the God we encounter through the Holy Spirit resists any and all attempts at manipulation. The Force may be used to deflect laser blasts, but the Spirit “blows where it chooses” (Jn 3:8) and acts in history to inaugurate a revolutionary order reflecting the will of neither the Jedi nor the Sith but the creative theo-logic of the Triune God.

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“POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!” Perhaps the best way to begin to level a Spirited critique against the Force would be to consider how the Force is manipulable. The codex references two scenes from Revenge of the Sith which should help to clarify what will become our theological critique. First, at the Galaxies Opera House, Palpatine asks Anakin, “Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?” Anakin has not. “I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create . . . life. He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side, he could even keep the ones he cared about . . . from dying.” Anakin’s interest stirs and he asks, enticed by the promise of this secret knowledge, “Is it possible to learn this power?” Palpatine’s cryptic response: “Not from a Jedi.” Later, when Mace Windu attempts to arrest Chancellor Palpatine, an epic lightsaber battle ensues. Gaining the upper hand, Windu’s victory appears assured. Until, of course, Anakin intervenes. Seduced by Palpatine’s promise and blinded by his lies, Anakin protests on behalf of the Chancellor and slices off Master Windu’s arm to prevent him from killing the seemingly enfeebled Palpatine. With a snarl, the disfigured Sith rallies and fires Force bolts into Windu. “Power! Unlimited Power!” he screams as Windu writhes in agony before being thrown to his death. Ironic: the very Force Anakin believes capable of preserving life, here, destroys it. In the codex’s margins, next to Palpatine’s claim that Darth Plagueis could use the Force to create life, Master Aquinas cribs a line from Obi-Wan: “I feel a great disturbance . . . as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.” A bit hyperbolic, but not without theological warrant: Palpatine, on Aquinas’s reckoning, commits a category error. Darth Sidious claims the Force can be used to create, to bring about life. The problem, however, is that for Aquinas only God can be said to create; only God, in other words, is properly identified as the creative archē. To see why this is the case, let us look at a few passages of the Summa. For Aquinas, the act of “creation” is reserved to God alone because “to create” means to bring something to be out of nothing. What theologians call creatio ex nihilo means that “creation, which is the emanation of all being, is from the not-being which is nothing.”3 As the primordial and originative archē, God is the reason there is something rather than nothing. Sure: we talk about Han Solo “creating” a warm cocoon for Luke out of a Tauntaun and, in a sense, the Republic “creates” a clone army. In both cases, however, this “creation” depends upon extant materials like the Tauntaun and Jango Fett’s DNA. The cocoon and the army are both made “out of” (ex) something else.

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If Darth Plagueis did “create” life, this is possible only through his ability to manipulate already existing midichlorians. When Aquinas uses the word “create,” however, the word expresses something singular to God who is the source, the archē, on account of whom there is any being at all. On this account, every being—from the sarlacc to Jar-Jar Binks (sadly) to each midichlorian—owes its existence to God. God gives existence, or esse, to every being. God, in this way, ought to be regarded as the principle or archē of existence who does not simply create but sustains the whole of creation in its being. Creation is not a one-off event but a sustained act of ongoing preservation. Later in the Summa Aquinas describes God as creator and sustainer: A thing is said to preserve another per se and directly, namely, when what is preserved depends on the preserver in such a way that it cannot exist without it. In this manner all creatures need to be preserved by God. For the being of every creature depends on God, so that not for a moment could it subsist, but would fall into nothingness were it not kept in being by the operation of the Divine power, as Gregory says.4

Herbert McCabe, an exemplary and formidable apprentice to Master Aquinas, glosses this: “God must be at the heart of every being, acting in every action (whether determined or free), continually sustaining her creation over against nothing as a singer sustains her song over against silence—and that too is only a feeble metaphor, for even silence presupposes being.”5 As we turn another page, our hand brushes a gilded rune. A hologram! Above the codex floats another apprentice: Master Victor White. Echoing Yoda, he speaks: “You must unlearn what you have learned” from Darth Sidious. “Derivative the Force, it is no origin. Create life, it cannot.” The Force may change or rearrange; it may move and maneuver; it may be used to maintain peace (Jedi) or conquer (Sith). But it cannot bring about something from nothing. Master White points with his lightsaber to a passage of the Summa: creation “is only a certain relation to the Creator as to the principle of its being.”6 White points to another passage: St Thomas’s position differs from that of modern agnostics because while modern agnosticism says simply, “We do not know, and the universe is a mysterious riddle,” a Thomist says, “We do not know what the answer is, but we do know that there is a mystery behind it all which we do not know, and if there were not, there would not even be a riddle. This Unknown we call God. If there were no God, there would be no universe to be mysterious, and nobody to be mystified.”7

God is the mysterious archē who subtends and sustains creation. God, unlike the Force, does not depend on anything; rather, all things depend on God for

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existence. We stand before this creative power not as potential masters and possessors but as humble Padawans who can learn its ways but never aspire to exercise control over it. The mysterious presence we call God is an anarchic archē, a principle that orders but cannot be ordered by us. Here we alight upon our first theological critique of the Force. The Force, you might say, is parasitic upon creation. Sure, one can use the Force in spectacular ways. It allows one to move objects, commune with Force ghosts, and change people’s minds. What it cannot do, however, is create. Creation, if Master Aquinas is correct, is a task singularly reserved for God: “It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God.”8 So, unlike the Force, God’s existence cannot be attributed to any antecedent cause. Although the Force exists because other beings precede and give rise to it, this cannot be taken to apply to God. If we follow the teachings of Aquinas, we have to say quite the opposite: each and every being is only because God exists and gives them esse. The creation of anything at all: this is “the proper act of God alone.”9 This critique leads to a second. Let’s turn Palpatine’s words back on him: “Your arrogance blinds you.” The Dark Side of the Force simply cannot offer the Sith “Power! Unlimited Power!” and Aquinas gives us a few reasons to chide the Emperor. True: the Force possesses the power to effect change, and it may even stave off death. It is an archē that can be wielded instrumentally by someone with enough know-how and used to enact one’s will. The Force can be employed to bring about a “change” in a given state of affairs. For instance, the lightsaber at Snoke’s side was dormant, but because of Kylo Ren, it undergoes a change and activates. This change in the lightsaber brings about another change: Snoke was gloating but now is dead. Within the Star Wars universe, the Force makes a difference, and because it arises from and interacts with living beings, created things make a difference to it. There is a reciprocal relationship between living beings and the Force, or as Aquinas would say, there exists a “real relationship” between the Force and the created order. If the whole galaxy were snuffed out and all finite beings extinguished, it would seem the Force would vanish as well. For Aquinas, such a codependent relationship is theologically problematic. For him, created order depends wholly upon the Creative archē, but the latter is in no way dependent or reliant upon creation. Should the entire galaxy be annihilated, God not only would continue to exist but would in no way be diminished. Why? Because, he notes, the act of creation “is not a change.”10 It is not as though God arises from, or comes upon, a chaotic mess and imposes order upon it. Rather, as Rowan Williams explains, Eternally, there is just God—outside time because he doesn’t get better or worse, or change in any way. And time begins when God speaks to call into

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being a world that is different and so establishes a reality that depends on him. It depends on him moment by moment, carried along on the current of his activity.11

Divine creation is uniquely the act of the Creator, the original and originating archē, who creates from nothing (creare ipsum ex nihilo).12 The Force—the Dark Side and the Light—may produce changes within the world, it may affect the finite realm, but it is only on account of Aquinas’s creative archē that there is something, anything at all, for the Force to influence. As they say on Canto Bight: Anakin put his money on the wrong fathier. We cannot really blame him, for who among us would not like to control life and death? But had he consulted the scholastic Jedi on Vaticanus III, Anakin might have discovered a different way. Instead of trying to manipulate the Force which derives its existence from living beings, he could have learned about the Creator, the archē who binds existence together through the gift of being (esse). A pity, really. Anakin wanted to learn occult ways when he could have been tutored in sacra doctrina and allowed to share in the Creator’s own scientia; a knowledge of God which offers not “power” over life and death but, by giving one a share of the Creator’s own self-understanding, extends an invitation to participate in the Creator’s own eternal bliss.13 MUCH TO LEARN, YOU STILL HAVE . . . FROM LUKE/ACTS Having braced ourselves for the codex to lead us into arid speculation, we are relieved to find an annotated reference to The Empire Strikes Back. Guided by the Force, Luke leaves Hoth and makes his way to Dagobah to meet Master Yoda. During his training, they come upon a mysterious cave. Luke disregards Yoda’s admonition to leave his weapons behind and descends into its depths. From the shadows emerges the figure of Darth Vader. Lightsabers are drawn and they duel until Luke swings and decapitates Vader. Before his eyes, the mask explodes and reveals Luke’s face. Luke beholds his deepest fear: not the figure of Darth Vader alone but that he, too, could himself succumb to the Dark Side. Yoda’s apothegm resounds: “When you look at the Dark Side, careful you must be. For the Dark Side looks back.” In addition to the movie reference, the annotation indicates a need to consult Luke’s Gospel. Following the Holy Spirit’s descent at his baptism (Lk 3:21–22), “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Lk 4:1–2). In the arid desert he undergoes his own trials and temptations. The question at the heart of Jesus’s trial is not whether but what

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it means for him to be the Son of God. Will he be seduced into conforming to the canons of worldly power or will he choose a different path? Three times he is tempted; three times he resists. Having conquered his diabolical opponent, at least for the time being, “Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee” (Lk 4:14). Kilian McDonnell observes how this scene underscores Jesus’s ministry as being “under the power and leading of the Spirit, making it clear that the role of the Spirit at the beginning of the Period of the Church in Acts is organically linked to the Spirit in the Period of Jesus.”14 The archē of Jesus’s life and ministry, and the ecclesial movement it inaugurates, is ordered by and brings about the order of the Holy Spirit. To connect the role of the Spirit in Jesus’s life to Aquinas’s scientia, let me risk jumping to theological hyperdrive. What we see throughout Luke and Acts is how Jesus’s ministry catalyzes a theological revolution. He begins his public ministry in the Temple where he proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk 4:18–19). From there he goes out to proclaim and enact the Kingdom of God. Through word and deed, he begins to destabilize the extant order. Those who were marginalized are drawn to the center; those who were lame and infirm are made whole; those who were dead are restored to life. The opposition to Jesus, one could say, was on account of the salutary anarchy wrought by his life: wherever he went, he challenged settled dispositions and expectations. Later, in Acts 2:1–13, the Holy Spirit’s arrival overcomes the division of language and permits people to speak with one another. Inspired, Peter preaches to the assembly of a new order centered on the crucified-and-risen Jesus Christ (Acts 2:14–36). Throughout Acts and into our own day, Christians believe the Holy Spirit guides and prolongs the revolutionary work begun by Jesus and preached on Pentecost by Peter. Now, when Aquinas describes Christian theology as scientia or knowledge, he means it “derives its principles not from any human knowledge, but from the divine knowledge, through which, as through the highest wisdom, all our knowledge is set in order.”15 Theology’s ordering principle comes from the sacred teaching (sacra doctrina) contained in the Bible. Aquinas, Brian Davies adds, “thinks that the teacher of sacra doctrina draws on God’s knowledge shared with us by divine revelation.”16 One does not simply “read” sacra doctrina but is tutored or trained in its ways. Although theology certainly involves the learning of content, it also, and more importantly, cultivates a way of life. Brian Stock amplifies this: “Scripture offers the reader—either the private reader or the audience at a reading—a privileged medium, through which God’s will, framed in narrative, can be internalized and directed outwards as ethically informed action.”17 Scientia is a virtue; trained in the ways

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of sacra doctrina, it becomes an intellectual virtue allowing one to exist in the world in a theological way. Scientia unites “knowing” and “doing” in the way one lives one’s life. Theological scientia is not just what you know but involves how one lives it out. Thus, Yoda’s pedagogy stumbles because he seems willing to decouple and jettison the content of the Jedi texts from how the Jedi lives out her or his relationship to the Force: “Page-turners they were not. Yes, yes, yes. Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.” Allow me another “Spirited” critique of the Force as insufficiently anarchic. To do this, let me draw a quick distinction between a “reformation” and a “revolution.” A reformation leaves structures intact, it seeks “improvements within the basic structures of society.”18 “The Force,” Master Luke instructs Rey, is “not about lifting rocks.” But, if you think about it, that is often what the Force does: it moves things around, it manipulates people and objects. In the final minutes of The Last Jedi, it is “lifting rocks” that saves the day! The Force can be used to effect change within a system, to shift things about, but it cannot effect a total transformation of a system. The Spirit, by contrast, launches a revolution. McCabe: “The characteristic of revolution as opposed to reform is that it involves entering a new world. . . . Revolution is not intelligible and certainly not reasonable within the thought forms and language of this current world; revolution requires faith.”19 The Force, as an archē, can reform an extant order, shaping it to reflect the whim of Jedi or Sith. The Spirit, by contrast, enters the world on its own power and works to bring about a new order, one that upends our expectations: within God’s Kingdom those we often reckon first will be last and those often regarded as last will be first (Lk 13:30). Obi-Wan’s plaintive words to Anakin capture the critique: “You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them; bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!” The chosen one was destined to be a reformer. The Spirit irrupts into history, not to reform but to revolutionize the social order and begin a new reign. As Saint Paul writes, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). The Force, an admixture of light and darkness, is insufficiently anarchic because it operates within the confines of the status quo. The Spirit, by contrast, opens our eyes to the wholly, nay Holy, anarchic power that has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Lk 1:52) and gives us a vision of the New Jerusalem governed solely by the One who rules over the new creation and proclaims, “See, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5).

