The church of science fiction FANDOM

2 thoughts on “The church of science fiction FANDOM”

1. Greetings Damien,

   I listened to this podcast with interest and found nothing to offend me at the points where you indicated that some people might be offended, in fact I wasn’t offended at all, but I did take issue with some of your descriptions of Christianity and the early church, at around the 2 hour mark, you were, of course, just ‘going off on one’ and so this wasn’t prepared or scripted but I thought I’d push back on some of your comments.

   You said: “Christianity as we recognise it now is emerging through the fourteen to sixteen hundreds.” I think here you are talking about the reformation, but many contemporary strands of our faith are sourced from Christ’s time (the Eucharist, the concept of church itself) or from the 3rd and 4th century – the monastic movement. We have the Celtic tradition in the 5th century, the Orthodox church starts in the 11th Century, so it’s a bit of mix from the last 2000 years.

   “The mythos of Christ is an adaptation of older hero myths” – this is only true if you call the fulfilment of Jewish prophecy an adaptation, Christ declares his own mythos and identifies as the promised Messiah. When the high priest asks Jesus at his trial if he is the Messiah he says “I am”. (Mark 14).

   This is also the context in which His identity as King is established , this authority comes from prophecies in Isaiah 9, Daniel 7, and is recognised in Revelation 17. These are the contexts for Christ, not the ancient Greek or Roman myths.

   “He (Christ) is not creating a new Kingdom on earth he is creating the Kingdom of heaven and he is bringing salvation” Yes and no, he is doing something much more subtle. He is bringing the Kingdom of God, here and now, He is not just promising heaven in the sense of ‘when you die you go to heaven’.

   “The old testament stories… are being written in various monasteries around the middle east” – I suspect you didn’t really mean this, given that monasteries didn’t come into being until the 4th century CE this wasn’t where the OT stories were written, they’d be around for centuries before then.

   “It (Christianity) is fundamentally a Roman religion”. No it’s not. It’s a ‘Jewish’ religion and Christianity in its early manifestation is very different from Rome in terms of belief about God and values and culture. Christianity has a different view of human rights, a different perception of the value of children, a different sexual ethic, and it’s monotheistic not polytheistic. It’s an aRoman or anti Roman religion.

   If you have the time and are interested, I recommend Tom Holland’s book Dominion as a good primer in the social and cultural context of the Christian faith from its inception to now.

   All that said, the fundamental premise of your thesis is true I think. There are plenty of similarities between the structures and psychology of the early church and SF fandom, but the point can be well made without these misrepresentations of Christianity.

   All this is offered without antagonism and with best wishes!

   Andy Chamberlain

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2. Ok so if we take seriously your theory Damien that fandom is essentially a nascent religious culture, still mostly anarchic but starting to form churches (with rituals, gatekeepers, and exclusive central myths), then there are a few questions to ask. I believe you predicted at one point that fandoms will increasingly consolidate into more into full fledged churches (like Scientology and the Church of All Worlds), and since you are confident that politics are always involved, what do you see as the future of the relationship between the churches. Will it be like the ancient world where the hoi polloi were allowed to have their cults as long as they didn’t bother others? Will a powerful politician adopt and this co-opt one cult/church and impose it on others? When do the wars (real wars, not just online wars) of religion start? And since you don’t consider yourself part of fandom, where do you personally stand in relation to its nascent religious culture? Are you an independent theologian, philosopher, monk?

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