March 5 Flashback: Aliens save the world

March 5 Flashback: Aliens save the world March 5, 2022

Stop me if you’ve read this one before.

From March 5, 2012, “Antichrists and aliens and the end of the universe“:

For a particular kind of cramped Bible-Christianity, though, the possibility of intelligent life anywhere other than on Earth is frightening and troubling, because our Bible doesn’t say anything about life on other planets. I have a hard time grasping this objection. We humans from Earth read a Bible written by and for humans from Earth. Why should it have anything to say about whatever people might be living somewhere else? That’s not our business. It’s not what our Bible — or who our Bible — is for. If there are people on Kepler 22b, then I’m sure their scriptures don’t have much to say about us either.

It can be fun to think about how such other people on other worlds relate to God. The Vatican Observatory has hosted such discussions. And C.S. Lewis pursued the idea in his space trilogy. But I can’t fully grasp why so many Bible-Christians fear and reject the idea as somehow incompatible with their faith.

For subscribers of Tim LaHaye’s End Times innovations, though, it’s clear why the possibility of life on other planets must be rejected. I’d guess that LaHaye himself wouldn’t strongly reject the idea — he’d simply regard every other intelligent race in the universe as unsaved Space Ninevites who deserve to have their sinful worlds destroyed at the same time ours is. But if any of the thousands of speculative storytellers who have dreamed of advanced alien races are right, then we’d also have to consider this: Those aliens would never let LaHaye’s imagined apocalypse happen.

It’s their universe too, after all. So if we were to stipulate, for the sake of kicks and giggles, that anything like LaHaye’s heretical mythology were true, then every species in the universe would have an overriding interest in making sure that all of the items in his prophecy check list were prevented from occurring.

I don’t just mean there might be some benevolent rogue Gallifreyan racing about to save the Earth once again. It wouldn’t just be the Doctor working to prevent LaHaye’s apocalypse — the Daleks would be trying to stop it too. And the Atraxi, Slitheen, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Rylans, Sykarians, Jedi, Sith, Wookies, Kryptonians, Halosians, Weevils, Cardassians, Ferengi, Skrull and Ood. Any of them and all of them.

My point here isn’t mainly about theology, but about entertainment. I want to see and hear and read these stories.

Imagine a world in which both of the following are true: 1) Tim LaHaye’s notion of the events that will precipitate the end of the entire universe, and 2) A powerful, technologically advanced alien race is secretly monitoring Earth. You’ve got the basis there for a space-invaders movie in which the aliens aren’t coming to colonize or depopulate or to steal our water/air/unobtanium. They’d be coming here to stop the Antichrist — to save the Earth and the rest of the universe along with it. (Although those aliens might also opt for Plan B: destroy the Earth entirely to make sure the prophecies never come true.)

Or imagine that your basic space-federation of technologically advanced alien races is monitoring Earth and they’re not sure whether or not LaHaye’s prophecy scheme about the end of the entire universe is true. It might be prudent, just to be safe, to install some operatives down on Earth who could secretly identify and eliminate any potential Antichrists before they can rise up to bring about the end. I’d watch that movie.

Read the whole post here.


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