A Star Trek Conversation with Mike Poteet - Episode 372
In this hour‑long episode of the Voices in My Head podcast, host Rick Lee James interviews Presbyterian minister and curriculum writer Michael Potete to explore why Star Trek resonates with many Christians and how the franchise’s science‑fiction storytelling intersects with real‑world technology, social justice, and theology. The conversation opens with a brief history of Star Trek’s debut in 1966 and moves into personal recollections of how both guests first encountered the series. They discuss the show’s prescient technological concepts—tablets, communicators, replicators, tractor beams, cloaking devices, and transporters—and note how many have become reality. The dialogue then shifts to the series’ use of allegory to address contemporary issues, especially the unrest, police violence, and pandemic of 2020. Specific episodes are examined: the Original Series “Day of the Dove” (hatred‑feeding alien as a metaphor for social media), TNG’s “I, Borg” (individuality, forgiveness, and prejudice), Deep Space Nine’s “Past Tense” (poverty and systemic failure), and others such as “Who Watches the Watchers?” and “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Throughout, the hosts connect these narratives to Christian concepts of forgiveness, compassion, the Prime Directive, and the struggle between false gods and true faith. They also reference Kevin C. Nice’s book The Gospel According to Star Trek and reflect on the ongoing relevance of Star Trek’s optimistic vision of humanity, while acknowledging that progress is not guaranteed. The episode concludes with a benediction and a call for listeners to engage with the podcast and the host’s broader creative work.
Chapters
Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Give it a try today. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you are here to listen in on what I know is going to be another great conversation. Well, on September 8, 1966, NBC aired the first episode of a new TV show about a starship on a 5-year mission of space exploration. That series was called, as you may have guessed, Star Trek. The first episode told of an endangered, shape-shifting, salt-sucking alien posing as a human woman to lure prey to its lair. Over 50 years, nearly 1,000 episodes, and at least 8 spin-off series and 13 movies later, we've yet to meet seen any shape-shifting salt vampires in real life. We have, however, seen a surprising number of ideas and technologies that appeared on the show over the years, and they've come to pass in the real world. We wanted to talk about some of those things, as well as some of the social and theological implications of the show. My guest tonight is Michael Potete, who is a Presbyterian minister in the PCUSA Church. He currently is serving at the larger church as a curriculum writer, and he and his wife and their two children live near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I invited Mike on the show tonight because I know that he loves Star Trek like I do, and I thought he would be a great person to have a conversation about Star Trek in this what might be a Trek moment that we are in right now. So Michael, welcome to Voices in My Head.
Thank you, Rick. Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm always happy to talk Star Trek. And, uh, no, I just— as he were— as you were Talking about that first episode, you know, that was only the first episode on the air because NBC deemed it appropriately science fictional, right? You know, because it wasn't the first one filmed. The first one filmed was quite cerebral. They— and that was a, a ding against it in NBC's eyes. But, uh, but, but I was thinking as you were talking about that episode, even that one with the salt-sucking, shape-shifting, uh, vampire creature.
Yeah.
Um, even that one has some of the, uh the more high-minded philosophical bent that Star Trek likes to be known for because that creature was the last of its kind. There's an ecological undertone. Granted, it's not the major emphasis of the show. The major emphasis of that hour is keeping everybody safe from the creature.
Sure.
But there are some nods to, you know, this creature being the last of its kind, and you can start thinking of that about how we relate to the rest of creation and other life. And so even though it's maybe not the most typical Star Trek episodes, it's got some elements in it that Star Trek would come to be known for, for sure.
Yeah, well, I'm excited to have you back on the show tonight so we can talk about, you know, some of those elements and things about the show. And just to let everybody know, if you haven't listened to one of our past episodes— and we were talking before the show, I think it was almost 2 years ago now— we had a Twilight Zone discussion on one of the best shows, I think, from that whole series, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. And I think it was something that I enjoyed so much and had a great conversation with you about, because it's one of those times where science fiction was used to talk about real-world issues that were going on at the time. And it was, it was a show about paranoia. It was a show really about violence and, and the mob mentality. And, you know, we're in this, this moment right now where literally there are riots going on around us. The day of this recording, it's, uh, the, the last day of May 2020. Um, there, there's been this, this terrible, um, killing by a police officer. And, and, uh, there's just so much going on in our world right now, so much unrest. We're in the time of pandemic. And one reason that I really wanted to talk to you right now is I have been Maybe retreating is not quite the word because I don't feel like I've been able to retreat from anything. I feel like I've been working 3 times as hard since this kind of pandemic has happened. But kind of in the evening, one thing I've been doing is just watching more Star Trek. And I've been watching shows that I'd never seen before. Like, I just finished finally Enterprise, and I finished Voyager and shows that I just never had the chance to watch before. I always loved the original series, and I always loved Next Generation and and Deep Space Nine. But now I have officially, unless you count, um, the cartoon, which I, which I don't specifically, I, I've seen every episode of every Star Trek show, including Picard and Discovery, up to this point. Okay, so I'm feeling like I accomplished something, even though I just caught up for now, because for now of a whole new era of Star Trek content.
That's right, which we haven't seen since the late '80s, early '90s.
