Dork nation has a new spiritual home, since a church in Berlin hosted a Star Wars themed service on Sunday, in honour of the release of The Force Awakens.
About 500 people – more than double the usual number – rocked up to the Zion Church, many wearing Darth Vader masks and Chewbacca costumes.
As the congregation took their seats a church organ played the iconic Star Wars theme song, and young vicar in training Ulrike Garve opened the service with the words “The wait is over – the Force has awakened.”
Garve is a self-confessed Star Wars tragic and, along with fellow vicar in training/mega nerd Lucas Ludewig, said they wanted to use the service to show how the movie franchise echoes many of the New Testament’s messages such as the eschewing of violence and the triumph of good over evil.
“The more we talked about it, the more parallels we discovered between Christian traditions and the movies,” said Garve. “We wanted to make churchgoers aware of these analogies.”
So they grabbed some lightsabers and played a clip of Luke Skywalker telling Darth Vader to shove it, just like Jesus did to Satan. Or something. Sorry, I’m a non-practicing Jew who’s never even seen The Empire Strikes Back.
Dressed as a Jawa trader, congregant Jonathan Wonneberger welcomed the intergalactic initiative. “You don’t have to take everything that’s religious too seriously. Of course you have to treat it with respect, but when there’s a global event like Star Wars, it’s OK to jump on the bandwagon.”
Some fun haters on social media slammed the service as “sinful”, but Zion Church pastor Eva-Maria Menard shushed them, saying “We need to address contemporary issues or our faith will not be able to carry us through it.”
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty / Adam Berry.
