March 2, 2010

• Go Therefore and Baptize all the Nations…

  As many of you are aware, I am a Jesuit and, as such, I am the latest in a very long line of men famous for their missionary work throughout the world. In fact, the patron saint of missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, is a Jesuit. He is famous for baptizing thousands throughout India and bringing Jesus Christ to the peoples of many islands throughout Indonesia and finally to Japan, then dying while waiting for a ship to smuggle him into China. Jesuits were also famous for their missionary work in South America (as depicted in the movie “The Mission), and we earned many martyrs in North America amongst the native people there.

  Some of you may also know that I am somewhat a fan of science fiction. Recently the film “Avatar” had me connecting the two–missionary work and sci-fi–and I wondered: how would I bring the Gospel to a people like the Na’vi? So, let’s pretend.

  WHERE: Pandora
  WHO: The Na’vi
  

  The Na’vi are a humanoid people with their own culture, language and, most challenging of all, religion. Their religion is based upon the knowledge that all life on their planet is symbiotically connected via an electromagnetic/nervous network that regulates growth and a million other things in the complex ecosystem: basically, the whole planet is alive and each individual lifeform participates in that greater. The Na’vi worship and honor this system, their living planet, as a deity and rest assured that when anything dies, even their loved ones, their life-energy joins with that of the planet, and they can literally plug in and interact with them any time they want to.

  So here you are, a chaplain with the Marine mercenaries to Pandora, arriving on Pandora for the first time. You’ve taken the crash course in the Na’vi language and you eventually log in the required hours to operate your own Avatar.

  How would you talk about Christ to a people who have such a tangible experience of their own deity? What do you have to offer that they don’t think they already have? What does the Resurrection mean to a people who can communicate with the deceased in a very real way, whenever they wish?

  WHERE: A Galaxy Far, Far Away
  WHO: Thousands of species, trillions of people, thousands of cultures, hundreds of governments…

  

  People who know me really well know that I love Star Wars in particular. Here we have a real poser- an entire galaxy with thousands of inhabited worlds, each with their own races, cultures, religious beliefs, governments…

  

  Here, too, we have at least one religious tradition, the Jedi, who not only have a tangible experience of their concept of “divinity,” but can actually learn to manipulate it, for good or for evil.

  What does the Gospel have to offer to such people? Or what about to Ewoks, Wookies, Hutts, and all the rest?
  NOTE: If anyone mentions “midichlorians,” they will be locked in a room with Jar-Jar Binks for an entire week.

  WHERE: The Twelve Colonies
  WHO: Billions of human beings, and maybe some thousands of Cylon-human hybrids

  

  In the remake of the TV series “Battlestar Galactica,” there are twelve worlds inhabited by human beings who are, basically, pagans, They worship the Greek pantheon–Zeus, Apollo, etc.–and believe they are descended from twelve tribes of human beings that originated on a planet called Kobol, where once they lived with the gods. After a terrible war they were exiled and eventually settled in a system with several habitable planets and moons.

  Eventually their technology reaches a point in which they create robots called Cylons and employ them as a slave labor force, thinking them merely to be machines. Something happens and the machines decide they don’t want to be slaves any more, and war breaks out. Years later, an uneasy truce is reached, and there is a tense peace. Forty years after the truce, the Cylons suddenly reappear and nuke the Colonies to near extinction, leaving only around 40,000 survivors out of billions. These survivors flee for a planet known only in myth, named Earth. The Cylons chase them the whole way, revealing another catch- they have developed Cylons that look, act and feel human, that insist that they are, in fact, human.

  These Cylons also believe in a single god, in a resurrection (their souls download to a duplicate body upon death, if they are within range of the Resurrection Ship…) and in a divine plan.

  So, imagine you somehow ended up amongst these survivors. What does the Gospel offer them? How would you talk about a single, loving god to a people who believe in dozens and likely believe they have fallen out of favor?

  Imagine also you have the opportunity of speaking with one of the Cylons (without being killed!). You already believe in a single god; how would you go about helping them understand more fully the truth of the One True God, how would you introduce Jesus Christ and the True Resurrection and, more importantly, are these Cylons even human? Is it possible to create a completely artificial human being? Basically, do they even need saving? Pretty out there, I know, but hey, it’s sci-fi!

  I hope that you have fun imagining the possibilities; it will be interesting to see what people come up with. But these are realities my Jesuit brothers faced in the past (somewhat) and, by the grace of God, overcame, bringing millions to Christ all over the world and planting seeds that produce fruit all the way into today.

  • 5:35 pm
  • 36 Comments