Battlestar Galactica and God's Children: Let's go save the world.

By Susan Fox

“Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was called ‘Faithfull and True.’ He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were like a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. He has a name written on his cloak and on his thing, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’” (Rev. 19:11-16)

The agnostic/atheist fans of Battlestar Galactica are livid at the series finale that ran Friday night, according to blog entries at SciFi.com.

The creators of the long-running SciFi show, Battlestar Gallactica, ended the series with a religious theme. Always in the series, there was a “god,” who was almost a mysterious character in his own right, and caused things to happen. The mostly evil machines, known as the cylons, believed in him, the “one true god.” The humans were all polytheists, and in the finale their “gods” clearly lost the ideological battle in the sci-fi sit com.

But there is nothing Christian in the “one true god” of the cylons. He – capricious, cruel and repetitive – gave his cylon converts no 10 commandments and no transforming love. And in the end he kicked them out the door. With few exceptions, the cylons sought to destroy humanity, which had colonized the universe. Dogged by the cylons and led by a book of prophesy, a living remnant of the human race crawled into space ships looking to find the original earth. Found, it was full of radiation and the reason why their ancestors fled in the first place was clear.

However, in the finale, humans and cylons were about to forge a working relationship when an old crime of one of the cylons put a spanner in the works. A dead viper pilot’s hand presses the button to nuke both cylon and human ships. Starbuck, who always felt she had a great mission, remembers a tune from her childhood, plugs it into the ship’s computer and light speed brings everyone to a lush “new earth” while the left-behind cylons are completely destroyed. In short, she saves the day. Everyone abandons the now junky ships and decides to settle on this new planet where there are already primitive human beings.

Having watched the old Battlestar Galactica series and the “modern” one, I guess everyone assumed that the people in the series were our descendents, that they were our future. But arriving at this new lush planet, Hera, the half human, half cylon child, becomes Mother Eve on a new earth, which is recognizably ours thousands of years later. This is apparently the plan of the “one true god” of the cylons.

The atheists and agnostics who followed the series really didn’t need to be so angry about the ending. The god of Battlestar Galactica was a creature of man’s science fiction. There really was nothing Christian in the final episode’s resolution. There is no “creator” – just an endless loop of one humanity leading to another. However, even when science fiction writers try to create a pagan universe, they sometimes stumble on some aspect of the truth of the human heart.

It was really in a little sidebar on the viper pilot Starbuck. A crack male pilot in the original series, Starbuck in the modern series is a hard-living female viper pilot with a destiny to save humanity. She literally died and came back. She found her own dead body when she led everyone to the old earth they had come from. Finding her dead body and realizing she was not a cylon and probably not a living human being, Kara (Starbuck) agonized over who and what she really was. Admiral Adama, who admirably led everyone through the entire series, finally answered her question, “Who am I?” Kara had been his deceased son’s fiancée. Adama reminded Kara, “You are my daughter.” Dead, alive, cylon or human, Kara was loved and had a valued relationship with her fiancée’s father. This affirmation from a beloved father figure probably gave Kara the final courage to save the human race.

I remember one time starting my prayers, and I must have been very disturbed and confused as I said, “Father, I don’t know who I am.” He answered, “Aren’t you my daughter?” Well, Dumb Head, I just called Him, Father, didn’t I?

Sometimes I think we Christians treat our spiritual childhood with God, which we receive at Baptism, as something academic and dimly understood. Father is title, not a relationship. But even the writers of Battlestar Galactica understood that such a relationship confers happiness and dignity on the person so adopted. If a fictional father/daughter relationship causes such happiness in the human heart, how much more so when a Divine, All-Good and All-Loving Being, such as God, decides to adopt one of us inferior creatures -- made in His image and likeness, made with a heart for God.

There is new series starting on television called, “Kings.” I have no intention of watching it. It seems to be about an American King, who selfishly controls everybody’s lives, rewarding his followers with money and women. But the fact that it’s there on television, is a sign that people do hunger for a “king” and a kingdom, and they do hunger for a relationship similar to the spiritual childhood conferred in Baptism. And such really exists. It is God’s kingdom, and God’s kingship. Jesus Christ, according to the Book of Revelation, is the “King of kings, Lord of lords.” But He is good. He is not capricious. He is not cruel, abandoning His own followers to complete annihilation. He is love. And He gives us standards to live by, which will make us happy. They are called the Beatitudes.

St. Faustina, named by Jesus as the Secretary of His Divine Mercy, wrote in her diary many things that Our Lord said to her. In one selection, paragraph #229, she was having doubts about her own peace of heart. Jesus appeared to her and said, “My daughter, imagine that you are the sovereign of all the world and have the power to dispose of all things according to your good pleasure. You have the power to do all the good you want, and suddenly a little child knocks on your door, all trembling and in tears and, trusting in your kindness, asks for a piece of bread lest he die of starvation. What would you do for this child? Answer Me, my daughter.”

The creators of Battlestar Galactica and Kings would kick the kid out the door.

But Faustina answers correctly, “Jesus, I would give the child all it asked and thousand times more.”

“Father, who am I?” we ask the One True God.

And He responds, "You are My child."

Yes, Baptism has bestowed this relationship on us. We are children of God, Our Father, children by adoption. And in that relationship, let’s go save the world!