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Commentary: Star Trek chaplains?

By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI Religion Correspondent
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GURAT, France, March 13 (UPI) -- The question might seem far-fetched, if you will pardon a pun, but it must be asked nonetheless: If humans set out to colonize the universe, what will happen to their faith?

Will chaplains accompany the interstellar voyagers? Will they have to revise the Lord's Prayer and forthwith say, "Thy will be done on Alpha Centauri as it is in ... heaven?"

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Will on 40-year trips at half the speed of light the Eucharist be consecrated for the small band of adventurers who can't ever expect to return to earth? Will Christian and Muslim clerics in the close confinement of a space ship fight over the travelers' souls?

Granted, these don't seem to be most pressing issues today, given that journeys to other solar systems may be centuries off. But then learned men were not above much more pernickety details concerning future space ventures in Boston last month; for example they heard a plea for organizing crews in families for the sake of peace.

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This would provide a much higher probability "that we won't go crazy during such a trip," said anthropologist John Moore of the University of Florida at the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Science last month in Boston.

Well, if we have already progressed to such organizational matters, how about concerns of the soul, especially as they may well come up when man begins to conquer Mars or other planets in just a few decades' time.

Philip Hefner, director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science in Chicago, told United Press International on Wednesday that orthodox Jews already had a head start in this respect.

"Orthodox rabbis discussed the question whether Jews can observe the (religious) law in outer space. They concluded that Judaism has always recognized the existence of unusual circumstances, and therefore been able to work out such things."

The same would presumably apply to Islam. After all, even on earth Islam suspends the traveler's obligation to fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

But what about Christians?

The first theological issue to be resolved is whether man's attempt to colonize the universe might not stretch somewhat God's charge to Adam and Eve to "fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28).

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Hefner believes that this command extends to the entire cosmos. Mathematician and theologian William Dembski, perhaps the most prominent exponent of the scientific school of thought that the universe is the product of intelligent design, tends to agree.

"Certain Bible passages and the writings of the church fathers point to the cosmic dimension of the work of Christ," Dembski said. From this one might extrapolate that man, too, would have a legitimate home in other solar systems or even galaxies.

Peter Beyerhaus, professor emeritus of missiology at Tuebingen University in Germany, is less sure. In an interview with UPI, he wondered if there was not a parallel between such interstellar colonialist schemes and human cloning.

Beyerhaus suggested that the attempt to breed the perfect man with the help of genetic engineering and the Star Trek-type dreams of scientists could be expressions of human hubris -- of man exceeding his limits in a Titan-like way.

Sources in Rome told UPI that similar concerns are driving Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican's top theologian. "Ratzinger rates the creation of human following human designs as the Second Fall and is convinced that God himself will interfere," a well-informed Vatican official said in a telephone conversation.

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As for Beyerhaus, he agreed that -- all his reservations aside -- the Church must devise ways of keeping the Gospel alive among human space colonies, in other words, among people who at the time of their arrival at their final destination will perhaps be two or three generations removed from their earth-born ancestors.

"Since the truly ultimate questions are bound to arise under these circumstances, it is essential that there are committed Christians among them."

But what if they encounter other civilizations -- are they to preach Christ to them? Would that make any sense? Are they in need of salvation?

Does the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation -- the last in the Bible -- only apply to earth or the solar system, as the Rev. Jay C. Rochelle, a former Lutheran pastor and seminary professor now preparing to be a priest in the Antioch Orthodox Church, surmises just for the sake of a theological argument?

Indeed, are civilizations in other parts of the universe, if they exist, perhaps without sin? Or could it be that they are unequivocally evil? Does the power of Satan, whom Luther called the "prince of this world," reach beyond earth -- and traveling earth dwellers -- at all?

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Phil Hefner is convinced that if intelligent forms of life out there were without sin, "they would be like lower animals -- such as porpoises for example."

"If they are endowed with a free will and therefore are under sin, God will presumably provide them with a form of salvation appropriate for them," Hefner speculated in a UPI interview.

But then, there may be no need to ponder such hypotheses at all. "Intelligent Design" proponent William Dembski pointed to a growing school of thought that considers the existence of intelligent life elsewhere vastly improbable, given the scientific evidence available today.

That would let mission specialists of assorted faiths and denominations off the hook somewhat.

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