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“CONTROL, CONTROL, YOU MUST LEARN CONTROL” At the end of the codex, a codicil. In scratchy handwriting: “Not anti-theological, but ante-theological, these reflections are.” The author is correct: even if the Force lacks theological heft, our time spent as Padawans has not been in vain. If we give ear to wise forebears, especially Yoda, we may yet learn a lesson about what the great masters—of the Force and the Holy Spirit—regard as the centrality of indifference to the process of discernment. Luke, on Dagobah, got his first inkling of what it takes to be a Jedi: “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life he has looked away . . . to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing . . . adventure, excitement . . . a Jedi craves not these things.” Otherwise stated, a Jedi assumes an equanimous stance, balanced and receptive. Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) writes, “I must make myself indifferent to all created things, in regard to everything which is left to my own freedom of will and is not forbidden. Consequently, on my own part I ought not to seek health rather than sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life rather than a short one, and so on in all other matters.”20 Receptivity to the Spirit allows one to feel it, as Yoda said of the Force, “around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere.” Of course, the Spirit is not a part of creation, but this does not mean it can be thought of apart from it. Indeed, for Aquinas, it is attributed to the Spirit that “He rules by being ‘the Lord’ and that He ‘gives life’ to the things that are created by the Father through the Son.”21 Each and every created being bears within it, Aquinas continues, something of a “trace” pointing back to their origin in the Trinitarian archē, the source and sustaining force of all being. The would-be Jedi must seek balance, must not be distracted by either future enticements or past fears. Yoda’s lesson for Anakin, sadly, went unheeded: “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” In fear, one clings and grasps and attempts to impose one’s will upon others. Spiritual indifference, by contrast, permits one to recognize and respond to the Spirit as it prompts us forward. Where fear incites us to try to get “what” we want, discernment enjoins us to open our hearts to the Spirit in order to discover “who” we are called to become. Anyone attentive to life in the Spirit, attuned to its presence in all things, can remark with Snoke: “There’s been an awakening, have you felt it?” Though the Star Wars universe may say nothing directly of the Holy Spirit, we can nevertheless learn much from it about how to open ourselves to a power, a Force, greater than ourselves. Jedi, like Christians, believe in things seen and unseen. As Obi-Wan urges Luke: “Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t

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trust them. Stretch out with your feelings.” Sage advice, for in stretching out and opening ourselves to the unseen, we assume the ante-theological pose as discerning listeners. As we now we return the codex to its container, it should not surprise us if we seem to hear an echo of familiar voices. For those tempted to think the Force a version of the Holy Spirit, Admiral Ackbar cries out: “It’s a trap!” For others tempted to think the Holy Spirit as epiphenomenal or irrelevant, a tweaked version of Chirrut İmwe’s koan is whispered: “I am one with the Spirit. The Spirit is with me.” We close our eyes and stretch out with our feelings. In a world where forces of darkness and light still struggle for dominance, we feel ourselves drawn toward a power, an archē, that promises to make all things new. A frisson of fear as we are drawn to what is yet unknown, but the voice of Maz Kanata enkindles our courage to surrender to the Spirit and embark upon a new adventure, for it “is calling you. Let it in.” NOTES 1. I thank undergraduate coauthors from Marquette University: Brian Bottei, Christopher Gregorio, Kate Lawlor, John Lighthart, and Matthew Mussoline. 2. Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 320. 3. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia. 45. 1. 4. Ia. 104. 1. 5. Herbert McCabe, God Matters (Continuum: New York, 2005), 59–60. 6. Aquinas, Ia. 45. 3. 7. Victor White, God the Unknown (London: Harvill Press, 1956), 18. 8. Aquinas, Ia. 44. 1. 9. Aquinas, Ia. 45. 5. 10. Aquinas, Ia. 45. 2. 11. Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 36. 12. Aquinas, Ia. 45. 5. 13. Aquinas, Ia. 1.5. 14. Kilian McDonnell, The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch of God (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003), 42. 15. Aquinas, Ia. 1. 6. 16. Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (New York: Oxford, 2014), 20. 17. Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge: Belknap, 1996), 12. 18. McCabe, God Matters, 121. 19. McCabe, 121–22.

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20. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, ed. John Padberg (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1991), 130. 21. Aquinas, Ia. 45. 6.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by Laurence Shapcot. Lander: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012. Davies, Brian. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologaie. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Edited by David Farrell Krell. San Francisco: Harper, 1993. Ignatius of Loyola. Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works. Edited by John Padberg. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1991. McCabe, Herbert. God Matters. New York: Continuum, 2005. Stock, Brian. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1996. White, Victor. God the Unknown. London: Harvill Press, 1956. Williams, Rowan. Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007.

Chapter 15

Lifting Rocks Camus, Sainthood, and the AntiHeroic in The Last Jedi Russell P. Johnson

Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi (2017) invites viewers to question the nature and value of heroes. Do heroes actually have a positive effect, or are their victories temporary and their failures devastating? The film raises this question by bringing together themes from earlier Star Wars films—namely the ideas of “balance” and the “Chosen One” from the prequel trilogy—to draw interesting conclusions about the justification of moral action in the face of the absurd. The portrayals of Luke Skywalker and Rey echo the themes of Albert Camus’s philosophy—to a point. The film is open to an absurdist interpretation, until it isn’t. By taking this existential reading of The Last Jedi as far as it can go, and then exploring the cracks and ruptures in this analysis, I will reflect on the role of hope and the meaningfulness of ordinary action in Christian theology. Like Camus and The Last Jedi, I argue, Christian theology affirms that ordinary people can live meaningful lives, even without fulfilling a grand destiny or having a lasting influence. “HAPPINESS IS BORN OF THE ABSENCE OF HOPE”1 Camus might at first glance seem to be the philosopher least likely to shed light on the Star Wars universe. The films are, to put it in a word, about hope, whereas Camus’s philosophy explicitly begins with the rejection of hope. In Camus’s vision, true living can only begin when we reject “the 205

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delusions of hope.”2 Through abandoning all the myths and presumptions of an afterlife, one is free to live fully in the moment, enjoying one’s day-today experiences of sunlight, water on one’s skin, and the embrace of a lover. In Camus’s earliest philosophical writings, he observes that “hope, contrary to popular belief, is tantamount to resignation. And living means not being resigned.”3 The more we invest ourselves in a hoped-for goal—even a secular, this-worldly one—the less present we are to our day-to-day experiences and those around us. This may sound like Epicureanism, and the comparison is sound. But as Camus’s philosophy developed, it came to center less on pleasure and more on an unresolved paradox at the heart of the human condition. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes that humans cannot give up the quest for transcendent meaning and yet reality continually rebuffs our best efforts. The world is pointless, without telos, hostile to explanation and devoid of higher significance. Yet, humans cannot avoid trying to make sense of the world and our place within it. Neither side of this tension can be dropped or resolved, and in this lies the absurd. “At this point in his effort,” Camus writes, “man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. . . . The irrational, the human nostalgia, and the absurd that is born of their encounter—these are the three characters in the drama that must necessarily end with all the logic of which an existence is capable.”4 The human condition emerges out of this agony (agony in the sense of agon, “struggle, contest”): the tension between the thirst for deeper meaning and the senselessness of the godless universe. Camus refers to this as “the absurd, which is the metaphysical state of the conscious man.”5 There are two pitfalls that must be avoided: if one tries to deny one’s own striving for meaning, one becomes bestial. If one imagines and commits to a myth that grounds meaning in metaphysics, one sacrifices one’s intellect. “Being able to remain on the dizzying crest,” Camus writes, “that is integrity and the rest is subterfuge.”6 Those who are able to hold together these two irreconcilable elements are absurd heroes. In The Myth of Sisyphus, the definitive example of the absurd hero is the Greek mythological king Sisyphus, who was sentenced by the gods to push a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down the mountain again, then push it up the mountain again, and so on for eternity. For Sisyphus, there is no future, no promise of redemption or progress. There is no hope. And yet, Camus insists, “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”7 By investing oneself fully in one’s pursuits—independent of any expectation of making the world

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a better place, any expectation of achieving enlightenment, or any expectation of divine reward—one can attain contentment within and by virtue of the absurd. Camus’s examples of absurd heroes are those who live for the process rather than the goal. He describes in detail the conqueror who prefers the thrill of conquest to the glory and tranquility of victory; the actor who immerses himself in each role one after the other, not working toward anything higher than an endless sequence of characters to inhabit; the seducer who beguiles lover after lover without end. The protagonist in Camus’s novel The Plague is a doctor who continues treating patients in a quarantined city despite little reason to believe anyone would survive.8 Like Sisyphus, these figures live without telos but not without happiness, since they consciously embrace the “for-nothing-ness” of their actions. Of the absurd artist, Camus writes, “To work and create ‘for nothing,’ to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions.”9 To pursue something lasting—let alone something permanent, as Augustine did—is the most dangerous illusion humanity is heir to. “The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future,”10 Camus writes. But with this lack of future comes freedom to act in the present. This “difficult wisdom,” though not a moral duty, is what Camus exhorts his readers to accept and act upon. Deciding to act, even though the universe is indifferent to one’s actions, is the defining characteristic of the absurd hero. The only other intellectually responsible thing to do is to end one’s life, which is why Camus frames The Myth of Sisyphus as a long reflection on the question of suicide.11 To go on living without illusions is, in its own way, a sort of heroism. The absurd hero is able to come face-to-face with reality and to preserve their own humanity, and this, for Camus, is more admirable than any worldly achievement or spiritual ascent. One of the most attractive features of Camus’s philosophy is its embrace of the ordinary. Anyone can be an absurd hero. Camus writes, “The lover, the actor, or the adventurer plays the absurd. But equally well, if he wishes, the chaste man, the civil servant, or the president of the Republic. It is enough to know and mask nothing.”12 Whatever station in life one finds oneself in, all that is required is to push on without illusions. Camus suggests that there may be countless absurd heroes, acting quietly and anonymously; “This absurd, godless world is then peopled with men who think clearly and who have ceased to hope.”13 There is no pressure to be someone great or noble; there is no duty to bring about a better future; there is no obligation to strive for something lasting. As Camus writes, “there is no higher destiny,” or none that confers special meaning on a particular person.14 In the absence of any

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metanarrative, there is only the individual’s commitment to persist. This sketch of Camus’s philosophy of the absurd is all too cursory, but will serve as a point of reference as we consider Luke Skywalker’s turn as an absurd hero in The Last Jedi. THE LEGENDARY AND THE ORDINARY Luke and Rey’s story line in The Last Jedi picks up exactly where The Force Awakens (2015) left off. Rey is, to quote Bonnie Tyler, holding out for a hero. As the opening crawl informs us, the Resistance is not looking for Luke for his leadership or skills with a lightsaber, they are “certain that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker will return and restore a spark of hope to the fight.” The point gets reiterated—they don’t want the man from Tatooine, Leia’s brother, Luke. They want Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, the myth, the legend, the hero. The Resistance is looking to Luke for what he symbolizes: ragtag rebels defeating the powerful, oppressive Empire. His presence, they think, could inspire the confidence that it can be done once more, victory is possible today as it was in the past. We are immediately introduced, then, to one of “the three characters in the drama” of Camus’s absurd, namely “human nostalgia.” In Rey’s eyes we see the longing for hope and purpose that Camus says is inescapable. When Luke casually tosses the lightsaber aside and wordlessly walks past Rey, we see a second character of the drama: the irrational. The interactions between these two characters frames the Luke-Rey plotline of The Last Jedi as an absurd drama. Rey tells Luke, “We need your help. We need the Jedi Order. We need Luke Skywalker.” Luke replies, “You don’t need Luke Skywalker.” Luke does not typically refer to himself in the third person; the awkward exchange reiterates that there is an important distinction between Luke the legend, the one who can bring hope, and Luke the person. Put differently, Luke as he is in himself and Luke as an emblem of victory against evil and insuperable odds. There are two discourses in play: the legendary and the ordinary. Rey comes to Ach-To expecting the legendary and is struck instead by the ordinary. She expects Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and gets an old man going through a routine, largely uninterested in the world beyond his island. One of Luke’s first questions to Rey is “Who are you?” She replies, “The resistance sent me.” He shifts his emphasis, “They sent you. What is special about you?” Luke’s not asking who Rey is in herself but how she fits into the larger story.15 This question hits a nerve for Rey, it’s the question she’s been asking herself for quite some time. A person becomes special by being a crucial part of something bigger than themselves—a distinctive family, a

