While the Trump administration and their voters seem increasingly hostile to releasing the Epstein Files, they’re continuing to release UFO files. The images, videos and written testimony have led to a constant stream of speculation and questions over the past month, not only about what the files depict but about what they might mean for our views of religion.
These are some of the questions Stephen Spielberg explores in his new film, Disclosure Day. “If a real ‘disclosure day’ was to occur, there would be ontological shock,” Spielberg said in an interview with USA Today. “All of our foundational realities would be shattered and blown apart by a new foundational reality that some of us would accept and others would reject. There would be a big shake-up in the world; it would shake certain core, fundamental beliefs.”
Since conservative evangelicals have unprecedented power in the federal government, and since mainstream evangelical theology has become more like 20th century fundamentalism over the past few decades thanks to the rise of violent authoritarianism, one wonders how the disclosure of aliens might shake the fundamentalists among us.
What disclosure means for inerrancy
According to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, “Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history.”
Article XII further states: “We deny that biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.”
These assertions about the Bible being inerrant in issues of science and history are why many fundamentalists believe in the young earth creationist narrative that God created the entire universe just 6,000 years ago, and that all humanity descended from Adam and Eve, who were specially created apart from the animals rather than through a process of evolution.
As Answers in Genesis puts it: “In a biblical worldview, we don’t expect alien life to exist.”
Because of this presupposition, the existence of aliens would appear to shake up their belief in inerrancy and scriptural authority. As Answers in Genesis puts it: “In a biblical worldview, we don’t expect alien life to exist. The Bible tells us Earth was formed to be inhabited and the other celestial bodies were created for signs, seasons, days and years.”
To fundamentalists, the entire universe is earth centric. Because they believe God’s ultimate drama is a hierarchy of authority and submission being played out on earth, they have to fit any unusual phenomena into their narrative for the earth. And because the genealogies in the Bible add up to about a 6,000-year-old earth, the entire universe must not be older than 6,000 years.
So to fundamentalists, there could not be a civilization of aliens who were far more ancient than humans because they would be far more ancient than the universe itself.
Kirk Cameron
Kirk Cameron has risen in popularity with white evangelicals due to proposing such inerrancy-based takedowns of evolution as the “crocoduck,” which is a painting of a duck body with a crocodile head that doesn’t exist and therefore overturns scientific consensus on evolutionary biology.
But Cameron began turning heads six months ago when he openly questioned the fundamentalist theology of hell as eternal conscious torment for all non-evangelicals. And now, he’s also open to the existence of aliens.
“Our faith does not depend on human beings being the only intelligent creatures God ever made,” he said on a recent episode of The Kirk Cameron Show. “We’ve got lots of crazy creatures that he’s made that we don’t even know about living at the bottom of the ocean or in a cave somewhere or in a hole somewhere or maybe out in space somewhere.”
Cameron suggests a discovery of aliens “just expands our understanding of all that God would have made.” He concludes, “The possible existence of aliens does not threaten the Christian faith or the truthfulness of the Bible at all. Not even a little.”
So a disclosure day probably wouldn’t shake the fundamentalist view of inerrancy because fundamentalists have a category for intelligent beings who are older than the universe and yet who are not God. They call these beings angels and demons.
What disclosure means for spiritual warfare
Growing up as a teenager among the independent Baptists in the 1990s, I was taught the rapture was going to happen around the year 2000, and that the fake news media would blame evangelicals disappearing into thin air on aliens. We figured prior to the rapture, demons would go into cahoots with CBS News so Dan Rather could convince the Democrats to believe in aliens. This meant any talk of aliens was actually about spiritual warfare against the media and the Democrats.
So prior to the release of these UFO files, a group of pastors claimed they met in a Tennessee Airbnb with those who “have access to government intelligence and are in the know” in order to warn their evangelical congregations that a disclosure was coming that would shake the faith of many. They were to prepare their congregations to believe the aliens are demons.
As one of the pastors explained: “We’re dealing with the book of Revelation. These things are going to come out of the earth. They didn’t come on spaceships. These are inter-dimensional beings.” Then he warned, “They’re coming from below your house.”
David Rives, founder of the Wonders Center and Science Museum, told CBN News: “I’ve seen things through telescopes for years on many sleepless nights — through large observatory-class telescopes — I can’t explain. But just because I can’t explain it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a satellite breezing past the eyepiece, or it wasn’t … a government experiment, or whatever the situation might be.” According to CBN, Rives said any potential confirmation of aliens is “likely demonic in nature.”
While Cameron is open to the existence of aliens, he shares the view that such beings could possibly be demons. “Could this whole alien, UFO, UAP narrative be used to scare people, to confuse children, to mock Christians, or make people feel the Bible is outdated?” Cameron asks. “Of course. Wouldn’t you do that if you were the devil?”
“Now that doesn’t mean every strange sighting is demonic,” he clarifies. “But it does mean that Christians would have their eyes open, not in panic, but in discernment.”
