space

For God So Loved the Exoplanets

Frank

I’ve always been a bit of a space nerd, moved by awe-inspiring images from the Hubble Telescope, imagining what it would be like to explore the beautiful depths of the cosmos.  Less abstract, the ever-growing list of planets discovered by the Kepler Observatory have captured my curiosity and its latest discovery, announced last week, reminded me of unanswered questions.

These questions are a staple of science fiction, exploring answers from the varied perspectives of linguists, politicians, the military, and families.  We imagine ourselves in the role of discoverer, peacemaker, victor, and victim.  But no one really knows what it would be like if we ever discovered alien life.  The biggest question, that I wish I had a good answer for, is what would such a discover mean for our theology?

Ever since Galileo got into trouble with the Catholic Church over the observation that the earth revolved around the sun, science and the church have been at odds (and probably longer, despite the many significant contributions believing scientists and mathematicians have made throughout history).  Evolutionary biology challenges the six-day creation account.  Geology challenges the age of the Earth.  Astronomy challenges the ‘firmament’ described in Genesis 1 and the notion of God spreading out the heavens like a tent.  And cosmology questions the need for an active creator.  Well-meaning and well-informed Christians can debate the theological significance of each but an undisputed discovery of alien life would turn all these debates on their head.

Most challenging, besides trying reconcile what this would mean for the existence of God, not to mention destroying the tightly-held doctrine of biblical inerrancy, would be the question of what would this mean for salvation and atonement?  Do other worlds have their own gardens of Eden?  Would sin be defined the same way for creatures that wouldn’t communicate or interact the same as we do?  What form would divine revelation take?  And most importantly, are there several alien Jesuses saving the universe one planet at a time? (After all Jesus did say there are sheep other than these, meaning us, that he needed to save.)

I expect Christians would display a range of reactions to the discovery of alien life.  I think some would be inclined to respond with skepticism in the same way they react to global warming.  Others would react with hostility to anything that would cast doubt on the inerrant, authoritative, word of God.  But I think the most common reaction would be fear as if such news was a threat- not the threat of an alien invasion, but rather the threat of their long-held worldview being wrong.

You’ve probably done this exercise at VBS youth camp, or maybe even in a personal Bible study- look up John 3:16 and make it personal: “For God so loved (your name here) that he gave his only son, that if you believe in him you shall not perish but have eternal life.”  You’ve probably heard this as well, ‘if you were the only person on the planet, Jesus would still have gone to the cross for you.’  This is a nice sentiment, but I don’t entirely agree and it is this emphasis on a personal savior and individual salvation that is at the heart of much of American Christianity theology.

But I don’t think the Bible supports that.  Throughout Romans, Paul’s most theological letter, Paul always defines salvation in context of God’s Covenant faithfulness.  Even when he quotes Joel to say, “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13), it is in reference to the Day of the Lord that is a fulfillment of God’s covenant.  Jesus, while certainly emphasizing God’s love for each of us individually as well as emphasizing our own personal responsibility in following him, framed his ministry in the context of the Covenant- “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets… but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)  I have to admit that I am influenced by scholars and theologians who have emphasized ‘Israel’s story’ to define the Gospel (most notably Scot McKnight and N.T. Wright) but I also think such a view would help us reconcile the notion of alien life and whether they would be in need of a savior.

Ask yourself this question, is your favorite pet saved?  When you were a child you might have been told that the pet that died went to heaven, but do you believe that now?  Did God make a covenant promise to dogs and cats, complete with a list of conditional curses and blessings that include the end-state of either damnation or salvation?  In the same way, we have no evidence (obviously) of God making a covenant promise to any alien civilization.  Therefore they wouldn’t need their own alien Jesus.  In fact, if God did make such a promise it would most likely be very different than we could even imagine and Jesus might not even be involved at all!

But would that mean we have to redefine the Great Commission in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of every… planet?  Or what if that alien invasion we fear is really them coming to evangelize us?  Maybe their advanced technology has shown them how much we need saving.

And maybe they’re only 39 light years away, wandering in space, waiting to enter into their promised planet.

When He Returns

Frank
“The angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” (Revelation 8:5)

What will it be like when Jesus returns? What will we see when we gaze up into the sky? (“why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” -Acts 1:11)

I remember reading the book Joshua when I was in High School. The story, if you’re not familiar, is about Jesus returning as a nondescript carpenter named Joshua. Basically, Jesus blends in and few recognize him as the come-again savior.