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movement, an order, a story. We hear this theme revisited later when Kylo Ren says to Rey, “You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing.” Put differently, Rey is an ordinary woman who finds herself in a legendary conflict. After The Force Awakens, Rey is committed to this conflict but still unsure whether and how she belongs in it. She has found a community of people who care about her, but she is still looking for her place in the Big Story. Several of the characters take themselves to be the inheritors of legendary figures, or at least strive to be. These characters understand their own roles through stories, in particular stories that follow the familiar pattern of the legendary conflict between the Rebels and the Empire. As Supreme Leader Snoke reminds us early on, Kylo Ren’s dream is to become the heir to Darth Vader. Ren sees his life as a heroic quest to complete his grandfather’s mission. Conversely, the Resistance styles themselves after the Rebellion. Their story is one of hope, hope that they, like the rebels before them, can triumph through military force against an oppressive totalitarian enemy. Their numbers are few, but they’re on the side of good, and as Luke Skywalker proves, a righteous cause sometimes prevails against the odds. Despite all their differences, the First Order and the Resistance are consciously following in the footsteps of the legends that came before them. Both Kylo Ren and the Resistance are starting to see the cracks in their stories, and the first third of the film hints that the romance of emulation is buckling under the weight of reality. AN ABSURD BALANCE What story does Luke Skywalker find himself in? As I understand it, Luke at the beginning of The Last Jedi understands himself as part of a story being told by the Force itself, and a story that is ultimately absurd. Two ideas introduced in The Phantom Menace (1999)— the idea of “balance” and the notion of “the will of the Force”—are crucial to understanding Luke’s self-imposed exile.16 In Rey’s “first lesson” with Luke, she learns about the cyclical nature of the Force. Luke tells Rey to reach out with her feelings and asks her what she sees; she responds, “The island. Life. Death and decay . . . that feeds the new life. Warm. Cold. Peace. Violence.” Luke asks, “And between it all?” Rey responds, “Balance. And energy . . . a force.” Luke goes on to explain that the Force involves “Balance. Powerful light, powerful darkness.” The Force, Luke notes, is not neutral and passive, but neither is it on the side of the Jedi and freedom. It operates in cycles, moving from one side of a duality to its opposite, seeking balance and dynamic equilibrium. This notion of the

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Force seeking balance between light and dark is reiterated when Snoke says, “Darkness rises, and light to meet it,” as if this were a time-honored truism. When we meet Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, he is not skeptical about good and evil, but he has become skeptical about the Force. Luke once thought the Jedi could wield the Force as a power for good, but he’s come to recognize that the Force ultimately tends not toward good but toward balance. The Force, he reckons, is trying to tell the same story over and over again, tallying up deaths in the pursuit of balance between the dark side and the light. Luke realizes that this pattern is going to keep repeating itself, so he decides that it is pointless to train more Jedi if it means that the cycle will keep turning, taking countless lives as it does. In the prequels, when the Jedi are powerful and established, the Force elevated Anakin to bring balance to the Force by destroying the Jedi Order. Death restores balance between the dark side and the light. In the original trilogy, when the Empire is in control over the galaxy, the Force sought balance by elevating Luke Skywalker to fight for the light. Again, death restores the balance between the dark side and the light. The cycle continues over and over again, pendulum swinging back and forth between light and dark, always seeking balance and always bringing death. Is this a pattern worth continuing? When a powerful, fatherless, linen-wrapped nobody from a desert planet shows up, Luke knows the Force is running the same play all over again. The Force seems to have picked Rey as its next “Chosen One” who will “bring balance,” and it has imbued her with power startlingly quickly. The Force wanted The Force Awakens to be A New Hope all over again, and now it wants The Last Jedi to be Empire Strikes Back all over again. The Force wants training montages and drama, a new hero emerging through the road of trials, but Luke decides not to play along. As they say in the film War Games (1983), it’s a strange game and the only winning move is not to play. So Luke sticks to his pole-vault-fishing, fresh-squeezed-soymilk-drinking life, cannily refusing to play the tragic role in the story that the Force has scripted for him. We also see something close to Camus’s Sisyphus. The question Luke faces, like Camus’s question, is as follows: is life worth living if there is no telos, if our best efforts are futile, if what we do becomes undone? What basis for action is there if everything happens again and again and again, in Nietzsche’s eternal return of the same. Why push the rock up the mountain if it’s always going to roll down again? Luke finds himself in an absurd situation. By fighting on the side of good, by being a hero, by training more Jedi, his actions will only continue to push the wheel of history. He cannot achieve victory once and for all. So Luke shuts himself off from the Force. He does not commit suicide—though he does say “I came here to die”—but he withdraws himself from the Force, from his friends, from the drama of Jedi and Sith, heroes and villains, from the Big Story—in short, from Star Wars.

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NOTHING SPECIAL As we have discussed, Luke’s question, “What’s special about you?” is the question that haunts Rey.17 When Rey ventures to the dark well underneath the island, she gets a glimpse of who the Force wants her to be—one in an almost infinite succession of Chosen Ones. She is, in this vision, the hero with the thousand faces.18 The temptation for Rey is different from Luke’s temptation in the parallel scene in Empire Strikes Back. For Luke, the cave is a test, an opportunity for Luke to shed his aggression and impulsiveness before it destroys him. For Rey, the cave offers her something she needs, as Luke says, specifically a place in the Big Story. She can be the hero, the Chosen One. She’s always wanted to be somebody, and now she can be special. She can restore balance to the Force (even if only for a while) and take her place among the Skywalkers. As she said to Luke earlier, “I need someone to show me my place in all of this.” The Force offers her a place, offers her a role to play, offers her an opportunity to be legendary. Rey is trying to find her place in the Big Story, the same story Luke Skywalker knows will tend toward balance. When Rey tells Luke, “This could be how we win,” Luke responds, “This is not going to go the way you think.” Luke knows that any victory will be temporary and costly; nothing lasting can be gained, but many of those close to us will be lost. Being special is an illusion, and a dangerous illusion in an absurd world. But this does not ultimately prevent him from acting. In the climactic moment of the film, Luke abandons his self-imposed exile and steps out to act. As I read it, Luke steps out and acts—not for the Jedi, not for the Big Story, but for a worthy cause. Not dramatically swooping in to save the day, but to buy the rebels some time. Not because he thinks it will make lasting change, but because he knows that it’s worth doing the right thing even if in the long run nothing comes of it. Even if there’s no progress in the grand scheme of things, a life dedicated to the good is still worthwhile. It may be absurd—Camus even uses as an example of the absurd the image of a man armed with a sword facing an army with machine guns, much like Luke’s last stand19—but it is still worthwhile. How does Luke come to this conclusion? I think one answer is Han Solo. Luke realizes that Han’s life may not have made progress in the Big Story, may not have been special in the way Chosen Ones are special, but it was nonetheless a life well lived. Han exemplifies the ordinary rather than the legendary. While everyone else had delusions of grandeur, Han was always a smuggler—and a friend. Though Han is never shown in the film, he is the paradigmatic hero for The Last Jedi, and the ending alludes to this. Luke gives Han’s dice to Leia and makes knowing eye contact right before he goes

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to face Kylo Ren. Luke says to Kylo Ren, “Strike me down and I’ll always be with you. Just like your father.” Luke’s last words are, “See you around, kid,” using the nickname Han often used for Luke. Rey’s return also echoes Han Solo. She flies in in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca at the last minute to clear the way for an end-run at a Death Star big gun. What could be more Han Solo than that? The Last Jedi does not have an Obi-wan Kenobi ending. It doesn’t have a Luke Skywalker ending. Most importantly, it doesn’t have a “Jedi Master Luke Skywalker” ending. It has a Han Solo ending. It’s not about being the Chosen One, about destiny, about having unique significance. It’s not about being a hero, it’s not about being special, it’s not about good defeating evil once and for all. It’s just about doing what you can, buying some time, helping your friends, keeping life going. The end of Rey’s arc in this film is fascinating. She doesn’t try to achieve significance by playing the role the Force has for her in the grand cosmic drama. Rather, she accepts her relative insignificance and acts humbly from there. It’s telling that the last thing we see Rey doing is using the Force to lift rocks, to “make things float,” the most mundane and undramatic way to use the Force. “Lifting rocks,” she chuckles to herself, before clearing the pathway for the tiny rebel remnant. Camus concludes his book by saying Sisyphus “teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.”20 I can’t say with certainty that lifting rocks is meant to evoke Sisyphus, but the connection is significant. Rather than the Force telling a Big Story, Rey uses the Force in a comparatively ordinary way, but a helpful way. She recognizes that she can help a righteous cause without needing to be the hero of a cosmic drama. She acts, and is satisfied with her actions, in a story that’s not about her. I think it matters that in the penultimate scene, Poe introduces himself. “I’m Poe.” “I’m Rey.” “I know.” This is interesting. She has just a taste of being special, being legendary, but the focus is more on the relationships. Rey does not receive any medals; she connects with friends old and new. The Resistance that so desperately needed a hero at the beginning of the movie now just needs to stick together and care for one another. That’s, fundamentally, what The Last Jedi is about: movements don’t need legends, they need ordinary people to do what they can, even if it does not amount to anything sub specie aeternitatis. Like Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, the movie is antiheroic, a celebration of the ordinary over against the legendary.

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HEROES AND SAINTS Thus, it is possible to read Luke’s and Rey’s stories in The Last Jedi productively through the lens of Camus’s absurd hero. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, this existential interpretation cannot fully account for all the elements in the film. The Last Jedi, unlike Camus’s philosophy, still treats hope as a virtue and legends as worthy of veneration. In this final section, I will analyze the role of hope and the heroic in the film and ask what light this sheds on the similarities and differences between Christian theology and the absurd. In the final scene, we see children listening with rapt attention to the story of “Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master.” The legend lives on, even in the stables of Canto Bight. In an interview, writer-director Rian Johnson said of the scene, “I couldn’t think of a more evocative image of hope than a kid who is playing with his Luke Skywalker action figure and being inspired by that to grow up and have an adventure and fight the good fight.”21 The final image we have is of yet another Force-sensitive orphan gazing at the stars. Another Chosen One, more of the same? Possibly, and yet there is a very real sense that a better future is possible. Hope spreads like a fire in The Last Jedi. The repeated imagery of a “spark” illustrates this, and we see characters catch hope from one another. Luke reassures Leia that no one is ever really gone, inspires Poe and Finn to escape and fight another day, and provides an example of “peace and purpose” for Rey. As the music swells triumphantly, Luke tells Kylo Ren, “The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi.” Here, too, we hear notes of repetition: Luke is not predicting victory once-and-for-all, but more conflict. But the moment is nonetheless inspiring, and the fact that it is crosscut with scenes of Rey saving her friends only adds to the effect. Thus, despite its Camusian echoes, the end of The Last Jedi clearly does believe in the future. It leaves us, then, with a dilemma. Is there a way to hold together the critique of progress and heroism The Last Jedi contains with the message of hope it also contains? Christian theology, I argue, also contains an antiheroic streak, albeit one not grounded in the absurd. In Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics, Samuel Wells explains the distinction between heroes and saints.22 Drawing on Aristotle, Wells writes of heroes, They are formed in the virtues required to negotiate an awesome role: they are prepared to be the center of the story. They stand out from the crowd, they form friendships only with others of similar stature. They are self-sufficient and resilient among setbacks. The definitive icon of virtue is the soldier, who is prepared

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to risk death for the sake of a higher good. The noblest death is death in battle, for battle offers the greatest danger, thus requiring the greatest courage.23

Saints, by contrast, are “always at the periphery of a story that is really about God.”24 Saints may not have any skills or virtues that make them stand out from the crowd; they are not special. A saint, like an absurd hero, can be anyone. Given the subversions of expectations found in the Bible, we should positively expect that the greatest saints among us are toiling away in quiet obscurity. Why, then do we tell stories about past saints? Why do we venerate them, and take hope and inspiration from their examples? Wells writes, “The story of the hero is told to rejoice in valor. The story of the saint is told to celebrate faith.”25 The story of the saint witnesses to the loving God who makes such lives possible, and invites us to see the blessedness in those around us. At their best, hagiographies celebrate the ordinary over against the legendary. The saints are not special and do not have a unique role in the Big Story, not because history moves in cycles and progress is illusory, but because Christ alone is special and Christ alone will bring the Kingdom of God on earth. Whereas Camus celebrates the ordinary by demythologizing the legendary, Christianity frees ordinary people from the burden of being legendary by saying that Christ has decisively won the victory over sin and death independent of saints’ intervention. Thus, Christianity holds together a metanarrative, a Big Story, and also an emphasis on the ordinary person committing to action even if their work is “destroyed in a day.” For Christians, there is a future, but the burden is not on us to bring it into being. Christian theology is antiheroic not because heroism is pointless, but because God is the hero of history. Wells continues, The hero is at the center of the story. It is the hero’s decisive intervention that makes the story come out right. Without the hero all would be lost. So if the hero makes a mistake, if the hero bungles or exposes a serious flaw—it is a disaster, a catastrophe, probably fatal for the story and, if it is a big story, possibly pretty serious for life as we know it. By contrast, the saint expects to fail. If the saint’s failures are honest ones, they merely highlight the wonder of God’s greater victory. If the saint’s failures are less admirable ones, they open out the cycle of repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration that is what Christians call a new creation. A hero fears failure, flees mistakes, and knows no repentance: the saint knows that light comes only through cracks, that beauty is as much (if not more) about restoration as about creation.26

This passage is worth quoting in full because of how closely it resonates with the themes of The Last Jedi. Luke withdrew from the world because he was so afraid he had failed and would fail again, so conscious of the possibility

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that he would bring about suffering in the effort to bring about peace.27 Yoda chides Luke, “Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. . . . But weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.” Luke takes the lesson to heart, telling Kylo Ren, “I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.” Sisyphus does not repent. Camus’s encouragement to commit to the moment, to feel the sun on one’s skin and the stone against one’s hand, does not invite remorse and forgiveness.28 Since there is no progress in the future, there are no lessons to learn from the past, and to believe otherwise is to fetter oneself to Angst and delusion. Here we see another difference between Christian theology, absurd heroism, and the classical image of the hero. In Christianity, since hope does not depend on the hero but on the faithfulness of God, the hero’s mistakes do not threaten the outcome and thus do not shake our hope. As Joseph Winters argues in Hope Draped in Black, Christian hope is not tied to a narrative of continual progress and personal growth. Winters argues instead for a “melancholic hope”29 that dwells on the ruptures and disjunctions in linear accounts of progress and refuses to idealize past victories. Winters criticizes the conflation of hope and optimism, a process that cultivates expectations of a better future by marginalizing or downplaying dissonant memories and attachments. These dissonant attachments—to traumatic events, unfinished struggles, neglected histories, and the recalcitrant dimensions of that past and present that resist closure and the eagerness to “move forward”—are necessary to challenge current configurations of power, especially since the effectiveness of power depends partially on its ability to produce forgetful subjects.30