Definitely. So, so one thing that's so interesting to me, you know, referencing that Twilight Zone episode we talked about, um, there are some things that happen in the Star Trek storyline where they use science fiction again to talk about some very real-world things. And we are in a very serious moment in time right now. People are hurting, uh, people are grieving. They're, they're, they're going through every stage of grief right now. Um, with, with all that has been happening in the world. Even, even before, um, this, this police violence had happened, um, we were already in a state of, of unrest, you know, even before the pandemic. I mean, politically, the, the whole, the whole culture is just in a hurting state. So, so let's talk about some, some things that a show like Star Trek dealt with, and maybe things that we might think it might deal with in the future. So just as we begin today, Michael, I know you're a big fan of the show like I am. Tell me, what is your Star Trek story? Where did you kind of first come in contact with it in your life, and what hooked you about it?
Hmm, I— well, I came into sporadic contact with Star Trek as a kid. Um, I was born in '72, so the show was off the air by the time I was watching television, but I was given a Star Trek story LP. It was actors, you know, doing radio play type news stories of Star Trek as a kid when the, when the motion picture came out. And I did get one of the, the, the first McDonald's Happy Meal was the Star Trek: The Motion Picture meal. And I can remember chowing down on that at my local McDonald's. But I didn't become a Star Trek fan until we moved when I was in middle school. And as I was making friends at this new school, there was a group of guys who watched 5 PM afternoon Star Trek reruns on WPTF Channel 28, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. And so to have something in common with them, I started watching it, and that's where I got into it. So it's nice because I enjoyed the show for itself and have ever since, but it had this sense of community around it for me. They hadn't seen most of the episodes. I'd never seen any of them. So we'd watch it and then the next day at lunch at school talk about it. Friendships formed over that. One of my good friends from that period I'm still in touch with and we still talk about Star Trek and other things from time to time.
That's terrific. That's great. Well, you know—
I've loved— since I was a—
Oh, sorry, you still— oh, okay, I thought you had cut out for a second. Sorry.
No, I don't know, I'm still here.
I, I was just gonna say, um, I, I'm chuckling to myself a little bit when you mentioned the Star Trek: The Motion Picture Happy Meal, uh, because I'm trying to envision any child, uh, maybe of any era who found that movie to be like something they really would want to see, you know, because it's kind of a— it's kind of a long, slow movie, especially by today's standards.
It is. I have heard from people online, you know, Facebook and other places, they remember being children at that age and very excited to go see it because it was the Enterprise on the big screen, you know.
Well, that's true. And you know what, I'm sure it makes a difference when you see it on a big screen too. And if you haven't seen everything that we've seen now, like you can't judge it by today's standards for special effects and things for sure. But I still think it's a pretty good movie. It was It's only recently that I realized that the motion picture is actually a remake of one of the Star Trek episodes. I mean, when the— I can't remember the name of the episode now, but the robot that beams onto the ship. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like a satellite that was launched, and it's very much like— I don't know if anybody ever credited it that way, but if you watch it now, it's like, holy moly, they've just based the entire movie on this one episode of the show.
Well, that's the uncharitable way of— It's very heavily influenced by The Changeling. Yeah, for sure. The episode Changeling.
Changeling, that's right.
Yes. Yeah, for sure. It hits a lot of the same beats. I think it holds up remarkably well though as a— I mean, it is slow. So by today's standards, it's very long. And of course, it was rushed into theaters. They had a very set December 7th, I think, was the date it had to be in theaters. No matter what. So it was unfinished when it was put out, but a few years ago— well, I say a few years ago, maybe 15 years ago now— before he died, Robert Wise was able to complete his cut of the motion picture, and they put it out as a special edition on DVD. It was the thing that convinced me to buy a DVD player. But, and it runs a little tighter, and some of the character beats are played up a little more. Listening to the people's commentary track, one thing they'd stress that I'd never noticed was it's a movie about trying to make connections. The crew is coming back together after time apart and they're struggling to reconnect with each other. This 40-year-old spoiler alert, this probe that Earth launched back in the 21st century is coming back centuries later transformed, trying to connect with the people who created it. And there's lots of theological overtones about creatures' attempts to connect with God and the transcendent. So it's a rich movie. I used to make all the jokes too about the motionless picture and so forth, but I appreciate it more and more as it As it gets older, as I get older. If nothing else, it's got such a fantastic score by Jerry Goldsmith going for it.
Well, and you know what, you're right, that score, and it would last for a long time. They use it all throughout The Next Generation and everything else.
Oh yeah.
And you know what's interesting is that for Christmas this year, I was given the book of the motion picture and I read it, and then I also recently read the comic book adaptation of it, which is both of them are quite a bit different from the film. And I'm not sure if I've ever seen the director's cut. I may have to seek that out because that sounds good. But, but there are parts of it in the— especially in the, uh, the graphic novel— I thought, oh, I wish they would have done that, you know, like in the film. Because it wasn't, it wasn't anything that was like super high-tech. It just kind of made the story tighter. And it probably was something more like what the director had in mind. But, but I, I do have a special place in my heart for that movie. It's not my favorite Star Trek movie, but I don't think it's as bad as everybody's, you know, says it is for sure. Well, you know, one thing I want to talk about is, before we get too much deeper in here, one thing that's interesting to me about science fiction versus like fantasy— science fiction generally is material that could plausibly happen. You know, somewhere in the future. Like, it doesn't generally involve magic or, you know, things that are just, uh, like supernatural or anything like that. That would really be more like in the realm of fantasy. Um, now sometimes it seems like it's, it's more magic, but it seems like especially the, the science fiction that Star Trek puts forth, um, it's almost the idea that if it seems to be like magic to you, it's just that you have not advanced far enough yet in your technology to understand how it works type thing. So yeah, um, So I find that so fascinating because just even from that original series in the '60s, we've got so many things in the real world now that seem to have been maybe inspired. And I almost wonder if a whole generation of engineers, you know, watched that show and thought, oh, we need to make one of those type things.
