Posted by : Shawn in (Stuff I Do)
Trekkie Faith
I was commenting on a post over on DAIO earlier about postmodernism, and in trying to explain how I understand the whole pomo thing I said that confessions like the Westminster Confession almost describe God in a scientific manner. This triggered a memory of a thought of an idea I had in passing, that I always meant to develop a little bit more. So here goes…
There is a flavor of Christians (often, but not exclusively, of the more conservative fundamentalist bent) that have what I’m going to call Trekkie faith. A Trekkie is much more than a fan of Star Trek. They are someone who watches Star Trek for enjoyment but also really enjoys filling in the blanks of the Star Trek universe. Let me illustrate with an overly simple and made-up example:
Let’s say that in season four of Star Trek an episode takes place in the far left side of a large meeting room. In another episode in season seven there is a scene that takes place in the far right side of this same fictional meeting room. A Trekkie will take the information provided in these two separate scenes and then create the entire meeting room in great detail. Even though the middle of that room never was seen in the real TV show, it exists in the Trekkie universe.
Trekkies will take the various Star Trek series and movies and try to combine them into one conflict free timeline, history and universe. They will take a limited amount of stories, characters and events and fill in the blanks to create numerous amounts of backstory, theories, explanations, settings, etc.
I’ve come across Christians who do this, who have a Trekkie faith. They use various passages, verses and writings of the Bible, often bits and pieces from all over the Bible, to create elaborate, detailed and complex theological premises and doctrines.
Example: Visit RaptureReady.com and you’ll find a number of Christians who take a verse from Daniel, a passage from Revelation, and a saying from Jesus. Then they connect the dots and weave these together to develop a detailed scenario for how the European Union is the herald of the Second Coming.
Example: Trying to homogenize the four gospels into one chronologically and narratively consistent account.
Example: Using various Bible passages to make a chart of exactly who will go to heaven and who won’t. With such categories as: children under 3 years old, people without full mental capacity, people who live where the gospel has never been preached, Christians who were “saved” and then backslid, etc.
If you have a Trekkie faith then the Bible is like a giant Soduko puzzle that with enough time and energy can be completely figured out and solved. Evil can be explained, the Trinity can be fully understood, and it’s obvious how a God who is Love can damn someone to eternal punishment. People are in hell because they won’t let Jesus blood (which is a necessary reagent in the formula of salvation) cleanse their sin and God can’t be in the presence of sin much like matter can’t come into contact with anti-matter.
I use to be one of these Christians and I thank God (literally) for seminary professors and classmates who showed me how much richer the Bible is when understood as the diverse collection of writings that it is: people across time and miles who all wrote about their experiences with God from their own contexts and perspectives.
Sure it’s frustrating when I don’t understand how God works (or doesn’t work) in the world, but I’ve come to realize that I don’t want a God that I can solve.
Putting the pieces together generally works in the Star Trek universe. Why?
There is a central authority that takes active control over expressions of the Trek universe, and uses copyright authority to prevent renegades.
Christianity has the former (a central authority) but since Christ’s time that central authority hasn’t taken big-time overt action against those who spread a “heretic” message. No, I don’t think Hurricane Katrina was a punishment for sin or even for spreading an incorrect message. Ditto for the Banda Aceh tsunami.
If God had a legal department and used lightning bolts in place of the courts, it might be different.
(Of course, the reason that God doesn’t have a legal department is who all the lawyers work for …. :-)
A second thought:
Have you ever seen two Trekkies argue over the minute details?
It sure makes theological debates look tame.
Great post.
[...] this isn’t another post on how some evangelicals and fundamentalists have a Trekkie Faith. It’s a post where I invite you into a struggle I’ve been having with prayer, and [...]
[...] this isn’t another post on how some evangelicals and fundamentalists have a Trekkie Faith. It’s a post where I invite you into a struggle I’ve been having with prayer, and this time [...]
I find it interesting that you define someone with a “Trekkie Faith” as one who takes “various passages, verses and writings of the Bible, often bits and pieces from all over the Bible, to create elaborate, detailed and complex theological premises and doctrines.”
Isn’t this exactly what Paul did in Romans? Chapter 4? Chapters 9-11? What about the book of Hebrews? Think about the massive number of Old Testament quotations the author references! These New Testament authors are taking bits of scripture and stringing them together in a very Jewish fashion!
What about Jesus in Matt 13 where he rips a passage out of Isaiah 6? What about the Gospels, where the authors apply Isaiah 40 to John the Baptist? Acts? Remember Peter’s sermon where he rips Joel 2 out of the Old Testament and applies it to what he experienced? How is what the authors of the New Testament did with the Old Testament, how is what Paul did in Romans and Galatians not like what some evangelicals have done to create “elaborate, detailed and complex theological premises and doctrines”? It’s an honest question - I want to know how it’s different from Grudem’s Systematic Theology text.
Maybe the Bible is a “diverse collection of writings” from people “across time and miles who all wrote about their experiences with God from their own contexts and perspectives,” but the authors of the New Testament never gave up and said “Let’s just not bother trying to figure out this Jesus-event, let’s just accept the multiplicity of opinions that exist” - they dug into the Tanakh and explored how they were to understand the things “which were written in the law of Moses, and [in] the prophets, and [in] the psalms, concerning” Christ (Lk 24.44).
Furthermore, the authors of the New Testament said that their opponents, they said that those who disagreed with them were “accursed” (Gal 1.8), “antichrists” (1 John 2.18), and were “long ago designated for condemnation,” they said that everyone who disagreed with their Jesus, with their theology were “ungodly people, who perverted the grace of our God into sensuality and denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
And for the record, Trekkies need to get a life and the RaptureReady/LeftBehind nuts need to turn off FoxNews, live a little, and accept the fact that the Rapture is a modern innovation that the Historical church never heard about.
I stumbled upon this blog somehow, and I want to say, despite disagreeing with this particular post, I like the rest of your blog. I especially like your comments on Huckabee’s response to the death penalty. I’m sorry if I got a little worked up, it’s just that I’ve never met anyone who actually thought they could ‘fully’ explain the Trinity. Even Jonathan Edwards, who wrote entire books trying to understand the trinity, had a section mentioning the things that he didn’t understand.
I’m also sorry if I COMPLETELY misunderstood what you were getting at. Peace
I think you’re being a bit insulting to the trekkies.
oops, hit submit too soon….
anyway, what Trekkies do is create things that bring joy to others, and are usually inclusionary. Those particular flavor of Christians are exclusionary…so, insulting to Trekkies.
By the way, I differentiate between Christians who may or may not follow the teachings of Christ, no matter how much they spout off on the topic, they’re just a glorified fan club,
and christian people, who, no matter what their religion follow the teachings of Christ.
As for a relationship with Christ, I think sometimes Christians scare people away from Jesus.