In The Last Jedi, we see this conflation between hope and optimism challenged. In contrast to the heroic narrative of the Resistance, which lionizes the hero of the Rebellion “Jedi Master Luke Skywalker,” Luke comes to accept his failures as an important part of his story. The traumatic event in his past—his failure as a teacher—ceases to prevent him from acting, and instead becomes part of a more mature, melancholic hope. Even if the Force tends toward balance, and Jedi Masters tend to give rise to Sith Lords, there is reason to hope that this tiny band of rebels can be spared, at least for now. There is reason to hope that Rey will “grow beyond” the tragic history she has inherited and the hubris of its guardians. The outcome of The Last Jedi’s wrestling with absurdity is not Camus’s hopeless perseverance but a chastened hope, a hope not indexed to the virtue of its heroes. From this film, Christians should be reminded to not put saints on pedestals and overlook their failures. To do so is not only to falsify their lives, but to deprive ourselves of the witness of ordinary faith. In a world

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that seems absurd, saints’ actions are not grand displays of heroism, but holy foolishness, acts that point beyond themselves to the love of God. NOTES 1. Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays, trans. Philip Thody (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967), 80. 2. Camus, 57. 3. Camus, 70. 4. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage International, 2018), 28. Cf. 51. 5. Camus, 40. 6. Camus, 50. 7. Camus, 123. 8. Albert Camus, The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Vintage International, 1991). 9. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 113–14. 10. Camus, 58. 11. The book famously begins, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy” (The Myth of Sisyphus, 3). Camus argues that accepting the absurd need not result in suicide, and that there is “a metaphysical honor in enduring the world’s absurdity” (93). 12. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 90–91. 13. Camus, 92. 14. Camus, 123. 15. Not coincidentally, the question of what makes Rey special was the subject of much speculation leading up to The Last Jedi. Many theories centered on discerning how Rey fits into Star Wars’ established families—is she Luke’s daughter? Han and Leia’s daughter? Obi-wan Kenobi’s niece? See, for instance, Caitlin Busch, “The Seven Most Popular Theories about Rey’s Real Parents,” Inverse.com, May 25, 2017, https://www.inverse.com/ article/32079-star-wars-rey-parents-theories-luke-skywalker-kenobi-solo. 16. The idea of the Force as having agency and a will is also depicted in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). 17. It haunts Kylo Ren as well. Grooming his apprentice, Snoke tells him that he saw his potential to be “something truly special . . . a new Vader.” 18. George Lucas used Joseph Campbell’s popular analysis of mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, to craft the narrative of the original Star Wars trilogy. The title suggests Campbell’s theory that hero stories following essentially the same pattern can be found across the world’s religions and mythologies. Campbell’s book features a painting titled Bodhisattva that closely resembles this scene. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008), 128.

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19. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 29. 20. Camus, 123. 21. Quoted in Anthony Breznican, “The Last Jedi Spoiler Talk,” Entertainment Weekly, December 18, 2017, https://ew.com/movies/2017/12/18/ the-last-jedi-spoiler-rian-johnson-ending-explained/2/. 22. Like Wells, I use the word “saints” to refer to exemplary people of faith whose stories get told and retold, even if these individuals have not been officially canonized. 23. Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 42. 24. Wells, Improvisation, 43. 25. Wells, 43. 26. Wells, 44. 27. In Luke’s memory of his last confrontation with Ben Solo, the camera focuses and lingers on Luke’s robotic hand, the part of Luke that connects him to Vader. This visually echoes the end of Return of the Jedi, when Luke sees the remains of Vader’s robotic hand, looks at his own hand, and realizes that if he continues fighting, he will become that which he opposes. By passionately resisting the Dark Side, Luke draws closer to it. Hence, when Luke tosses aside the lightsaber at the beginning of The Last Jedi, the moment hearkens back to when he cast aside his lightsaber at the end of Return of the Jedi. 28. See Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 58–60. 29. Joseph Winters, Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 17. 30. Winters, Hope Draped in Black, 6.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Breznican, Anthony. “The Last Jedi Spoiler Talk.” Entertainment Weekly, December 18, 2017. https://ew.com/movies/2017/12/18/the-lastjedi-spoiler-rian-johnson-ending-explained/2/. Busch, Caitlin. “The Seven Most Popular Theories about Rey’s Real Parents.” Inverse.com, May 25, 2017. https://www.inverse.com/article/ 32079-star-wars-rey-parents-theories-luke-skywalker-kenobi-solo. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008. Camus, Albert. Lyrical and Critical Essays. Translated by Philip Thody. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967. ———. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage International, 2018. ———. The Plague. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage International, 1991.

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Wells, Samuel. Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004. Winters, Joseph. Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Index

Abel (biblical character), 40 Abraham/Abram (biblical character), 40–41, 48n10 Abrams, J. J., 13, 19 absolutes: absolute contrasted with, 173–74, 175; Sith contrasted with Jedi in, 11, 106 absurdity, 4, 205; of Luke, 208–9, 210, 213; quest for transcendent meaning as, 206 academic theology, of Star Wars, 2 accessible mysticism, of Sölle, 146– 47, 148, 152 accomplishment, Christian humanists and, 55–56 accuracy, of sacred text translation, 13 activism, theology of, 142 activity, 211; contrasted with passivity, 150, 151; as devoid of expectations, 207; of the Force as intentional, 193, 194; hope leads to, 180, 187, 205; language as violent, 34n2 Acts, Book of, 199 Admiral Ackbar (fictional character), 202 Admiral Holdo (fictional character), 43, 86, 88, 149, 153n19 Adorno, Theodor, 155–56 aggression, Yoda on, 121, 183, 185

Ahch-To (planet), 113, 117, 118, 122, 191 Ahsoka Tano “Ahsoka” (fictional character), 100, 102–3, 104 Ajunta Pall (fictional character), 55 Allnut, Frank, 82 alterations, of canons, 20 amazement, as mystical starting point, 147 ambiguity: droids and, 135; of the Force, 193, 194 America, as the Empire and rebel heroes, 159 Anakin Skywalker “Anakin” (fictional character), 31, 87, 133, 141, 173, 186; in Attack of the Clones, 66–67, 106; the Chosen One, 28, 29, 59, 90–91, 105; in The Clone Wars, 86, 90–91, 93, 102–3; on the dark side of the Force, 31, 42, 74–75; downfall of, 66–67, 81, 163, 164, 184–85, 198; as everyperson hero, 161, 162; Luke parallels with, 160–61, 163; midichlorian/midi-chlorian count of, 40, 91; in The Phanton Menace, 30, 31, 66, 106, 161, 193; as preoccupied with fear, 66, 185; rebellion of, 67, 72, 74–75; in Revenge of the Sith, 30, 74–75, 185, 195; shadow self 219

220

Index

of, 68, 69; truthfulness of, 86–87; as Vader, 28, 41, 67, 75, 186; virgin birth of, 161, 163 anarchy, despotism contrasted with, 116 ancient texts, drafts of: contradictions from, 16–17; Star Wars script drafts and, 10, 15, 16, 21n13 anger: as demon to desert monks, 53; letting go of, 144; of Luke, 186; Rey resisting, 142; Yoda on, 59, 121, 183, 185, 201 anthropology: of Christian humanists as optimistic, 56, 57, 59; pessimistic, 52, 54; of Pico as divine, 58 antichrist, A New Hope and, 82 Antony, of Egypt (St. Antony), 25, 29, 33, 34, 34n1, 52 apatheia (apathy), as control of passion, 53 Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers), 52 apprentice. See Padawan Aquinas, Thomas, 4, 56, 179–80, 181– 82; on God as creator, 195, 196, 197, 198; on Holy Spirit, 192, 194, 201 archē (principle of), universal order, 194, 202; of Christ, 199; the Force as, 192, 193, 200; God as creator of, 195, 196, 197, 198 Ark of the Covenant, 43 Arp, Robert, on rights, 130 arrogance: of Anakin, 90; of the Jedi Order, 89–90 art, mechanical reproduction of, 156 asceticism: desert monks and, 53–54; mysticism and, 147 Ashla. See the light side, of the Force attack, the Force not for, 121, 150, 194 Attack of the Clones (2002) (film), 30, 133; Anakin in, 66–67, 106, 184–85; Obi-Wan in, 66–67 Atton Rand (fictional character), 93 attunement, to subtle self, 65 audiences, young, perspectives of, 14, 21n11

Augustine (saint), 56, 117, 173; city of God of, 176; on conditions of hope, 180, 181, 187; Manicheans and, 4, 172, 175, 177 authorial intent, 9, 13, 20n2, 21n9 authority, of canon, 9, 10–11, 12 ‘Ayn al-Qudat, al-Hamadhani, 74 Bail Organa “Bail” (fictional character), 85 balance: in The Clone Wars, 176; of the Force through the Chosen one, 27, 205; of good and evil, 171–72, 176; Jedi seeking, 201; of the light and dark sides of the Force, 51, 91, 105, 136, 176, 209–10, 215; morality of light and dark, 173, 175; Rey bringing, 211 Baqli, Ruzbihan, 72 Barenblat, Rachel, 138n21 battles, of Sith and Jedi, 54 bay’ah (pledge of allegiance), 68–69 becoming a Sufi (tasawuf), 69 being, 120, 174, 175 Benjamin, Walter, 129 Ben Solo “Ben” (fictional character), 86, 217n27; in The Force Awakens, 42, 43; Kylo Ren as, 42, 91, 105, 123, 215; Snoke seducing, 122, 188 Bespin (planet), 184 the Bible, 15, 16, 100–101; canon of, 9, 13–14, 17, 19; hidden books of, 14; narrative of, 40; scholarship of, 14. See also specific Books; specific Gospels; specific Psalms Biskand, Peter, 157 Bissell, Tom, 18 bliss, of God, 147, 198 body, contrasted with spirit, 177 Bogan. See the dark side, of the Force Booker, Keith, 158 Brooker, Will, 16, 18 “Broom Boy” (fictional character), 143, 149–50 Buddhism. See Zen Buddhist principles

Index

Bush-Cheney administration, 160 C-3PO (comic book), 134–35, 136, 138n21 C-3PO “Threepio” (fictional character), 182; Jedi texts translated by, 13; oppression of, 128, 133; as outside of the Force, 136; as Star Wars narrator, 133; subjecthood of, 131, 132–33, 134, 135, 136–37 Cambridge Platform (1648), 83 Campbell, Joseph, 163, 216n18 Camus, Albert, 4, 210, 211, 212, 216n11; on delusions of hope, 205–6, 215; on ordinary heroes, 207–8 canon: as changing or established, 13–14, 17; criticism of, 14–15; as defined from within, 20; diversity of, 10–11, 19, 20; Episode IV, Star Wars (1973) as, 17; headcanon and, 16 canon, of Star Wars universe, 3, 7, 11, 12, 40, 134; Abrams and Lucas changing, 13; as changing or established, 13–14, 17, 19, 138n3; Christian norms and, 187; Christians and, 85, 162; as cultural therapy, 164; droid rights and, 132; good/ evil duality of, 163–64, 171–72, 173, 176; grassroots leadership in, 87, 92, 93; hope in, 179; Lucas on, 15; Manichaens/Manichaeism in, 4, 172, 177; religion and, 20; suitability of, 8 canon, of the Bible, 9, 13–14, 17, 19, 20 Canto Bight (fictional resort), 150, 213 capitalism, and cinema, 156 catastrophe-yet-hope, contrasted with hope-with-loss, 160 Catholic theology, Star Wars and, 127 the cave, failure of Luke at, 68, 183–84, 198 Cenker, William, 65, 68 challenge, of developing canon, 13–14 Chan, Zen Buddhist religion and, 64 change, through violence and pain, 26

221

changeability, of Star Wars canon, 13–14, 17, 19, 138n3 Chewbacca (fictional character), 182 the Child (fictional character), in The Mandalorian, 83, 132 children, recruited by Jedi, 51 Chinese philosophy, 144 Chirrut Îmwe (fictional character), 26, 202 the Chosen One: Anakin as, 28, 29, 59, 90–91, 105; balance of the Force through, 27, 205; mythology of, 59, 107; Rey as, 210, 211 Christ, 41, 84, 119–20; Anakin as inversion of, 163; archē of, 199; dangerous memory regarding, 129, 137; desert temptation of, 161, 198–99; as victorious over death and sin, 214 Christian ethics, being and, 120 Christian humanists, 55–56, 58–59; on individual divine dignity, 57 Christianity: church and state separation in American, 101; dangerous memory of Metz and, 127–28, 137; deformed practices of, 105, 106; dualism and, 176; ethics of, 118–20; Exvangelicals threatening, 108; failures of, 35n27; hierarchy in churches of, 83; the Holy Land and, 105; hubris of, 107; “hurt feelings” and social justice in, 99; Judeo-Christian tradition and, 173, 174, 175; Manichaeism in, 177; meaningful lives in, 205; nonviolence of, 118; politics of, 119; return of Augustine to, 172–73; Star Wars and, 85, 162, 187; weaponization of, 101–2 Christianity Today (Vater), 99 Christian monks, 31–32; as good against evil, 27–28; the Jedi Order parallels with, 25–26 Christian progressives, 101, 102

