420: Sneak Peeks (1 and 2)

Yep. Looks like Christianity. a religion from our world, has made its way to FTL.

Yes that’s my problem with that line. It suggests that somehow the historical surroundings that led to the rise of Christianity and the Church here in our world, also happened in the EF.

Not necessarily. We know the EF has gods. It’s possible that the church line is related to them (Eric’s people seemed to worship Ursula the goddess) rather than to Christianity.

Except the places of worship associated with pantheistic religions were not called churches. They are called temples. Church is a Christian term, not general religion.

Temple, is from the Latin templum which is a general structure for religious services.

Chruch (big C or little c) comes from some Greek verbage. You have kyriakos okios (house of the Lord) and ekklesia which has a broader meaning of assembly but is used to specifically mean Christian Church when used in a religious context. We got a lot of Christian/church words from that last one…like ecclesiastical matters, matters relating specifically to the church.

(thank you 5 years of Greek and Latin. You sometimes come in handy…)

This isn’t that surprising. I mean, a deacon married Snow and Charming in the pilot. The only thing I’m curious about is how magic and a form of Christianity can co-exist in the EF.

I’m more bothered by the fact that there is Christianity in the EF at all. And that’s not any sort of anti-Christian statement, but rather that Christianity did not spring fully formed into our world one day. There is a very rich history that comes before Christianity that allows for its emergence onto the scene. In order for Christianity to exist in the EF you have to have: Judaism for a start, Israel and the traditions of David, Jewish Messianic tradition, the rise of Jewish apocalypticism, The Roman Empire and their conquest of Jerusalem, and perhaps most importantly, you have to have a historical Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified by the Romans and was believed to have risen three days afterwords by his followers. Without that last one, there is no Christianity.

Having an organized religion in the EF is one thing. But calling it a church and placing a Christian label on it is seriously problematic because it brings up a lot of question as to how Christianity made its way to an entirely different world.

And yes, I know A and E don’t want me to think this one through the way I am, but this is one of those cases where I wish they’d think a line through a bit more. One little change in the script and it wouldn’t bother me so much, “Book a temple” because at least that one has a broader meaning of general religious gathering place.

I agree that it’s likely some sort of organized hierarchical religion and the writers took the cues for it from our real world surroundings, the most predominant of which for Americans would be Christianity in its most broad definition. And I really think A and E (and Jane, the writer of this episode) isn’t wanting us to think that this is Christianity in the EF, it’s just a line that kinda bothers me for what it means if you stop to think about it.

Well…we’ve seen the Author go from realm to realm, maybe he’s the one who started writing about Christianity thus exposing it to people of the Enchanted Forest.

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I would admit that is a possibility (especially since the Author has a bit of a prophetic vibe to him) if we weren’t told time and time again that travel to the Land Without Magic is REALLY REALLY REALLY super HARD. I can buy the Author can write himself to Cruella’s Fictional! London, but our world? Harder stretch for me.