Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Bible and Doctor Who- How Not to Scare your Friends Away from Awesome Things


How do we get someone we know to enjoy something that is not immediately enjoyable? I recently tried to get one of my best friends to watch Dr. Who. He pulled up Netflix and started on Season One, episode one, “Rose.”

Those of you who have watched the entire series are now probably feeling exactly what I felt—excitement that my friend was trying, but apprehension that he decided to try from the beginning. Most fans will agree that the pilot is not the strongest episode. In fact, after seeing the terrible CG plastic men and hearing Mickey complain just one time too many, most of us were surprised that this is what we have to thank for rebooting the entire Dr. Who franchise.

In short, for those who know nothing of the show except how much their friends go on and on about it, this is a terribly frustrating time for new would-be Whovians. It’s a great buildup for a great fall—like going to see Napoleon Dynamite after hearing everyone quote the lines for a month.  They begin to suspect that it was just too good to be true.

Now let me actually talk about the Bible for a bit.

Let’s say you have a friend that has never really done anything with religion. (He’ll probably say it like that too—religion. Not faith, or Christianity, or even Jesus. Just all of religion). His face goes blank when the conversation brings up topics like prayer, church, the Bible, or worship. And you want to introduce him. You tell him how great it is, that a life with Christianity is better than a life without. And you loan him your Bible.


You start him in the New Testament (the Old is just complicated and we wouldn't want him getting the wrong ideas about selling off family members into slavery or bending fish hooks into spears), and probably the book of Luke (since it’s the one they made a movie about). And you sit back and watch him read, eager to see his life change.



And after a few chapters, he looks up sheepishly to say, “This is kinda dumb.”

How?! How could the greatest story on earth be condensed down to “dumb?” The hardest thing to understand at this point is that not everyone sees this story the same way you do. If you’re like me, this may be the first story you were ever told. It’s been told to you in so many different ways, in so many different books, films, and songs, that you take it for granted. But to your friend, the story is new, and the story is weird.

First of all, it doesn’t even begin with Jesus. It starts on this supporting character John the Baptist, whoever he is, and there are angels appearing in dreams. This is all well and good until Mary starts singing. (Am I even supposed to read that? I guess I’ll just skip it.) But now this guy Zechariah is spouting off this prophecy and it’s all too much. I’m on Chapter 2 and the only thing I’ve heard about this Jesus guy is that he hasn’t even been born yet. Can I flip forward a couple of chapters and start again?

Let’s say he goes on to Chapter 2—Now there’s a pregnant woman forced to come home for some reason and the whole birth Jesus only takes about six sentences so I have no idea how the whole Christmas season is supposed to be based on that. And there are angels again, but they’re just shouting at some shepherds on a field. I can’t. I just can’t.

OK. If you look at it that way, it might be kind of weird. But just stick with it. It gets better.

And it does.

Because the first season of Dr. Who isn’t just plastic men and whiny boyfriends. We meet Captain Jack Harkness, see the end of the world, hang out with Charles Dickens, and fire a missile into 10 Downing Street.


By the time the new watcher reaches “The Empty Child” (episode 9), they’re hooked. They realize:  “Wow…this is dark. And I’ve come to like these people. And him. I really don’t want him to die.”
And then he does. He survives through so much and then he finally can’t take it anymore. They’re at the end of the season and Christopher Eccleston sacrifices himself. Rose Tyler looks on in horror because there is nothing she can do.

And he dies.   

Boom. Resurrection. For some, death is only a new beginning.

Now, I’m not trying to say that Dr. Who is a Jesus allegory (any hero can be a Jesus allegory if you try hard enough).* But he is a powerfully awesome alien who has the power to resurrect if given the proper circumstances, thus the introduction of David Tennant. Our Doctor is now back: newer, shinier, and with better hair.

It is at this point that most viewers have no trouble whatsoever continuing with the series. Yes, there is some initial pull-back towards Eccleston’s goofy facial expressions and baseball-mit ears, but we’ve grown so comfortable with the supporting cast of Rose, her mom, Captain Jack, and Mickey that we’re willing to give these following chapters a chance.

So we see what the disciples have to say. We take the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and use it to learn more about ourselves and our place on earth. Acts through Revelation is now less about that beginning story and more about learning what to do with the story we’ve been told.

And it’s awesome. The deeper you go, the more you understand. You get to love David Tennant and Matt Smith and every little supporting character they adventure with. Then you get to the end and think, “Well that was great. What now? Where shall my Dr. Who adventure take me?”



This depends on what kind of person you are. Many will go back and do the whole thing again. Most will probably begin again from their favorite point, maybe repeating it over and over until they can quote it by heart. Some, however, will be so inspired that they decide to see where all of this came from. Those few will return to the original begun many years, to see the forty years of stories and history leading to what we know today.

The Old Testament is not easy. It takes time, energy, and a pile of reference books to understand, mainly because it was written by and for a culture so far separated from our own. The issues of those cultures, the questions and struggles, are very different than those we see today.

The 1960-‘s-80’s were a very interesting time. From the point of view of a television show, the original Dr. Who series toyed with the technology available, seeing just what they could convince the audience to believe, with very little explanation. 

                                                       Yeah. No explanation.

The reboot of the show in the 2000’s had to follow different rules because it had a very different audience. People today aren’t going to wait around to find out why this strange guy has super powers. We aren’t going to wait to find out why/when they are where they are, who the supporting characters are, or why this strange man wants to do this in the first place.

So that’s my argument—if you want to tell someone about the bible or about Dr. Who (they may not have equal importance, but they are both absolutely important), make sure you do it the right way. These are complicated issues based on years of history and culture that the uninitiated will not understand without help.

Let’s not toss our friends into “the Vashta Narada eat your face”or “bald Elisha sics bears on kids.” There are better stories to begin with.





*Naysayer author says: “He IS doomed by a kiss though. That’s pretty cool.”