{"id":326,"date":"2013-11-26T11:30:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T15:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/?p=326"},"modified":"2013-11-26T11:55:39","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T15:55:39","slug":"4-ways-the-tardis-helps-me-understand-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2013\/11\/4-ways-the-tardis-helps-me-understand-the-catholic-church.html","title":{"rendered":"4 ways the TARDIS helps me understand the Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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There is nothing more iconic about the sci-fi series \u201cDoctor Who\u201d than the blue police\u00a0phone-box\u00a0known as the TARDIS. This contraption has been with the time traveling protagonist of the show, self-proclaimed as \u201cThe Doctor\u201d for the last 50 years and continues to be the central element of continuity in the show as it moves from doctor to doctor. I was laying in bed last night thinking about how much I loved Doctor Who and trying to pray when suddenly it hit me\u2026 the TARDIS is a great window into seeing the Catholic Church. The more I thought about it the more it made sense. Call it the product half-waking haze, or evidence that I have\u00a0completely\u00a0jumped the shark, but I wrote up a few thoughts on how the TARDIS helps us understand the Catholic Church:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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  1. She\u2019s (much) Bigger on the inside<\/strong>\u00a0-This is a major theme in Doctor Who. The TARDIS looks like a phone booth on the outside, but on the inside she is an\u00a0expansive\u00a0network of\u00a0rooms,\u00a0tunnels, and galleries. When someone enters the TARDIS for the first time, they\u00a0inevitably will declare \u201cit\u2019s bigger on the inside.\u201d This was also my\u00a0experience\u00a0when I first\u00a0entered the Catholic Church.Early on in my years of protestant ministry a few friends of mine joined the Catholic church in a rather short span of time. I remember thinking that their inspiration must be that they wanted all the answers.\u00a0Catholicism\u00a0looked so small and unimaginative to me. I loved theological inquiry and exploration, I thought that the being a Catholic meant giving up on that and simply submitting to a rigid and unbending\u00a0hierarchy. No thank you!<\/span>I think this is the common understanding people have of the Catholic Church. It is,\u00a0however, far from the truth. Now that I am in the Catholic Church I can testify that\u00a0<\/span>it\u2019s huge in here<\/strong>. The Church does have dogma, but that is not developed to answer every question but rather to safeguard the mystery of Jesus. Dogma \u00a0is the fertilizer in the soil of theology that assures that theological conversation will be healthy and bear fruit. The protestant world I was living in, it turns out, was much smaller theologically. We defined ourselves by what made us different from others, and found our identity\u00a0in the theological controversies that had inspired our formation centuries before. This had the effect of keeping us locked in one paradigm, often continually fighting theological battles that the world around them had long forgotten were\u00a0important.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. She adapts\u00a0for each era \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0One of the fun things about the TARDIS is that she changes. Each time there is a new Doctor, the look and feel or the TARDIS also changes. She\u2019s the same TARDIS, and the same Doctor. What\u2019s different \u00a0is how the TARDIS adapts to match the unique expressions of the new face of her rider.This can also be said of the Catholic Church.<\/span>One of the key texts that inspired me while I was\u00a0discerning\u00a0joining the Catholic church was a book by John Henry Newman called\u00a0<\/span>An\u00a0Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.<\/em>\u00a0In it he talks about how the Catholic Church is a living thing. As new\u00a0environments\u00a0emerge the church articulates itself in new ways. Newman says it does this not because the church is changing, but because new\u00a0environments\u00a0require adaption for the church to remain the same.\u00a0The seed planted on a hill will look different than that same seed planted in a valley, but they both would reflect the natural life of the seed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. She Moves you through time \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Doctor Who is the story of a time lord who uses the TARDIS to move throughout space and time.\u00a0Catholicism\u00a0also causes us to time travel. It\u2019s one of the big things that changed when I joined the church. As a protestant church history had a big gap. We talked about the\u00a0apostles, \u00a0jumped right to the\u00a0reformers, then jumped right to our contemporary situation. I knew about St. Peter St. Paul and the rest of the biblical names and faces. I also knew Martin Luther, John Calvin and Zwingli. Most of the time Church history ended there. The Catholic faith helped me see that in every time and place there were people who had given their lives for Jesus in just as radical a calling as any of the apostles. What was even more amazing was that in the Mass I could join with them in praise and thanksgiving.<\/li>\n
      2. She takes you where your need to go even if it\u2019s not where you want to go \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0In Doctor Who the TARDIS has a propensity for ignoring what the Doctor tells her to do. Most of the time this is because the TARDIS determines that there is another place or time which requires the Doctors presence and intervention much more than where the Doctor intended to. The Church does this too. It is in the\u00a0business\u00a0of not only comforting the afflicted, but also afflicting the comfortable. She calls me to fast when I want to eat. She calls me to pray when I want to rest. She calls me to be joyful when I want to feel sorry for myself. \u00a0She calls me to love others when I was hell bed on only loving myself. She gets me where I need to go.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Do you have any other ways Doctor Who has helped you think about your faith.\u00a0Let me know in the comments below!<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        There is nothing more iconic about the sci-fi series \u201cDoctor Who\u201d than the blue police\u00a0phone-box\u00a0known as the TARDIS. This contraption has been with the time traveling protagonist of the show, self-proclaimed as \u201cThe Doctor\u201d for the last 50 years and continues to be the central element of continuity in the show as it moves from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n4 ways the TARDIS helps me understand the Catholic Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is nothing more iconic about the sci-fi series "Doctor Who" than the blue police\u00a0phone-box\u00a0known as the TARDIS. 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