222

Index

Christian Right, Religious Right and, 101 Christian scripture: development of, 16–17; Star Wars films and, 2 Christ story, The Empire Strikes Back as, 161 the Church, institutionalized, 81; God experienced independent of, 142; Lucas on, 157; social critique in, 137 the Church, memory looking forward of, contrasted with totalizing systems, 129 church and state, separation of, 101, 103 Cicero, 34n3 cinema, 156 circumscribed existence, of droids, 134 city of God, of Augustine, 176 civil disobedience, the Resistance contrasted with, 149 clergy, 81; infallibility of, 82 The Clone Wars (TV series), 107, 114; Ahsoka in, 102–3; Anakin in, 86, 90–91, 93, 102–3; Dooku in, 92–93; Jedi as peace keepers and generals in, 82; on leaders, 93; light and dark balance in, 176 cloud of witnesses, of Rey and Finn, 38 codification, of beliefs, 51, 55, 106 coercion: forgiveness and love alternatives to, 119; in societies, 115–16 cognitive dissonance: canon coherence and, 10; holy heroes and, 3, 26, 28, 30, 35n27 coherence, of narrative, 39 the collective, individualism contrasted with, 108 commitment, to diversity, of Jedi council, 11 community, of Christians, 19, 47, 84, 90; desert monks as, 52–54; ethics of, 118; hurt feelings in, 99, 100; subjecthood through, 129

community, of Jedi, 26, 50, 51, 87; the Council and, 11, 30, 66, 100, 107; leadership and, 92, 93–94, 104 community, of Sith, 50, 54–55 complexity, of good and evil, 9, 19 conformity, freedom contrasted with, 157 continuous improvement (Spiritual Kaizen), 88 control: of emotions, 106; of mind, 26, 34n2; Vader tempts Luke with, 122; violence and, 120 Corinthians, 200 Cornell, Vincent, 70 corrupt: individualism as, 108; nature of desert monks as, 53; priests and pastors as, 106 cosmic framework, of Star Wars, 49 Count Dooku “Dooku” (fictional character), 92–93, 185 creation: from God out of nothing, 195, 198; oneness of, 146, 147, 148 creative freedom, of Christian humanists, 56 creative tensions, of canons, 20 creator, God as, 195, 196, 197; bliss of, 198 criticism: of source or canon, 14–15; textual, 17 Crossway (McCracken), 99 cultural therapy, Star Wars as, 164 cyclical nature, of the Force, 209–10, 213 dangerous memory: Christ and, 129, 137; droids and, 130–32, 133, 135– 36; Metz and, 127–28 Dark Jedi, 54–55 the dark side, of the Force (Bogan), 42, 58, 173, 193, 197, 210; Anakin on, 31, 42, 74–75, 141; fear of, 51, 59, 183; Jedi demonizing, 51, 54–55, 59; light balanced with, 27–29, 31, 50, 51, 91, 105, 106, 136, 176, 209–10, 215; Luke resisting, 68, 217n27; as

Index

malevolent and egotistical, 49; as part of wholeness of creation, 148; self-direction as path to, 66, 67; temptation of, 142 161; Yoda on, 144, 183, 198 Darth Plagueis (fictional character), 196 Darth Sidious “Sidious” (fictional character), 27, 69, 74–75, 100, 185, 195, 196 Darth Vader “Vader” (fictional character), 85, 92, 159; Anakin as, 28, 41, 67, 75, 186; in the cave, 68, 183–84, 198; Luke and, 122, 151, 161, 184, 186, 217n27; in A New Hope, 43, 160; Obi-Wan and, 182; Palpatine defeated by, 186; Satan and, 15–16 David (king of Israel), 43 Davies, Brian, 199 death: Christ victorious over, 214; Yoda on, 193 Death Star, 44, 113, 114–15; Luke destroying, 182–83 debates, of Jedi council, 11 defense, the Force for, 121 deformed practices, of Christianity, 105, 106, 107 delusional self-righteousness, 117 delusions, of hope, 205–6, 215 democracy, contrasted with warrior culture, 162 democratizing mysticism, 143 demons, monks fighting, 28, 34n11 De officiis (Cicero), 34n3 Derry, Ken, 2 desert monks, 3, 60n15; asceticism and, 53–54; the Jedi and, 50, 51, 54, 58–59; Sayings of, 52 despair, as contrary to hope, 180, 181, 186 despotism, contrasted with anarchy, 116 Deuteronomy 30:3, 105 devotional theology, of Star Wars, 2 Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer), 155–56

223

dignity, of humanity, 57 discipleship, ethics and, 127 Disney, Star Wars Expanded Universe canon and, 3, 8 diversity: of canon, 10–11, 19, 20; of characters, 19, 47; of Jedi council, 11 the divine: assistance from, 180–81, 187; the Force as, 146; obedience to master is obedience to, 68–69 divine anthropology, of Pico, 58 divine knowledge, 71 divinely revealed canon, 15 divine origin, of humanity, 57, 58 downfall: of Anakin, 66–67, 81, 163, 164, 184–85, 198; of Luke Skywalker, 68 drafts, of ancient texts and Star Wars scripts, 10, 15, 16, 21n13 drive, to examine canons, 20 droids: brutal treatment of, 133–34; dangerous memory and, 130–32, 133, 135–36; as not in the Force, 136; as oppressed in Star Wars, 128, 130, 132, 133; rights of, 130, 131– 32; subjecthood of, 131, 132–33, 135, 136–37 dualism, 4; of good/evil, 163–64, 171– 72, 173, 176; of Manichaeism, 172, 176; of mind/spirit, 53, 59 Dunne, Finley Peter, 88–89 Eagleton, Terry, 163 Eastern religious traditions, in The Empire Strikes Back, 143–44 ecclesiology: feminist, 104; as laity-led, 81 ecological injustice, 148 edification: contrasted with rigor in Christian writing, 155; Star Wars canon as negative side of, 164 ego-disposing education, contrasted with ego-strengthening, 159–60 ego/lower self, 49; cessation of, 147; contrasted with higher self, 65, 67

224

Index

ego-strengthening education, contrasted with ego-disposing, 159–60 Egypt, desert monks in, 52 Elijah (biblical character), 48n22 Emotional Intelligence, for spiritual leadership, 90 emotions: control of, 106; as distracting or destructive, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59, 106; letting go of, 144; as virtue to Aquinas, 179–80 the Empire, 29, 104; America as, 159; as evil, 158 The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (film), 9, 14; as Christ story version of Lucas, 161; Eastern religious traditions in, 143–44; Luke and Yoda in, 29, 30, 67, 102, 118, 121, 150, 159; nonviolence and, 114, 122; ObiWan in, 25–26, 67–68, 183, 184 end (telos), of life, 38, 193, 207 Endor (planet), 186 engagement, theological, popular culture and, 127–28 enlightenment, selfdestructiveness of, 156 the Enlightenment, religion and, 128 Episode IV. See A New Hope error in reasoning (scotomas), of society, imaginary universes and, 128, 138n2 eschatological narrative, subjecthood and, 129, 136–37 eschatology, the Force and, 136 eternal happiness or eternal live, enjoyment of God as, 180–81 ethics: Christian, 118–20; discipleship and, 127; of individuals, 115; mystical, 147 Evagrius, of Pontus, mind/spirit dualism of, 53, 60n15 evangelical personal faith, 83–84 evangelism, criticism of, 100 everyperson hero, Anakin and Luke as, 161, 162 everything, the Force connecting, 146

evil: as absence of being, 174, 175; Christian monasticism against, 27–28; the Empire as, 158; the First Order as, 114–15, 116; the Force and, 27; God and, 172, 173–74; the Good and complexity of, 9, 19, 27–28, 163–64, 171–72, 173, 176; human will originator of, 174–75; temptations of flesh as, 177; thoughts of desert monks as, 53, 60n15; violence opposing, 114–17 Ewoks (fictional characters), 157, 186 existence: of droids as circumscribed, 134; evil lacking, 174 Expanded Universe canon, of Star Wars, 19, 21n22; Abrams rejecting, 13; as changeable, 9, 13–14, 17; Disney rejecting, 3, 8; fans and canon of, 12 expectations, action devoid of, 207 experience: of the Force, 145–46; of God, 142; leading to hope, 184, 187, 189n25 extremes: of human imperfection, 75; of the Jedi Order, 25 Exvangelical movement, 100, 104, 108 failure: of heroes, 26, 32, 34n3; of the Jedi, 32, 33, 81, 85, 103, 152, 164; of Luke, 68, 183–84, 198, 215; of saints, 215–16; Yoda on, 75, 215 faith: Luke struggling with the Force and, 49–50, 93–94, 123; stories of saints about, 214 fake Christians, 101, 102 the Fall: biblical, 105, 107, 147; in Star Wars, 159, 163 falsehood, contrasted with truth, 9 Falwell, Jerry, 103 fans: canon and, 13; creative tensions of Star Wars canon and, 20; fanfiction and, 138n21; religion and, 19, 127; speculation of (pseudepigrapha), 16; Star Wars Expanded Universe canon and, 12 fathiers (fictional characters), 150

Index

Faustus, of Mileve, 172–73 fear: Anakin preoccupied with, 66, 185; as contrary to hope, 180; of the dark side, 51, 59, 183; of God as gift, 181, 188n19; Yoda on, 121, 185, 201 feminist ecclesiology, 104 Ficino, Marsilio, Christian humanist, 57 fidelity, of narrative, 39 Fight Club (film), 66 Finn (fictional character), 21n22, 38, 93, 149 the First Order, 149, 209; as evil, 114–15, 116; fighting, 85, 86, 117, 118, 142 Fisher, Walter, 38–40, 46 flaw, in canon, 20 flesh, evil temptations of, 177 flourishing, human, 155; Star Wars franchise encouraging, 156 foolishness, youth leading to, 182 the Force, 7, 82–83, 117, 148, 209–10, 213; ambiguity of, 193, 194; as archē (universal ordering principle), 192, 193, 200; balance of the light and dark sides of, 51, 91, 105, 136, 176, 209–10, 215; the Chosen One balancing, 27, 205; as connecting everything, 146; democratizing, 143; droids not in, 136; evil and, 27; faith in, 49–50, 93–94; Force ghosts and, 107, 122; God compared to, 101; indifference and discernment of, 201; Jedi contrasted with, 91–92, 191, 196; light and dark sides of, 27–29, 31, 50, 51, 91, 105, 106, 136, 176, 209–10, 215; as manipulable, 195; midichlorians/midi-chlorians and, 40, 91, 161, 193; nature of, 49–50; nonviolence and, 113–14; Obi-wan on Jedi power as, 91, 93–94, 120, 136, 182, 192–93; relationship of Holy Spirit with, 191, 192, 202; relationship of living beings with, 197; Rey accessing, 141, 145–46, 145–47, 150, 151, 200; Sith and,

225

54, 58, 191, 196; submission to, 67; theological critique of, 192, 195, 197; as trap, 202; as violence against others, 26, 189n26; Yoda on, 91, 183, 192–93, 200, 201 The Force Awakens (film), 88, 93, 116; Ben in, 42, 43; Finn in, 149; Kylo Ren in, 42, 43; Rey in, 92, 145, 209 “Force dyad,” of Kylo Ren and Rey, 59n1 Force sensitives, 50, 54, 59n1, 85, 92, 136; children as, 89, 91, 213; in The Clone Wars, 93; Finn as, 149; Rey as, 141 forgiveness and love, as alternates to coercion, 119 franchise, of Star Wars, 1 Francis, of Assisi, 146 the Frankfurt School, social analysis of, 129 freedom: conformity contrasted with, 157; droids desiring, 131–32, 135; Metz on, 129 freewill, of humans, as source of evil, 174–75 friendship, of Threepio and Omri, 135 Galactic Republic, Jedi serving, 25, 100, 101, 103, 104 galaxy, control of, 122 Garden of Eden, 15, 175 gathering together (synaxis), of desert monks, 52 General Krell (fictional character), 86–87 generals, the Jedi Order as, 82 Genesis, book of, 15, 40–41 genocide, of the Jedi Order, 105–6 Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid, 3, 67, 75–76 ghosts, of the Force, 107, 122 gifts: fear of God as, 181, 188n19; to perfect virtues, 181 God, 34, 83, 84, 142, 214, 216; city of, 176; connection with, 73–74, 146, 147; as creating through love, 57; as

226

Index

creator of archē, 195, 196–97, 198; enjoyment of, 180–81; evil and, 172, 173–74; the Force compared to, 101; forces of, 29; freedom and, 58; gift of fear of, 181, 188n19; as object of hope, 180; as one without rivals, 174; shuhud (witness) of, 71–72; as source of all things, 173, 175; subjecthood and, 128–29, 137; as Triune God, 193, 194 godless universe, quest for transcendent meaning in, 206 the Good, 28, 55, 56; evil and, 9, 19, 163, 171–72, 174, 175, 176; the Force and, 27; Leia seeking, 86; Lucas on, 156–57 Gorz, André, 160 The Gospel According to Star Wars (McDowell), 2 grace of God, human potential realized through, 128 Grand Moff Tarkin (fictional character), 86 grassroots leadership, 81, 83–85, 87, 92, 93 gray ecclesiology, 101 Gray Jedi, 100, 102–3, 107 Great Holocron, 50, 60n3 Greef Karga (fictional character), 83 the Green One, al-Khidr, 69 Groneman, Thomas, 103 growth, of Star Wars universe, 1 guidance, from master-apprentice relationship, 63–64, 72–73, 75 Gustafson, Rachel Shield, 106–7 Guyton, Morgan, 103 Hagiya, Grant, 84, 88, 89, 90, 93 Han Solo “Han” (fictional character), 186; on Death Star, 182; evil and, 115; in The Force Awakens, 43; in A New Hope, 83, 100, 113; as ordinary hero, 211–12 happiness, 205, 207 hate, Yoda on, 59, 185, 201