Differences in end-times theology, the rapture, and eschatology aside, I wonder: would we really notice when Jesus returns? Currently the Southern Hemisphere can see Comet Wainscoat (or Pans-STARRS or C/2011-L4 if you want to get really technical) but the same comet won’t be visible in the Northern Hemisphere for another week. Even the brightest object in the sky can only be seen by half the Earth at a time.

When the meteor exploded over Russia a couple of weeks ago, a friend was eager to tell me about it (me being a space-nerd after all). “No, the asteroid doesn’t pass by until tonight,” I insisted. Without cable, and not having yet logged on to the Internet, I hadn’t seen the news. Despite my ignorance, videos of the blast soon went viral, news services scrambled to explain what happened, and science committees stood up to warn of the dangers of something larger colliding with the Earth.

But to the people there, who saw it firsthand, how did they respond? Check out the fascinating video below taken from cell phones, security cameras, and dash cams. The reactions are what you’d expect. Is this real? Are we under attack? What is that? Now imagine the scene as Revelation describes above and ask yourself, when Jesus comes back will anyone believe it?

Why Space

Frank

It’s funny how you remember exactly where you were when certain events happen. Most people a generation before remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot or when Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon. I remember sitting in my grandma’s kitchen watching the Berlin Wall fall. I remember my mom calling me to wake me up to watch the events of September 11 unfold on cable news. And as a space nerd, other events are vivid in my memory.

When I was six or seven, my family went on vacation to Disney World and we took a side-trip to Cape Canaveral, home of NASA’s new Space Shuttle program. In my young mind, the Disney ride ‘Flight to Mars’ combined with the visit to NASA to convinced me that I had actually gone to space. Already a huge fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, this trip forever hooked me.

Ten years ago I was on my way to an appointment when my phone started to ring. Over and over. My love of all things space, and especially the Space Shuttle, was no secret so just about everyone who knew me that saw the news gave me a call. I remember driving to my meeting listening for every detail on the radio. I understood what the news meant, so I kept listening for clues why.

Just seventeen years earlier I was sitting in my 4th grade classroom sharing current events. The launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger had already been delayed a couple of times due to weather. The news I heard that morning was that it was finally due to launch. The space nerd that I was (and still am) was eager to share this with the rest of the class. A debate broke out- one of my friends insisted it was delayed again. He spoke with authority- his dad was one of the finalists for the Teacher in Space program that earned Christa McCauliffe a seat on Challenger. We were in class, so there was no way to know who was right and who was wrong. Until a half-hour or so later when another teacher ran in to our room pulling in a TV on its cart. “You need to see this!” she cried.

That event is cemented in my mind. Space was no longer a fantasy of comic books and movies. It was not a novelty stop on a trip to Disney World. It was real, involved real people, and included real risks. From that point on, it has been on my heart to work to reduce the risks and increase the reliability of space travel. If I’d never go to space in my lifetime, I still held on to the youthful dream that possibly my children could. And here I am today.

I recalled that day in January as I heard about Columbia and marvelled how close their dates ocurred. Checking my history it found it odd that almost exactly 19 years before Challenger was the Apollo 1 catastrophe. I deal every day with numbers so this synchronicity seemed too improbable to be true. Trying to find meaning I pondered if God was trying to tell us something.

In the ten years since, and watching the Orbiter Endeavor fly over my work on its final voyage to the California Science Center in LA, I have often wondered “why space”? Besides providing me a paycheck, is there a point anymore? The idea of human exploration, or more so human habitation in space is as far-fetched as ever. Just Thursday an otherwise very reliable Zenit rocket failed to deliver a communication satellite when something went wrong during first-stage burn. Space is still hard. It is still dangerous.

I am reminded of the Tower of Babel. With the Internet allowing world-wide instant communication, are we really any different than the people of that age? And I think of our efforts to explore space- each new discovery introduces more questions: Water on Mars? Hundreds of planets discovered? I watched the movie ‘Contact’, based on Carl Sagan’s masterpiece, and reflected on the eternal questions “where did we come from?” and “why are we here?” and realized we are not any closer to answering those questions than we were then. Maybe even further away.

Is God continuing to confuse the wisdom of the world as he did at Babel? Is he actively preventing us from exploring too far from our home? (Meanwhile Voyager 1 is breaking into the heliopause- the boundary of the Solar System.)

I ask myself these questions and wonder about my place in this vast universe as I look up into the stars and dream.

(photo courtesy NASA via space.com)