Beginning around 1931 a literary discussion group called the Inklings met weekly at an Oxford pub named The Eagle and Child. Two of the well known members of the group were authors and close friends: JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. (I like people whose nicknames are their initials.) The two were concerned their writings of fiction would overlap and they flipped a coin in 1936 to see who would focus his writings on time and who would focus on space. Tolkien won time and Lewis won space*.

Lewis grew up Christian but fell away from his Christian faith in his teens. Tolkien helped bring Christianity back into Lewis’ life while Lewis was in his 30’s. Lewis occasionally brought his Christian faith into his writings on space and came up with interesting thoughts on salvation.

Lewis did not think the Bible rules out the possibility that God created animal life on other planets. He went further as he considered the possibility that if God created animal life on other planets He may have created “rational souls'' on other planets. In fact, Lewis wrote that if there is intelligent animal life on other planets it might be absurdly arrogant for us to believe that we have been uniquely favored so that God wanted personal relationships with only the rational souls on planet Earth.

Lewis pondered on…as Christians it is (or should be) part of our nature to share our Christian faith with others. If we were somehow able to communicate with intelligent life from another planet would it make sense for us to share our Christian faith with them? Would it make sense to them? What if God had set up the other planet’s own plan of salvation? The plan we would share would be irrelevant to them.

Going even further, Lewis realized there is the possibility that those on another planet may not need salvation. We recognize that we chose to sin against God and we still sin to this day. It might be appalling to someone from another planet to realize we are trying to bring God’s mercy and grace to them when they already have it because they have never sinned. In fact, it is scary to think what they might do to us once they realize how wicked we are.

Of course we are not at the point of communicating with beings from another planet yet. But we are left at this time and at this place to do God’s will. Are we using the talents the way He wants us to? Are we using our wealth the way He wants us to? Are we spending our time the way He wants us to? Are we influencing others the way He wants us to?

Just some far out thoughts and some down-to-earth thoughts for us all to consider.

-ND Harrison, Elder

* - Interestingly, CS Lewis died on Nov 22, 1963, about an hour before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and a major focus of President Kennedy’s administration was for the United States to win the space race against the Soviet Union.