Hauerwas, Stanley, 114, 118, 119, 120, 123 headcanon (mental framework), 16 Hebrews 11, 3, 40 hell houses, 103 heroes, 3, 4, 26, 38, 40, 47; absurd, 207, 208–9, 210, 213; God as, 214; as ordinary, 207–8, 211–12, 214; saints and, 213–14, 217n22; as semidivine, 163; valor of, 214; value of, 205, 208–9 hidden books, of the Bible, 14 hierarchy, in Christian culture, 83 higher consciousness, 71 higher self, contrasted with ego (lower self), 65, 67 Hinduism, liberation through, 65, 68 holiness, as possible for all, 26 holocron (holographic chronicle), 54, 60n3 holy heroes, 33; cognitive dissonance and, 3, 26, 28, 30, 35n27; failures of, 26, 32, 34n3; violence and, 3, 26 the Holy Land, 105 Holy Spirit, 39, 200; Aquinas on, 192, 194, 201; Christ and, 199; the Force relationship with, 191, 192, 202 hope, 4, 186; community for, 129; delusions of, 205–6, 215; eternal happiness as purpose of, 180–81; from experience and power, 184, 187, 189n25; from Judeo-Christian tradition, 175–76; in The Last Jedi, 213; as leading to action, 180, 187, 205; Leia bringing, 188; Luke symbol of, 179, 181, 183, 187, 188; Resistance story of, 209; through divine assistance, 187; youth as cause of, 181–82 Hope Draped in Black (Winters), 215 hope-with-loss, contrasted with catastrophe-yet-hope, 160 Horkheimer, Max, 155–56 hostility, between light and dark Force, 51

Index

Houston Chronicle (newspaper), 106 hubris: of Christians, 107, 119; of the Jedi, 105, 107 human flourishing, 155, 156 human nature, 55, 56, 115 humans: can become as God, 58; evil and freewill of, 128, 174–75; imperfect extremes of, 75 human will, as origination of evil, 174–75 “hurt feelings,” in Christian church, 99 Hutchings, Lynn, 103 hypocrisy, of the Jedi, 105 ibn Ajibah, Ahmad, 73–74 IG-11 (fictional character), 132–33 Ignatius of Loyola (saint), 201 illusions, heroes without, 207 imaginary universes, 127, 128, 137 imposed canon, 15 Improvisation (Wells), 213–14 income, of Star Wars universe, 1 individualism, 55–56, 108, 115 infallible, clergy as, 81–82 infants, recruited by Jedi, 51 injustice, from totalizing social systems, 127–28, 129 Innocent VIII (pope), 57 insignificance, of Rey, 212 inspiration, leading through, 88 institutionalized religions, 4, 81 intentionality, of activity of the Force, 193, 194 interpretation, of canon, 18 Islam, Al-Ghazali philosopher of, 3, 67, 75–76 Israel, 41, 43, 105 Jameson, Frederic, 164 Jedi, balance sought by, 201 the Jedi Order, 29, 31, 50, 81, 143, 201; act of resistance and, 150; arrogance of, 89–90; Christian monasticism parallels with, 25–26; in The Clone Wars, 82; code of, 51, 106; council

227

of, 30, 66, 100, 107; the dark side of the Force demonized by, 51, 54–55, 59; desert monks and, 50, 51, 54, 58–59; droids and, 136, 137; as evil to Anakin, 173; extremes of, 25; failures of, 32, 33, 85, 103, 152, 164; the Force and, 91–92, 191, 196; Galactic Republic served by, 25, 100, 101, 103, 104; genocide of, 105–6; Grays and, 100, 102–3, 107; lies of, 87–88, 89; Luke and, 107, 120–21, 122, 176, 201; Luke defying, 67–68, 72, 74, 81, 107; Manichaen asceticism of, 177; monastic lives in early, 50–51; moral compromise of, 103; Padawan path to, 25, 63, 64, 66–67, 76–77; as peace keepers and generals, 82; sacred texts of, 7, 11, 145, 152; the Sith and, 59n1, 93; Sufism and, 69; superiority of, 87; Threepio translating texts of, 13; as tool of the state, 82, 101; training of, 28; tree of, 152, 191, 192; truth and, 8–9; violence of, 3, 25–26, 28–29, 189n26 The Jedi Path (Wallace), 12 Jedi textbook, 12 Jericho, 40–41; battle of, 43 Jews, 105 Job, Book of, 15–16 Johannine spirituality, 143 John, Gospel of, 17, 85 Johnson, Rian (director), 12, 205, 213 Joshua (biblical character), 43 joy, humans lacking, 174–75 Judaism, Gentiles and, 41 Judeo-Christian tradition, 173, 174; hope from, 175–76 Judges, book of, 45 Jung, Carl, 71, 163 just war, theologies of, 117 Jyn Erso (fictional character), 143 K-2SO (fictional character), 131–32 Kaminski, Mark, 9, 14–15

228

Index

‘Keeper of the Holocron,’ 12 Kellner, Douglas, 160, 162 Kershner, Irvin, 144 Al-Khidr, Moses (Musa) and, 63–64, 69–71, 75, 76 Kierkegaard, Søren, 155, 164 Knight of the Old Republic II (video game), 89, 93 Knights of the Old Republic (video game), 87, 88 knowledge, the Force for, 121 knowledge (scientia), theological, 199–200 Korriban (planet), Sith from, 54, 55 Kuiil (fictional character), 132 Kung Fu (TV series), 66 Kung Fu master, 64 Kylo Ren (fictional character), 43, 85, 87, 89, 122; Ben as, 42, 91, 105, 123, 215; “Force dyad” of Rey and, 59n1; in The Last Jedi, 91, 108, 151, 212; Snoke and, 197, 209, 216n17 L3-37 (fictional character), in Solo, 131–32 laity-led, ecclesial practice, 81 Lando Calrissian (fictional character), 131, 186 language, as violent activity, 34n2 Lasch, Christopher, 159 The Last Jedi (2017) (film), 93, 133, 200, 205, 208–9, 210; “Broom Boy” in, 143, 149–50; Han as paradigmatic hero of, 211–12; hope in, 213; Kylo Ren in, 91, 108, 151, 212; Luke in, 31, 32, 75, 81, 89, 91, 92, 104, 107, 113, 143, 145, 148, 150–51, 152; Return of the Jedi and, 217n27; Rey in, 75, 91, 92, 113, 115, 150; sacred texts and, 7, 11, 145, 152; spirituality of, 141, 142, 144; violence and Luke in, 26, 122; Yoda in, 29, 30, 31, 32, 75, 76, 91, 107, 121, 145, 150, 152 Last Shot (Older), 131

leadership, 88, 89, 93, 106–7; of Anakin as grassroots, 87; of Christian churches, 81, 83–84, 127; failure of, 26, 34n3; from Force sensitives, 92 learning, through violence and pain, 26 legacy: of the Jedi, 81; of masters, 107 legendary heroes: ordinary heroes contrasted with, 208–9, 211–12, 214; as worthy of veneration, 213 Leia Organa “Leia” (fictional character), 29, 33, 88, 89, 181, 182; as bringing hope, 188; as sister to Luke, 186, 213; truthfulness of, 85–86 Leland Chee “Chee” (fictional character), as keeper of Star Wars canon, 12 lessons, violence teaching, 25–26 LGBTQ+: rights of, 100; school suppressing, 108; support for, 99, 106 liberation: Hinduism and, 65; from totalizing systems, 129 lies: of cinema, 156; of the Jedi, 87–88, 89 life, 136, 205; archē (origin) of, 193; the Force and, 195, 197; telos (end) of, 38, 193 the light side, of the Force (Ashla): dark balanced with, 27–29, 31, 50, 51, 91, 105, 106, 136, 176, 209–10, 215; as life-giving and nurturing, 49; Snoke on darkness meeting, 210 literary influences, on Lucas, 1–2 Living into Community (Pohl), 84 logismoi (negative/evil thoughts), desert monks and, 53, 60n15 Lonergan, Bernard, on error in reasoning (scotomas) of society, 138n2 love: desert monks and, 52–53; of God, 216; God creates through, 57 lower/ego self, pitfalls of, 65, 71–72, 75 Lucas, George, 9; on balance of good and evil, 171–72, 173; Campbell connection with, 163, 216n18;

Index

on canon formation, 15; on core themes of Star Wars, 76–77, 164; creator privileges of, 12; The Empire Strikes Back as Christ story of, 161; on good, 156–57; on human flourishing and Star Wars, 156; literary influences on, 1–2; political astuteness of, 160; on religion and Star Wars, 82; special edition tampering of, 13, 17; writing of, 18 Lucasfilm, 12 Ludd, Alan, 1 Luke, Gospel of, 18, 198–99, 200 Luke Skywalker “Luke” (fictional character), 7–8, 12, 65, 76, 86, 102; as absurd hero, 208–9, 210, 213; Anakin parallels with, 160–61, 163; as bringing hope, 181–82, 183, 187, 188; as brother to Leia, 186, 213; the cave failure of, 68, 183–84, 198; cyclical patterns and, 209–10, 213; the dark side resisted by, 68, 217n27; in The Empire Strikes Back, 29, 118, 159; as everyperson hero, 161, 162; failures of, 68, 183–84, 198, 215; the First Order and, 117–18; the Force accessed by, 141, 148; Jedi and, 107, 120–21, 122, 176, 201; the Jedi Order defied by, 67–68, 72, 74, 81, 107; Jedi rejected by, 81, 107; in The Last Jedi, 31, 32, 75, 81, 89, 91, 92, 104, 107, 113, 143, 145, 148, 150–51, 152; lies of, 89; masters defied by, 67–68, 72, 74; as messianic figure, 101; middle way of, 100; in A New Hope, 118, 120, 159, 187; Niebuhrian realism and, 114– 17, 120, 121, 122, 123; nonviolence of, 113–14, 117, 121, 164, 186; in quest to help Vader, 151, 186; the Resistance aided by, 122, 123, 148, 208–9; the Resistance left by, 85, 113–14, 115; in Return of the Jedi, 159, 161, 185–86, 187; Rey guided by, 146, 147, 200, 209, 213; as son

229

of Anakin, 186; as symbol of hope, 179, 181, 183, 187, 188; as tempted by Vader and control, 122, 161; Vader fighting, 184, 217n27; Vader saving, 186; Yoda training, 183, 184, 185, 192, 215 Lyden, John, 2, 39, 101 Macarius the Great, 28, 30 MacArthur, John, 99 Mace Windu (fictional character), 195 Mainline American Protestant churches, 83 male leadership in SBC, as problematic, 106–7 The Mandalorian (TV series), 83, 132 Mando (fictional character), 132 Manichaens/Manichaeism, 158; good and evil dualism of, 172, 173, 175, 176; in Star Wars, 4, 172, 177 manipulation: of the Force, 195; Holy Spirit resisting, 194 Mark, Gospel of, 18 martial arts tradition, of Quan, 64 master-apprentice relationship, 8, 31–32, 63–64, 65–66, 107; as guru and disciple in Hinduism, 65; Musa and Al-Khidr story on, 70–71, 75; need for, 74–75; obedience to master is obedience to the divine, 68–69 material world, as darkness in Manichaeism, 172 Matthew, Gospel of, 18, 42 Maz Kanata (fictional character), 116, 143, 202 McAteer, John, 100, 107–8 McCabe, Herbert, 196 McCracken, Brett, 99 McDowell, John C., 144 McVeigh, Stephen P., 159, 160, 164 meaning: authorial intent relevance to, 9, 20n2; quest for transcendent, 206 mechanical reproduction, of art, 156 mediation, of master, between student and the divine, 68–69

230

Index

meditation, of Rey, 146–47, 150–51 mega-denominations, of US Christian churches, 84 melancholy, hope as, 215 memories, wiping of, 133, 134, 135 memory looking forward, of the Church, contrasted with totalizing systems, 129 memory wipe, of Threepio, 133 mental framework (headcanon), 16 Merritt, Jonathan, 102 messianic figure: Chosen one as, 107–8; Luke as, 101 Metz, Johann Baptist, 127–28, 129, 130, 136–37 middle way, of Luke, Ashoka and Christians, 100 midichlorians/midi-chlorians: count, 40, 91, 161; the Force and, 40, 91, 161, 193; the Sith and, 195 Millennium Falcon, 7, 8 mind control, 26, 34n2 mind/spirit dualism, of Evagrius, 53 models, of leadership in Christian churches, 81, 84 monasticism, Christian, 25–26, 31–32 monastic lives, of early Jedi, 50–51 monks: Christian, 25–26, 31–32; demons fought by, 28, 34n11; as persons in becoming, 33; warrior, 27 Mon Mothma (fictional character), 45 moral attentiveness, Star Wars franchise provoking, 156, 157 moral compromise, of the Jedi Order, 103 morality: in Christian humanism, 56, 59; of light and dark balance, 173, 175; Religious Right and, 103; responsibility and, 164; standard of, 173; in Star Wars universe, 2, 114–15; of the treatment of droids, 133–34 Moral Majority, 103 Moral Man and Immoral Society (Niebuhr), 115

