<\/p>\n
Last Friday, my family went to see the new Star Trek <\/i>movie.\u00a0 <\/span>We really enjoyed the renewed The next day, two CNN anchors discussed the movie’s successful I hope his Twitter account didn’t crash.<\/p>\n I have to confess:\u00a0 My “why” relates to–perhaps not unsurprisingly to my A hopeful future has always been central to progressive Of course, the original series had a corny view of human My church talked about a hopeful future, too.\u00a0 <\/span>But we weren’t very good acting on The new Star Trek <\/i>still A hopeful future is the place I pray that our faith And, hey trekkers, don’t get too irritated with me: \u00a0I’m a theologian, not a movie critic. \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Friday, my family went to see the new Star Trek movie.\u00a0 We really enjoyed the renewed adventures of Captain Kirk and the starship Enterprise.\u00a0 We weren’t alone.\u00a0 The audience in the nearly full theater loved the film.\u00a0 And it proved a happy surprise for Paramount–Star Trek pulled in twice as much in opening weekend…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,36,14,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-defining-progressive","category-mainline-protestants","category-media"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nadventures of Captain Kirk and the starship Enterprise.\u00a0 <\/span>We weren’t alone.\u00a0 <\/span>The audience in the nearly full theater
\nloved the film.\u00a0 <\/span>And it proved a
\nhappy surprise for Paramount–Star Trek <\/i>pulled
\nin twice as much in opening weekend box-office sales than the studio had
\npredicted.\u00a0 <\/span>Indeed, the new movie
\nwound up having the strongest opening in the venerable series’ history.<\/p>\n
\nrelease–but insisting how they weren’t “trekkies,” ad infinitum.\u00a0 <\/span>One of them said, “I just don’t get
\nit.\u00a0 <\/span>I’ve never understood the
\npopularity of Star Trek.<\/i>“\u00a0 <\/span>The co-anchor agreed.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, unbelievably, the male anchor
\ninvited people to twitter him to “explain” the appeal of\u00a0Star Trek.<\/i><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Although I’m not a complete trekkie, I once played Nurse Sistine Chapel
\nin a homemade Star Trek <\/i>flick.\u00a0 <\/span>But you don’t have to be a hard-core
\ntrekker to love Star Trek <\/i>and “get”
\nit.\u00a0 <\/span>There are probably about a
\nmillion answers to the anchor’s question to the “why” of Star Trek.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n
\nreaders–theology.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And it
\ndoesn’t fit in a tweet.\u00a0 <\/span>When I was
\ngrowing up in Baltimore in the 1960s, the world was falling apart, people
\ndivided, anger in the streets, riots ripping through neighborhoods.\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, every week, my mother would sit my
\nbrother, sister, and me on a blanket in the living room to watch Star Trek.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>There, on the screen of our new color TV (with twelve
\nchannels!), an unfailingly optimistic view of the universe unfolded in front of
\nus.\u00a0 <\/span>Unlike the world we knew, full
\nof fear and worries of atomic holocaust, Kirk and Spock took us to a place
\nwhere few dared to go in the mid-1960s–a hopeful future.<\/p>\n
\nfaith.\u00a0 <\/span>“Progress” implies that
\nthere exists a future worth working for–the world can and will be better than
\nthe world we now inhabit.\u00a0 <\/span>Over the
\ncourse of the twentieth century, it has been harder and harder to hold onto the
\nbelief in a hope-filled future, an optimistic vision of history.\u00a0 <\/span>So much poverty, so much violence, so
\nmuch environmental degradation.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The once-proud doctrine of “progress” in relation to history fell into popular
\ndisrepute–leaving theological space for darker visions of an apocalyptic future
\nand visions of end-times politics.<\/p>\n
\nprogress.\u00a0 <\/span>Nevertheless, Star Trek <\/i>opened my young imagination to
\nideas of pluralism, racial acceptance, inclusive community, and universal
\npeace.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps my older cousins
\nencountered these things in the politics and utopian movements of the 1960s,
\nbut I found them first in a television series where they were embodied in
\nstories of a white guy from Iowa, a Vulcan, a Swahili woman, a Russian, and an
\nAsian gay man.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
\nthat vision–unable, for whatever reason, to walk our talk.\u00a0 <\/span>We had the right words about a human future of inclusive
\ncommunity of universal peace, but never really pulled it together when it came
\nto turning words into living practices of faith.\u00a0 <\/span>I always think that is why mainline churches struggled so much
\nin the 1960s.\u00a0 <\/span>We had the right
\ntheological stuff, but somehow failed to translate it into the world.\u00a0 <\/span>We spoke about a hopeful future, but secretly
\nhad begun to doubt its power to transform human lives.\u00a0 <\/span>The energy of hope moved away from the
\nprogressive religious communities that had seeded much of the twentieth century
\nwith optimism–and, as a result, mainline churches became increasingly
\nirrelevant to a world still pining for positive future. <\/p>\n
\npresents a progressive future, but one tempered by the fact that optimism is
\noften born by a realistic engagement with human loss and suffering–that the
\nroad to the future is sometimes paved with fear and mistakes.\u00a0 <\/span>But–and this is an important but–we
\nstill get there.\u00a0 <\/span>In the new Star Trek, <\/i>Kirk and Spock still save the
\nuniverse (at least most of it), still embrace the “other” (despite racial
\ntensions), and still make peace (especially on their own ship).\u00a0 <\/span>They are shaped by the lessons of the
\ntwentieth century as they move bravely into the twenty-third.\u00a0 <\/span>In the process, the future looks pretty
\ngood and worth working for.<\/p>\n
\ncommunities can finally–and boldly–go. \u00a0<\/p>\n