Wednesday.....Culture.....E. T. the Extra-Theological

 Reports are out today on recently released classified documents where Winston Churchill ordered reports of a UFO sighting by an RAF crew be kept secret for 50 years. The main reason being that release of them at the time might cause a panic and general disbelief in religion. This would be the natural reaction for if alien life existed then the gospel would be compromised. Add to this that people, in this trivial age of entertainments, look hopefully, and often seek desperately, for verifiable proof of our being visited by aliens. When Hollywood ventures into this area, which is often, it rarely gets it right but there are two films that came close by portraying visits by aliens as something not desirable. The first was 1951's The Thing where an alien spacecraft crashed in the arctic and was discovered by a government scientific team. James Arness played the creature that emerged from the ice. Before the creature was destroyed, one scientist was thrilled with the discovery and intent on making friends only to have his offer of friendship returned with the Thing killing him. The second film was Mars Attacks from 1996 with an all-star cast. Large crowds of harmonic convergence types gathered on this, the greatest day of the world's history where man meets Martian, only to be gunned down before it was all over. Another classic film, The Day The Earth Stood Still gave a more agreeable twist. Michael Rennie was a Christ figure who comes to the Earth to stop the violence. He is killed by our military only to be resurrected by his robotic companion. The Bible gives no place, no possibility, to alien life other than the angelic realm. Any interpretation that permits extra-terrestrials uses its own biases as a foundation of interpretation. I would think that the Christian mind would automatically realize that should there be any future verification or contact with "aliens" that it would be verification and/or contact with supernatural beings, and not those who are emissaries of God. Such an event quite possibly could be the strong delusion mentioned in 2nd Thessalonians 2. Churchill was correct, to a degree, "confirmation" of life in other solar systems would harm the veracity of religion but it would do something else. It would strengthen those who discern the real importance of such a deception. It might stunt the growth of the mega-church movement  but then would probably mobilize that element of the Christian church that relies on supernatural phenomena, end-times theories and gnosticism for growth. It would cause divisions that ultimately could only clarify the gospel to many. It would be a humbling, difficult time; not something that one would look forward to experiencing. UFO sightings could also be simply diversions. If so, they certainly work but only as far as God permits them to. The best defense against getting caught up in the alien phenomena is knowledge of the narrative of Scripture for understanding this puts all UFO news in the perspective of anything but aliens visiting this planet. Although the following book recommendation does not address the issue at hand, it does deal with discernment in the church, or rather the lack of it, and its proclivity to fall for deception.