Just prior to its US release, May 19, Star Wars fans were wondering, "Is Revenge of the Sith the One?" That question, circulating in Star Wars fan club websites and blogs, echoes the question that was once asked of Jesus Christ, "Is he the One, or shall we look for another?" The combination of science fiction and spirituality is what George Lucas does best, so the question, reflecting as it does, a passage straight out of the New Testament, makes it well worth thinking once again about the new art form of which Lucas is a leading practitioner: not science fiction, but spirituality fiction.

Thirty years ago, sociologist Robert Bellah, proposed that the moral and religious center of American culture is not Christianity, as preachers and politicians are accustomed to proclaiming, but rather what he called "civil religion." Not Christianity, nor Judaism, nor any other particular religion, but rather a spirituality that combines elements of those traditions with pragmatism, rationalism, Jeffersonian democracy, patriotism and faith in the efficacy of science.

Since the late sixties, when Bellah's theory was widely debated, and ferociously attacked, it has become more difficult to argue that American culture has a center -- of any kind. Today our diversity is the one thing most commentators agree upon. And this is true especially when one considers the religious diversity of the US: the resurgence of fundamentalism, the growth of Muslim populations, the popularity of Buddhism and New Age Spiritualities, to mention only a few of the sometimes contradictory trends.

In the Star Wars series, we have strong evidence that there is a moral and religious center of popular culture, and it looks very much like an updated version of Bellah's civil religion. While many critics have panned the Star Wars movies, even the harshest critics have noted the surprising depth of devotion that drives large audiences to these films.

Roger Ebert came very close to catching the essence of the series in his review of Episode I: "The series is essentially human mythology, set in space, but not occupying it. If Stanley Kubrick gave us man humbled by the universe, Lucas gives us the universe domesticated by man."

In a culture which is as diverse as ours, the formal religious organizations, wedded as they are to ancient traditions with particular histories, creeds and practices, cannot hope to give expression to those common beliefs that form the core of the wider culture. Indeed, it is the role the those religious organizations to stand apart from culture, and offer an alternative view. The movie makers are bound by no such constraints, however. In fact, their very success depends upon evoking the deepest feelings, and giving voice to the most profound myths of the largest possible publics.

Few come closer to the core of pop spirituality than George Lucas.

In Star Wars, Episode I, we saw the essence of the secular message of hope that Americans are very much yearning to hear as the bloody conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, and as stories of political infighting dominate so much domestic news.

Star Wars is about what every religion is about. Namely, the contest between good and evil and how a particular individual, and by extension, an entire people, can triumph over evil.

Following nearly every high profile example of a teenager in America going on a shooting spree somewhere, we are told over and over again, how violent US society truly is, how its youth culture is dominated by demonic feelings of fear and anger, how the media is fueling the dark side of the human psyche and driving children down a road that leads only to destruction.

In Star Wars, by contrast, we are told that there is a childlike innocence still very much alive and well in the hearts and minds of the people, that there are still heroes who will do battle against the forces of evil. And moreover, when confronted by evil, if one calls upon the benign power of "the Force," one can triumph over the worst that evil can do.

There are specific references to traditional religious themes in the series, of course. Christ figures like Qui-Gon Jinn in Episode I, the very image of a bearded and robed teacher who sacrifices his life that the world may be saved. His enemy was clearly a stand in for Satan as Darth Maul, red skin and horns to make the parallel complete, their first confrontation took place in the desert. Add to these traditional themes, drawn in part, from the Bible, a Zen like substitution of the power of meditation for the power of prayer, a very New Age trust in the efficacy of intuition and feeling, and a distinctly American reliance upon technology as an agent of liberation/salvation, and you have a package that is hard to resist.

Or has George Lucas Turned to the Dark Side?