Mortis arc, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV series), 91 Moses (Musa), Al-Khidr and, 63–64, 69–71, 75 Moyers, Bill, 76, 164 Muhammad (Prophet), 73 al-Muluk, Adab, 71 murid (seeker), in Sufism, 68–69, 72 Musa (Moses), Al-Khidr and, 63–64, 69–71, 75 My Secret (Petrarch), 56 mysticism, 4; the Force and, 146, 147, 150; of the Jedi, 152; personal faith and, 142; resistance and, 148, 149 The Myth Awakens (Derry and Lyden), 2 The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus), 205–6, 207–8, 210, 212, 215, 216n11 mythology, of the Chosen One, 59 nafs (lower self), of Sufism, jihad against, 71–72 narrative, 38, 39, 46, 133; of the Bible, 40, 47; of imaginary universes, 127; of Star Wars, 47 nature, of the Force, 49–50 negative/evil thoughts (logismoi), desert monks and, 53, 60n15 Neoplatonist path, 147 New Age self-help spiritualities, 144–45 New Hollywood, as politically aware, 156 A New Hope (1977) (film), 1, 19, 54, 82, 104; Darth Vader in, 43, 160; as Episode IV, 17, 50; Han in, 83, 100, 113; hope of Luke in, 187; the Jedi in, 27; Luke in, 118, 120, 159; ObiWan in, 25–26, 27, 29, 43, 136, 183; redemptive action in, 162; subtle self in, 65 New Testament, 17, 38 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 115–16, 117, 118, 119, 123 Niebuhrian realism, 114–17, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123 Nightsisters (fictional characters), 92–93

Index

231

Nixon, Richard, 157–58 Noah (biblical character), 40 Nominalism, contrasted with Scholasticism, 56 noncinematic universe, of Star Wars, 49, 54 nondenominational spirituality, 144 “nones,” as spiritual but not religious, 100 nonviolence, 118, 149; Christian ethics and, 119–20; of Jedi, 122; of Luke, 113–14, 117, 121, 164, 186

208–9, 211–12, 214; Rey as, 211, 216n18 organic beings, as owners of droids, 130, 135 original blessing, contrasted with original sin, 147 original sin, contrasted with original blessing, 147 orthodoxy, of the Jedi Order, 143 Ossus (planet), Jedi school on, 51 “Overlords” episode, Star Wars (TV series), 90

obedience, to master, 69–74, 76 Obi-Wan Kenobi “Obi-Wan” (fictional character), 28, 65, 85, 89, 141, 159; in Attack of the Clones, 66–67; in The Empire Strikes Back, 25–26, 67–68, 183, 184; on the Force as Jedi power source, 91, 93–94, 120, 136, 182, 192–93; as hope object, 182; in The Last Jedi, 91; on Leia and Luke as siblings, 186; in A New Hope, 25–26, 27, 29, 43, 136, 183; in Return of the Jedi, 31, 185–86; in Revenge of the Sith, 31, 106, 162, 185–86; Vader and, 182 Older, Daniel José, 131 Old Testament, 38, 40–41 Omri (fictional character), 134, 135 oneness, of creation, 146, 147, 148 ontological systems, 64 ontological uniqueness, of The Phantom Menace, 162 oppression, of droids, 128, 130, 132, 133 optimistic anthropology, of Christian humanists, 56, 57, 59 oral scripture, of desert monks, 52 Oration on the Dignity of Man (Pico della Mirandola), 57–58, 61n30 order, created through violence, 115–16 ordinary heroes, 207; Han as, 211–12; legendary heroes contrasted with,

pacifism, 4, 117; theological, 114 Padawan (apprentice), 25, 63, 64, 76–77; Anakin as, 66–67, 185 Padmé Amidala “Padmé” (fictional character), 30–31, 66, 67, 161 pain, learning through, 26 Palestine, 105 Palpatine. See Sheev Palpatine “Palpatine” (fictional character) pantheism, 146 paradigm, of narrative, 39, 46 parallel story structures: Anakin and Luke, 160–61, 163; the Jedi order and Christian monasticism, 25–26 parasitic, the Force as, 197 passion. See emotions passivity: contrasted with activity, 150, 151; dark side recognized through, 183 pastors, as corrupt, 106 paths/lineages (tariqas’), of Sufi order, 68–69 patience, 70–71, 72 Paul (apostle), 19, 82, 200 Pauline spirituality, 143 The Peaceable Kingdom (Hauerwas), 118 peace keepers, the Jedi Order as, 82 pedagogical tool, cinema as, 156 Pence, Karen, 108

232

Index

perfection, 28, 33, 56; guidance for, 75; liberation as, 65; through sanctification, 88 personal faith, mysticism and, 142 personal stories, of the work of God, 83, 84 personhood: expressions of, 136; subjecthood contrasted with, 130 persons in becoming, monks as, 33 pessimistic anthropology: of desert monks, 52; of Jedi, 54 Peter (Apostle), 41, 48n14, 199 Petrarch, as Christian humanist, 55–56 Petrine spirituality, 143 Pew Research, 100 phantom limb, of Threepio, 134–35 The Phantom Menace (1999) (film), 14, 21n11, 162; Anakin in, 30, 31, 66, 106, 161, 193; Lucas on, 157; QuiGon Jinn in, 107 Philistines, 43 philosophy, of the Sith, 55 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni “Pico,” 57–58, 61n30 Pinckaers, Servais, 179, 181 The Plague (Camus), 207 Platonic Theology (Ficino), 57 pleasure, hope and, 180 pledge of allegiance (bay’ah), in Sufism, 68–69 Poe Dameron #28 (comic book), 13 Poe Dameron “Poe” (fictional character), 43, 86, 88, 89, 212 Pohl, Christine, 84, 85, 93 political: religion as, 128; societies as, 11, 53 political efficacy, 120 politically aware, New Hollywood as, 156 political theologies, 4, 119 Pollock, Dale, 161, 164 popular culture, theological engagement and, 127–28 popularity, of Star Wars, 49 Possamai, Adam, 108

possibility, of holiness for all, 26 potential, of humans, hope and grace of God in, 128 power, leading to hope, 184, 189n25 presumption, as hope lacking moderation, 181, 185 priests, as corrupt, 106 primordial principle, of universal order, 192 principle (archē), of universal order, 192, 193, 194, 202 probability, of narrative, 39 Production Code, 103 progressive Christians, 101, 102 promises, of God, 129 prophecy, 106; of the Chosen One, 28, 29, 59, 90–91, 105; of Deuteronomy 30:3, 105 Protestant churches, 83 Protestant Reformation, 16–17 Psalm 19:1, 147 Psalm 111:10a, 181 pseudepigrapha (fan speculation), 16 psyche, journey into, 63 Pulpit & Pen (website), 102 purpose: of individuals, 56; of use of the Force, 191 Quan, martial arts tradition of, 64 Qui-Gon Jinn “Qui-Gon” (fictional character), 31, 91, 107, 193 Qur’an, 63–64, 69–74 R2-D2, 181, 182 Rahab, 40–41, 48n12 Rahner, Karl, 152 rational paradigm, narrative paradigm contrasted with, 38–39 reading, the Bible, 16–17 Reagan, Ronald, 158 realism, Niebuhrian, 114–17, 118, 120, 121–22, 123 reason: hope and, 180; transcending, 71 rebellion, of Anakin Skywalker, 66, 67

Index

the Rebellion/Rebel Alliance, 113–14, 116–17, 131, 187; America as, 159; Death Star and, 182–83, 186 redemption: contrasted with self-perfection, 56; Luke bringing, 161, 162 relationship, master-apprentice, 63–64 Religion News Service, 102 religions, institutionalized, 4, 19, 63–64, 127; canonicity in, 20; the Enlightenment and, 128; spiritual but not religious and, 100 religiosity, of Star Wars, 82 Religious Right, 101, 103 Renaissance Christians, 3, 57, 61n30; humanists of, 55–56, 58–59; the Sith and, 50 Resident Aliens (Hauerwas and Willimon), 119 resignation, hope as, 205 resistance, 4; Jedi and, 150; mysticism and, 148, 149 the Resistance, 88–89, 134–35, 136, 209; civil disobedience contrasted with, 149; First Order fought by, 85, 86, 117, 118, 142; Leia leading, 86; Luke and, 85, 113–14, 115, 122, 123, 148, 208–9 responsibility, morality and, 164 retconning (retroactive continuity), 16 Return of the Jedi (film), 14, 21n11, 133, 194, 217n27; Luke in, 159, 161, 185–86, 187; Obi-Wan in, 185–86; Palpatine in, 31, 121–22, 186 Revelations, 200 Revenge of the Sith (2005) (film), 14, 27, 106, 144, 195; Anakin in, 30, 74–75, 185, 195; Obi-Wan in, 31, 106, 162, 185–86; Rey in, 150, 151; Yoda on death in, 193 Revenge of the Sith (Stover), 161 revitalization, of canon, 9 Rey (fictional character), 7, 8, 13, 87, 212, 216n15; as absurd hero, 213; anger resisted by, 142; as “Chosen

233

One,” 210, 211; the First Order and, 117–18; the Force accessed by, 141, 145–47, 150, 151, 200; in The Force Awakens, 42; “Force dyad” of Kylo Ren and, 59n1; in The Last Jedi, 75, 91, 92, 113, 115, 150; legendary and ordinary confronted by, 208–9, 211–12; on Luke, 19, 21n22; Luke guiding, 146, 147, 200, 209, 213; meditation of, 146–47, 150–51; in A New Hope, 83; Niebuhr and, 116; as ordinary hero, 211, 216n18; pacifism to, 117; quest to help Kylo Ren of, 151; in Revenge of the Sith, 150; in The Rise of Skywalker, 89, 122 rights, of droids, 130, 131–32 rigor, contrasted with edification in Christian writing, 155 The Rise of Skywalker (2019) (film), 7, 27, 43, 89, 123, 133; First Order defeated in, 188; Rey in, 141 risk, in producing Star Wars (film), 1 robes, of Sufi and Jedi, 69 Robinson, James, 134, 138n21 Rodkey, Christopher Demuth, 99–100 Rogue One (film), 26–27, 85, 104, 114; K-2SO in, 131; non-Jedi Force users in, 143 Roman Catholic Church, 106, 127 Rose (fictional character), 93, 150 Ruth (biblical character), 41, 48n13 sacred teaching (sacra doctrina), 199–200 sacred texts, 13, 17; guidance from the master on, 66; The Last Jedi and, 7, 11, 145, 152; Yoda on Luke and, 8 saints, 213–14, 215–16, 217n22 sanctification, for perfection, 88 Sankara, 65, 68 Satan, 9, 15–16, 27–28, 29 Savage Opress (fictional character), 93 Sayings. See Sayings of the Fathers (Antony 20)

234

Index

Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum), 52 Sayings of the Fathers (Antony 20), 25, 26, 33, 34n1 SBC Southern Baptist Convention. See Southern Baptist Convention Scaife, Steven, 132 scholars, on Star Wars universe, 1, 2 Scholasticism, contrasted with Christian humanists, 56 Schultes, John S., 82 scientia (knowledge), theological, 199–200 scientists, on Star Wars universe, 1 scotomas (error in reasoning), of society, imaginary universes and, 128, 137, 138n2 script drafts, of Star Wars, drafts of ancient texts and, 10, 15, 16, 21n13 scripture, Christian, 52; contradictions of, 16–17; Star Wars films and, 2 Second Great Awakening, 81 A Secret History of Star Wars (Kaminski), 9, 14–15 seeker (murid), in Sufism, 68–69 self-definition, 131, 132 self-destructiveness, of enlightenment, 156 self-direction, 69; as path to dark side, 66, 67 self-discipline, contrasted with selfsatisfaction, 65–66 self-evidency, of canon, 10–11, 15 self-mastery: self-limitations countered by, 64; through master-apprentice relationship, 63, 76; through selfdiscipline, 65–66 self-perfection/self improvement, 64; redemption contrasted with, 56 self-righteousness, as delusional, 117 self-satisfaction, contrasted with selfdiscipline, 65–66, 67 separation of church and state, 101, 103 Servant Leader model, of leadership, 89

sexuality and temptation, Augustine on, 177 shadow, the dark side as, 54, 68, 69 Shaolin Kung Fu tradition, 64 Shawkat, Toorawa, on Musa and Al-Khidr, 70 shaykh (spiritual master), in Sufism, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74–75 Sheev Palpatine “Palpatine” (fictional character), 92, 123, 173, 197; as Darth Sidious, 27, 69, 100, 185; as Emperor, 27, 87, 121, 185; in Return of the Jedi, 31, 121–22, 186; in Revenge of the Sith, 195; Vader defeating, 186 shuhud (witness), of God, 71–72 sin, 147, 148, 151, 175, 214 the Sith, 3, 49–50, 55, 87, 101, 173; Christian humanists and, 58–59; Darth Sidious, 27, 185; the Force and, 54, 58, 191, 196; Grays and, 100; the Jedi and, 59n1, 93; midichlorians/midichlorians and, 195 Snoke (fictional character), 201, 210; Ben seduced by, 122, 188; Kylo Ren and, 197, 209, 216n17 social: critique, 137; injustice, 127–28, 148, 151; justice, 99, 116, 127–28, 148 social structures, imaginary universes and, 128 societies, coercion in, 115–16 Sölle (Soelle), Dorothee, 142–43, 145; accessible mysticism of, 146–47, 148, 152; on resistance, 149 Solo (2018) (film), 42, 131–32 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), 106–7 Soviet empire, as evil empire, 158 special edition tampering, of Lucas, 13, 17 spiritual, but not religious, 100 spiritual growth, of student, through master-apprentice relationship, 65, 76