I think it's got to be. Definitely.
It has to be.
There's too many. Yeah.
And here's just a short list of a few of them. And if you think of anything else you know, but these are things that we at least have versions of them now. For one thing, tablet computers. I mean, they had tablets all over the place on that show, and, um, and we've obviously got them everywhere. Even now we have them in our pocket, you know, they're just so little. Um, there are things like tractor beams that are real life now. Um, there, there obviously are phones like flip communicators. Remember back in not the not too distant past, you know, we all had these flip phones we carried around that were cell phones. And every time I used one, I thought, this has to be inspired from one of the Star Trek phones.
Went out of style because, yeah, I could always pretend I was Captain Kirk calling the Enterprise. Exactly.
There is that kid in me that I would always imagine that when I used it, for sure. Um, but there are things like, like hyper, uh, hyposprays, um, replicators. If you just think of like 3D printers and things like that, you know, that we have now, which may not be exactly what a replicator is, but it seems an awful lot like, you know, something like that. They're even like cloaking devices. They're actually literally cloaks that certain branches of the military are using now that can, can cloak, literally like make a person invisible in the environment that they're in, which is something straight out of the show. Transparent aluminum, and I have no idea how that works, but we have it. We have things like obviously Bluetooth headsets. And Ohura, I think she had the very first one. She always had that thing in her ear, you know?
Einberger device, yes.
That's right. And you know, there's just a ton of other things that we have, everything from floppy disks and USB sticks and things like that. It just goes on and on and on for sure. Automatic doors. I don't know if there were any back at that time, but you can't go shopping without it at this point.
That's right, that's right. And even just the access to the internet that we have It's like living with the Enterprise computer, especially if you have voice-activated, Google's Siri or Alexa or things like that. My mother-in-law likes to make jokes about, well, if she doesn't know something, she asks Mr. Google. That's what they would do on Star Trek all the time. If they didn't know something, they just asked the computer. It's amazing that we've kind of I heard somebody talk about how as a species we're outsourcing more and more of our memory to the internet, and of course there's good and bad that could come along with that, but just being able to address the air and get the answer to your question, or even if you're not using voice activated, in a matter of seconds you can get hundreds of thousands of answers. Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing.
And I had even seen somewhere that we're obviously, I'm sure, uh, to, to use a phrase from the show, light years away from it. But they're, they're even working on transporter technology right now. And I've even read some stories about, I mean, things, they're very minuscule, like, like on the atomic level, but they've been able to figure out how to transport them, you know, from one place to another.
The mind-blowing stuff, all the quantum physics Did you see the news story a few weeks ago now, from when we're recording this, about an experiment in Antarctica that supposedly detected particles that the popular press was saying— I've seen some nuancing that says maybe not so, but the press was saying could be evidence of a parallel universe?
Oh, really?
No, I hadn't seen that. Yeah, because, you know, again, very small particles flowing the opposite way they should be and maybe moving backward in time. So yeah, the headlines were, "Oh, NASA detects evidence of a parallel universe." And again, the credible scientists say, "No, no, don't go there. There are many things we could propose before we get to that to explain what's happening." But it did make me think, so there's a universe out there where I've got the goatee and, you know, I'm your Spock.
That's right. There's an evil Mike out there somewhere for sure.
There's an evil Rick Kuzanaka, great Christian musician, you know.
Yeah, I make terrible death metal music about despair and agony. Yeah, things like that. Well, this is great. Well, I'm— it is fun to think about some of those things that, that I, I feel like a show like that really was filling people's imaginations, for lack of a better way to say it. And I, and I feel like we've seen a lot of those things, which, which is amazing. And, uh, it's It's startling when you think that probably in the last 100 to 150 years we've seen more technological and rapid change to technology than we have in the last 1,000 years. So it's kind of something to think about where we may be if, if the trend keeps continuing in that direction. But let's talk about some of the themes of certain shows. You had some great ideas of of some episodes to talk about, and we're kind of going to skip around. We're not going to have time to talk about like every show we like for sure, but let's talk a little bit about one that I think it just may be relevant right now, even though it's a show from the original series from the '60s called Day of the Dove. And I rewatched it last night in anticipation of this episode. But quickly, kind of give us your take and describe that episode if you don't mind, just for people who might not have seen it, or maybe it's been a long time since they've seen it, and maybe we can talk about some of the ways that the themes of that show might be relevant to us today.
Yeah, well, uh, the short of it is, um, the Enterprise arrives at a planet where supposedly a Federation colony has been wiped out by the Klingons, and the, uh, the Klingons show up, um, claiming the Enterprise is attacked. Their vessel. So they all end up on the Enterprise together, the Federation folks we follow, Kirk, Spock, all the rest, and their Klingon adversaries. And hostilities keep increasing among them on the ship to the point that swords materialize out of thin air.
Yeah, they just appear.
