For as long as I can remember, I enjoyed
Science Fiction. I was only 14 when Star Trek appeared on television. I really
liked that show. I do not see it often on television any more. When I watch the
show now, it brings back nostalgia. The technology is so ancient. Our technology
can make almost anything seem realistic and slick. I have watched the Star Trek
movies. Some were great. Some were not.
Yes, in 1966, the first episode of
Star Trek appeared. We could travel where no one had gone before.
Appearing for the first time were
Captain Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Sulu. Such fictional characters become cultural
icons. In the opening line of the show, Kirk says, "Captain's log,
Stardate 1513.1. Our position, orbiting planet M-113. On board the Enterprise,
Mr. Spock, temporarily in command. On the planet, the ruins of an ancient and
long-dead civilization."
From the very start, Star Trek told
the story of the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its mission: "To
explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to
boldly go where no man has gone before."
Now, a half-century after the
launch of the original show, Paramount is releasing the third installment of
its rebooted series of movies. Called Star
Trek Beyond, it will appear in theaters starting this Friday, July 22.
Captain Kirk and his crew will be back, although it appears that they have lost
the starship Enterprise. They will once again be sent off on an adventure
filled with space villains and many new alien creatures.
"We got no ship," says
Captain Kirk. "No crew. How are we going to get out of this one?"
Seems they always find hope in the
impossible.
The Star Trek franchise scorns religious
faith much of the time. When Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, he pictured a
future dominated by science and human ingenuity -- without a lot of religion to
muddy things up. Oh, sure, Federation crew members met scads of religious
sentient beings around the galaxy, but it turns out most were worshiping
computers, power generators, or toga-wearing aliens. Roddenberry didn't place a
lot of faith in faith.
"Religions vary in their
degree of idiocy, but I reject them all," Roddenberry once said. "For
most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning
brain."...
Starship captains gun down false
religions with more vigor than Old Testament prophets. Rarely do they travel
more than a few light years before they come across a civilization that
worships ... well, almost anything, from heavy-duty mainframes to light and
frothy drinks.[1]
Yet, this attitude toward religion
is not always the case. I am thinking of Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
released in 1979.
V'ger, the entity at the heart of
the story, was a former NASA space probe that was created with a purpose ... to
learn all there was to learn and to return with that information. However, it
suffered damage as it journeyed to fulfill its mission. A race of machine
beings, unable to ascertain or understand the original intent of V'ger's
creator, attempted to repair and rebuild the space probe. What eventually
evolved was an entity capable of destroying all life. V'ger returned to Earth,
seeking "the creator," needing that which made it to give its life
meaning. Only the creator had the code to satisfy its programming. However,
because of damage, the creator could not just simply repair the connection. He
had to become one with the unit. Decker, the temporary first officer of
Enterprise (and former captain), gave his life so that V'ger could live (and
thus saves all life on Earth and in the galaxy and throughout the universe).
Is that not the story of us? We are damaged. We
need repair. Nothing in all our wanderings can fix us until we come back to our
point of origin, back to the God who created us. God has not simply devised a
patch to repair our programming. God has become one with us, has given divine
life so that we can live, and now we are able to participate in the original
purpose of our creation and even more.
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