Title: Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters
Author: Dick Staub
ISBN: 0-7879-7894-9
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Copyright: 2005
Dick Staub, author of Christian Wisdom of Jedi Masters, has higlighted
Saga Journal's review on his website.
Reviewed by Reihla.
Prior to reading Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters I had never heard of Dick Staub. Being both Christian and wary of any book that explains faith in terms of pop culture, I decided to do a little investigating before reading. With little effort I discovered that Staub is a highly regarded nationally syndicated radio and television interviewer, the director of the Center for Faith and Culture and an adjunct professor at Seattle Pacific University. To be more specific, I found that he is a Christian and that the primary focus of all of his work is on modern culture and its relationship to religion.
Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters was, by Staub’s own admission, a book written largely because Christian young people today want to be “Jedi Christians” but are following a generation who failed to produce any “Yoda-like” teachers. They have fallen away from their faith en-masse because it lacks the means to inspire them mentally and spiritually. He admits that he feels “Christianity is always just one generation from extinction” and describes the purpose of the book as a kind of mentorship. It is his hope that the book will deliver basic spiritual truths from one generation to another much as the Jedi passed their knowledge from master to padawan.
That isn’t to say that the author has delusions of grandeur. He full well admits he is no master of Christian tenets, claiming that he knows his own embodiment of these truths is flawed. Still, with humility he explains his desire is to kindle the fires of spirituality in the next generation, to give them a point of divine connection to which they can relate. He explains the book as “an endeavor of love; an attempt to recover the lost sayings of the Jedi” in a Christian context.
As I read the book, I found myself surprised by the ease with which Jedi tenets translate to foundation principles of Christianity. Taking it even further, it was obvious that those same Jedi ideals could be applied to many other faiths. Indeed, Staub pulls wisdom from Buddhist, Jewish, Taoist and even mystical teachings and compares them to biblical wisdom. I believe people of all religious backgrounds, perhaps even those who claim no particular faith, can find something to enjoy in the reading of this book. It illustrates well the struggle of trying to adhere to one’s beliefs while living in the modern world.
I found most of the Star Wars/Christian parallels to be effective (the wisdom of a child, power in the blood, prophecies, there is no try, just to list a few) the highlight for me was the chapter titled “Loving Your Father.” Though I disagree with Staub when he states that Luke and Leia both forgive their father, he makes excellent use of Luke Skywalker’s struggle to forgive Vader in an effort to explain why children should resolve negative feelings towards their own parents. He parallels Luke’s parental struggle to our own by boiling it down to this: “You cannot control your parents’ attitudes and actions, but you can master your own, and in your hope, love, and forgiveness you can be healed and become a Jedi in the process.”
Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters is very much an encouragement to young people today to learn from those wiser than themselves and to pass on what they have learned, to become spiritual Jedi in their own realms of influence.
