If Aliens Exist, Now What?

My Initial Thoughts About Alien Life, Spacecraft, and Recent Admissions from our Governement

I have to admit something.

Over the course of my life, I have gone from never to maybe on the subject of aliens.

That surprises me even as I write it.

In my earlier years as a Christian pastor and teacher, I dismissed the entire subject almost immediately. I didn’t believe the stories. (I did love the movies, though.) I didn’t trust the blurry photographs, the strange testimonies, the wild rumors, or the late-night documentaries narrated in ominous voices.

And if I’m completely honest, I found the theological implications deeply unsettling.

Photo by 85mm.ca on Unsplash

I remember a dinner conversation years ago with some parishioners who said that if we ever discovered intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, it would feel almost as disruptive as discovering the buried bones of Jesus of Nazareth. It seemed to me that such a discovery would shake the foundations of the Church itself.

It would shake me to my core.

Why? Because of the questions that would immediately rush in:

• If there are aliens, did Jesus die for them, too?

• Are they fallen creatures in need of redemption?

• If Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, would He also have appeared in the form of some four-foot-tall being from another world?

• Would there be other “Bethlehems,” other “crosses,” other stories of salvation unfolding somewhere in the galaxies?

At the time, it all felt impossible to reconcile.

It seemed to me that if intelligent civilizations existed throughout the cosmos, then we must have fundamentally misunderstood the universe — and perhaps even misunderstood the Bible itself.

“There Must Be Other Life”

People often say, “Given the size of the universe, there must be intelligent life somewhere else.”

I never found that argument particularly convincing.

Size alone proves nothing. Vastness is not evidence. An enormous ocean may still contain only one ship. A cathedral may be immense and still hold a single altar at its center.

The universe is undeniably vast. But vastness by itself does not tell us whether we are alone.

And honestly, the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life seemed to create enormous theological complications.

• What would it mean for Genesis — even for those of us who do not read the opening chapters as a modern scientific manual?

• What would it mean for the uniqueness of humanity as creatures made in the image of God?

• What would it mean for the Incarnation itself — for the staggering Christian claim that the eternal Son of God entered this world, took on our flesh, walked our dusty roads, and died our death?

Those questions once pushed me toward skepticism. But over time, I’ve become a little less certain. Or a little more open…

I’m not fully convinced. I’m not persuaded by every headline or internet theory. And I am certainly not ready to baptize UFO speculation into Christian doctrine. But I am a little more open than I once was to the possibility that the universe may be stranger, larger, and more populated than we imagined.

And strangely enough, I no longer think that possibility necessarily threatens the Christian faith as much as I once did.

A Palpable Shift

Something has shifted in recent years. The sheer accumulation of claims, reports, government acknowledgments, whistleblowers, military testimony, and credible journalism has at least forced me to reconsider my posture.

Not necessarily my conclusions.
But certainly my posture.

Government officials now openly discuss “non-human intelligence.” Serious journalists and military personnel speak about phenomena they cannot explain. Whistleblowers promise disclosures. Podcasts, documentaries, and articles circulate almost weekly, suggesting that we may not be alone in the universe.

Much of this sounds like conspiracy theories, and there is no shortage of them. Some of the stories are almost certainly. The internet is now a permanent factory of speculation and fear.

Thought Experiment

Let’s conduct a thought experiment.

Suppose—not prove, not assert, but simply suppose—that credible evidence eventually emerges showing that intelligent non-human life exists and has, in some way, interacted with humanity.

Would Christianity collapse?

I don’t think so. But it would force us all to rethink certain assumptions.

But we have done that before. And lived.

• Copernicus informed us that the Earth was not the center of the solar system.

• Darwin challenged simplistic assumptions about biological origins.

• Modern cosmology revealed a universe so vast it strains human comprehension.

Each discovery initially felt threatening because believers had attached portions of theology to particular scientific models of the universe rather than to Christ Himself.

And Christianity has endured.

In fact, Christianity has often emerged intellectually stronger after these moments because it was forced to distinguish between eternal doctrine and temporal assumptions.