Index

spirituality, 3, 71, 141; of light in Manichaeism, 172; mysticism and, 142–43; New Age self-help, 144–45; of the Sith and the Force, 58 Spiritual Kaizen (continuous improvement), 88, 89 Spiritual Kaizen (Hagiya), 84, 90 spiritual leadership, Emotional Intelligence for, 90 spiritual master (shaykh), in Sufism, 68–69 spirit, contrasted with body, 177 Star Wars (1977) (film). See A New Hope Star Wars (films/franchise). See specific films and TV series; specific topics Star Wars Resistance (animated series), 153n19 Star Wars scripts, drafts of, 10, 15, 16, 21n13 Star Wars universe. See specific topics state and church, separation of, 101, 103 Stock, Brian, 199 stories, of failure, 32 Stormtroopers, 29 Stover, Dan, 161 Stroop, Chrissy, 100, 101, 104 struggle: against the Dark Side of the Force, 142; of mainline US Christian churches, 84 student, and master relationship, 8, 31–32, 63–64, 66 subjecthood: of droids, 131, 132–33, 134, 135, 136–37; God and, 128–29, 137; personhood contrasted with, 130 submission, to master, 66–67, 70–71, 76 subtle self, attunement to, 65 suffering, hate leading to, 59, 185, 201 Sufi order, of Islam, 63, 68–75 al-Suhrawardi, Abu Najib, 73 suicide, 207, 216n11 suitability, of Bible and Star Wars, 14 Summa Theologiae (Aquinas), 179– 80, 194, 196 superiority, of the Jedi, 87

235

supplementary canon, of Star Wars universe, 134, 138n21 sustainer, God as, 196 synaxis (gathering together), of desert monks, 52 tariqas’ (paths/lineages), of Sufi order, 68–69, 71 tasawuf (becoming a Sufi), 69 Tatooine (planet), 181, 182 telos (end), of life, 38, 193, 206, 207 temptation, 142, 161, 177, 198–99 tensions, of canon, 20 testing, of master-student relationship, 66 textual criticism, 17 themes, of Star Wars franchise, 3 theological critique, of the Force, 192, 195, 197 theological pacifism, 114 theology. See specific topics theology, of resistance, 148, 149 THX 1138 (1971) (film), Vietnam conflict and, 157 totalizing social systems, injustice from, 127–28, 129, 136 traditions, of spirituality, 71, 143; experience contrasted with, 152 training, in the Force, 141 transcendental mythology, of Star Wars, 49, 146 transcendent meaning, quest for, 206 translation, of sacred texts, accuracy of, 13 trap, the Force as, 202 trauma, 30, 32–33; of Anakin, 31; from failing heroes, 26 tree, of the Jedi, 152, 191, 192 trilogy, of Star Wars: the originals (episodes IV, V, VI), 41, 158, 160; the prequels (episodes I, II, III), 42; the sequels (final) (episodes VII, VIII, IX), 42, 141 Triune God, 193, 194 Trump, Donald, 101

236

Index

trust, in prophecy, 105–6 truth, the Jedi Order and, 8–9 Truth-Filled Life, of Pohl, 85 truthfulness: of Anakin and Leia, 86–87; falsehood contrasted with, 9 Tusken Raiders (fictional characters), 185 2 Timothy 3:8, 16 uncertainty, around canons, 20 United States (US), commentaries on wars of, 160 unity, of canon, 20 universal order: archē (principle of), 192, 193; as indifferent, 207; Jedi use violence to enforce, 25–26, 29 uprising, led by L3-37, 131–32 US. See United States Using the Force (Brooker), 16, 18 Uzzah (biblical character), 43 valor, heroes and, 214 Vater, Karl, 99 veneration, heroes worthy of, 213 victory: of Christ over death and sin, 214; of the Rebellion/Rebel Alliance, 187 Vietnam conflict, 157, 158–59, 162 violence, 114–17; as inevitable between societies, 115; Jedi enforce universal order through, 3, 25–26, 28–29, 189n26; Luke refusing, 164; of A New Hope redemptive action, 162 virgin birth, of Anakin, 161, 163 virtue: gifts to perfect, 181; hope as, 213; passion and, 179–80 visual cues, expectations subverted by, 27 Wallace, Daniel, 12 war, between good and evil, 172 Ward, Pet, 106 warrior culture, contrasted with democracy, 162 warrior-monk, 27

Watson, Natalie K., 104 weaponization: of Christianity, 101–2; of morality, 103 Wells, Samuel, 213–14 Wesley, John, 88 Wester, Stephen R., 106 White, Victor, 196 wholeness, of creation, 148 will, of midichlorians/midichlorians, 193 Williams, Bernard, 157–58 Williams, Rowan, 197–98 Willimon, William H., 119 Winner, Lauren F., 105, 107 Winters, Joseph, 215 wiping, of memories, 133, 134, 135 wisdom, higher, 71 witness (shuhud), of God, 71–72 witnesses, Rey and Finn and cloud of, 38 yin and yang, balance of, 171–72 Yoda (fictional character), 69, 89, 106, 141, 144, 161; on aggression, 121, 183, 185; on anger, 59, 121, 183, 185, 201; in Attack of the Clones, 30; on the Dark Side, 144, 183, 198; on death, 193; in The Empire Strikes Back, 29, 30, 67, 102, 118, 121, 150, 159; on failure, 75, 215; on fear, 121, 185, 201; on the Force as Jedi power source, 91, 183, 192–93, 200, 201; hope from experience of, 187; in The Last Jedi, 29, 30, 31, 32, 75, 76, 91, 107, 121, 145, 150, 152; on Luke and sacred scriptures, 7–8; Luke trained by, 183, 184, 185, 192, 215; violence used by, 25–26 young audiences, perspectives of, 14, 21n11 youth, as cause for hope, 181–82 Zen Buddhist principles, 64, 144 Zen master, Yoda as, 144 Žižek, Slavoj, 34n2

About the Contributors

Josiah Brock (M.Div., Duke Divinity School) is a lifelong scholar who studies the history of homiletics and its use in leading congregations through social crises. His current research topics include homiletics supporting metropolitan antiestablishment demonstrations and homiletics in a post-COVID virtual setting. Nettie Brock (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is an assistant professor of Convergent Media at Morehead State University. She studies popular culture through a narrative lens. Her research interests include television, genre, transgressive storytelling devices, and anything popular. Shaun C. Brown  is associate minister of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Garland, TX and an adjunct professor for Johnson University and Hope International University. He holds the PhD in Theological Studies from Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto. He is the author of George Lindbeck and the Israel of God: Scripture, Ecclesiology, and Ecumenism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and George Lindbeck: A Biographical and Theological Introduction (Cascade Books, forthcoming) and coeditor of the forthcoming volumes Theology and Star Trek (with Amanda MacInnisHackney) and The Theological World of Harry Potter (with Taylor Ott). Edward Dunar (Ph.D., Fordham University) is the director of the Meister Eckhart Center for Catholic and Dominican Life at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut. His research is focused on ecclesiology, Catholic social thought, and urbanism. He is particularly interested in how local churches can draw on their theological traditions to promote well-being and democratic decision-making in their neighborhoods and cities. Ryan G. Duns, SJ (Ph.D., Boston College) is assistant professor of theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is the author 237

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About the Contributors

of Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age: Desmond and the Quest for God (Notre Dame Press, 2020) and has published articles on Karl Rahner, Jean-Luc Marion, William Desmond, Iris Murdoch, and René Girard. With Derrick Witherington, he coedited René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2021). He is grateful to the Padawan undergraduates (first footnote of chapter) for their hard work and patience. Benjamin D. Espinoza (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is Associate Vice President for Online Education, Executive Director of Seminary Administration, and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Roberts Wesleyan College and Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York. His research areas include practical theology, theological education, popular culture studies, and leadership. He is the senior associate editor for the Journal of Youth Ministry and serves in a number of leadership roles in The Wesleyan Church, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators, and the Association for Hispanic Theological Education. Nathan Garcia (Ph.D. Candidate, Oblate School of Theology) is a doctoral student in the field of Christian spirituality. His areas of interest are psycho-spirituality, theological anthropology, and Peircean pragmatism. He has published several book reviews and is interested in developing a psychologically nuanced anthropology for interculturally constructive dialogue. Russell P. Johnson (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is the assistant director of the Religious Studies program at the University of Chicago. He writes on religious ethics and the philosophy of communication, and his research focuses on disagreement, “us versus them” frameworks, and how groups imagine and treat their enemies. He teaches the course “Star Wars and Religion” at the University of Chicago and is currently working on a book project about movie villains and conceptions of evil. Robert Keeley (Ph.D., University of Denver) is Professor of Education at Calvin University and visiting professor of Discipleship and Faith Formation at Calvin Theological Seminary as well as the director of Distance Learning. His primary scholarship is in the areas of Faith Formation and Children’s Spirituality. He is the author of Helping Our Children Grow in Faith (Baker, 2008) and coeditor of Bridging Theory and Practice in Children’s Spirituality (Zondervan, 2020) as well as other books and articles. Bethany Keeley-Jonker (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an associate professor of communication arts at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois. Her research interests include Christianity in public culture and

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affect-emotion in public address. She has also written dozens of short articles for the culture blog Think Christian. Rostislav Kůrka (M.A. Theology, Charles University of Prague) is an independent scholar who has studied theology in Prague and Helsinki. His focus includes Christian and Jewish mysticism and orthodoxy-heterodoxy discourse in the Hebrew Bible. He has contributed to scholarly publications exploring various topics in current science-fiction and fantasy, including the portrayal of evil in Star Wars. Since 2015, he has been the editor of the Star Wars section of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Network website. Andrew J. Kuzma (Ph.D., Marquette University) is an instructor at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee. His research interests include health care ethics, nonviolence and pacifism, environmental ethics, narrative ethics, and Jedi morality in the Imperial and New Republic eras. He has published several chapters on the intersection of pop culture and ethics. Currently, he resides in near isolation on Ahch-To with his wife and youngling, to whom he is teaching the ways of the Force. Jonathan Lyonhart (Ph.D., Cambridge) is assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Lincoln Christian University and a fellow at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism. His most recent publication is a book on the Trinity and the origins of the universe, titled MonoThreeism: An Absurdly Arrogant Attempt to Answer All the Problems of the Last 2000 Years in One Night at a Pub (Cascade Books, 2021). For more information, see jdlyonhart.com. John C. McDowell is the associate dean at Yarra Theological Union, Melbourne, and chair of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics. He has authored several books and numerous articles and book chapters, including the studies in popular culture: The Politics of Big Fantasy: Studies in Cultural Suspicion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2014); The Ideology of Identity Politics in George Lucas (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2016); and The Gospel according to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force, 2nd ed. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1st ed. 2007, 2nd ed. 2017). He has contributed to several volumes in the Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture series: Theology and Star Wars; René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture; Theology and Batman; Theology and Spider-Man; Theology and the DC Universe; Theology and Tolkien; as well as Marvelling Religion in another series.

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About the Contributors

James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. He works on the New Testament and Mandaeism as well as studying the intersection of religion and science fiction and even writing some sci-fi himself. He is the author of Theology and Science Fiction (Cascade), the editor of Religion and Science Fiction (Pickwick), and the coeditor with Andrew Crome of Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith: Religion and Doctor Who (Darton, Longman, and Todd). He is a little short to be a stormtrooper. Tim Posada is chair of Journalism and New Media at Saddleback College. His writings have appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture, Palgrave Communications, and volumes on film theory, fandom, comics studies, race, and gender. He is currently working on a book for the Theology, Religion, and Popular Culture series exploring depictions of the body, soul, and spirit across media. He holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University, where he wrote his dissertation on the emerging language of adapted superhero franchises. He also serves as film columnist for the Beverly Press. Abdallah Rothman (Ph.D.) is professor of Islamic psychology and principal of Cambridge Muslim College, founder of Shifaa Integrative Counseling, cofounder and executive director of the International Association of Islamic Psychology, and visiting professor of psychology at Zaim University Istanbul, International Islamic University Islamabad, and Al-Neelain University Khartoum. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in psychology and is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC), licensed in the United States and currently living in the United Kingdom. Dr. Abdallah was a student of the late Professor Malik Badri in Islamic psychology and in addition to his academic training has studied privately with a number of traditional Islamic scholars throughout the Muslim world. His clinical practice as well as his academic research focus on approaching counseling from within an Islamic paradigm and establishing an indigenous Islamic theoretical orientation to human psychology that is grounded in the knowledge of the soul from the Islamic tradition. He is the author of Developing a Model of Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy, published by Routledge, and coeditor of Islamic Psychology around the Globe, published by the International Association of Islamic Psychology. Zachary B. Smith (Ph.D., Fordham University) is associate professor of Theology (History of Religions) and of Classical and Near Eastern Studies (Classical Antiquity) at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He researches the connections between Christianity and its cultural contexts,

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specializing in the late antique and early Byzantine periods. He is also General Editor of the Journal of Religion & Society and a faculty associate of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society (Creighton University).