Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

With the news that Apollo 14 astronaut and moonwalker Edgar Mitchell has claimed that NASA covered up alien existence and UFO visits to Earth, Christians will once again be faced with the strange theological question of not only alien souls, but the role that faith in Christ plays intergalactically.

It is rather common for people, conspiracy theorists or not, to admit a belief in the existence of intelligent life on another planet.  But as soon as a belief in aliens gets juxtaposed with religious belief—a comparison too often ignored—a cognitive dissonance surfaces, calling into question how Christian theology ought to handle intelligent life on other planets.

Firstly, one must wonder if aliens must take Christ as their personal savior to become “saved.” This is a basic tenet to Christian faith, and many Christian alien-believers will admit that, yes, intelligent life anywhere in the universe must be saved by Christ.

The next question, obviously, is whether these aliens will be forced to worship Christ in his human form, or whether Christ has appeared on all the planets with intelligent life—a kind of intergalactic tour, of sorts.

Many Christians to whom I have posed this question opt for the intergalactic Christ model, reasoning that it would not make sense for aliens to worship a human.

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