Star Wars Borrowed From Christianity, Used by One Catholic Chaplain
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Atheist Republic (News)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): n.d.
The Edmonton Journal reported on modern religious education and how one chaplain in Canada has been incorporating Star Wars into the classroom.
Mike Landry is from Spruce Grove and a Roman Catholic chaplain at Evergreen Catholic Schools. He teaches lessons about the Bible through comparisons with the First Order and the Resistance.
“When you’re sitting in a religion class, you’ve got people from all these backgrounds who come from all these different perspectives,” Landry said, “and you’re trying to see how you can meet all of them where they are without them feeling pushed, or judged, or forced, but inviting them into something that I believe will help them.”
Landry argued for the parallels between the Star Wars universe and Christianity when speaking at the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Convention last week. Not the first Edmonton chaplain to take advantage of these corollaries, Landry said he is continuing the work of the late Father Michael Mireau. Father Michael Mireau often weaved Star Wars references into his homilies. He would bring Star Wars into his religious lectures and wave a light sabre around from the pulpit. Mireau died of cancer at the age of 42 in 2014.
Landry works at St. Peter the Apostle School and visits an additional 9 schools within his division. Star Wars by George Lucas, the creator and developer of the franchise, was heavily borrowed upon. The Force, the Jedi Council, the Sith, the Jedi, and so on, have been pulled from the mythological world into a modern multi-billion-dollar franchise of Christianity.
“I don’t think they have trouble understanding (religious teachings). I think they have trouble wanting to understand. They want to see that it’s relevant to them.” Landry said, “A Jewish carpenter from 20 centuries ago, what does he have to do with what I’m doing in Spruce Grove today? And sometimes these stories become a nice bridge.”
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