This is from my old website, written on
June 15, 2007
Will belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior survive First Contact with aliens?
In a word: absolutely.
An irritating "thing" about most of the SF community is many assume that as soon as aliens land, all Christians will immediately collapse into quivering piles of protplasm because any alien will "obviously" have a totally different belief system based entirely on their biology/psychology/evolution. That religion will completely knock the whole Humanly fabricated "philosophy" of Christianity on its collective butt, and then we can move out of that antiquated philosophy into a more enlightened realm of the true belief that Humanity is quite simply and inevitably perfectable.
What about a different scenario? What if our "advanced alien brethren" land and have a "philosophy" that in many ways parallels Christianity? Is this scenario any less likely than the ones in which advanced aliens take us under their benevolent wings (or other appendages)? Is it any less likely than the ones in which aliens enslave us (for some ridiculous reason like our water, our land, our resources or out of simple biological imperative)?
In four words: I don't think so.
Among the evidence I present that Christianity will easily survive First Contact (did I say anywhere here that it would survive unchanged? I think not!):
1) Christianity has survived some 2000 years worth of First Contacts. It has survived contact with Hindu beliefs, Islam, Confucism, Communism, Atheism, Buddhism, Materialism as well as several defunct -isms. It has changed. It has flexed. It has argued within itself. But the essential tenets of Christianity have remained the same (please don't bother arguing that "Christianity today is totally different from Christianity in the past"...I am sorry, but I must disagree. Feel free to disagree with me. It's a free world.) I must also say here that Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and various other subgroups are, by definition, NOT Christians because they do not hold to the tenets of Christianity which were established clearly at the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD (oops. Didn't mean to offend: 325 CE) (For those of you familiar with Christianity, these tenets were consolidated in the Nicene Creed. If a belief group does NOT confess the Nicene Creed, then they are not, by definition, Christian.)
2) Christians read SF and are ready to meet aliens. At least one of us is.
3) Christians as a group (there are, after all, over 1 billion who claim to be Followers of Christ) are NOT well represented by the flotsam and jetsam that pops up on FoxNews Tonight. Neither are all teachers well represented by teachers who have sexual relations with 14 year old students or are all fathers well represented by fathers who dip their 10-year-old daughters into scalding water. Christians as a group are normal, everyday people. They are your neighbors. They are, possibly even, YOU. (Sounds like a plot for an alien invasion story!) Some of us will be prepared to meet aliens and share our faith with aliens WITHOUT using red-hot pokers.
4) This last isn't direct evidence but rather a tangent rant. I find the belief that Christian missionaries "destroy cultures" insulting. Not to me -- to the culture that was supposedly suborned by Christians. For example, I have heard it said that Christian missionaries destroyed unique cultures, religions, practices and ways-of-life by bringing in their "westernized religion". What monumental arrogance! The accusers make the assumption that the primitive/alternate people are idiots and desperately in need of protection. Native Americans, Mayans, subcontinental Indians, Africans, Japanese, Australian aboriginals -- were not stupid people. They heard the Gospel of Christ and became Christians not because missionaries threatened them or coerced them with trinkets or because they wanted technology (there were plenty of people ofering technology WITHOUT religious trappings) but because a relationship with Christ made sense to them. These individuals don't need to be protected -- they are perfectly capable of making choices on their own based on data that they hear, consider and believe. To assume that "primitive" people became Christians under coercion is offensively arrogant. The same group of people will doubtless seek to keep Christians away from First Contact so as to "not offend" our interstellar brethren (or sistern). But intelligent life will be just that: intelligent. They can make the choice for themselves.
And if the aliens reidicule Christians? Well, we've been ridiculed before. It hasn't stopped the spread of the love of Christ yet. We'll keep on sharing the Good News. Of course, your average alien-believing atheist/agnostic will figure it's just pure stubborness and that we'll come around to the right way of thinking someday.
'Course, I'll be thinking the same thing of them...
5 comments:
An irritating "thing" about most of the SF community is many assume that as soon as aliens land, all Christians will immediately collapse into quivering piles of protplasm because any alien will "obviously" have a totally different belief system based entirely on their biology/psychology/evolution.
As both a long-time SF lover and a nontheist, I've encountered VERY few people who think anything like this. The very idea is absurd.
In fact, I've always liked stories involving missionaries (whether christiian or any other religion) going to alien cultures to spread their faith. It can make for very interesting reading.
"The Seraph from its Sepulchre," and a number of other stories by Gene Wolfe provides a favourable look at clergy meeting aliens. Same with Blish's "A Case of Conscience" and "A Case of Consilience" by Ken MacLeod, both atheists (though Blish later converted to Anglicanism.) And of course there's Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and The Children of God. And some stories by Ray Bradbury and R.A. Lafferty...
So at least some sf authors have a more nuanced view of First Contact between Christianity and alien life.
Perhaps you've encountered very few people who think that way because you've never had the opportunity of speaking up as a Christian. I on the other hand, have recieved responses ranging from cool to acid when I've talked about Christians and aliens meeting; one person even went so far as to suggest I might stick an energy weapon in my...mouth...and pull the trigger if I were to ever meet an alien and save us all a lot of hassle. As well, liking stories about missionaries and considering a personal faith response to aliens can be very different journies.
As to christians and aliens meeting, while I see it as no threat to christian beliefs I do think it brings up lots of fascinating theological issues.
For example:
Do aliens need to be saved?
Should a christian attempt to convert them to christianity or does God have a quite different plan of salvation for them?
Was the "Fall" only the fall of humanity or did it extend to the entire cosmos?
Seeing a religious person exploring these questions among the aliens of another world would certainly make for a wonderful subject for a novel So far, other than a handful of short stories, I've only found these issues explored in a couple of novels, Blish's A CASE OF CONSCIENCE and Flynn's EIFELHEIM---both excellent books.
That's exactly what CS Lewis explored in the second book of his Space Trilogy, PERELANDRA. The character is a humanoid who faces the same temptation Eve and Adam faced...but she chooses NOT to disobey God's direct order. If you haven't read it, it is well worth the time.
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