Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. (read entire article HERE)
The Vatican'schief astronomersays believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God. In an interview, the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes said:
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
There is even now a branch of theology that some are callingExotheology (theology of outer space). These discussions about religion and extraterrestrial life even go back to a 1978 article in Time magazine.
Major religious thinkers have yet to give serious attention to the issues posed by what some call "exotheology" (the theology of outer space). Perhaps they are waiting for the first UFOs to land, but more likely they suppose that ultimately the discovery of other beings makes no difference. Even if the visitors turned out to look like bug-eyed monsters or gelatinous blobs, such species might serve to enlarge the vision of the Creator's creativity. To theologians the "image of God," after all, does not refer to the type of body that characterizes Homo sapiens but to the intellect and spirit that reside therein.
No less orthodox an author than the late Cambridge Don C.S. Lewis was untroubled by the prospect of life elsewhere. Writing in the Christian Herald two decades ago, he saw no reason why the eternal Son of God could not also have been incarnate in other worlds, or why God could not devise a totally different form of redemption. Lewis also predicted that if life ever were found elsewhere, every one would find new arguments for beliefs they already held.
There has always been a fascination with aliens and the idea that we are not alone. But do you think Christian theology has anything to speak on this issue? Does the idea of extra-terrestrial life undercut mankind's position as made in the image of God?
Certainly a resurgence of interest of extraterrestrials visiting our planet has renewed by the new T.V. series, "V"
I think that ultimately the desire to look up into the heavens to find signs of intelligent life is our deep need to know that we are not alone. But we don't need to look light years away to know that. God came near to us, through His son Jesus...and our search for meaning and purpose in the universe need not go any farther
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“When we invite friends for a meal, we do much more than offer them food for their bodies. We offer friendship, fellowship, good conversation, intimacy, and closeness. When we say: “Help yourself … take some more … don’t be shy … have another glass,” we offer our guests not only our food and our drink but also ourselves. A spiritual bond grows, and we become food and drink for one another other.
In the most complete and perfect way, this happens when Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist as food and drink. By offering us his Body and Blood, Jesus offers us the most intimate communion possible. It is a divine communion.”
-Henri Nouwen
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Too much stuff, so little time. Here again is a lot of good material throughout the week that I've come across. I feel the need to share some of the good stuff with you since I don't have time to comment on it throughout the blog.
This stuff shows up in my Google RSS Reader throughout the week and I use the widget from my "shared items" in my Google Reader to post the most interesting information that I've gathered from the web. Enjoy some fun, entertaining and provocative reading. (my shared items have their own individual rss feed that you can subscribe to directly)
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I have made it a tradition to republish this post about Halloween from Tim Challies
I think that it is important to re-read this post as a reminder to us all as tonight as our communities celebrate Halloween.
I am guessing my neighborhood is all-too-typical in that people typically arrive home from work and immediately drive their cars into the garage. More often than not they do not emerge again until the next morning when they leave for work once more. We are private, reclusive people who delight in our privacy. We rarely see our neighbors and rarely communicate with them. . . . In the six years we have been living in this area, we have never once had a neighbor come to the door to ask for anything. . . .
Yet on Halloween these barriers all come down. I have the opportunity to greet every person in the neighbourhood. I have the opportunity to introduce myself to the family who moved in just down the row a few weeks ago and to greet some other people I have not seen for weeks or months. At the same time, those people's children will come knocking on my door. We have two possible responses. We can turn the lights out and sit inside, seeking to shelter ourselves from the pagan influence of the little Harry Potters, Batmans and ballerinas, or we can greet them, gush over them, and make them feel welcome. We can prove ourselves to be the family who genuinely cares about our neighbours, or we can be the family who shows that we want to interact with them only on our terms. Most of our neighbors know of our faith and of our supposed concern for them. This is a chance to prove our love for them.
The same contributor to the email list concluded his defense of participating in Halloween with these words: "One night does not a neighbor make (and one night does not a pagan make), but Halloween is the one night of the year where the good neighborliness that flows from being in Christ is communicated and reinforced. We are citizens of another Kingdom where The Light is always on."
The truth is that I have several convictions regarding Halloween. I despise the pagan aspects of it. I am convicted that my children should not dress as little devils or ghosts or monsters. But I am also convicted that there could be no worse witness to the neighbours than having a dark house, especially in a neighbourhood like ours which is small and where every person and every home is highly-visible. We know that, if we choose not to participate, the neighbors will notice and will smile knowingly, supposing that we feel too good to participate.
. . . Our door will be open and the light will be on. And we trust that the Light will shine brightly.
My encouragement to you today is to think and pray about this issue. I do not see Halloween as a great evangelistic occasion. I do not foresee it as a time when the people coming to your door are likely to be saved. But I do think it is a time that you can prove to your neighbors that you care about them, that you care about their children, and that you are glad to be in this world and this culture, even if you are not of this world or this culture. Halloween may serve as a bridge to the hearts of those who live around you who so desperately need a Savior.
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“There is a recognition that we are losing the children of the world spiritually. ... So this becomes a very critical moment to aim lower at the 4 to 14 [age] as the beginning place and come back to there with significant concentration. ... God is calling us to radically change the way we view children and to respond to their strategic importance and rightful place in His Kingdom.”
—Mission strategist and Transform World Connections’ international facilitator Luis Bush, on the “4/14 window”
Luis Bush believes the church must now target the 4/14 window if it hopes to fulfill the Great Commission. Bush, who coined the “10/40 window” term more than 20 years ago, believes the key to advancing God’s kingdom today lies in capturing the hearts of those within the generation of children ages 4 to 14—widely known as the most formidable years. Though the native Argentine doesn’t believe Christians should abandon focusing on the geographical regions between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator (his ideal vision is to reach the demographic 4/14 window within the geographic 10/40 window), Bush says it is essential for the church to fully capture these future “agents of transformation” before they become part of the majority of 15- to 24-year-olds abandoning their childhood faith.
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When I read stories like this, I shake my head and cry out, "Lord please come quickly!"
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a “Halloween book burning” to purge the area of “Satan’s” works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are “scriptural bases” for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: “And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”
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