{"id":7823,"date":"1999-01-03T20:20:20","date_gmt":"1999-01-04T04:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2013-05-12T20:39:39","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T03:39:39","slug":"a-fascinating-examination-of-star-treks-double-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/1999\/01\/a-fascinating-examination-of-star-treks-double-vision.html","title":{"rendered":"A fascinating examination of Star Trek<\/i>\u2019s ‘double vision’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>\u0095 Mike Hertenstein: The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins and Science Fiction<\/i><\/b>, Cornerstone, 1998.<\/p>\n

FOR A SHOW rooted so strongly in secular humanism, Star Trek<\/i> has quite the Christian following. Theologian Stan Grenz has lectured on the TV series at Regent College, and Phil Farrand, author of the fannish Nitpicker\u2019s Guide<\/a><\/i> series, openly acknowledges his love for Jesus.<\/p>\n

Now that books on the physics<\/a>, metaphysics<\/a>, biology<\/a> and meaning<\/a> of Star Trek<\/i> have become a literary genre in their own right, the time is more than ripe for an analysis of this phenomenon from a Christian perspective.<\/p>\n

Mike Hertenstein\u2019s The Double Vision of Star Trek<\/a><\/i> does an admirable, if by no means exhaustive, job of meeting that need, tackling the show from literary, political, moral and philosophical points of view.<\/p>\n

According to Hertenstein, editor of Cornerstone<\/i> magazine and co-author of Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke<\/i>, the show is \"a bundle of unresolved tensions\" and it suffers from \"a chronic guilty conscience\" because it cannot reconcile those tensions without \"cheating.\"<\/p>\n

The show does have a fascinating habit of contradicting itself. For example:<\/p>\n

\u0095 Trek<\/i> espouses a humanistic philosophy celebrating the triumph of the human spirit. Yet the day is often saved not by human decisions or spiritual feats but, rather, by last-minute bursts of technobabble \u2014 what Hertenstein calls the show\u2019s central deus ex machina<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u0095 In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan<\/a><\/i>, Spock sacrifices his life and saves the ship because, he says, the needs of the many must logically outweigh the needs of the one. But in the next film<\/a>, Spock\u2019s friends reverse, and perhaps betray, that logic, sacrificing their own careers voluntarily to help bring him back to life.<\/p>\n

\u0095 In \u2018The Cage,\u2019 the original series\u2019 first pilot episode, Captain Pike stubbornly resists a world of illusion, as pleasant as it may be, in favor of reality. But in \u2018The Menagerie,\u2019 a two-part episode built around that pilot, Pike \u2014 rendered speechless and immobile by an accident \u2014 changes his mind and chooses the \u2018unreal\u2019 life instead.<\/p>\n

\u0095 The good guys champion cultural tolerance in the extreme \u2014 most famously in the Vulcan motto \u2018Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations\u2019 \u2014 but they don\u2019t seem to approve of tyrants, Klingon ritual murder and the like. Apparently, even infinity has its limits.<\/p>\n

\u0095 Trek<\/i> characters who transfer their minds into computers or androids inevitably commit suicide or lose the spark of life that defines their humanity. Yet the android Data and the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager<\/a><\/i> are accepted by most characters as fully conscious persons, even humans, in their own right.<\/p>\n

\u0095 Trek<\/i> history was once built on the solidly humanistic premise that human beings learned to achieve peace and harmony on their own, sometime between now and the 23rd century. But the film Star Trek: First Contact<\/a><\/i> undermines that premise by revealing that the world was essentially saved by the arrival of \u2018alien messiahs\u2019 in our near future.<\/p>\n

Hertenstein plumbs these and other conundrums, such as the Federation\u2019s unexplained political unity and the increased presence of overt religious themes on the series since its strenuously anti-religious creator, Gene Roddenberry, died in 1991. Hertenstein, taking his cue from the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, also sees subliminal traces of the gospel in Star Trek<\/i>, most notably in the recurring theme of self-sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Many of these issues are explored anew \u2014 and complicated further \u2014 in the new film Star Trek: Insurrection<\/a><\/i>, in which Captain Picard and his crew rebel against the Federation to protect a paradisaical planet. Those wishing to explore these themes in further depth should give Hertenstein\u2019s book a look.<\/p>\n

\u2014 A version of this review was first published in <\/i>BC Christian News.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u0095 Mike Hertenstein: The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins and Science Fiction, Cornerstone, 1998. FOR A SHOW rooted so strongly in secular humanism, Star Trek has quite the Christian following. Theologian Stan Grenz has lectured on the TV series at Regent College, and Phil Farrand, author of the fannish Nitpicker\u2019s Guide series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1134,1132,1091,1133,1076,975,78,473,80,1124,969,1044],"class_list":["post-7823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bcchristiannews","tag-christopher-pike","tag-data","tag-double-vision-of-star-trek","tag-jean-luc-picard","tag-mike-hertenstein","tag-spock","tag-star-trek","tag-star-trek-first-contact","tag-star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan","tag-star-trek-iii-the-search-for-spock","tag-star-trek-insurrection","tag-star-trek-voyager"],"yoast_head":"\nA fascinating examination of Star Trek\u2019s 'double vision'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"• Mike Hertenstein: The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins and Science Fiction, Cornerstone, 1998. 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