The Doctor As A Messianic Figure When the vicar at St Paul's Church in Grangetown, Cardiff, announced in September, 2007, that he planned a Doctor Who themed service, focussing on the Christian messages in the programme, opinions were divided between those who thought it was a terrible idea and those who thought it was inspirational. But in fact, the connection between Doctor Who and religion goes back a long way. The First Doctor was once mistaken for Zeus (in Mythmakers) and that was after his companion, Barbara, had challenged the religious beliefs of the Aztecs. In the 1970s, there were two instances where it was suggested that the Time Lords are regarded as gods by some lesser species in their part of the galaxy. In the 1978 story, Underworld, we discover that the Minyans once worshipped the Time Lords until they rebelled and used the technology they had been given by their gods for destructive purposes. The Doctor mentioned in passing that this was the reason for the Time Lord policy of non-intervention.
Also in the same series, The Doctor himself was mistaken for a god by Leela’s Sevateem Tribe who have a race memory of his past visit to their planet, and their enemies the Tesch, who had built a huge carved head of The Doctor marking their territory. There are other references throughout the years
to the Time Lords being, if not omnipotent and omniscient deities, at
least regarded in some way as prophets and living gods. Mostly benevolent,
although there is also the cult of Morbius which is anything but.
Faith was a major theme of The Curse of Fenric, though conventional religion fared badly. The Vicar was killed because his faith had been undermined by his strong feelings about the war. The Doctor, on the other hand, put his faith in his companions, and Ace’s faith in him was so strong it was a palpable thing. Faith in The Doctor – a theme that, unbeknown to the writers of Fenric, will come back later. The idea that The Doctor himself is not only a god-figure but a deliberate analogy to the Christian Messiah, has been there all along. The clues were there to those who might be looking. Regeneration is not very far away from Resurrection. That has always been the first clue. Then he always has at least one companion (disciple?) gathered along the way, and he has had a whole collection of demons to fight. The Master has fulfilled the role of Devil incarnate, the angel that fell from Grace (Gallifrey). That The Doctor and The Master are the same race, one following the dark, the other the light, makes it even more compelling. More about The Doctor and the Master later, too. But it goes without saying that fighting every kind of evil under the sun, from Cybermen to Daleks, to werewolves, to The Master, is an extension of that ‘rejecting the devil’. The Doctor walks in the light all his life. But it wasn’t until the ‘resurrection’ of the series itself that these analogies REALLY started to become inescapable and a number of scholarly essays appeared on the internet and in university magazines considering whether there was a theological issue within Doctor Who. Now, I don’t intend to write a ‘scholarly essay’ here. And I’m not going to delve TOO deeply into the theological issues, but I do want to look at some of the ways in which The Doctor has begun to look even more like a Messianic figure in recent years. There IS, of course, to begin with, the regeneration issue. The regeneration of Doctor #9 into #10 was particularly poignant because it HAD been a willing sacrifice. Not, it has to be said, for mankind as a whole. He had injured himself to save Rose, the woman he loved. There the messianic analogy falls apart slightly, at least by conventional understanding. If you apply the theory postulated in the notorious Da Vinci Code, that’s another matter. But lets not go there.
Regeneration (Resurrection?) But anyway, the regeneration in Parting of The Ways was about as godlike as any seen yet. The blinding fiery light enveloping his body was reminiscent of Pentecostal imagery of Christ bathed in shining light. His joke about dogs with no noses wasn’t QUITE a Messianic message to the world, and his first words after ‘resurrection’ weren’t quite Christlike, either, but that only goes to show that you can’t take an analogy completely at face value. Then there IS the idea of his disciples. Rose answered the call to ‘come with me’ as the biblical disciples did. So, eventually, did Mickey, having been reluctant at first. Many of the companions in the past had been accidental, caught up in various ways by The Doctor’s world. But this time, very clearly, he ASKED Rose to join him in his wandering life. Then there was Jack, a sinner if there ever was one, but redeemed by The Doctor and a follower from there on, spreading his gospel. In 2007, when he gets a companion called Martha, a biblical disciple of Christ, it is even more obvious. Those obvious issues apart, there have been several
wonderful moments when the biblical analogies couldn’t be missed.
In the 2005 series, the obvious one is the scene in The Doctor Dances
when he brings all of the ‘dead’ gas mask zombies back to
life. Just because science in this case explains what happened –
nano-technology, it doesn’t make it less of a miracle, and the
way it was portrayed, with the nano-genes surrounding The Doctor in
a halo of light before he sent them to do their work of resurrection,
was inspirational.
"Everybody Lives" Less obvious but important hints to a certain omniscience about The Doctor are sprinkled through the 2005 series. In particular, there is that scene in Rose where he holds her hand and talks about the Earth spinning beneath their feet. And at the other end of the series, just before he takes the vortex from Rose’s mind, she talks about having the whole universe in her head, of being able to see EVERYTHING and he admits that he feels that ALL THE TIME. Universal omniscience, and at the same time ‘Human’ failings and flaws. Definite hints of a Christ-like character.
From the start of the 2006 series, the hints were even more obvious. In the first episode, New Earth, there is a reference to a ‘lonely God’ that HAS to be The Doctor. And even more magnificent, and as inspiring as the resurrection of the gas-mask zombies, we have The Doctor curing the ‘lepers’. An obvious biblical analogy. And not only does he cure their bodies, but it is quite obvious that he has cured their souls, too. These were tortured people in every way until he touched them. Literally touched them. The cure was ‘passed on’ through the cured in their turn, reaching out and shaking hands, hugging, holding those yet to be cleansed. The miracle radiated out from him and increased rather than decreased until it was done.
