Rule Number 1: Your Faith Lies

by Ben Howard

I only started watching Doctor Who about a month ago. Depending on your position on the nerdcore scale this is either totally meaningless or an egregious error in judgment that possibly puts into question whether you can ever trust me again.

Now, I'm not thoroughly indoctrinated (see what I did there) into the mythology of the show since I've only watched the most recent three seasons and a handful of earlier episodes. However, even in that small amount some of the larger themes have definitely caught my eye. The Doctor's refusal to use violence is almost prophetic in the way it speaks into our cultures obsession with force and bloodshed. I also love the way the Doctor is both playful and profoundly sad thus showcasing the fact that silliness is not disconnected from seriousness.

There are tons of examples of wonderful truths being spoken and explored by this show, but the most fascinating aspect of the show that I've encountered so far is also a very simple one.

In fact, it's rule number one: the Doctor lies.

At this point in my life it's almost impossible to watch or read anything without immediately making theological comparisons. I mean, I've probably got a thousand words rattling around somewhere about how Alex Trebek is like an all-knowing God or how Wipeout is an apt depiction of the Christian walk. However, watching Doctor Who is something much more profound than that, it's more like watching the first Superman movie; it's almost begging you to compare the hero to Christ.

Before you ask, no, I am not about to say that Jesus lies. At least, not quite. It’s more interesting than that.

Rule number one comes up on the show so consistently because the Doctor’s companions have to be constantly reminded. Even though they know the truth, even though they’ve been told over and over again that the Doctor lies, they still believe him. They have faith in him.

The Doctor always saves them, always comes back for them, always makes sure that the good guys win and the bad guys lose and the, and since they believe him to be so trustworthy, they are blinded to the fact that he isn’t always truthful. Their faith, their honest, earnest and defensible faith deceives them about reality.

The Doctor tells his companions and friends that he lies, yet they believe him with unquestioning faith anyways.

I think that’s what God and Doctor Who have in common. Followers so full of faith that it can drown out the sounds of reality, so full of faith that it drown out the lessons they’ve been told over and over again about who they’re really following and how wild and unrestrained by rules he really is.

This is far from a call to stop believing, that’s impossible. Everyone has beliefs, and of course they think they’re beliefs are true, otherwise they’d get new ones. No, this is a statement about the certainty of our faith. While our faith is valid and good, that certainty is an illusion. Our faith lies.

Sometimes the things we whole-heartedly believe turn out to be wrong and that’s an incredibly difficult thing to admit. When our faith leads us astray, when our faith lies to us about the reality that actually exist, we look everywhere else for answers. We blame our parents, the church we grew up in, we blame God for not being the God we originally believed in. It’s hard to bear the tension that comes with a faith that can only ever be incomplete and fallible.

Our perception of God, Jesus, and he Holy Spirit is always, in some ways, a lie. It is always wrong. Whether it’s off only a little or a lot, the certainty that comes with faith is always an illusion.

So perhaps the real comparison isn't between Doctor Who and God, or Doctor Who and Jesus, but between Doctor Who and our constructs of God and Jesus. The reality of God and Jesus evade us, they’re complexity is something far beyond us. Remember, it says in Isaiah, “Your thoughts are not my thoughts and your ways are not my ways.”

These constructs are our creations. They come from our families, our traditions, our experiences,our fears, and our desires. They are valuable and beautiful and necessary.

But remember rule number one, they lie.

Peace,

Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast (see!) and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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A Little Crazy Behind the Eyes: The Bachelor and How to Date 15 Churches at Once

Apparently "Worth the Drive"

by Amanda Taylor

My parents packed up and carried off their three little girls to church every week, every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, and every Wednesday night for my entire childhood. Thirty-five minutes it took to get to the modest, small brown building on the left-hand side of North Court Street in Circleville, Ohio. Thirty-five minutes to get there, thirty-five minutes to get home, every week through the cornfields and past the paper plant to sit in the pew right behind the 85 year-old woman who’s had When the Roll is Called Up Yonder memorized since 1936.

“A Church Alive is Worth the Drive.”

What is a “church alive?” That phrase has continued to silently whisper in my ear, haunting me since its plastic black letters first appeared on the church sign out front 22 years ago. By many of today’s standards, this church was deadern’ a doornail. Small, both cramped and yet somehow drafty, adverse to change, enthusiastic about routine, skeptical of outside influence, a lover of How Shall the Young Secure Their Hearts.

