The Gospel According to Lucas

As I was surfing through the Watchman Fellowship website, I came across this article about Star Wars called The Gospel According to Lucas, Part II. First of all, I'm a huge movie fan, and I've always loved Star Wars (the original trilogy especially)! It was (and still is) one of my favorite movies to watch when I was a kid (and now as an adult). The article I read had some really interesting insights into the religious themes in the movie.

I once saw a Star Wars behind-the-scenes documentary, and I remember that George Lucas had mentioned that he got the idea of "the Force" from elements of Buddhism, especially Taoism (pronounced DOW-ism). The Watchman article included a chart that laid out a bunch of the similarities between Star Wars and Taoism. Very interesting!

The only part of the article that I didn't agree with was the statement:
"When the Millennium Falcon hides from the Empire in what its crew thinks is a cave inside an asteroid, only to discover they are inside the belly of a huge space slug (in Empire), it’s a clear allusion to the book of Jonah."
I'm not sure why the author would say that the space slug incident was an allusion to Jonah. I think he was a little off. The only similarity between the two is that there was a large animal with a person inside of them. I don't think it's an allusion to Jonah at all.

Star Wars is not a Christian movie, and neither does it contain "the essential beliefs of the New Age movement [which] include pantheism, reincarnation, and moral relativism." It does however have some hints of Christian themes in it, and I liked how the article gives several key areas in the movie that can be used as discussion starters regarding Christianity, especially showing the differences between "the Force" and God.

If you would like to read Part I of The Gospel According to Lucas or any other article on the Watchman Fellowship website, click here.