Part One
Part Two
Writing in 1912, Émile Durkheim noted that religion was retreating from the forefront of European life. The dwindling of Catholic kings meant state authority no longer derived from church imprimatur. But that hardly meant European religion died. In Durkheim’s France, the catechistic slogan “Liberté Egalité Fraternité” and icons of the state demigoddess Marianne proliferated where crucifixes one hung.
For Durkheim, this impulse toward social unity defines what makes a genuine religion. When religious believers recite creeds and harmonize on hymns, the most important part isn’t the content, it’s the collectivity; religion ultimately doesn’t make us righteous, it makes us unified. This applies whether we describe early state religions, where God’s representative anoints the king, or oppositional religions, where believers, like trade unionists, collaborate against unrighteous earthly powers.
In Episode IV, Ben Kenobi, exiled to a distant and systemically neglected outpost of the Empire, waxes nostalgic: “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.” In the prequels, we see what this means: Jedi authority provides unity over a philosophically, linguistically, genetically diverse society. The Old Republic’s state authority wholly requires Jedi support; the Empire thus requires their overthrow.
We’ve established, in prior essays, that the Jedi have liturgical form, like a religion, and spiritual heft, like a religion. However, the same applies to Durkheim’s French Republic or, as I noted in Part One, the U.S. Marine Corps—and nobody would mistake these for religions. Fundamentally, we can define religions neither by what they say, nor by what they do, because the psychological rudiments nourished by religion have clearly secular parallels.
Therefore, we might define religions much like that most opposite of irreligious institutions, pornography: I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it. Yes, this definition is unsatisfying, but it encompasses the inherent tension which religion always carries. It also permits one important observation regarding the Jedi specifically: something religious can become secularized, while something profane can become sanctified, depending on how we handle it.
Throughout the prequels, the Jedi occupy a Temple, observe a Code, and practice spiritual disciplines like Zen Buddhists or Jesuit novices. Yet I’d contend, given their hand-in-glove relationship with the government, and their adherence to order over justice (witness the poverty and slaveholding on Tatooine and Naboo), that they’ve stopped being a religion in any meaningful sense, becoming an instrument of state authority, worshipping mainly continuity.
With their retreat to the margins, and their persecution by the Empire, however, I’d contend the Jedi become a legitimate religion. With many major religions, we witness a sense of fundamental loss: the Jewish Bible ends with a call for faithful Jews to reclaim the homeland. Christians mourn the loss of prelapsarian oneness with God. Buddhists strive to achieve oneness with the Brahma, the force from which all creation originates.
Likewise, the Jedi desire to reclaim, not the authority they once held, but the justice they once should have preserved. They become conscious of their losses, seek forgiveness, and walk a newly righteous path, the process Christians call metanoia, or conversion. This Jedi metanoia defines Yoda’s character arc, and also explains Luke’s loss and restoration of faith in Episode VIII. The Jedi, like Israel under Moses, must walk the wilderness to become a religion.
French philosopher Bruno Latour writes, among other points, that religious language serves mostly to transform the hearer: content of language places second to the effect it has on the hearer’s inward being. Temple-era Jedi, however, seek inward transformation only insofar as it breeds compliance with the Order, and with small-O order. Only with their official standing shattered, do the Jedi transform themselves rather than others.
That’s why I disbelieve that contemporary “Jedi” religions, founded only after the prequels delved into meaningful Jedi doctrine, are really religion. Jediism gives adherants the trappings of spiritual heft, but on questions of internal transformation, the principles ultimately just shrug, telling disciples that whatever conclusions they reach are ultimately fine. You needn’t undergo inner transformation; you needn’t even attend church. Whatever you believe is fine.
Like the Hebrew prophets, post-Temple Jedi call earthly powers to uphold justice. But they gain spiritual standing necessary to make that call only by relinquishing official standing and police authority. When you have credentialed state power, you cannot transform yourself; you can only comply or resist. That’s why the Jedi become a religion only in being exiled, because only then are they liberated from Marianne, to pursue their own Force.
For Durkheim, this impulse toward social unity defines what makes a genuine religion. When religious believers recite creeds and harmonize on hymns, the most important part isn’t the content, it’s the collectivity; religion ultimately doesn’t make us righteous, it makes us unified. This applies whether we describe early state religions, where God’s representative anoints the king, or oppositional religions, where believers, like trade unionists, collaborate against unrighteous earthly powers.
In Episode IV, Ben Kenobi, exiled to a distant and systemically neglected outpost of the Empire, waxes nostalgic: “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.” In the prequels, we see what this means: Jedi authority provides unity over a philosophically, linguistically, genetically diverse society. The Old Republic’s state authority wholly requires Jedi support; the Empire thus requires their overthrow.
We’ve established, in prior essays, that the Jedi have liturgical form, like a religion, and spiritual heft, like a religion. However, the same applies to Durkheim’s French Republic or, as I noted in Part One, the U.S. Marine Corps—and nobody would mistake these for religions. Fundamentally, we can define religions neither by what they say, nor by what they do, because the psychological rudiments nourished by religion have clearly secular parallels.
Therefore, we might define religions much like that most opposite of irreligious institutions, pornography: I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it. Yes, this definition is unsatisfying, but it encompasses the inherent tension which religion always carries. It also permits one important observation regarding the Jedi specifically: something religious can become secularized, while something profane can become sanctified, depending on how we handle it.
Throughout the prequels, the Jedi occupy a Temple, observe a Code, and practice spiritual disciplines like Zen Buddhists or Jesuit novices. Yet I’d contend, given their hand-in-glove relationship with the government, and their adherence to order over justice (witness the poverty and slaveholding on Tatooine and Naboo), that they’ve stopped being a religion in any meaningful sense, becoming an instrument of state authority, worshipping mainly continuity.
With their retreat to the margins, and their persecution by the Empire, however, I’d contend the Jedi become a legitimate religion. With many major religions, we witness a sense of fundamental loss: the Jewish Bible ends with a call for faithful Jews to reclaim the homeland. Christians mourn the loss of prelapsarian oneness with God. Buddhists strive to achieve oneness with the Brahma, the force from which all creation originates.
Likewise, the Jedi desire to reclaim, not the authority they once held, but the justice they once should have preserved. They become conscious of their losses, seek forgiveness, and walk a newly righteous path, the process Christians call metanoia, or conversion. This Jedi metanoia defines Yoda’s character arc, and also explains Luke’s loss and restoration of faith in Episode VIII. The Jedi, like Israel under Moses, must walk the wilderness to become a religion.
French philosopher Bruno Latour writes, among other points, that religious language serves mostly to transform the hearer: content of language places second to the effect it has on the hearer’s inward being. Temple-era Jedi, however, seek inward transformation only insofar as it breeds compliance with the Order, and with small-O order. Only with their official standing shattered, do the Jedi transform themselves rather than others.
That’s why I disbelieve that contemporary “Jedi” religions, founded only after the prequels delved into meaningful Jedi doctrine, are really religion. Jediism gives adherants the trappings of spiritual heft, but on questions of internal transformation, the principles ultimately just shrug, telling disciples that whatever conclusions they reach are ultimately fine. You needn’t undergo inner transformation; you needn’t even attend church. Whatever you believe is fine.
Like the Hebrew prophets, post-Temple Jedi call earthly powers to uphold justice. But they gain spiritual standing necessary to make that call only by relinquishing official standing and police authority. When you have credentialed state power, you cannot transform yourself; you can only comply or resist. That’s why the Jedi become a religion only in being exiled, because only then are they liberated from Marianne, to pursue their own Force.
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