"My Apologetical take on the STAR TREK Franchise" - by: B. L. Blankenship

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Jan 30, 2026 - 12:20

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"My Apologetical take on the STAR TREK Franchise" - by: B. L. Blankenship

FOREWORD:

The following is essentially an apologetical response to criticism again the newer iterations of the Star Trek Franchise. Recently, with the dawning of Starfleet Academy series & continuation of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, an amassment of people on the internet who seemingly cling to the delusion that the Star Trek franchise is something that it is not have been asserting that anyone who says anything favorable about the new iterations of it deserve to die, go to jail, be cast into perdition, or whatever. I've written this with my own hand. When I contribute that much time to an article, that means that I'm doing it for the sake of catharsis more than money. I wish you happy reading. *Comments are open.

A BRIEF BACKGROUND ON GENE RODDENBERRY'S IDEOLOGY & HOW IT IS REFLECTIVE OF STAR TREK'S PROGRESSION:

My argument is this, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek follow a similar trajectory as his own life. Gene was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. When he was age 14, he walked away from it & God, though if we're being real, he likely walked away internally well before he did physically. In any case, it wouldn't make a difference either way. The point is that Gene Roddenberry embraced agnosticism, which sounds far less militant than atheism. He also embraced humanism. Take all of that as a foundation for my argument that the Star Trek franchise is reflective of him.

In Star Trek (The Original Series) & the movie adaptations, Captain James T. Kirk stated to an alien purporting himself to be God or a god, "I find the one sufficient." I love that, by the way. The actor, William Shattner is Jewish, thus a monotheist. While I've gotten various answers, all sources say that the original series was set in the 2260s-2270s. It had several later series predating it in their chronology. Enterprise is the first of those, with Captain Archer. It begins in 2151. The furthest series in the Star Trek television adaptations is Starfleet Academy, which takes place after the end of Star Trek: Discovery, which ended in 3191, after they time-traveled there. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Christianity is referred to as a myth. It's referred to in other series as a historical Earth religion. Essentially, the further in the future we get in the Star Trek franchise, the further it gets from Judeo-Christian belief. I'm neither commending nor condemning that, as it is a fictional show. What I am saying is that we shouldn't pretend that something is anything other than what it is.

Some actors have come back at internet trolls who are seemingly living on a mound of discontentment, telling them that Star Trek has always been progressive. Look, I was raised in church. I believe in holiness. I was a legalist through my late teens & early 20s. If you're reading this & trying to be all churchy, know that I'm a Holy Ghost-filled 6th generation Church of God preacher, a theologian, whose studied world religions & demonology extensively. I've pastored 2 churches. I have a heart for God & a heart for people. Frankly, you can't have a heart for God if you don't have a heart for people. I preface you with that to rebut any ignorant notions of mislabeling me for being open with something being what that thing is. In the original series, there was an interracial kiss. Somewhere between the 2nd & 4th episode of The Next Generation, there was a man in a Starfleet dress. Star Trek has always had progressive ideology & such within it. Sometimes it is in the background & sometimes it is undeniably in the foreground, such as Discovery's openly homosexual couple & lesbian (Jett Reno) who'd lost her wife. Jett is also a teacher at the academy in the newest show. She's since married a Klingon woman. There has not been much mention of the biting, drawing blood, and other things that seem rough & BDSM that Klingons do during sexual rituals. Given what I know of the Star Trek universe, which is substantial, having sex with a Klingon wouldn't be my cup of tea. While a Vulcan is extremely strong, they just kind of fondle one another's hands as foreplay. It's much nicer than someone breaking skin where they bit you so hard.

HOW STAR TREK IS MUCH EASIER TO WRITE FROM A SECULAR HUMANIST PERSPECTIVE:

With all of that said, I'd like to say as a fiction author & theologian that it is vastly easier to write Star Trek from a secular humanist perspective than a Judeo-Christian one. If it was being written from the theologically Judeo-Christian viewpoint, there'd be a lot of issues to tackle that there aren't otherwise. "Original Sin" & "The Rapture" would be excellent examples of that. I mean, with all of these other planetary races, how is their sin going to be atoned for? You see, Gene Roddenberry is a far cry from my brilliant brother in Jesus Christ, C. S. Lewis, who wrote The Ransom Series. In its first book, the main character, whose last name is Ransom, is taken to the planet Mars. It is a perfect world that never fell into sin. The very human, wicked men who've taken him there want to overthrow & corrupt the planet. Earthlings are the villains, wanting to colonize it & burn the culture to the ground as men have through history on Earth. In the second book, Ransom goes to Venus, which has a perpetual garden of Eden there & an Eve character. Satan himself possesses a man & acts as the serpent did in the Genesis narrative. Ransom tries to save this Venetian woman from the same fate as mankind. Then the third book is about Earth. You see, that very Jules Verne-esque type of outer space science fiction that C. S. Lewis masterfully wrote keeps the Bible in mind. It deals with issues like sin, eternal damnation, and such. It was meant to. It's the sort of animal it is & yes, it is completely brilliant. However, with that said, I again point out that Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek paints men as benevolent. It tells you that while history repeats itself, mankind generally has overcome our nature to conquer & such - except for the mirror universe, of course.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy both Star Trek & The Ransom series as franchises. Pretending that either one is something that it is not, or trying to shoehorn it into a narative that doesn't jive with what it is is pure garbage. It's ironic, isn't it? These same people crying out against Amazon's reimagining/bastardizing of Middle Earth, via The Rings of Power series, are dumping on Star Trek for being Star Trek. Are there some obvious misses here and there regarding any of the newer adaptations? Yes. Medical advancements should make it as weird for someone to wear glasses or be crippled as it'd be for me or you to live in a cave, wearing a loincloth, & carry a wooden club - while at the same time trying to live amongst postmodern society. If people want to pick at Star Trek, it's actual misses that's one thing. If they want to pick at it for what it has always shown itself to be, that's another.

