What Replaces the Biblical Cinematic Universe?

Americans are becoming increasingly secular. Those whose religious convictions are “nothing in particular” have become effectively the largest denomination in the country, and at the rate things are changing, Christians may no longer be a majority by the middle of this century.

I think we can get along without religion just fine; I’ve been doing it all my life. But this trend does raise some interesting questions about what I’ve described as “the empty spiritual spaces in a secularizing society,” a moral and intellectual void that a few narrowly political movements (on both the left and the right) are currently attempting to fill.

By “spirituality,” I mean the human need for an overarching view of what kind of world we live in and what kind of life we should want to lead, a worldview that provides a source of purpose and meaning in our lives. We don’t just need this individually. There is also value in having a source of shared spirituality—a set of common experiences and references that help us talk about these issues and find a sense of community and fellowship.

The answer to that need is already here, and chances are you are already a fan. Secular art and literature deal with the same spiritual issues as religion, and this includes mass popular culture with its franchises and fandoms, to which we are already transferring some of the sense of loyalty and personal identity that used to be the hallmarks of religion.

Back in the 1950s and ’60s, Hollywood produced a series of grand-scale Biblical epics that you might think of as the Biblical Cinematic Universe. These days, we are replacing that with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its various rivals and copycats.

Masters of the Universes

Art and literature have always competed with religious institutions. The whole Renaissance was arguably a story of the Church alternately trying to suppress the Humanists and co-opting them. By the 19th century, devotion to certain artists and musicians approached that of religious fervor. The pianist and composer Franz Liszt set off a “Lisztomania” that swept Europe, and Richard Wagner’s operas won him the devotion of a “Wagner Cult” (whose high priestess was Liszt’s daughter).

Yet many of these great artists and their works still depended on a shared universe of literary and mythological references rooted in religion. Art with Biblical themes, drawn from the Old Testament and the New Testament, could be justified on the grounds that it would supplement, rather than compete with, the moral guidance of the Church.

With the rediscovery of Classical works that touched off the Renaissance, the range of appropriate subject matter expanded, with some initial reluctance, to include Classical history and mythology, and this opened up a second universe of literary and historical references from which serious art could draw. By the 19th century, however, artists were restlessly testing these conventions by increasingly drawing their subject matter from the real world of the present day, sometimes with a modern yet elevated subject matter, sometimes scandalously.

But our contemporary era has gone far beyond this. Our distinctive creation is a proliferation of new, entirely fictional “universes” to draw from. We have embraced invented mythologies, continents, worlds, even galaxies with a history and cast of characters that rival the scope and richness of traditional religious mythologies.

I call this the multiverse at the multiplex. A wildly popular work of fiction—a novel, a television series, a film—might spawn a sequel or a prequel, and if it inspires enough of them, we get a franchise. But a fictional universe goes even beyond this. It provides a distinctive setting, a time and place with unique rules, unique terminology, in some cases entire invented languages, and above all a characteristic look and feel. Ideally, all these elements are distinctive enough to be covered by copyright. Once a franchise provides that setting, it can support more than just the original story and characters that spawned it. It can be a location for new characters, new story lines, even previously unexplored locations—but set within the shared world and familiar rules of the original stories.

I mentioned the Marvel Cinematic Universe, created over many decades in Marvel comics and put onto the big screen in recent years in a series of blockbuster films. Marvel’s Stan Lee was a pioneer in tying together dozens of characters from separate comic books and making them all part of the same world. Now every major entertainment company is trying to become the master of its own universe. One of the great literary world-builders was J.R.R. Tolkien, and his stories from Middle Earth have been expanded recently (to mixed reviews) by Amazon. Star Wars is up to 11 feature films, plus five live-action television series, nine animated series, along with short films, video games and dozens of books exploring every aspect of the galaxy far, far away. Star Trek has 13 feature films and eight television series, along with animated series, games and another proliferation of officially authorized science fiction books, all set in an imagined high-tech future.

A few years ago, Den of Geek attempted to count all the “cinematic universes” then in development. The list came to 11 and still didn’t include everything. Some failed to take hold. Others are universally known—Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter seem to be the most prominent, probably in that order—and we probably won’t live to see the last book, film or television series wrung out of them.

The New Bible and the New Canon

Each of these sci-fi and fantasy series is not just a franchise but a literary universe, not only in the sense of a shared setting with distinctive terminology, but also in a more esthetic and even spiritual sense.

All works of art create their own “universe” in the sense of a distinctive view of the universe, of human beings and what we ought to expect from the world. Taking what is probably the most universally known example, consider the values you might draw out of the Star Wars films and stories. There is a longing for adventure, the importance of loyalty to friends, a certain amount of irreverence toward authority and of course resistance against tyranny; but also an injunction to trust your feelings and intuitions (if we don’t take all that stuff about the Force too literally) and a warning against letting fear, anger and hatred control your life.

