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Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who
Like the TARDIS itself, the fanatically popular series Doctor Who is bigger on the inside, full of profound ideas about time and history, the nature of humanity, and the mysteries of the universe. The stories are full of wonder and hope. Perhaps these sci-fi parables can even illuminate the mysteries of faith. Bigger On The Inside is determined to find out, exploring key episodes of the series to discover what light they shed on the contours of Christian thought.
Edited by Greg Thornbury and Ned Bustard. Contributors include: J Mark Bertrand, Sarah Etter, Sean Gaffney, Melody Green, Christopher Hansen, Rebekah Hendrian, Tyler Howat, Christian Leithart, Joshua Lickter, Leah Rabe, Carter Stepper, and David Talks.
Edited by Greg Thornbury and Ned Bustard. Contributors include: J Mark Bertrand, Sarah Etter, Sean Gaffney, Melody Green, Christopher Hansen, Rebekah Hendrian, Tyler Howat, Christian Leithart, Joshua Lickter, Leah Rabe, Carter Stepper, and David Talks.
142 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 30, 2019
"I think it’s inevitable because of Britain’s cultural heritage that a long-running programme about the fight between good and evil will have some Christian themes as a backdrop."--Barry Letts, former producer/director of Doctor Who
This delightful little book takes a closer look at the spiritual truths tucked into one of my favorite TV shows. Although Doctor Who, like Star Trek, has strong humanistic overtones, it also celebrates many Christian virtues and concepts. I suspect that sometimes this is both unintentional and inevitable, because all truth is God's truth--whether we acknowledge that or not.
While I was a bit surprised and disappointed by the vast amount of typos in this book, I did appreciate the content! Each chapter deals with one (or more) Doctor Who stories, and details the the Christian ideas/truths/parallels contained therein. The chapters on baptism ("Journey's End"), transformation ("The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances"), prayer ("The Girl in the Fireplace"), and the sanctity of life ("The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People" + "Kill the Moon") were my favorites.
November 17, 2018
Analytic approaches to the subject. Much meat for thought.
January 13, 2021
Some essays are better than others, but the book left me loving God more and loving Doctor Who more.
October 6, 2016
Fascinating and fun reflections on the connections between one of my favorite TV shows and the total worldview of Christianity.
As all multi-author collections go, this one is uneven in the quality, but a goodly number of the essays are very well written and thoughtful. One of my favorites explored the implicit arguments in DW for the sanctity of human life. Other articles covered perennial themes like baptism, time, sanctification, evil, incarnation, prayer, faith, temptation, and suffering.
There were no earth-shattering revelations here for me, but many astute (and clever) observations. I'll be visiting the blogs of most of the authors to follow their work.
Definitely worth the read if you know someone who loves the Doctor but doesn't know the Lord Jesus yet--or if like me, you already love both of them!
As all multi-author collections go, this one is uneven in the quality, but a goodly number of the essays are very well written and thoughtful. One of my favorites explored the implicit arguments in DW for the sanctity of human life. Other articles covered perennial themes like baptism, time, sanctification, evil, incarnation, prayer, faith, temptation, and suffering.
There were no earth-shattering revelations here for me, but many astute (and clever) observations. I'll be visiting the blogs of most of the authors to follow their work.
Definitely worth the read if you know someone who loves the Doctor but doesn't know the Lord Jesus yet--or if like me, you already love both of them!
April 29, 2019
Gregory Thornbury and Ned Bustard didn't compose a whole book that looked for Christian themes and connections in the venerable sci-fi show Doctor Who, which was probably a wise choice. The show began in 1963 and had a multi-year gap during the 1990s before a modern reboot made it probably better-known than it ever was during its original run. There have been a legion of show-runners, writers and actors who've brought us the adventures of a certain Galifreyan "Time Lord" in his slightly malfunctioning time-and-spaceship called a TARDIS. Which means there are both an overflow of connections and a lack of any one overarching theme to try to use. So Thornbury, a philosophy professor, and Bustard, a graphic designer working mostly for religious groups and institutions, solicited essays from a variety of people about some of the many different connections they saw in different episodes of the show.
The writers of 2015's Bigger on the Inside come from several faith traditions. Some are academics and some are religious professionals. They share an enjoyment of the Who universe, its quirks and foibles and fun. Some are written with a more academic tone, complete with endnote vapor trails, while others are a little more casual. None dive too deeply into their subject matter, which is a good idea for a show that has often had its lead actors menaced by people inside a variety of different ill-fitting rubber suits. Who episode writers probably rarely, if ever, intended to teach some kind of theological truth. But any work of art that wants to try to wrestle a little with questions of human existence is going to open itself to having those questions answered by theological-minded folks, and the essays of Bigger do that.
Organized according to different Christian doctrinal issues like the prayer, the problem of evil, temptation and so on, each chapter focuses on an episode in which the action and resolution address its titular issue in a manner reflective of some traditional orthodox beliefs on the subject. Some of the chapters are stronger than others, and a couple strain enough at their reach that their inclusion might have been reconsidered.
A major strength of Bigger is the use of episodes from the pre-reboot era, 1963 to 1989. Though hampered by more primitive special-effects technology, many of these episodes offer some intriguing handles to grab hold of for questioning. Especially as writers during this era were less concerned with the kind of overt messaging that can torpedo the entertainment value of just about anything. Most of the essays presume some familiarity with the show and its universe, so a "non-Whovian" reader might do well to have the Wikipedia entry for the show open while reading. Either way, Bigger on the Inside offers some fun ways to think about important things like Incarnation and which Doctor and companion were the best (Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela, according to your humble blogger).
Original available here.
The writers of 2015's Bigger on the Inside come from several faith traditions. Some are academics and some are religious professionals. They share an enjoyment of the Who universe, its quirks and foibles and fun. Some are written with a more academic tone, complete with endnote vapor trails, while others are a little more casual. None dive too deeply into their subject matter, which is a good idea for a show that has often had its lead actors menaced by people inside a variety of different ill-fitting rubber suits. Who episode writers probably rarely, if ever, intended to teach some kind of theological truth. But any work of art that wants to try to wrestle a little with questions of human existence is going to open itself to having those questions answered by theological-minded folks, and the essays of Bigger do that.
Organized according to different Christian doctrinal issues like the prayer, the problem of evil, temptation and so on, each chapter focuses on an episode in which the action and resolution address its titular issue in a manner reflective of some traditional orthodox beliefs on the subject. Some of the chapters are stronger than others, and a couple strain enough at their reach that their inclusion might have been reconsidered.
A major strength of Bigger is the use of episodes from the pre-reboot era, 1963 to 1989. Though hampered by more primitive special-effects technology, many of these episodes offer some intriguing handles to grab hold of for questioning. Especially as writers during this era were less concerned with the kind of overt messaging that can torpedo the entertainment value of just about anything. Most of the essays presume some familiarity with the show and its universe, so a "non-Whovian" reader might do well to have the Wikipedia entry for the show open while reading. Either way, Bigger on the Inside offers some fun ways to think about important things like Incarnation and which Doctor and companion were the best (Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela, according to your humble blogger).
Original available here.
December 20, 2015
So I might be a little biased, but I love Doctor Who and I wrote one of the essays.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews