Gary Laderman writes at Religion Dispatches about Bono’s recent op-ed in the New York Times, a Scottish police force with several Jedi in the ranks, and how these both point to an era in which the sacred does not require a god:
Moral community and religious formation do not emanate only from our celebrity leaders, they are also shaped by another so-called secular cultural phenomenon: the Hollywood dream factory. The Star Wars series creates a universe without God, though certainly not devoid of sacred possibilities—the “Force” is not God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, but is an “energy field” (as Obi-Wan Kenobi explains) that penetrates and binds together everything in the galaxy.
Even though a godless universe is presented and elaborated on in each of the six films that constitute the saga, the tale as a whole—its structure, plot, characters, references—is religious through and through. The popular reception of audience members, from the opening of the first film—actually the fourth in the series—in 1977, to 2005’s release of the final film has transformed the religious story into a religious myth overflowing from the theater and seeping into and inspiring the creation of new forms of cultural communities, commitments, and identities in the United States and around the world.
Read the full post here.