It is as objectionable to me now as it is entrenched. The comfort, love, and safety I feel in that small Church of Christ setting is something that I am certain will never be replicated, but it is also confining, and limiting, and maddening. So where do I belong? How do I practice this faith in a way that will honor my parents’ commitment, as well as the great blessing and curse of my own?

After swim practice in the fifth grade a friend asked me what religion I was, and when I answered, “Church of Christ,” they told me that wasn’t a thing. Feeling bad for me, they asked if I was, you know, Catholic or something? I pondered, unsettled, and panicked and then asked my dad on the way home from church the next Sunday, Hey Dad? Are we Catholic? Only years later did I realize how incredible my question sounded to him, once it became a running joke through our entire extended family that I might be “the Catholic one,” but that I wasn’t sure.

A little crazy.

Perhaps this confusion about belonging burrowed a little too far into my heart and mind, because now I wonder all over again “what I am.” I must go to church; I have gotten this far.  But the decision of where that will occur is another matter entirely. I find myself, having watched The Bachelor a time or two, seeing parallels between my pursuit for a church community and the latest Bachelor’s quest to date 15 women at one time. Every single option is beautiful, though it carries with it the subtle suspicion of crazy behind the eyes.  

For the record, I don’t think it’s normal to date 15 people at one time. The idea of getting to pick your soul mate while chaotically making out with as many people as you can get away with in the meantime is insanity, which I presume is why it makes for such good television. The human emotion on display is very raw (reference ugly cry here) but it’s expressed in the midst of an entirely orchestrated and fake environment. How do you honor what is real within a production?  

Doesn’t church educate me about what is true and eternal in this human experience through the mechanism of a production? Are churches focused on creating an environment that draws you in and convinces you of their authenticity and relevance, in a great bid for relationship? If The Bachelor is how we are normalizing relationship building in society, is not the church susceptible to similar whimsical and fleeting ideas of commitment? I don’t know how to date 15 churches without inherently judging them all and committing to none, and I’d appreciate being able to blame reality television if at all possible.  

In participating in all these competing religious environments however, I’m struck more by the similarities than the differences. I notice the love and the passion and the cold indifference, coexisting in foldout chairs and velvet-lined pews. I see and experience comfort in the routine, and feel resentment in our complacency. I feel music wash over the body gathered, the rhythm of the words fusing the masses, the repetition calming and steadying, and maybe the drums, either loud and accosting or beating out any worry and tension we’ve brought with us that day.  

The uniting of many for the glory of one is very powerful, and critically important to the practice of faith. We humble ourselves before what is perfect in the hope that we may rest in it, for just a moment, to carry away to the corners of our world whatever remnants are gracious enough to linger.

Person or symbol?

Watching the black smoke turn to white this week, I found myself humbled by the Catholic faith, connected to it. This is the uniting of many, centered, focused on who will lead them in pursuit of the glory and honor of one. This is not political posturing or parochial strategy or a statement to society as much as it is the body of Christ, a church alive.

The press surrounding this important and significant changing of the guard is chilling; it’s analytical and manufactured, yet it reminds me too much of my pursuit of a church community. We have already stripped Pope Francis of his humanity and understand him instead as his geography, his routines, his Jesuit background, and his political implications.  

The Catholic faith quickly becomes a body we review as we would another social psychology case study, peering in upon its internal strife and posturing, labeling so much as scandal and tawdry. We turned church into The Bachelor and asked ourselves if our favorite contestant won. How perilous to think of faith as something that can be contained by policy and bureaucratic refinement or understood by the world’s standards.

In the end church is a production of sorts, an orchestration of people, ideas, action, and relationship, to say something to the world and to the individual about the Creator. It is inviting us to see its relevance and look past its flaws and, more than anything, is asking for participation, for faith, to just show up to own version of a modest, small brown building on the left-hand side of North Court Street.

“It is to provide an example that submitting to the practice of worship and the leadership of those in charge is a Christian teaching about humility and submission to God.” My dad said that.

Amanda works in “community development” and no, she doesn’t know what that means either. Forever the critic. And enthusiast. Never one for dichotomies. Follow her on Twitter @tayloram03 if you’re not into receiving tweets.

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