I do not often talk about my favorite media (outside of books) but my wife and I enjoy watching the quirky British show Doctor Who. If you are not familiar with the program (and found this subject interesting) the show revolves a near immortal character known as the Doctor who travels through time and space, who often accompanied by a human seems to always be in the right place at the right time to save the day. I say near immortal because when faced with death the Doctor can regenerate, which leaves the show with a new lead actor and the character with a new face and identity. Also, though not omniscient, the Doctor is extremely intelligent and it is this characteristic (along with wit) that is often called on to save the day. Several years ago I read a fun book Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who by Gregory Thornbury & Ned Bustard, which, as the name suggests, related specific episodes of the show to theological themes. Particularly, the contributors took the characteristics I have previously mentioned (along with the Doctor’s ability to be in the right place at the right time) as a starting point for describing how God interacts with creation. Now, let’s be perfectly clear this is not an exact metaphor, but I find it to be a helpful one when kept between the rails and so I want to continue it here. This post is the first in a small series (I’m not sure how far it will go yet, so far I have one scheduled for tomorrow and one for next week) that are titled after one storyline of the show I found particularly compelling.A Good Man Goes to War.
Since reading Bigger on the Inside I have watched Doctor Who with a new perspective seeing underlying messages in terms of Christian theology. Perhaps nowhere is the overlap between the show and Christian theology better understood than in the theme of violence. Violence, particularly Biblical violence, is a difficult subject and one that cannot be treated lightly. However, I have found the characters and scenarios in Doctor Who have become valuable visual metaphors helping me to understand how a character committed to peace and non-violence can be so frequently caught up in the violence of creation. While I have acknowledged this in the past I again want to say how helpful I found Daniel Hawk’s book The Violence of the Biblical God in helping me understand what is happening in some of the most violent passages in the Bible. There are a number of books by Biblical scholars and theologians on this issue, but of all the ones I have read I have found none as helpful as Hawk’s, he neither glorifies the violence, nor tries to reason it away (find a complete overview of his book here).
The Doctor & Violence (spoilers ahead)
As an overview to these posts I need to establish one universal in the Doctor’s persona, the Doctor is committed trying to find peace, even with person enemies. The Doctor wants to save lives and will go to great lengths to prevent violence. This idea is displayed beautifully in the two part story The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances. Set during the London blitz the Doctor and companions are followed through the streets of London by an unusual child. And while running from the child that we find out that on one adventure the Doctor had gone out of his way to destroy a weapon’s facility because they made an unusually nasty sonic weapon. And when one of the companions who has this weapon asks the Doctor if he is armed the Doctor humorously responds that he has a screwdriver. He later prevents the character from using the weapon by swapping it with a banana and informing the audience that he likes bananas and that the weapon’s factory had been replaced with a banana grove. Throughout the episode the Doctor goes out of his way not to harm the child and other zombie-like people following him, despite the danger and in the end of the episode is able to heal them all. The title of the second episode of the story The Doctor Dances comes from the fact that the Doctor’s excitement over the fact “Everybody lives!” leads him to remember his dance moves.
What I like about this episode is that it is early in the series (season 1) so if you do decide to watch the show you will find it relatively quickly, and that it demonstrates the Doctor’s commitment to preserving life whenever possible. There are various episodes where the Doctor is committed to saving life even that of creatures we would consider monstrous that are set on elimination (we’ll get to that). And it is in this commitment to finding peace, trying to end violence, and overcoming evil with good, that we find a clear parallel to God. As we will see it is not always easy to maintain this commitment and there are times that he commits violence (and that it is wrongly attributed to him), but this remains his guiding ideal. The same is true of God and the presentations of God in the Bible, there are going to be difficulties in understanding God but in these we must begin by understanding God’s commitment to preserving life and ending the evil of violence.
Squinting in the Light 
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