Why I Call Myself a Jedi

I take part in religious discussions almost as often as political ones. Inevitably,  this leads people to become curious about my  own faith, and for several years  I’ve claimed to be a Jedi. Invariably, this causes people to look at me funny. What varies is the meaning in the look. Sometimes it’s accusing me of being a wise-ass, sometimes it’s judging me to be a Star Wars fanboy. Either way, it destroys all my credibility on the topic and kills the conversation. While I can be a bit of a wise-ass, and I do like Star Wars, neither of these is the case. I’ve put a lot of thought into this version of faith. To understand how I came to this decision, you first must understand how I define God, and then how I interpret the Old Testament and the New.
God is not some dude sitting on a throne in the clouds with a righteous beard, as he is often depicted in pop culture. I think this is how churchgoers, Hollywood, and even preachers have come to picture him over the centuries. Not that I think our religious leaders picture him as the only 5-fingered character in the Simpsons, but they picture him as physically a man. The Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a depiction of 3 separate entities that function interchangeably and simultaneously. Of course God must be a man, because we were created in His image, right? I’ll come back to that.
God is an intangible entity. God is love. God is goodness. God is life. You cannot see Him, but you can see evidence of Him, and if you open your heart and mind, you can feel Him. He is in everything, and every person. He is your conscience, your good idea, your urge to hold someone who is crying. The Chinese concept of chi is actually more accurate than the Western idea of a man. When we were created in His image, it doesn’t mean we were created with our eyes, hands, toes, and buttocks in the same place as the Almighty. This means we were created with His love, goodness, life, and conscience.
God’s angels in similar fashion, are not winged humans. That is an artistic representation by Michelangelo that was adopted by the subconscious of western culture. Angels are agents of God. They are his fingers, working for the goodness and love that is God. When someone feels like something isn’t quite right, so they check it out, that is angelic inspiration. When the investigate, find someone in need of help, and help them, they are an angel for the time being. If you’ve been stranded on the side of the road, but someone stops to help change your tire, you were helped by an angel.
The Bible is also very much taken too literally. If you’ve ever opened it, you’ve noticed it is subdivided into Testaments, Books, chapters, and verses. These individual verses are then taken out of context, studied, and argued about. Wars have been fought over individual verses of the Bible. The Old Testament was written by barely literate Hebrews living in the desert, based on divine inspiration and their own spin on life. It was written by them, and for them. Genesis, the story of creation, was written in such a way they could understand. There’s no way to explain eons, dinosaurs, ice ages, and evolution to them. If you lie the timelines of Creation and the Big Bang side by side, they look pretty similar. First, there was nothing, and God said, “Let there be light.” First, there was chaos in the form of an electron field, until electrons managed to bump into each other at just the right force and angle that a photon was created. It continues from there. Leviticus was written to help them survive and prosper. At the time, procreation was absolutely necessary for survival, so homosexuality was a bad thing. Tattoos were forbidden because they would die of hepatitis. The New Testament was written after Jesus of Nazareth denounced the old teachings, and the old churches, and taught his followers that times had changed and that it’s okay to not fight. It’s preferable to love one another.
Sometimes, we forget that science and religion are not exclusive of each other. Science is a method of study and discovery, not a belief system. Science has neither proven nor disproven the existence of God. It has proven the existence of goodness, and love, and conscience. That is God. That is the intangible entity that is God. That is the intangible force that makes us want to do good things. That intangible force is simplified to the Force, and my belief in that doesn’t make me a Christian in the traditional sense of the word, so I don’t identify with that definition. What can you call a man that believes in, and strives to understand, commune with, and serve the Force? The only way I could answer that question is: I am a Jedi.