Yeah, just appear. Turns out this is all the work of an alien intelligence represented by a glowing spinning disk in the effects of the time, but this being feeds off hatred, feeds off malevolent energy, and so it's doing all it can to stoke the animosities that already exist between the Starfleet crew and the Klingon crew to make those worse. And inflame those, because that's what it lives on. Once they figure this out, they call a truce and literally laugh the thing off the ship in the closing moments. That episode really struck me in the context of recent events, and I don't want to in any way minimize what's going on in the real world right now. It's hard and difficult times and I don't want to in any way minimize that, but you mentioned earlier about maybe retreating, being the word or not being the word, into shows like Star Trek during a time like this. I think it has the potential to be just escapism, but I also think— good stories can spark ideas and can help us then go out and do things differently. And so I think Star Trek has episodes like "Day of the Dove" that can help in that degree, however limited it may be in times like this.
Well—
Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
No, I was just going to say it was interesting too, because I was trying to put some context behind it, knowing they were in the middle of the Vietnam War., you know, at that time. And there would have been, I'm sure, you know, some of the same rioting and protests and things that are happening right now with this, you know, with the death of Mr. Lloyd that just happened. And I even had an aunt that had said something on social media and said, this reminds me so much of the '60s, seeing all these protests and riots again. And, and it's interesting that you know, that alien who keeps feeding off of hatred and it keeps making their aggression build. And that alien's name is Twitter. No, I'm kidding. No, but it does seem like you're right. The more that the alien is able to feed, or feed them even, you know, their violence and hatred. There's a really unsettling scene with Chekhov Yeah, in that show, unsettling. And it's, and it's not just, it's not just that he becomes violent. I mean, he's, it seems like he's about to, uh, to, to rape a woman almost, you know, this Klingon lady, Klingon commander's wife. And yeah, and it's even watching it now in our modern context when there's so much more even graphic and, and explicit things on, I mean, just in that moment watching it again last night, I thought, boy, this is This is really like creepy just to see this happening and to see where we go. Yeah, it's shortly after that, um, you know, Kirk runs in and he sees what's happening and he stops him and, you know, he attacks Chekov, knocks him out. And then at the end of that scene, Kirk is, um, I mean, he's almost like repentant that he had to strike Chekov. I don't know if you remember.
Oh yeah, I mean, that's one reason it's unsettling because I think where that episode made today There might be some attention paid to the trauma Chekov inflicted on Mara, the Klingon, but it's all about— yeah, so that angle of sympathy for the victim of this aggressive act, Chekov, that's not there. And I think the story would be better for it and it would be there today if they made it today, but 50 years ago it was progressive for its time, I guess.
For sure. Well, he— and he even says, as Kirk is carrying Chekov away after he's knocked him out, he says, is this— he says, is this what's in store for us from here on in? Violence, hatred, he says, you know.
Yeah.
And, and then the next scene when they're, they're in sickbay and trying to revive him, Kirk's lamenting, I lost control. And he said, we're becoming animal warriors. And I just— I do think that, that hatred and violence, it just feeds that way. And for— if we're not careful It is so easy to let those emotions overcome us, especially about people that we don't understand or biases we may have. And that alien's whole thing was feeding off of their biases and feeding off of notions that they had. And that might be an interesting way to talk about another episode which flash-forwards into the future, which you also had suggested we talk about, which is the Next Generation episode "I, Borg." And That one is also a really interesting episode because it— if anybody's familiar with the show or not familiar with the show, the Borg are about the most terrifying alien being you could imagine because they come and assimilate you and they all share one collective hive mind together. So if, for instance, they're in a battle If somebody comes at them with, with a phaser and shoots one of them to stop them, well, all of them suddenly learn from that and they find a new way to resist whatever that phaser frequency was. And so that, that phaser won't work anymore on them after that, and they just come after you. And, you know, the line that's so famous that everyone knows that's watched the show, you know, about you will be assimilated, you know, resistance is futile. Resistance is futile. Or feudal, whoever's saying it. And this episode focuses in on— they find a life form on a planet and they beam down to find it, and it is a Borg person that has been left behind. And they immediately— several of the crew, I think it's Worf and different ones, they just want to kill it, you know, and, and put it out of its misery, or leave it there for the Borg to come back. But Dr. Crusher, she won't have it. She's a doctor and she's basically insists, I will treat this patient here. There is a living being who needs help, and I'm gonna treat him no matter who he is, Borg or not. So the whole episode there, they're really struggling with the idea that this Borg taken away from the collective, that he could actually be something more than just Borg, you know. And if you get him away from that hive mind that this Borg actually does become more human and, and less aggressive, and it actually starts to think of the Enterprise crew as friends. And it's interesting because they kind of play that out in Star Trek Voyager with Seven of Nine, because she gets— yeah, you know, but this was sort of a precursor to that. And, and all of them, including Picard, who— Picard was assimilated at one point, you know— they have to deal with these these prejudices. And there's this great scene where Picard and Guinan are in like a holodeck doing a fencing tournament, you know, and she acts like she's hurt, and Picard stops the fencing match to check on her, and then she gets him with her sword, you know. And right, and, and she says— I forget, she's— she says something like, you know, 'You, you felt sorry for me, look what it got you.' Because she, she's really prejudiced against the Borg because of what they did to her people. And so You know, Picard at one point even, you know, she asks him later, you know, did you talk to the Borg? And he says something to the extent of, no, I didn't feel any need to. I'm not even gonna talk to him. I just know he's evil through and through. And, and, and so Guinan, she, she has to change her take on it. Picard has to change his take because they, they see him for who he is. And, and it's a very moving episode for sure, and it deals with a lot of our preconceived notions and our experiences with people. But, but what, what's your kind of take on that? What does that kind of emote with you?
Well, yeah, what I love about that episode is that they very deliberately took an individual out of this big bad enemy and forced the characters, and then by extension the viewers, to treat that person as a person. I think I read an interview with the writer, I think, once who said, "Yeah, once you look somebody in the eye, it's a lot harder than to view them as the other." And it's not as though with both this and with Day of the Dove, it's not that these peoples have no legitimate reasons for distrust and for anger and even for hatred, like I would When I was watching "Day of the Dove," to go back to that for a second, there's a couple of lines that you have to dig for it, but there's a couple of lines that suggest there really are reasons for grievances on both sides. Kang, the Klingon commander, says near the end, "We need no urging to hate humans." It's kind of played for a joke at that point because that's the point when they're laughing the alien off the ship. As I was thinking, watching this episode in the context we're in now,— I think the message to take away would not be if everybody just pretends nothing is wrong and slaps each other on the back and has a good laugh that things get better. I think, you know, I'd like to think after that episode there was some ground paved for the Klingons and the Federation to talk about some of their different— maybe planting some seeds for down the road because of course by the time of The Next Generation, the Klingon Empire and the Federation are allies. You know, it's not that there's never a reason for anger or suspicion or mistrust, and I think that's— but it's what do we do in response, and you know, do we— that alien feeding off that. Is more, you know, it's not so much, I guess to compare it in Christian thought sometimes, so people will say, "Well, the devil made me do it," but that's really abdicating our moral responsibility. So I take that episode, "Day of the Dove," as more of a metaphor for asserting your own responsibility to respond to hate with love. With love, with goodwill at the least, to not let it get out of control and feed on itself. And with Hive Borg the same way, they start first investigating this abandoned drone's individuality as a way of using it as a weapon against the collective. But in the end, they stop calling the Borg an "it," they refer to him as "him," and he has a name, and it's Hugh, and he shows up again in Star Trek: Picard. Most recent series that's come out, which is fascinating to revisit him all these years later. But in the end, they give him the choice, you know, and there's a lot of, as you say, very moving writing about Hugh's conflicted feelings about— he doesn't want to go back, but that's the only home he's known. But now he's got a new— he feels, you know, like a family with these new friends of his. They eventually respect his wishes to send him back with the hope that just that little glimmer of individuality they were able to help him express would be enough to— So he doesn't end up becoming a weapon, but he does end up going back bringing individuality to the Borg. It is a beautifully done episode.
Well, and I, you know, thinking about this, whether, whether a person, you know, has any sort of religious belief or not, one, one of the, you know, very foundations of Christianity, of course, is forgiveness. And I was just thinking, as I revisited that episode and thinking of that with Day of the Dove too, and how they kind of complement each other well with those two themes, And you had just mentioned it, it wasn't that they didn't have good reasons for animosity, because they did. And one of the best definitions that I have ever heard of forgiveness is just defined as allowing another person to enter back into their humanity again. And when you think of a show like especially that I, Borg one, all throughout the show, the Enterprise crew who keeps reminding when they have interaction with Hugh what terrible things that the Borg have done, that he has done. You know, you've hurt me, you've hurt my family, you've hurt people from this crew, you know. And the other part of that is like forgiveness doesn't mean you just go, okay, we're good now, you know. Like forgiveness is actually when you get the chance to offer it to someone, if you ever have that opportunity, it's actually saying to that person, you know, 'What you did to me, it's not that it doesn't matter. It does matter, and it hurts deeply. Like, you wounded me.' But that's what makes this gift of forgiveness so significant, because it is costing me in order to give it to you, you know. And it doesn't come without sacrifice. And I think they find in both of those episodes they're not going to ever end this conflict if they can't self-sacrificially, you know, give of themselves in some ways to allow this other person— and literally in that Mad-Eye Borg episode, literally they are offering him a chance to re-enter his humanity. And of course, we do see in the, in the Picard series later, I mean, he's, he's back, you know, he's human again, you know.
Yeah.
And, and I, I found that an interesting theme when I had recently watched Star Trek Voyager too, because I'd have always heard of Seven of Nine, but I hadn't, you know, gotten into that show. And then I started watching it, I thought, wow, that's, that's fascinating, because even in that show Um, you know, Captain Janeway gives her, um, you know, this ultimatum when she brings Seven of Nine on board, like, you know, you're gonna like being human. And, and they have this kind of argument, like, well, what if I'm not? I've never known anything else but this since I was a little girl. You know, you're offering me a chance to have free will. What if I want to go back? You know, and, and offering that person the choice, you know. And, and Janeway is resistant to it. And of course, the show would have gone a whole different direction if she had decided, you know, well, I'm done with humans, I don't want to go back and be Borg again. But it's just fascinating, the idea that forgiveness is this thing that really is costly. And that's what is so hard right now with the country so in turmoil, because nobody is ready to just go, okay, we're all good.
Right.