Or consider my own favored denomination: Star Trek. Its advantage over other franchises is its projection of an ideal future in which we have risen above war, tyranny and poverty, and achieved a utopia of peace, prosperity and technological advancement. Anyone who has watched some of the shows has a sense of the “Federation values” that make this utopia possible and what is expected of a Starfleet officer: rationality, professionalism, respect for the individual, tolerance and intellectual curiosity.

You can see how each of these fictional universes offers a vision of the world that reflects fundamental assumptions about who we are and how things work. This shared “sense of life,” much more than its fictional technology or languages, is what ties each universe together and makes it seem coherent. So in addition to matching the scope of religious mythology, these fictional universes also serve the same spiritual function as religion.

This is kind of an open secret, and the franchises even borrow religious terminology. Show-runners keep a “bible” that describes which events and rules in the fictional universe are considered “canon”—and they have to do this or face criticism from legions of fans who have memorized all of these details chapter and verse.

Prophets and Apostates

You might object that this is an inadequate substitute for religion because it is just lowbrow popular culture. That’s a good point, and I would personally prefer if people were spending more time reading long, highbrow philosophical novels. Then again, how well versed do you think the average believer is in abstract theology? If we’re looking for a shared source of spirituality, a touchstone that can serve to mediate debates over values across the culture, we need something that is widespread. We need popular culture, which cannot be too intellectually demanding.

Nor can it be too specific, which has definite advantages. The fictional universes of today are developed by big entertainment companies looking to draw audiences under a big tent. So the messages they send are broad, general and often expressed in allegories that may be meant to provoke debate, but whose application to the real world remains open to interpretation. Yet isn’t this how most religions already work? People have to figure out how to take the precepts of a faith that took hold thousands of years ago and apply them to our contemporary problems, and they can and do arrive at different interpretations.

This big-tent approach contrasts with the operation of a narrowly political creed, which imposes a set of very specific litmus tests. You can see the clash between these two approaches in the recent tribulations of J.K. Rowling, who has been attacked for relatively minor deviations from the “progressive” orthodoxy held by some of the fans who grew up on her Harry Potter stories. If you describe their complaint in ordinary terms—“an author I like expressed a political opinion I disagree with”—the intensity of this controversy makes no sense. But if you realize that the “wizarding world” of Harry Potter is one of our new stand-ins for religion, it makes more sense. To this breakaway sect, Rowling is like a prophet-turned-apostate who has betrayed the true religion.

But note that this controversy is really a clash between two approaches to a shared public spirituality. Our fictional universes and their fandoms tend to express their creed in general terms that leave room for interpretation. By contrast, the overtly political creeds that offer themselves as new outlets for the old religious fervor tend to require adherence to very specific dogmas and the repetition of exact formulas. You tell me which is healthier.

We Know Star Trek Isn’t Real

This leads me to the big advantage these new sources of shared spirituality have over both the secular political orthodoxies and the old religious creeds: We know it’s all fiction.

It may not seem like it sometimes, but even the most hard-core fans know Star Trek isn’t real. It is a set of stories written by screenwriters. These writers may help us to project an ideal future, tease out moral dilemmas and think through big issues. Their creations may serve as markers that help us declare our personal spiritual identity. They may give us a guide we can refer to in ordinary life, so we can ask ourselves what Jim Kirk would do or what Jean-Luc Picard might say in a certain situation. But we know it’s just a guide. It’s not something we have to believe but something we choose to refer to because we agree with it. And if we don’t, we can seek out a franchise that better aligns with our view of the world.

This is a healthier approach to disagreement than that of political or religious true believers, because it invites debate instead of cutting it off. We might roll our eyes at some of Gene Roddenberry’s woozy utopianism, or we might not like the direction some of the Star Trek stories take. Or if George Lucas re-edits a film so that Han doesn’t shoot first, we can hoard the original version, a bit like traditional Catholics protesting Vatican II by clinging to the Latin mass. But we know that none of these opinions is the “true” faith because it was all made up to begin with.

Many people already do approach traditional religions in a tolerant and reasonable way—but the new secular spirituality leaves no doubt. That’s what makes fandom a truly secular alternative to religion. Our participation in these fictional universes satisfies our spiritual need for a coherent view of the world and a way to express our values, and it helps us share our enthusiasm with like-minded people. But it does so in a way that leaves each of us, individually, as the arbiter of what we think is true and right. This is as it should be and has to be, and it shows us how we can deal with our spiritual needs in a secular future.