The fact that a handshake resembling the “hand of peace” from the Catholic Mass was the source of the cure was significant. In the sharing of that symbolic gesture at Mass we are supposed to be sharing the soul healing power of God. I have never seen it so beautifully and graphically illustrated than in that scene in New Earth. Significantly, that episode was broadcast on Easter Saturday, a half hour before it was time for Catholics to go to the Easter Vigil and be spiritually renewed in that same way.
Temptation of The Doctor An equally powerful biblical analogy came with School Reunion, and Mr Finch’s variation on “The Temptation of Christ”. The carrots dangled in front of The Doctor to make him go over to the dark side were cruel ones; the restoration of his people, the woman (women?) he loves forever young at his side, never aging and withering. But he resisted them as Christ resisted the devil’s charms, as fans KNEW he must.
The Doctor Faces The Beast And then there was that other fight with Satan, one that upset so many Christians, though I fail to see why. One argument was that you shouldn’t have satanic figures portrayed on television. But surely that is denial. The Doctor, whether a Messianic analogy or NOT, is certainly a force of good, fighting AGAINST such evil, and surely it is a re-affirmation of Christian belief to see him defeat The Beast. Again, in that Vigil that came after New Earth, Catholics renew their baptismal promise to reject the Devil and all his works. The Doctor showed us how to do that literally, and in doing so, ought to have inspired anyone willing to be inspired, to do it figuratively. 'We all have a universe of our own terrors to face, said the seventh Doctor, and it is literally true. Satan Pit was, in its way, the same re-affirmation of that vow to ‘reject the devil and all his works’ in a way far more accessible than what can so often seem merely empty words spoken in rote, by church goers.
Ressurected Doctor The 2007 series turned what had been subtle hints into a major theme. The MAIN theme of the series was summed up as ‘What It Means to Be Human’, but this idea of a Messianic Doctor, “What is Means to Be a Lonely God” is also threaded through. The series starts with a story in which The Doctor was technically dead and resuscitated by Martha. He ‘died’ in order to save the innocent staff and patients of Hope Hospital, as well as 2/5th of the planet Earth. There is an obvious crucifixion/resurrection analogy there.
The third episode of 2007, Gridlock, a story ostensibly about the universe’s longest traffic jam, offers two Messianic analogies. Focussing on The Doctor, it is possible to see him as the crucified Christ descending to purgatory with the sins of the world on his shoulders. The Doctor, descending through the layers of motorists in the undercity motorway, towards the hellish, Macra-infested, lower level is carrying many burdens, and it isn’t until he ascends to the upper city with the ‘angel’ of Novice Hame, that he throws off those burdens and redeems the people of the motorway.
The Doctor Descends Into Hell The second allegory does not revolve around The Doctor, but rather The Face of Boe, who is the one who sacrifices himself to redeem the people of the Motorway. The clue is in the hymn sung by the trapped motorists. “The Old Rugged Cross” which includes the lines, “Where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain.” Two Messiahs for the price of one.
"The Dearest and Best" Themes on the dangers of “Playing God” were explorede in the two Dalek stories, Daleks in Mahattan and Evolution of the Daleks, as well as The Lazarus Experiment. The Daleks seek to play God by changing Human DNA. Lazarus does it by trying to extend life. Significantly, of course, Lazarus is the man who Jesus raises from the dead in the Gospel.
Where the Christian analogy REALLY starts to come together, is in the last two episodes of the 2007 series. The Doctor’s comment about how, if a Time Lord who absorbed the vortex he would become a vengeful god is so much a throwaway line it is almost missed. But soon after we are plunged into a real battle between good and evil with The Doctor fighting The Master and his hordes of fallen angels, the Toclafane who brings a Book of Revelations style Armageddon down on the Earth while he seems to have The Doctor at his mercy. But the triumph of dark over light is shortlived. And even while he is down, crushed under The Master’s heel, The Doctor never loses his Christlike nature. Remember that theme of FAITH in The Doctor. That is exactly the key to the Last of The Time Lords. The Doctor might seem impotent, but he has sent his disciple, Martha, as an evangelist, spreading his Word across the world like the apostles of the New Testament.
"Transfiguration" And faith in The Doctor, his NAME, spoken by the whole world at one given moment is enough to resurrect him this time. There is no exact biblical comparison for that, but FAITH in the NAME of God is a tenet of Christianity. And when The Doctor IS resurrected by that Faith, in a halo of light that gives him the look of either an Avenging Angel or a pinstripe version of a Transfigured Christ, it is the latter that The Master has to face. And with his worst enemy, the enemy of all that is light and good, at his mercy, he does the most Christlike thing of all. He embraces his enemy and tells him that he is forgiven. What better example is there for us to live by in this difficult world, 2007 years after Christ gave us the same example? Yes, there is a Messianic analogy in Doctor Who. It is not longer a hidden one. It is staring us in the face. For anyone who still feels it is just a children’s science fiction programme, that’s perfectly all right, just as many people think the Chronicles of Narnia, another deliberate analogy of the New Testament, is just a charming fantasy story. BUT, I did put the question to my own parish priest
a while back. And he confirmed what I have always understood to be a
fundamental truth. God is in everything and everywhere if you are prepared
to look for Him, meet Him halfway. And God is just as likely to be in
the works of a gay welsh scriptwriter, performed by a Salford atheist,
or indeed a Bathgate minister’s son, as anywhere else. Christ’s
message of universal love IS to be found in Doctor Who.
"I Forgive You"
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