People are deeply, deeply wounded and hurt, and there's so much rage. And I think these riots and protests and all of it, it's sometimes the only way people seem to have to express, like, I need you to hear this. Like, I need you to hear how badly I'm hurting right now. And it's not okay. And yet we won't get to the place of forgiveness until we can acknowledge that part of it too and say, you know, if I get to the point where I can forgive you, you need to know how costly this is. And I think that's a powerful thing.
I agree. It's interesting. You bring up Seven of Nine because of course she shows up in Picard the series as well. It seems like she— well, I don't know what your take on her character arc in Picard is. I enjoyed seeing her again and I like the direction they've taken her character, but she— spoilers for Picard for anybody listening who hasn't watched it yet— she's not at that place of forgiving those who've hurt her. In fact, in one of the episodes, Admiral Picard at this point, former Admiral Picard, gives a very typical Jean-Luc Picard speech about the necessity of breaking the cycle and practicing forgiveness. It's all things I believe, but it's interesting because even though he believes it too, in the face of Seven's anger and pain over what she's been through, with this person Picard is urging her to forgive, it rings sort of hollow. I think that after she basically puts on a show for Picard saying, "Okay, you're right. We'll break the cycle here." She beams back down later and goes through and kills them all. She tells one of the other characters later, "I didn't want to hurt the old man's idealism." It was really a— to me, one of the most arresting moments of the whole show, and it makes me think, you know, because issues of race are so wrapped up in what the country is going through right now, that I want to be very cautious as a white American, as a white American Christian, talking about these things as though they're easy, or as though they're, you know— of course we have to forgive each other and love each other, because, you know, It's one thing to say that from a position of lots of advantages. It's another thing to, as you say, really have to work for it and to know that it really costs. Anyway, that moment in that episode with Picard giving the standard kind of Star Trek speech about forgiveness and then seeing that, well, okay, you think that, but it was just an interesting juxtaposition and I thought it was dramatically very rich one that made the series feel more real to me.
Yeah.
You know, I'd like to think I'd be the one to take the high road and forgive, but I know there's times I haven't. Yeah.
And there have been times where I've been slow to forgive, like years, where at one point I can remember at one point having to actually go to a person in my life who was significant and say to them, "Hey, do you remember this time back when?" Because we've never talked about it, but I've been bearing this grudge since then. And you hurt me deeply. And it turned out to be a very healing thing for both of us. And sometimes those silences that we just stop talking about, those are some of the most unhealthy things we can do. But I'd love to kind of springboard off of this because I know we're getting close to the time frame I usually try to shoot for here on the podcast tonight. But I'd love to talk about a little bit of this intersection of like a show like Star Trek, which it does have this idealism about forgiveness and, and being people of forgiveness. And, and for all of its language at times about the Prime Directive of, you know, kind of not interfering with culture, it's, it's funny because it seems like they're just constantly interfering.
It's kind of like the idea in the in the Hebrew Bible of, "You can never see the face of God, but people only say that after they've seen the face of God." It's kind of like the time directive on The Original Series, at least. You only really hear about it when Kirk's getting ready to break it.
Right, exactly. It's almost like when people say, "Well, with all due respect," and then they're going to say something extremely disrespectful to you.
Exactly, yes.
But I'd love to dive in a little bit with another one or two of the episodes maybe. But the thing that I find so fascinating, and we were talking before the show, so many pastors especially love Star Trek and they really find it to be something very beneficial. And I don't know if it's maybe because of some of those themes, and it does hit a lot on forgiveness and things, but there— it's not, it's not always consistent. And I think it depends on who the writer is which week, you know, what the show is gonna do at times. And yet it's kind of gone in a direction— I know Roddenberry, you know, was an atheist, and he kind of didn't want anything to do with religion for the most part. And as the show has kind of progressed, it seems like the creators of the show, even to the point of, you know, when Discovery came on the air, they— it was almost like a press release of like, you know, God will never be mentioned in the show. Star Trek has nothing to do with God, you know. But But the show has been as much to me about the struggle of, is there a God and what does that mean? I mean, we see it in— and you already mentioned Star Trek: The Motion Picture. There's lots of things. And one of the most hated Star Trek movies, Star Trek V, you know, that whole movie literally is about the quest for God, you know.
And you know, I think that isn't— it's not a great movie, okay, let's just— that's on the table. But I think it's unfairly I think it needs more respect than it gets. Yeah. And from me at least, being a Christian of the Reformed Presbyterian persuasion, where one of our traditions' dominant themes is combating idolatry, you know, God is sovereign, God alone deserves our trust and love and our fear, our reverent fear and our service, and so, you know, For somebody who is— Kirk, somebody pointed out to me once that if you literally translate James Kirk's name, it means "supplant the church," because James is the Anglicized form of Jacob, the supplanter, and Kirk is the Scottish word for church. So I don't know, I suspect that's just a coincidence, but Kirk, he's a great one for ferreting out false gods and exposing them. And I think Christians have nothing to fear from that because the gods, the Enterprise crew or Deep Space Nine or whoever, the gods, quote unquote, that Star Trek people come up against and dethrone certainly aren't worthy. You know, the first episode Kirk was in, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," his friend Gary Mitchell gets these godlike powers when they go through the energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy. As Kirk and Gary Mitchell are having it out on the planet in the climactic fight scene, Kirk tells them, "Above all else, a god needs compassion." That's good theology. Whatever Kirk's religious persuasion may be, that's solid Christian theology. If you don't have compassion, you don't have any right to be called god. In Star Trek V, that famous line, "What does God need with a starship?" That's the right question to be asking at that moment. Here's this being claiming to be god, But, you know, God would need a starship. Now God, our God, might condescend to use a starship or a show about a starship to convey the truth. I think, you know, I think whatever, you know, the Holy Spirit today— we're recording this on the day of Pentecost, right? And the Holy Spirit is free and not bound even to the Bible or the church, and I think wherever truth Truth is found, or wherever love is found, the spirit is there. So I think the spirit can work its way through Star Trek sometimes. Oh yeah, yeah, oh definitely. One of my favorite Next Generation episodes is Who Watches the Watchers? Remember that one?
