{"id":819,"date":"2008-05-07T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819"},"modified":"2016-04-04T10:31:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T17:31:00","slug":"the-theology-of-dr-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819","title":{"rendered":"The Theology of Dr. Who"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As long as I&#8217;m tackling some of the less polity-oriented items today, I&#8217;ll go ahead and do this post on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/doctorwho\/\" target=\"_blank\">Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, it begins with the actor who plays the title character, David Tennant.&nbsp; Now, this would just be an interesting SciFi bit if it were not for the fact the Mr. Tennant&#8217;s father is the Very Rev. Alexander &#8220;Sandy&#8221; McDonald, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theherald.co.uk\/features\/featuresopinon\/display.var.2175305.0.Did_I_tell_you_that_I_kent_Doctor_Whos_faither.php\" target=\"_blank\">respected<\/a> Church of Scotland minister and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Moderators_of_the_General_Assembly_of_the_Church_of_Scotland\" target=\"_blank\">Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland<\/a> in 1997.&nbsp; For more details you can check back to a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=1118\" target=\"_blank\">post of mine<\/a> about this in September 2006.&nbsp; But as the tenth Doctor Who begins his third season the publicity has increased.<\/p>\n<p>First, there was a very nice tribute piece that David did for his father <a href=\"http:\/\/animoscrypt.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/04\/davids-dad-is-very-cool\/\" target=\"_blank\">excerpted on Irregular Bones<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Second, there has been a lot of buzz recently about the theological parallels to Christianity in the Doctor Who series.&nbsp; It appears to have started with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/newstopics\/howaboutthat\/1925338\/The-church-is-ailing---send-for-Dr-Who.html\" target=\"_blank\">Sunday Telegraph article<\/a> about a Church of England conference that encouraged the use of the series in sermons and other church contexts as a tool to connect with youth in the church.&nbsp; This has, of course, been picked up in the blogosphere including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/church_of_england\/whats_that_police_call_box_doi.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Lead<\/a> on the Episcopal Caf\u00e9, a <a href=\"http:\/\/heresycorner.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/doctor-doctor.html\" target=\"_blank\">long article at Heresy Corner<\/a>, and at <a href=\"http:\/\/pjmiller.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/04\/the-church-is-ailing-send-for-dr-who\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sola Dei Gloria<\/a>.&nbsp; There are a host of other blogs as well.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I was a fan of the show, particularly the Fourth Doctor, but I have not seen a lot to draw from any more than other forms of popular media.&nbsp; A clip here, a quote there.&nbsp; Just the usual.&nbsp; Now popular media is a useful tool, but I find it interesting that there was a whole conference on this one series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As long as I&#8217;m tackling some of the less polity-oriented items today, I&#8217;ll go ahead and do this post on Doctor Who. Actually, it begins with the actor who plays [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-of-scotland"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Theology of Dr. Who - The GA Junkie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Theology of Dr. Who - The GA Junkie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As long as I&#8217;m tackling some of the less polity-oriented items today, I&#8217;ll go ahead and do this post on Doctor Who. Actually, it begins with the actor who plays [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The GA Junkie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-05-07T10:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-04-04T17:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Steve Salyards\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Steve Salyards\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Steve Salyards\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e30c1b854f165e0423ea436d3961c1c0\"},\"headline\":\"The Theology of Dr. Who\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-05-07T10:30:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-04T17:31:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\"},\"wordCount\":299,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Church of Scotland\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\",\"name\":\"The Theology of Dr. Who - The GA Junkie\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-05-07T10:30:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-04T17:31:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Theology of Dr. Who\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/\",\"name\":\"The GA Junkie\",\"description\":\"The Politics of Presbyterianism\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"GA Junkie\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Cross-Square.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Cross-Square.jpg\",\"width\":1,\"height\":1,\"caption\":\"GA Junkie\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/ga_junkie\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e30c1b854f165e0423ea436d3961c1c0\",\"name\":\"Steve Salyards\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f098d5fd6e11f0399f5340bc917d2834c81c2c84247856402d200760feff0c86?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f098d5fd6e11f0399f5340bc917d2834c81c2c84247856402d200760feff0c86?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f098d5fd6e11f0399f5340bc917d2834c81c2c84247856402d200760feff0c86?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Steve Salyards\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Theology of Dr. Who - The GA Junkie","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=819","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Theology of Dr. Who - The GA Junkie","og_description":"As long as I&#8217;m tackling some of the less polity-oriented items today, I&#8217;ll go ahead and do this post on Doctor Who. 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