There's only one Sun.

Popular culture has a funny way of dividing Christians. This is often mainly a matter of disposition. Some Christians are eager to find flaws and heresies in any offering from the culture, whereas other Christians are eager to find useful elements we can redeem and use to teach greater truths.

Consider Star Wars. The detractors of course focus on the various ways in which “The Force” is completely unlike the God of the Bible, and they’re not wrong. But my son Spencer recently showed me an aspect of The Force which is just like God. He asked me, “Daddy, if the Dark Side of the Force is the bad part, why don’t they call the good part of the Force the Light Side?”

“Well, son, it’s because that would make it seem like there’s two Forces when there’s actually just one. The Dark Side isn’t really its own thing, but just what we say when someone misuses that one Force. So, when Darth Vader acts on anger or hurts people, he twists that good thing into a bad thing. Similarly, there’s only one God, not a good God and also a bad God. So all of our abilities comes from Him, but when we use His gifts the wrong way, we turn them dark.”

That’s the answer I wish I had given.

What I actually said was, “The Light Side of the Force? Cool. Then maybe the bad guys could use ‘dark sabers!’”