Use the Force, Luke
The religion in genre and the genre religion.
      by Rachel Hyland

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Dogma's heavenly creatures.

It's a touchy subject, is Belief. (And, yes, Skeptic Person, I do know this, all prior evidence to the contrary.) It's a deeply personal, highly emotional, fraught-laden topic. Like bowling. (Well... it could be. You try thinking up a metaphor for something so important. Bet ya can't.) It's the kind of thing that sparks war and strife, famine and flood. Plagues of locusts and the killings of the firstborn. And nothing shakes faith in a deity like the kind of trials and tribulations like... well, people, face.

Which is where angels come in. Avatars of the all-holy, envoys of their chosen entities, angels in many forms are sent as messengers to bring hope, love and the derision of their friends and families to lucky believers everywhere. Whether the spirit-horse Companions of Mercedes Lackey's wondrous Valdemar novels (I so want one!), the Guardian Angels of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in Two of a Kind (don't mock unless you've seen it), or the paisley-dress-clad Roma Downey from TV's Touched by an Angel (saving the lives and souls of God-ignoring Christians everywhere), they are to many a comforting presence in an often uncertain world.

But me, I really only brought them up so that I could segue directly into Angel.

This is no flimsy pretext just to get yet another delectable picture of David Boreanaz in this magazine. (Would I do that?) No, Angel and religion are inextricably intertwined. After all, he's a vampire. He's all scared of crosses. Holy water, sacred ground, the little wafer snacks they pass out so sparingly at Communion. (Those priests are always bogarting the wafer snacks.) He, like most vampires, sees a crucifix and flinches back in pain, as though he just saw "Where the Wild Things Are." He gets a drop of thrice-blessed water poured on him and he howls as though he were an entirely other form of mythological beast. Haven't seen the consecrated ground thing with him yet, but I'm pretty sure he won't be helping with any grave excavating activities anytime soon. (Though, for a guy who's susceptible to the dirt there, he sure used to hang out in cemeteries a lot. Then again, he also seems inexplicably fond of daylight.)

For a vampire, Angel does get out in the sun an awful lot...

Why vampires fear the power of what amounts to a geometric shape, and how even water that they know not be blessed can hurt them, I just do not know. There are theories, of course. Buffy creator Joss Whedon would have it that the demon fears the holiness implied by the crucifix, not the person it possesses, which accounts for once-human vampires of all creeds being affected. (Though, how about that holy water thing, Joss? Explain that away with your fancy double-talk.) Others suggest that it is the power of the relic itself, the belief that so many hold in that transected stick, that gives the symbol its down and dirty destructive capability. Others believe that a vampire is only perturbed by the cross if, on some level, he or she believes in it... and still others opine that vampires are only made up anyway and what does it matter why they can be killed by a combusting crucifix if they're Buddhist, and why don't you just shut up and try to get out of the house once in a while...

Woah. Flashback.

The subject of vampires, and crosses and demons (and getting out of the house more), brings to mind the ever-intriguing subject of Heaven and Hell. As South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut would have it, the road to Heaven is paved with scantily clad Amazons and the road to Hell is paved not with good intentions, but with an enjoyment of the work of Terrance and Phillip. End of Days gave us Gabriel Byrne as the Devil, American Gothic gave us Gary Cole as the Devil and Meet Joe Black gave us Brad Pitt as Death in the devil of a bad movie. (Hey, Mr. The Devil! Look, I'm a sinner! Take me!) But it was that masterpiece of cinema (bater), Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, that gave us Keanu and the tragically under-appreciated Alex Winter paying visits to both God's domain and Satan's. What a life lesson that taught! In Heaven they play Charades. In Hell, they play chess. The difference being? Although, sometimes in Hell you play Diablo, and get to kill Mephisto the Satan-wannabe... which confuses me. When God said "thou shalt not kill," did that include the not killing of Beelzebub? The Prince of Darkness? Lucifer, The Tempter, The Evil One, The Adversary? (Man, The Devil has a lot of names. I wonder how he signs his Christmas cards?)

Of course, in Christian/Catholic/Jewish faith, The Devil was once a good ol' boy just like Uriel and Ezekiel and all those other hosts of God (except Ezekiel may be a prophet of some sort. Possibly one of the more depressing Old Testament kind). Oh, how are the mighty fallen! Though, naturally, all naughty-types may be redeemed. Xena was evil and she got good. Angel was bad and demonically possessed -- and sometimes still is, when it's sweeps. Characters in genre -- and you gotta include The Bible in that category, what with the talking snake and the parting the sea and the walking on water and all -- have been finding their path to salvation through good works and penitence and looking hot since time immemorial. Maybe one day even Satan will be converted from the Dark Side of the Force.

Well, assuming his midichlorian count isn't too high.

Sigh. Midichlorians. Just another example of the way science inevitably kills religion, mercilessly logics it out of existence with proofs and theorems and hypotheses. But science is a religion all on its own. And so too is Science Fiction.

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