The Doctor (part 2)

In the first article, I looked at the Doctor, who I see as a Christ figure. Now I want to look at a character who is often treated as a prop: the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space). But I believe this blue box is a very important character. She’s the Church.

I admit, I didn’t first see this metaphor while watching the show. Rather, it was in church when the tabernacle door was open. The little box was dark, and I couldn’t tell how deep it was, and I thought about it as the resting place of Christ and thought, “It’s bigger on the inside than the outside.”

That is the same phase that’s often used to describe the Tardis. There is more than meets the eye. Like the Church, the Tardis is a structure that is personified, even referred to as “she” by the Doctor. Where the Tardis is, there is the Doctor. She carries him through time and space, and he takes care of it. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship.

The Tardis is the constant. Companions come and go and the Doctor's appearance changes, but the Tardis is always there. For the companions, travelling in the Tardis is how they come to better understand and love the Doctor. She can respond to calls for help, protect people within its walls, and carry the Doctor to the places that need him most. The Church, too, is a constant through time and space. She’s our vehicle to Christ.


Great literature (even in TV form) is great when it transcends its own story, when it hits upon truths that teach us what we already knew. God is too big, too infinite for us to comprehend, so we use similes that try to say, “God is like this, only much, much more.”

In Western culture, our heroes are commonly Christ-characters; virtuous, solitary, sacrificing. Over and over, we want to see that kind of love, that kind of sacrifice, acted out because it’s too unbelievable to comprehend the first time. Collectively, we delve into literature looking for the truths to surface. If Truth is true, it will arise across time and space, over and over. It will always be true, whether debating philosophies or just watching a TV show about a crazy man with a blue box.