{"id":6123,"date":"2012-02-06T10:53:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=6123"},"modified":"2012-02-06T10:53:21","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:53:21","slug":"nerds-reconsidering-star-wars-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/nerds-reconsidering-star-wars-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Nerds Reconsidering Star Wars Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/life-and-religion\/89055\/monomaniacal\/?all=1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">A recent article in Tablet Magazine challenges the religious message of Star Wars in interesting ways<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/faith_and_culture\/faith_myth_and_star_wars.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+episcopalcafe%2Flead+%28The+Lead%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">HT The Lead<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/religionnerd.com\/2012\/02\/05\/religion-lately-uller-fest-atheist-religion-tim-tebow-harbinger-of-doom\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> and Religion Nerd<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>On the one hand, the article makes some good points about the superficiality of some Star Wars spirituality, or the attempt to let \u201cfollowing one\u2019s bliss\u201d be a guide to life.<\/p>\n<p>Yet on the other hand, the Star Wars movies themselves seem at times to offer a more profound vision than much of the popular religiosity and philosophy that appeals to them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/02\/03\/opinion\/brooks-how-to-fight-the-man.html?_r=1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">See also on this topic the article in the <em>New York Times<\/em> about the video on hating religion but loving Jesus which recently went viral<\/a>. As that article concludes, \u201cEffective rebellion isn\u2019t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don\u2019t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or as master Yoda might have put it, \u201cExcitement, adventure, bliss, freedom from the constraints of institutions, communities, and discipline \u2013 a Jedi craves not these things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-6124\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/nerds-reconsidering-star-wars-religion.html\/vader-at-wailing-wall\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6124\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2012\/02\/Vader-at-Wailing-Wall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"416\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent article in Tablet Magazine challenges the religious message of Star Wars in interesting ways (HT The Lead and Religion Nerd). On the one hand, the article makes some good points about the superficiality of some Star Wars spirituality, or the attempt to let \u201cfollowing one\u2019s bliss\u201d be a guide to life. Yet on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,80,91],"tags":[1246,3521,3901,4433,5677,5923,5978,6741,7845,10169,11712,11720,11822,12212],"class_list":["post-6123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism-religion","category-religion","category-star-wars-science-fiction","tag-bliss","tag-force","tag-george-lucas","tag-hate","tag-jesus","tag-joseph-campbell","tag-judaism-religion","tag-love","tag-myth","tag-religion","tag-spiritual","tag-spirituality","tag-star-wars","tag-tablet"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nerds Reconsidering Star Wars Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent article in Tablet Magazine challenges the religious message of Star Wars in interesting ways (HT The Lead and Religion Nerd). On the one hand,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/nerds-reconsidering-star-wars-religion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nerds Reconsidering Star Wars Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A recent article in Tablet Magazine challenges the religious message of Star Wars in interesting ways (HT The Lead and Religion Nerd). On the one hand,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/nerds-reconsidering-star-wars-religion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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