Also, just for the sake of rehashing the Biblical thing, if Star Trek did hold to the Bible being the Word of God, then anything that would be off would be indicative of mankind misinterpreting Holy Scripture. And while I don't see the franchise ever doing that, frankly, that could go to a lot of different & possibly very bad places.

I'm not joking when I say this, I've genuinely had people come up to me in years passed who were fearful, asking about what the Bible says about the zombie apocalypse. Truly, the fictional stories from The Walking Dead franchise did an excellent job showing how, in a world where a zombie apocalypse did happen, men would try to explain it & be looking for answers. Going to something as culturally fundamental as the Bible would be a completely normal thing that people would do. Of course, I calmed the person & explained to them that it was just a fictional television show. Doing that works well because the show is Earthbound.

ACKNOWLEDGING THAT FICTION CAN SHAPE IDEAS & CULTURE WAR CLAIMS:

Yes, I know that people can weave ideas through fiction. Acknowledging that would bring a conversation about Star Trek & culture war type issues up, but here's the deal, if the Star Trek franchise was going to take a hard Judeo-Christian turn, that'd be difficult to set up, not the series intent. Again, it could go to some bad places. If you're looking for context of something making a hard turn towards something completely contrasting what it was, historically, we have had that with the vikings,which didn't happen overnight. Christianity notably overtook the wildly pagan idolitrous region. Christians penned the Ragnarok; their mythologies. In it, the Viking gods failed & essentially bowed at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Later, it began to make a resurgence & is still somewhat going on. Anton Levey's son-in-law said on Dr. Bob Larson's TV show (in the 1990s) that the revival of the worship of Norse Gods, i.e., demonic principalities, was what used their power & influence to bring forth the Holocaust - leading to the death of 11 million people total.

Contrarily, in Star Trek, "the church" isn't doing humanitarian work; the United Federation of Planets is. They leave primitive societies alone, just like the majority of people leave the North Sentinel Island (i.e., cannibals) alone. ...That's an interesting history, by the way. Some natives were taken to Britain from the North Sentinel Island. The natives came back with some sickness that their people weren't immune to. A bunch of them died. No wonder they slaughter any missionaries who try to get near, huh? I've researched it for what I'll call a fair bit. It's owned by India, but I digress. Despite an evident pattern of human depravity, greed, conquest, & whatnot, Star Trek professes that there is an innate human goodness that can overcome. That's the opposite of hardlining "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." It's more like The Little Engine Who Could. It's about perciverence & replacing poor choices with better ones. That more of an addiction theropy type of thing.

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS IN REGARDS TO CONFLICT MARKETEERING PODCASTERS & STREAMERS:

In regard to entertainment, I consume what I enjoy & I leave the rest. When I go to the grocery store, I’m not overcome by certain things that I hate, but I get the things that I like, need, or want, and leave the others. I hear some YouTubers say that when they talk about Comic Books, Movies, or whatever thing that it is that they enjoy, their rage-bait/shock audience doesn’t show up. Quite frankly, you’ve cultivated your audience. Sensibly, what you’d do is wrap the cheese (the draw/bait) around the medicine (the good stuff) for a smooth transition rather than see things fall apart from a hard turn. Quite frankly, I think that streams/podcasts that involve critical-thinking/honest-debate would be infinitely better than one that has a bunch of cronies on agreeing with anything & everything that an on screen personality says; and I mean a real debate with someone competant. Presumably, sometimes one person would lose & sometimes the other would. I don’t think it should be manufactured, like the leashed conservative member of the television show The View, but sincere. I might also add that losing a debate doesn't mean that you're wrong or wholy wrong, it just means that you didn't argue as well as your opponent. Back in the 1990s & all while I was growing up, we used to have a thing called critical thinking. You'd hear both sides & determine what you thought. The opposite of that is called propoganda &/or brainwashing.

I suppose that covers just about everything. As a Christian I might add that without a sure foundation a person will be swayed by every whim or doctrine. Yes, that is a broad stroke that's applicable to a great many things. You're either grounded or your not. There are people who say they believe in science, the Bible, or whatever until that thing they claim to believe in tells them something that they don't want to hear. Likewise, to the contrary I could point out the spiritual & psychological truth that we can sear our concense with a hot iron (i.e., desensitize ourselves) by what allow ourselves to watch, listen to, or do over and over again. Both of those things are true at the same time. I genuinely feel like the narratives, characters, and storylines that are put in the various Star Trek series (for the most part) flow in the vain of what Star Trek is. You, the reader have my full permission to quote or commentate on this article in anyway that you see fit.

"My Apologetical take on the STAR TREK Franchise" - by: B. L. Blankenship

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