c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In the original “Star Trek” series, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise explored new worlds, sought out new life and new civilizations and boldly went “where no man has gone before.”

And once in a while, when advanced technology failed them, they even took a leap of faith.

Those leaps of faith gave “Star Trek” soul _ transforming an ordinary television series into something transcendent, according to “The Truth is Out There,” a new book on science fiction and Christianity.

Often in “Star Trek,” phaser beams or warp drives alone couldn’t save the crew of the Enterprise. Instead, something as simple as human compassion came to the rescue, said Kim Paffenroth, professor of religious studies at Iona College in New York, and co-author of “The Truth Is Out There.”

Paffenroth points to a “Trek” episode called “Arena” as an example. In it, a human colony is destroyed by aliens known as the Gorn. When the Enterprise pursues the Gorn ship, intent on revenge, Kirk and the Gorn captain are captured by a race called the Metrons. The two are forced to fight to the death for the survival of their crews. At the climax of the show, Kirk refuses to finish off his helpless opponent. Both crews are saved by that act of mercy.

“In that episode, Kirk very manfully and courageously says that he will not kill for someone else’s amusement, or even for his own revenge, and if the aliens wish to kill him for that _ then so be it,” Paffenroth said in an e-mail interview.

Along with “Star Trek,” Paffenroth and his co-author Thomas Bertonneau, professor of English at State University of New York at Oswego, said they’ve found echoes of Christianity in five other classic sci-fi television series: “Dr. Who”; “The Prisoner”; “The Twilight Zone”; “The X-Files”; and “Babylon 5.”

Bertonneau said that these sci-fi series employ a trick first perfected by Jonathan Swift in “Gulliver’s Travels.” They take a familiar problem to an unfamiliar setting. “ `The Twilight Zone’ works that way _ you take a familiar problem and displace it into a new context, and you see it in a clearer light,” Bertonneau said in an interview.

Bertonneau said Rod Serling, creator of “The Twilight Zone,” and Gene Roddenberry, creator of “Star Trek,” were both “cantankerous prophets.” While neither was especially religious, they both had a strong sense of right and wrong, which comes through in their art. They also understood that the best way to explore moral issues isn’t for characters to give sermons _ but instead to put them in moral dilemmas where answers are unclear and watch them search for a solution.

That idea resonates with John Scalzi, author of the sci-fi novels “Old Man’s War” and “The Ghost Brigades.”

“I think it’s true that characters are more interesting when they don’t already have the answers _ when what they have to guide them are not hard-and-fast rules, but rather the need to practically apply their own moral and ethical sense,” Scalzi said in an e-mail interview.

“And I think that it’s resonant when characters, particularly those with a strong moral or religious sense, have that moment of doubt _ when they do have to decide to continue on through faith. No matter how fantastic the setting, that’s a fundamentally human event.”

The importance of doubt is a lesson that Bertonneau said that newer sci-fi television series miss. For example, the newly revived “Battlestar Galactica” “tries too hard” to look at moral issues. “It’s front-loaded with moral cliches rather than genuine moral struggles,” he said.

Bertonneau said that “The X-Files,” in which FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully try to sort out a worldwide conspiracy involving UFOs and other paranormal phenomenon, addresses another important religious reality. “I think that `The X-files’ makes a really important theological point that revelation isn’t necessarily an event at the end of time _ revelation is happening all the time, all around us.”

Because of that, “every ethical person is obligated to discern the signs of the times” and determine what is good in a culture and what needs to be opposed, according to Bertonneau.

While doing that, Bertonneau added, writers should bear in mind one more lesson from classic sci-fi _ and not take themselves too seriously.

He said that sci-fi series like “Star Trek” knew how to poke fun of themselves. Once in a while, they would set morality aside for the good fun of an episode such as “The Trouble with Tribbles” _ in which the Enterprise was threatened by cuddly, furry creatures who multiplied like rabbits.

“People who take morality seriously have to be able to make fun of themselves,” Bertonneau said.

DSB/JL END SMIETANA