Jedi-ism?
by David Gaffen

The collective might of United Kingdom's geeks almost pulled one over earlier this month, but the dark side of the Force isn't having any. An effort by fans of Star Wars to get "Jedi Knight" listed as a religion in the results of the 2001 national census was thwarted by officials, who stated flatly that "we are not going to be recognizing this as a religion." And this after similar movements emerged in New Zealand and Australia.

Well, why the hell not?

Yes, this little effort is pretty much an Internet-scale practical joke, but now that it's found by a few humorless folks not to be so funny, it's worth the argument. The National Statistics Office, which runs the census, is, by this decision, more or less admitting that there's a sort of government body somewhere making the determination of what constitutes an actual religion and what does not.

The National Statistics Office's concerns echo Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." It seems to call for evidence of a hierarchical structure rather than explanation of the faith (churches, a fundraising effort, lobbyists, not operating out of a basement). And it's an approach not limited to Britain. Look no further than earlier this year, when President Bush's faith-based charity bill was bantered about Congress — there was a brief scare that the Scientologists, popularly thought of as a celebrity-financed cult, would come around looking for money ... and how could they be denied?

The world's religions have varying sets of core beliefs with a few common traits among them. But one thing that can't be ignored is that they've been around a darn long time. One thing rarely called into question, however, is what determines a religion, and the answer, at least according to Great Britain's census takers, is that it has something to do with the passage of time — and, okay, not being the brainchild of a reclusive whack who's out to ruin the very world he created (Like God, George Lucas seems to work in strange ways).

The most significant faiths of this world were created hundreds or thousands of years ago, making their formation no longer one that can be disputed. That religions flourished between 6,000 and 1,500 years ago makes sense in a lot of ways — literature was barely existent and science (or science-like experimentation) was really mostly alchemy. The nature of human beings is to subscribe to a particular philosophy en masse — and a centrally organized faith is a powerful current.

Over the passage of time, though, tradition and a pretty powerful spirit of "I'm right and you're wrong" began to take hold. As such, religion was used as a crutch to justify other actions. It's been used as a reason to influence state policy, popular philosophy and, ultimately, as a justification for killing whole loads of people. Current practitioners of the latter include right-wing Christian groups (mostly targeted killings) and Islamic fundamentalists (see Sept. 11).

There's a certain arrogance to extending the belief that not only is your religion "No. 1," but that only a select group of others deserve props as acceptable "other" faiths — Wiccans have faced a similar sort of consternation, as has voodoo and other traditional beliefs, which hold sway in such places as Benin and Nigeria, because they don't conform to the thesis that God can't be represented.

But it's hard to imagine new faiths capturing the spirit of the public in today's world. Most people are taken already, and our secular, globalizing nature doesn't seem to allow for spontaneous faith-generation. Then again, if there is one group that's most malleable, it is perhaps the geeks of the world; hell, we latched onto nuclear power, computers and the Internet first, long before anyone else figured 'em out.

Our collective obsession with popular culture and television (yes, we thought of that one too) means there's quite a few already familiar with the tenets of Jedi — it wouldn't take much to turn the upcoming Chillercon into a celebration of the Jedi faith (okay, a few Trekkies would be alienated, but what do they know?). So maybe Geeks have a hierarchy after all. They certainly have enough time on their hands for this kind of endeavor, especially judging by threads like this exchange.

Of course, Jedi's adherents have to move from slavish devotion to a film franchise and the recent betrayal by the creator to an actual faith. We're not even close in terms of technology to inventing lightsabers, never mind that two-pronged Crouching Tiger stick Darth Maul strutted around with in The Phantom Menace." Industrial Light & Magic's going to have to modify its architecture to be a bit more faith affirming and we're going to have to go beyond hypnotism and levitation and move towards some form of altruism. But at least now we can take stand up and be counted. Or try, at least.

May the Force be with you.

E-mail David Gaffen at gaffman at att dot com.