I saw this on Facebook, and thought I’d share it here, even though I don’t really like it – for reasons I’ll comment on below.
Why am I not delighted? It isn’t because I object in principle to science fiction doing potentially irreverent things with religious material – after all, I previously shared these. It is the actual execution that I was disappointed with. For instance, if you are going to have fezzes and bow ties be forever, even though they are particularly (but not exclusively) associated with the Eleventh Doctor, then surely the prayer should end with “Geronimo” and not “Allons-y.”
But such complaints aside, it was clearly necessary to share it here, since it intersects two interests of mine, Christianity and Doctor Who, and thus relates directly to a major theme of this blog. And it ties in directly with some major themes at the intersection of Doctor Who and Christianity – from the facile treatments by Christians of the Doctor as a Christ-figure, to the show’s posing of questions such as “Whom do Time Lords pray to?”
What do you think of this – and how could we make something better along the same lines?
Of related interest, see “Sargeant Pepper Pots” in The New Statesman on the cultural significance of the Daleks, and Matt Ashton’s online article on the politics of Doctor Who.
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