Is ET Saved, Too?

Is ET Saved, Too?
Devotional for the United Church of Christ Science and Technology Network
August 16, 2017
Rev. Dr. Ruth E. Shaver
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
—John 3:16-17, NRSV
After NASA announced the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone of the nearby star Proxima Centauri in August, 2016, rampant speculation began about the life that might exist on the surface of that planet, imaginatively named Proxima Centauri b.* Of course, that then brought on discussion of sentient life and how we Earthlings would cope with such a discovery. One of the questions that came up involves the Christian belief in Jesus as the Savior and what sentience on another planet would do to the theology of the Incarnation.

We have many options from which to choose:
—All other sentient beings in the universe are damned because Jesus Christ as incarnated is the only way to salvation, the incarnation is unique to Earth, and thus only sentient beings on Earth who believe in Jesus can be saved.
—Sentient life elsewhere in the universe disproves the whole of Christian doctrine.
—All sentient life forms can come to Jesus Christ for salvation and reconciliation, a position advocated by Pope Francis when he offered to baptize Martians if we found them!
—As José Gabriel Funes, recently retired director of the Vatican Observatory, says, perhaps only Earth’s sentient creatures are “the sinners in need of a shepherd. God became man in Jesus to save us. In that case, even if there were other sentient life forms, they might not be in need of redemption.”**
After this past weekend’s events in Charlottesville, which managed to overshadow the nuclear one-upmanship between our president and the dictator of North Korea, I would like to believe that Funes is right. I want to think that the rest of sentient life in the universe is far more ethical and moral than human beings because that means there’s hope that when we inevitably encounter such life (however many tens, thousands, or millions of years in the future that may be), at least one side will have good intentions and practices on its side.
But here’s the thing that science tells me about all of creation: it’s all flawed. Every particle of matter is perfectly imperfect. Everything is headed for chaos, ultimately. Which means that sentient life elsewhere in the universe is as flawed as we are, which leads me to one conclusion about salvation and reconciliation with God. That every single sentient being in the universe will ultimately be with God. Our perfect God, the Creator who wrote the laws that spun the universe into existence, did so out of love. That same love must make possible final return to the cause of that love for all beings. I know that for me and for all of us who follow Jesus Christ, that way is through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. I believe that there are “other sheep in other pastures” here on Earth who have different ways to salvation and reconciliation.
That leads me to understand that I’m not to worry about how any sentient being elsewhere in the universe, let alone anybody else on Earth, is going to be reunited with God in the end (of life? of time? When isn’t in my bailiwick, either!). I’m to trust that who is every body with the ability to reason, every being of every civilization that ever looked up and said “Wow!” in Klingon or Wookie or Vogonese, Furling, or Zygonian or Minbari. And I’m also to trust that whatever any other sentient being in the universe believes about the being I call God is, just like my understanding, only a partial glimpse of the true majesty of the One who created all that has been, is, and ever shall be. Amen.

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*As the hosts of the planetarium show at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science say, there may not be poetry in astronomical naming conventions, but there’s a great deal of logic! The star is Proxima Centauri A (4.25 light years from our sun) in astronomical catalogues; this planet and any others that might be found are named using lower case letters in alphabetical order according to orbit outward from the star.
Rev. Dr. Ruth Shaver completed her D.Min. at Lancaster Theological Seminary in 2016. She has completed a book manuscript called In Awesome Wonder: God’s Supremely Good Creation and the Science That Makes It Happen based on her dissertation, which also includes a hands-on intergenerational science curriculum for churches. She resides in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and is in search and call for an intentional interim/designated term pastorate. She previously served congregations in the Massachusetts and Penn West Conferences.

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