For fundamentalists, the reason this spiritual warfare is playing out is that angels and demons are battling one another for the eternal destination of human souls, which ultimately has to do with salvation.
Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell in Disclosure Day (via IMDB)
What disclosure means for the atonement
Because Answers in Genesis ties inerrancy, young earth creationism and the atonement together, their view of the atonement also makes them unwilling to consider the disclosure of aliens as possible. “It was to Earth that Jesus came to save us, not to another planet to save another race of beings,” they claim.
But while Cameron isn’t open to questions about inerrancy or spiritual warfare, he is open to new sets of questions about the atonement.
“Are these beings fallen due to sin or are they unfallen? I don’t know,” he says. “Did they rebel against God like Lucifer did or like Adam and Eve did? Do they even need a Savior? Do they need to be redeemed? And does Jesus’ atonement and his redemptive work on the Cross apply to not just people on earth, but has significance throughout the entire universe?”
“It was to Earth that Jesus came to save us, not to another planet to save another race of beings.”
His questions continue to assume fundamentalist views of inerrancy and spiritual warfare over afterlife destinations. Based on the language used, he likely isn’t open to questions about penal substitutionary atonement. But his current list of questions could lead to that. After all, the evangelical narrative suggests the entire universe is feeling the effects of Adam and Eve’s sin.
So its view of the Cross has to solve a problem, not simply for the inhabitants of the earth, but for the entire universe. And if Cameron continues his descent down the slippery slope of empathy, his current questions about how the atonement would apply to aliens may lead to deconstructing the atonement like it has for his theology of hell when he realizes how illogical and harmful much of it is.
What disclosure means for empathy
Perhaps the most dangerous question Spielberg raises in Disclosure Day isn’t about inerrancy, spiritual warfare or the atonement, but about empathy.
“At the core of Disclosure Day is the question: Where has all our empathy gone?” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly.
During one scene of the movie, a character says empathy is “the foremost evolutionary advantage. In fact, the core of animate existence.”
Throughout the movie, empathy for the stranger grows as people listen to others and connect with those they once feared through lament over their wounds.
Colman Domingo in Disclosure Day (via IMDB)
“Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know,” one character suggests.
That’s why empathy is so dangerous to fundamentalists. All these scripts — biblical inerrancy, spiritual warfare and the atonement — are about establishing certainty about what we can’t know for sure. They tap into the fear of death and the afterlife and fuel absolute certainty by demanding absolute submission under the threat of absolute violence in an endless hell.
But empathy doesn’t care about certainty. It cares about being present in the vulnerability of our fears and sorrows out of love for neighbor as self.
This is why Lifesite News criticized Disclosure Day by saying, “Apparently, the aliens have never heard about ‘toxic’ empathy that ignores the truth, such as ‘empathetically’ supporting a child for a ‘gender transition’ operation.”
For fundamentalists, conversations about empathy virtually always devolve into demonization of LGBTQ people, especially transgender people. To them, we can’t be present with transgender people in the lament they feel from gender dysphoria. Instead, we must demand transgender people submit to gender binary scripts that patriarchy depends on.
So if a disclosure day led to humans coming together and identifying with one another across our differences in deeper ways, the Western Tower of Babel that keeps white wealthy men at the top would be threatened.
As the world’s first trillionaire Elon Musk put it, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
Trump’s ‘alien arrest map’
While Spielberg sees the curiosity about aliens as an opportunity for empathy to cultivate kindness toward one another, the Trump administration views it as an opportunity to cultivate cruelty.
“For 60 years, the U.S. government has kept a closely guarded secret,” the White House announced on a new “aliens” page on their website. “Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives. They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences. With one exception — they do not belong here. Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society. Countless presidents, congressmen and senior officials knew exactly what was happening. Instead of protecting American citizens, they chose to cover it up and even accelerate the invasion.”
As the reader scrolls down the White House website, they come to an “alien arrest map” that shows specifically where these “aliens” have been caught.
But the catch is, these aren’t aliens from other planets. They’re immigrants. And the database is created by ICE.
“If you’ve witnessed an alien abduction, do not be alarmed,” the White House website says. “The alien is in good hands. We will take care of it … and return it safely to its place of origin.”
It?
It’s no wonder Trump chose to court white evangelicals. Their opposition to empathy fuels his rise to power through the dehumanization of anyone who isn’t white or straight or male.
Empathy might lead one to love their immigrant neighbor whom they once feared. And the white supremacist empire of the Religious Right can’t have that. There can’t be any cause to doubt their script. There can’t be any convergence of self and neighbor. There can’t be any presence of God in and among the empire’s “least of these.”
By dehumanizing our neighbors as “it” and tapping into white evangelical certainties to do so, the Trump administration has the cover to pursue its violent ends.
It’s almost as if Spielberg is a prophet. As one of his characters in Disclosure Day says, the rejection of empathy “is leading to our extinction.”
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and is the author of a forthcoming book, Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.