Science fiction sometimes depicts Christianity as it might become in the future, as well as futures in which there seems to be little or no place for it or memory of it. Such stories provide a helpful counterbalance to the tendency to treat our own time and perspective as normative. In every Christian denomination, someone at some point has drawn up a timeline of church history, typically reaching its zenith in their own denomination. If we imagine that the future from then on will simply preserve this purported perfection with no need for or experience of further change, we are clearly fooling ourselves. But we sometimes do indeed manage to fool ourselves, which is why it is a useful exercise to draw the timeline further, to imagine the future as it might be, whether in utopian, dystopian, or realist fashion.<\/p>\n
The Expanse incorporated the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints<\/a> into its story for a very pragmatic reason: the storytellers needed there to be a very large spaceship of a sort that could be used to take a sizeable population to another world. Asking who could realistically be expected to build such a thing, human governments with their focus on immediate problems and reelection quickly excluded themselves as serious contenders. The LDS Church<\/a>, on the other hand, could be imagined in the future to have both the funds to undertake such an endeavor, and a theological framework that might lead them to actually do so. Sometimes a particular type of religious figure or theological concept is just what is needed to tell a particular story or accomplish a particular future. [click SLIDE]<\/p>\n The Expanse also provides a good example of the depiction of a Christian clergyperson in a manner that is futuristic yet directly related to current trajectories. Rev. Anna Volovodov is both sympathetic and fallible. In other words, she is portrayed as genuinely and realistically human in a way that clergy in fiction aren\u2019t always.<\/p>\n Anna is a Methodist, representing the Christian liberal mainline in her activism for matters of socioeconomic justice, her peacemaking concerns, and her marriage. Since there is no one Methodist church these characteristics are entirely plausible even today, never mind a few centuries from now. (I avoided saying \u201cunited Methodist\u201d since capitalized that is the title of one of the many Methodist denominations). Anna offers good responses to those who mock her faith, and avoids offering pat answers to questions. Yet in one instance, in the very act of doing that, she fails to offer comfort to a fellow Methodist who is experiencing a crisis. She is human, well-rounded, and a fine counterexample to the notion that the future of Christianity is just something to be pessimistic about, or that clergy will be universally lined up to speak against anything groundbreaking whether ecclesiastical or in the realm of space exploration. She approaches the crossing of a new frontier with awe.<\/p>\n Star Trek\u2019s Starfleet is often viewed as a depiction of a secular future, and it is that in the actual meaning of the term, but not necessarily in the pejorative sense in which it is sometimes misunderstood. We get the impression that crewmembers such as Lt. Uhura and Dr. McCoy have some personal religion of one sort or another, most likely Christian. The absence of a chaplain on the Enterprise is noteworthy but ultimately unsurprising. If we assume that Starfleet genuinely represents human diversity, and at least some non-human diversity, how many chaplains might be needed aboard the Enterprise to serve their needs? Chekhov might need a Russian Orthodox chaplain, Scotty one from the Church of Scotland (perhaps any Presbyterian might do), there are bound to be atheists and secular humanists on board, and on and on the list would go. If the lone Vulcan\u2019s needs are not catered to is that discrimination? If you can get counseling via subspace and at some starbases is that adequate?<\/p>\n (Babylon 5 featured a famous scene in which, in order to introduce the representatives of various non-human religions and cultures to a representative of human religion and culture, a long line is formed with many people in it).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2021\/04\/Anna-Expanse-sign-from-God.jpg\")
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