Remind me, it's just been a long time since I've watched all the episodes of Next Gen. I need to go back again. I'm sure if you describe it I'll remember which one it was.
Starfleet's conducting covert surveillance of a developing culture. It's a Prime Directive situation. Okay. They're in a holographic-covered duck blind, you know. But it shorts out and the natives on the planet see the facility. They see people beaming down to rescue a guy who they thought had fallen to his death and they see that he's alive again. They see Picard and they decide Picard is God. God. This whole kind of instant religious system around Picard springs up and Picard has to tell them, "No, no, I'm not a god." There are scenes very similar to in the Book of Revelation when John is kneeling before the angel and the angel says, "No, no, don't do that. Worship God only." So it's this episode that is often— I've seen other Christian viewers say, "Oh, here we go again, Star Trek bashing religion." But I don't think Star Trek bashes true religion. The letter of James says true religion is defending the orphan and widow and loving the poor and giving of what you have. I think Star Trek is all for those kind of values that can be found in many religions and in people who have no professed religion.— if Christianity is about the God who became human so that we could become like God, I think those values are consistent throughout.
And I think you're right. I think that Kirk is among many of the characters that will not accept a false god. And I think it's interesting in the premise of the show, I tend to like people better in real life off of television shows too, even if they don't share my same beliefs. I appreciate their skepticism at times because I feel like they too— like, I'm not willing to accept something just because you've told me to, right? No. And I want something deeper. And we see that a lot, you know. And it's interesting to me, like, the whole series of Deep Space Nine— if it wasn't for the religious themes in that show, you wouldn't have a show. I mean, so much of it is involved around— yeah, pretty much of there. And, you know, and there are things things in the original series, like Who Mourns for Adonai is one of the episodes. And, you know, Kirk says— and people say that they don't want to think that anything ever had to do with God in Star Trek. They say this line was just had to put in because of censors or something. But the line literally is— and Kirk says, you know, we have no need for gods, we find the one quite adequate, you know. And then In The Ultimate Computer, which is another episode we had talked about, you know, Daystrom believed that, you know, that murder was an offense against the laws of God and man, they say, you know, in the show. So there is this sense in which— I don't know if it was because, you know, were they trying to appease a '60s television audience or whatever it was, because there's no indication necessarily that the people who made the show had necessarily any strong leaning towards any particular faith whatsoever. But you're right, those themes, like you talked about that, Rick Lee James, we see those all throughout the show for sure. And even just the idea of like going back to that iBorg episode, seeing your enemy there suffering and dying, right? You know, the, the idea that, that the Doctor was so adamant, we are not just going to leave him for dead, or we're not going to kill him. Like, we're— this is a life in front of me. Yeah, there's a real sense in like like the value of life, no matter who it is. Yeah, that it's worth protecting. And I find that to be, um, something that most— maybe not most secular people, but a lot of people who maybe don't have like a pro-life stance, you know, that I wonder how uncomfortable it might make people, you know, sometimes when they hear something like that, um, because we don't always have that view that all life is precious. And even, um, you know, and I could pick on pro-life people just as much too, because it seems like, you know, there's a— it seems like some people in the movement only care about the unborn and not so much about the living at times. And there's, there's an idea in which we see in these shows, like, man, life really means something. Even life that could hurt us and life that could kill us. And it's kind of, for me, the idea of like, I, I really don't personally love snakes too much. So, so if I, if I saw a wounded snake, I'd pretty much be like, well, let me finish you off, you know, which is almost in, in my heart how I want to do it. But there are people out there that would go, you know, I don't like them either, but it's a life, and let's do what we can to nurse it back to health. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, well, you know, good for you because you're teaching me something about it, about life and its preciousness. And I do, I do feel like that's a strong theme in Star Trek, like life really means something no matter which life they are. And just one other thing pops in my head. I feel like I'm doing kind of a stream of consciousness this episode, but I just finished watching the Enterprise series and I had never watched that before. And I think it was the second to the last episode of the series. Um, the show has brought you to where the Federation is just about to be started, you know, because it's, it's a prequel type show. And they're having a meeting on Earth of several different alien civilizations coming together. Well, somebody from Earth has actually set up a weapon on Mars, and they have it aimed at Earth, right at where this meeting is going to be happening. And, um, You'll have to forgive me, I've forgotten the name of the race, the blue-skinned with the antennas.
Oh, the Andorians.
The Andorians, yeah. One of the Andorians, this terrorist that's set up on Mars, it's threatening to destroy the place that's what would— will be Starfleet. He's threatening to use this weapon to destroy it if every alien from Earth doesn't leave in the next 24 hours.
Yeah.
