Anna Morris Youth, Culture, and Consciousness December 15, 2013

Doctor Who and the Bible

I have always wanted to have some sort of discussion focused around Doctor Who and theology. Or Doctor Who and the Bible. Somehow, I have never been able to find the sort of discussion I was looking for. What this final allows is the chance for me to create that dialogue myself. I hope that I am able to present my thoughts clearly and place them into a theological dialogue. The story of Doctor Who is long and complicated, but I hope to shed some light on that story from a Biblical perspective.

A little background: Doctor Who is a long running British program. The Doctor himself is a humanoid time traveler - a Time Lord in his most basic description - who has a fondness for Earth and its inhabitants. Beginning in the early 1960s, it lost popularity among viewers in the late 1980s, causing BBC to cancel the program. In 2005, however, the show was given a revival order and took the world by storm, quickly gaining a cult following. The revival began after a crucial event in the story of the show: the Time War. In this war, the Doctors home planet of Gallifrey is locked in battle with their greatest enemies: the Daleks. The story, as we know it in the revival, is that the Doctor was forced to put his planet, his people, and the Daleks into a time lock. This froze the war in a moment in time, protecting other planets from the destruction their war would have caused. It also left the Doctor as the last Time Lord, the last of his kind. This revival story showed us a Doctor filled with guilt and grief over what he had done to his people, knowing he had made the most difficult decision to save the universe. It is this revival

Anna Morris Youth, Culture, and Consciousness December 15, 2013 that I want to focus on, and specifically the most recent 50th Anniversary Special, which aired November 23rd, 2013.

There are three regenerations of the Doctor in the 50th Anniversary episode: the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor, and the War Doctor. The War Doctor is introduced as a Doctor never seen, hidden in time as the one who had brought an end to the world of the Time Lords. The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors (regenerations of that post-War Doctor) are embarrassed and ashamed to see the War Doctor again, but as these three regenerations walk through the moments of the Time War again, we learn that what the War Doctor did was as terrible for him as the memories the future Doctors would have. However, with three Doctors in the same place, they were able to change the circumstances of the war with the hope that they might be able to save Gallifrey. They worked together to move Gallifrey to another time and space. The consequence of this change is that they would never know or remember the change they made. The Doctor would always feel the guilt of having destroyed his people. In the aftermath of this terrible choice, each of the Doctors return to their own time, none of them sure whether they were able to save Gallifrey. It is only at the end of the episode that the current Doctor learns Gallifrey may have been saved.

Now lets take a leap from one huge story to another: The Gospel of the Bible the story of what Christ did for the world. Similar to the Doctor, Christ was called to save everyone in the world, and Christ was called to do this alone. Along his journey, Christ was called to save and heal others.

Anna Morris Youth, Culture, and Consciousness December 15, 2013 He healed the lame, the sick, the injured, the possessed, and even raised Lazarus from death. He taught people about how to care for others, treat creation, and live life. Christ was the visible, physical, and relatable God. When Christ was called to give his life for the world on the cross, we know that he felt fear. Matthew 26:39 And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want. And so, Christ died for the sake of the world. The cup could not be passed to anyone else, as there was no other man who could have done for us what Christ did. It was for Christ alone. In this way, the Doctor also wished that another could have been in his place. After living for so many years, carrying the weight of guilt and responsibility, the Doctor believed the only way to move on was to leave that part of his life behind. The Doctor was not fully aware of how his actions in destroying Gallifrey would affect his life in the future; he only knew that it was an unavoidable moment in time. I wonder if Christ knew exactly what his death was for. Did Jesus know, as he waited for the cross, that his death would save the world? Or did he simply know that the cross was what God called him to do? Perhaps he did not learn the full consequences of his death until after he had risen again. It is certainly true that it took many years for the Doctor to realize the consequences of his action. And again, while on the cross Jesus cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) This is a passage where Jesus cries out to God, trying to understand why he was called to die upon the cross. He felt that in this time of need and despair, God had somehow left him on his own with nowhere to turn and no one to turn

Anna Morris Youth, Culture, and Consciousness December 15, 2013 to. The War Doctor also experienced something similar to this feeling of despair and abandonment. It was made quite clear (by the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors) that the War Doctor was someone to be ashamed of. The later regenerations of the Doctor chose to hide the truth of the past. When the three regenerations were confronted, this question, Why have you forsaken me? is brought to the forefront. Why did the later regenerations refuse to acknowledge the action that the War Doctor took? Why did those regenerations turn away from the self who, in the end, needed their support? A clip toward the end of the episode showed the War Doctor alone, waiting for the moment when he would bring an end to his own people. The pain and weight of that decision was visible, as was the fear that his future self would never accept the difficulty of that choice. It was only when the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors truly came to support the War Doctor, that the three were able to find another solution.

Now, lets try to bring all of these thoughts together. The Doctor: knowingly brought the destruction of his people and himself, in order to save the universe. Christ: knowingly gave his life for the purpose God called him to. The Doctors future regeneration learns that his choice to put his people at risk, not knowing if they would survive, for the good of the universe paid off in the end. Christ rose so that we would know the choice he made: for us to live and be forgiven.

I have always viewed the Doctor with a Christ-like lens. From the fairly obvious reasons (the Doctor regenerates and constantly gives of himself to save others) to the more hidden ones (the Doctor struggles with his choices, fears the cup that he has been

Anna Morris Youth, Culture, and Consciousness December 15, 2013 given and wishes that someone else would take it). While this Christ-like figure makes mistakes, he sees the good in all people and tries to show that good to everyone else. However, with this paper and reflection, I can also begin to see the humanity within the Doctor as well. Not only does he share similarities to Christ, with the treatment of the War Doctor, we can see an image of Judas. In conjunction, by showing the saving grace to all types of beings, the Doctor also betrays his past self by refusing to see and forgive his own past actions. Perhaps, if I were to write this again, I would take the time to look at the Doctor from a far more human perspective.