For many years, Christians have unnecessarily tied the authority of Scripture to highly specific scientific models of the cosmos. But the Bible was not primarily given to explain astrophysics, molecular biology, interstellar travel, or the origins of the universe.

The Bible tells us who created the heavens and the earth and why creation exists. Not how. Or when.

Scripture truthfully and accurately tells us who we are.
It tells us—repeatedly and specifically—that we are broken.
It shows us the pernicious facts of demonic evil and human folly.
And it unfolds what God has done in Christ to redeem the world.

The ancient creed says: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” That remains true whether the universe contains one inhabited planet or ten million.

And Other Forms of Intelligence

In fact, Christianity has never taught that humanity is the only form of intelligent life in existence.

Scripture itself is populated with non-human intelligences:

• angels,

• archangels,

• the Nephalim

• cherubim,

• seraphim,

• principalities,

• powers.

The biblical worldview has always been more supernatural than modern secularism allows.

Theology vs. Emotion

The deeper issue, perhaps, is not a theological challenge, but an emotional one.

We human beings have long assumed ourselves to be the center of the visible universe. If we are not the only ones here in the universe, we have certainly acted as though we are! Could the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence wound human pride as Copernicus once did? Would it set us in our place? Would we no longer consider ourselves heirs to the throne, or the crown of all creation?

But perhaps we might learn the lesson the Bible takes pains to teach us anyway. Namely, that our uniqueness was never primarily about spatial centrality at all. We are not special because we are central to the universe and its sole heirs and inhabitants.

We don’t matter to God for that reason. We matter because God has entered into a covenant with us. Our human dignity is relational before it is cosmological.

The Cosmic Christ

Christianity may prove more durable than many expect.

The New Testament already presents Christ not merely as a tribal deity for one small planet, but as the cosmic Lord of all creation. Paul writes in Colossians:

“All things were created through him and for him.”
—Colossians 1:16

All things.

Visible and invisible.
Known and unknown.
Earthly and heavenly.

And even more remarkably:

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
—Colossians 1:17

Christianity has always claimed far more than we dare to realize. The Gospel is not merely about private spirituality or human moral improvement. It is about the reconciliation of creation itself.

Paul even says that through Christ, God intends:

“to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.”
—Colossians 1:20

That is an astonishingly cosmic claim.

Would extraterrestrial life raise profound theological questions? Certainly.
Would theologians need to revisit doctrines concerning the Fall, the Image of God, incarnation, and redemption? Without question.

But questions are not the same thing as collapse.

A Spiritual Warning

Not every spiritual claim attached to the UFO phenomenon should be believed uncritically.

Christians should avoid gullibility and sensationalism equally.

Some modern narratives surrounding aliens function almost like substitute religions:

• salvation through technology,

• enlightenment through hidden knowledge,

• transcendence without repentance,

• immortality without God.

That should concern Christians. In many cases, the modern UFO movement resembles ancient Gnosticism more than astronomy. Beware of those who promise special knowledge or revelation, even if they use the bible as some kind of decoder ring to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

The Bible does assume a universe alive with spiritual forces beyond ordinary perception. But Christians must resist the temptation to turn every mystery into apocalyptic certainty or internet mythology.

Christ Remains

If tomorrow the government released undeniable evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, Christians would undoubtedly begin asking profound theological questions.

But at the center of Christianity stands not a cosmological theory, but a person.

Jesus Christ.

Christianity has survived Galileo, Darwin, world wars, nuclear weapons, modern psychology, the sexual revolution, the internet, and artificial intelligence. It is sturdier than we think.

If aliens exist, Christians may need to rethink portions of our cosmology. But we would not need to abandon Christ. The heavens may turn out to be far stranger or more populous than we imagined.

But they still belong to God.

Grace and Peace,

David Roseberry ☩
The Anglican

PS: I still haven’t worked out all my issues with Christ and ET. It is mind-bending. But I will share my thoughts with you at a future time on The Anglican. That is why you should stay as a Paid Subscriber here.

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