And so this Andorian comes running over to the humans and says, says something to the extent of, maybe you guys weren't the ones to be hosting this meeting, you know, because you can't even seem to stop fighting among yourselves. At least our planets, we're all united together, you know, something. And it really struck me, especially with what's going on in our nation right now, like, yeah, we just can't— you know, we had this space shuttle launch yesterday, which was amazing. I loved it. Like, I don't know if you had a chance to watch it or not.
Yeah.
Yeah, I got to watch it live yesterday on live on TV, which is a whole other cool thing, you know, modern technology allows us to do. But to see that happen, and I was thinking about that line from Enterprise about, okay, you know, good for those astronauts, they picked a good time to leave the planet, you know.
But, but, but I was thinking, I was thinking, that line is so true.
Like, we're all on this on this one planet together. And Star Trek goes out and it doesn't seem to really have true conflict until it meets these other aliens, you know, right? Um, because, because they seem to have evolved beyond it. But we're here on the same place and, you know, we can't even stop fighting with our neighbors long enough to get anything done. And it was just a line that, that really was like, ouch, that really hurts. Like, maybe you guys aren't the ones to host this. You can't even seem to stop fighting among yourselves.—
Well, one thing that struck me that a friend of mine pointed out, and actually I want to recommend his book to your listeners, it's called The Gospel According to Star Trek. It's by a man named Kevin C. Nice.—
Sure, we've had him on the show.—
Okay, well, all right. So yeah, well, he pointed out to me once, because I was making a similar kind of lament once, you know, this isn't the future of Star Trek, promise me. He said, well, remember, they had to go through the Eugenics War. And they had to go through World War III and it was a lot to get to where Star Trek was. That's just not where the series focuses, right? So he said, it's not that Star Trek's future is a given. It's up to us to work for it if we choose to and there will be hard times along the way. I know we're wrapping up, but one other pair of episodes I'd recommend to anybody who hasn't seen them or seen them in a while is the Deep Space Nine two-parter called "Past Tense," in which Captain Sisko ends up in 2024.
2024, yeah, just 4 years from now.
Where, through the best of intentions, apparently the government had set up these centers for people with no home and no job to go, but once they'd done that, they didn't give them the help they promised. And so it's— they're out of sight, out of mind, and you've got, you know, huge swaths of the population just at wit's end because there's no help coming and things aren't getting better and everybody else has forgotten about them. And so there's things in that show about wealth inequality, there's things in that show about race, there's, you know, all of these issues we're facing today. But Sisko tells Dr. Bashir, when Dr. Bashir says, "How did these people let it get so bad?" He doesn't have a good answer for that, but he does say at one point in the first part of the episode that they eventually remember, the 21st century eventually remembers what it is to be human. I'm paraphrasing, but he says, "And so the time of violence and— and chaos that erupts in those episodes turn out to be one of the pivotal moments on the road to the Star Trek future. So again, not to in any way suggest we should make that complacent about what we're going through in real life right now, but it's a reminder that good can come out of such times. Again, but it's not a given, you know, and I think as Christians we're right to be skeptical the inevitability of progress and some humanistic ideals like that. But also I think there's— I tend to think there's less daylight between Star Trek's brand of humanism and Christianity as I understand it than other people think. I think they dovetail a lot. Not in all the theological particulars, and I don't expect the Star Trek characters to to sign on to my doctrines. I don't need them to do that. I, you know, I'm looking for them for stories that'll make me think, and then I can think, how does this intersect with my faith? And what am I going to do as a result of what I've seen and of what I believe? You know, what am I going to say? What am I going to do?
So, well, yeah, well, you know, as we just kind of close this conversation, I can't help but think of The City on the Edge of Forever, which is one of the the most famous and most loved episodes. And I think of the original series, that might be the episode that most people think of. I think so. And you know, the line, "Edith Keeler must die," you know, type thing, which by the way, I think would be a great band name. It would. It was already taken. But you know, there's this theme in that, that, you know, Edith Keeler, she was right. Peace was the way. She was right, but at the wrong time. You know, and I think there's something to that. You know, there are these growing pains that we continue to go through, and I think that as a Christian we would say God is still bringing us along, and we are still at this point of working out our salvation, and he is still working and still working and still working in our midst for sure. So it's not that these ideas aren't right. Sometimes they're right but at the wrong time. Who knows? But I do appreciate a lot of the lessons of Star Trek. And, and I do— bringing this all back around to where we started— I do feel like in many ways there are a lot of themes in these shows that are very similar to something like The Twilight Zone that are addressing real life, but they wouldn't be able to get that message across if they just came out and said it in a regular way. So you can use something like science fiction to really get at the heart of a matter sometimes without people even realizing you're doing it. And so I think that's a phenomenal way to talk about some of these issues at times. Well, I have taken a lot of your time, and we're right about an hour tonight, so I better wrap it up.
I've enjoyed it all. Thank you so much for having me.
Well, it's been so good to catch up with you a bit again. And as I say to my guests each week, Michael Potyed, thank you for being one of the Voices in My Head this week.
Thank you, Rick.
Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.
More from Rick
Voices in My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) Episode 628: Truth, Justice, and the Way
Rick Lee James feat. Phil Keaggy - Heaven Is Full of Criminals (Official Lyric Video)
Heaven is full of criminals — bold opening and musician story #substack #shorts
