Messiah figures, who are “sometimes depicted unsympathetically as deluded, dishonest, or misinterpreted figures whose doctrines are more harmful that helpful”,[1] are just one aspect of several religious themes that are interpreted in sci-fi literature.[2]
Graham falls asleep and wakes up 200 years later as a celebrity and the richest man on earth. He experiences the misery of the workers, refuses to be manipulated by the ruling plutocrats and fights and sacrifices himself for the rebellious masses.
Jean Delaire (pseudonym of Pauline Celestine Elisa Touchemolin)
Novel
1904
John Long Ltd
A spaceship equipped with a super telescope flies to a distant planet at 2000 times the speed of light in order to witness the last days of Christ in retrospect.
Stories about the extraterrestrial Kryptonian Kal-El,[19] "a popular culture messiah",[20] who fights for the good cause as the superhuman "saviour of the helpless and suppressed".[21]
Conger can gain release from jail if he kills a man 200 years in the past before this man becomes the founder of an influential anti-technology cult. With the skull of this Founder, Conger travels to the year 1960, where he makes a surprising discovery.
After a global nuclear war, the Jewish electrical engineer Leibowitz preserves books and knowledge of the world as a converted Catholic and order founder. He is tortured and murdered, but over the millennia his image evolves into that of a saint.
In a distant future, the machine god, who ensures that everything technological functions, creates a son who demands repentance and worship from people.
The last survivor of the Mars colony is brought to Earth. Equipped with superhuman abilities, he experiences life on Earth, deeply touches the people he meets, is finally killed by the mob, but lives on as a spirit being.
On Mars, the earthling Gallinger learns the high language of the Martians, studies their sacred texts and inadvertently becomes the predicted prophet of a new age.
In an environmentally degradaded world, Palmer Eldritch facilitates the lives of millions of people with the alien drug Chew-Z - but Eldritch's identity and intentions are shrouded in mystery.
On a distant planet, technically superior earthlings control the existence of the native species like a god. The protagonist Sam is a renegade who fights against this oppression in the role of Siddhartha Gautama.
The inhabitants of the planet Astrobe live in prosperity and abundance, but are experiencing social and moral decline. They bring Thomas Moore out of his time to save them with his moral knowledge and show them the right way.
An AI pope rules an alternative world in which a revolutionary Jesus (without crucifixion)[40] has overthrown the Roman Empire and established a worldwide theocracy.
(Vol. 2 of 6) Paul Atreides is the regent of the desert planet Arrakis and, as “Muad'Dib”, the messiah for the religious Fremen. Before he disappears into the desert as a blind preacher, he must prevail against adversaries within to protect his children.
In the winter of a bleak future, Juan and his father offer shelter to a pregnant woman and her partner. The father helps with the birth of the baby, who has deep black eyes. Juan has a hunch.
Before an apocalyptic war, the protagonist James J. Kelly stages himself as the reincarnation of the Hindu deity Kalki in an elaborate religious hoax in order to repopulate the earth after the destruction of humanity.
A man escapes from a technocratic, cold future by undergoing drug-induced therapy in which he puts himself in the shoes of religious figures, including Jesus, and lives through their lives.
The Gospel According to Gamaliel Crucis (also The Astrogator's Testimony)[50]
An asteroid threatens the technologized world community in which Fatima Magdalene, the prophetess of Chrislam (Christianity, Islam, and computer/brain interface) has her own goals.
After the Second Coming of Jesus through reproductive cloning of DNA from the Shroud of Turin, he is presented in the media in a reality show. The rebellious Jesus causes adoration and rejection.
Brisio Javier Oropeza: The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Pop Culture, Ed. Peter Lang, Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series (2005), ISBN978-0-8204-7422-9
Gabriel McKee: The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From The Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (The Gospel According To... Series (2007), ISBN978-0-664-22901-6
James Frank McGrath: Religion and Science Fiction, Ed. James Clarke & Company (2012) ISBN978-0-7188-4096-9
James Frank McGrath: Theology and Science Fiction, Cascade Books (Cascade Companions) (2016), ISBN978-1-4982-0451-4
Jim Papandrea: From Star Wars to Superman: Christ Figures in Science Fiction and Superhero Films, Sophia Institute Press (2017) ISBN978-1-62282-388-8
Michael Scheibach: Faith, Fallout, and the Future: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction in the Early Postwar Era, MDPI, in Religions (2021) Bd. 12(7), p. 520 ff., doi:10.3390/rel12070520
Frank Bosman: Messiah/Christ, p. 167-186 in Caitlin Salomon: Biblical Themes in Science Fiction, Ed. Nicole L. Tilford and Kelly J. Murphy, SBL Press (2023) ISBN1-62837-459-4
1 2 3 Julia List: Call me a Protestant: Liberal Christianity, Individualism, and the Messiah in „Stranger in a Strange Land“, „Dune“ and „Lord of Light“, in Science Fiction Studies (2009), 36 (1), S. 21-47
↑ The title makes reference to John 19:5 (New Testament): „Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!“
↑ Moorcock later wrote an expanded version in novel form, which was published by Allison & Busby in 1969.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
