By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS: Using Steven Spielberg’s anticipated film Disclosure Day as a springboard, this article examines claims about extraterrestrial life through a biblical lens, arguing that Christian faith remains secure amid speculation, government disclosures, and Hollywood’s exploration of humanity’s place in the universe.
“Why would He create such a vast universe and save it only for us?” asks Disclosure Day screenwriter on behalf of producer-director Steven Spielberg. This film is expected to be a massive summer blockbuster released on June 12. Early reports from critics given pre-screening credentials is that it’s Spielberg’s best movie in years. This is the same director who made Schindler’s List, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and many other well-regarded films.
Spielberg, who turns 80 this year, according to critics and pre-release audiences, still has the magic. It’s going to be BIG, they say.
So, What is Disclosure Day About?
It’s billed as a story that follows “two ordinary people who suddenly manifest unexplained psychic abilities. They uncover a massive government conspiracy keeping extraterrestrial contact a secret and race against time to reveal the truth to humanity before they are stopped,” says the synopsis.
Early buzz is that critics are raving about the film, and audiences praise it as deeply impactful, emotional, and thought-provoking.
Spielberg stated that this movie was made from his own belief system. As such, he believes there are aliens ‘out there’ and that the government is keeping that ‘truth’ from the population. His premise is, if the ‘truth’ was proved and globally known, how would we react?
AF Post reported after Spielberg was interviewed on June 8, that “the day aliens’ existence is “disclosed”, will have people questioning their faith.
Will it? More on that in a minute.
Spielberg inserted many religious symbols and concepts into the film. It is no accident that two hands touch with glowing light behind them, evoking Michaelangelo’s Creation of Man in the Sistine Chapel. A crucifix is seen in a close up. A nun wonders why only humans were created and saved…and other religious symbolism, all designed to come across as sincerely seeking truth.
Spielberg said he’d researched deeply into all the reported ‘abductions’ since the first widely reported (alleged) abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in 1961. Spielberg said that there is a consistency in all the reports of abductions since that time. When creating aliens he didn’t want to imagine a ‘new’ alien but present what had been consistently reported for decades. He stated that he believes there is overwhelming evidence that we are not alone in the universe.
The film centers not so much on action, thought there is some, but an “emotional texture” of how humanity would respond when we learn we’re not alone in the universe. The film shows humanity reimagining their entire being, place in the universe, and of course, ideas about God.
He said he was raised as an Orthodox Jew and after a period in his youth of wandering away, Spielberg returned to the religion as an older adult. Asked many times over the years, especially after making the holocaust movie Schindler’s List, that yes, he believes God exists. But a belief in the God of the Bible? It’s obvious he does not.
Spielberg’s fascination with the universe and aliens started as a child when his dad took him to a dark night spot to view the Perseid Meteor Shower. Spielberg’s searching began there and in my view, has continued all his life. His explorations of the mysteries of the universe, vividly expressed in his movies, grope toward the Light of Jesus Christ, but never have reached it. (Isaiah 59:10).
World Leaders intimate aliens may exist
No longer the subject of whispered conspiracy theorists or crackpots, the subject of aliens, UFOs, and other life besides human seems to touch every strata of earthly society. Pope Francis famously said “that he would be willing to baptise aliens if they came to the Vatican, asking “who are we to close doors” to anyone – even Martians.” The prior Pope to Francis, Benedict XVI, said the same.
Fox News reported recently of President Trump’s Administration,
“The Department of War released 17 pages of new, never-before-seen Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), a major government transparency initiative. … The Pentagon on Friday released transcripts and photos from two NASA Apollo missions as part of a broader disclosure of dozens of photos and documents detailing UFO sightings it has documented since the 1950s.”
A prevailing attitude that we are told we will feel is captured by the following comment from Facebook-
John Heaton said,
“If aliens are real, Christians will have to accept that humanity isn’t the pinnacle of creation, that earth isn’t the center of the universe, that aliens are more intelligent than they are, and that the universe may contain forms of life, intelligence, history, and purpose that were never contemplated by the biblical writers. That would raise difficult problems. And aliens may have their own theories or opinions about the origin of the universe that would conflict with the standard creationist model. I’m pretty sure the Christian world would freak out, demonize the aliens and try to destroy them.”
No. On all counts.
Q&A
Disclosure Day is intended to provoke such discussions. As such, discussions of the movie will probably extend beyond the usual watercooler talk such as “Did you see it?” and delve toward deeper dialogues along the above themes. It’s a Christian’s opportunity to focus on Jesus. It’s also our responsibility to “have an answer”.
but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect; (1 Peter 3:15)
Not only to answer, but to initiate. There are already many discussions about the alien issue given the Trump Administration’s release of classified documents related to it. Now the discussions are ramping up in advance of Spielberg’s movie. We have an opportunity.
In that vein, here are some questions:
Do aliens exist?
Well, first of all, aliens DO exist. Before God made Adam then Eve, He made angels. (Job 38:4-7). Angels are off-Earth living beings. They possess personal will, powers, and a higher intellect than humans. They take various forms or no form. They visit earth at times, making themselves known, or they visit us unawares. Some minister to us in friendly capacity and others are at war with us and mean to do us harm (these are the fallen angels AKA demons). So, according to the commonly understood definition of ‘alien,’ we are not alone.
Can the fallen angels – or aliens like little green men – be saved? No. Jesus incarnated as a human, not as a spirit being (which angels are). He took on flesh of the human race as a Man, lived, died, resurrected, and ascended as a Man-God. Not as an angel nor as an alien in flesh. His atonement for sin is called substitutionary. Substitute for whom? Humans.
Hebrews 1:14 says of angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to provide service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?”
There is a separation in the verse, indicating that the angels serve and humans inherit salvation.
Why did God create the universe but only create humans to inhabit it? Isn’t that self-centered to think we’re the only ones?
People always underestimate the power of glory. God created the universe as a display of His own power, glory and creative abilities. The Universe is a testament to God’s glorious display of power and creativity.
The heavens tell of the glory of God; And their expanse declares the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1).
Further, Psalm 174:4 says,
He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.
We think of Adam naming the animals of the ground and the birds of the sky, (Genesis 2:19) as a big deal. We know there are billions upon billions of stars, yet God created them AND named them all! The universe isn’t for the human race, it’s for God’s glory.
God created the universe to be inhabited says Isaiah 45:18. But in the specificity of the creation week’s itemization, where does it list other beings? He made the angels, planets, moon, sun, plants, animals, birds, marine life, Adam, Eve, but left out the listing of alien lives on other planets? He didn’t. Oher beings aren’t listed because He didn’t create them.
The heavens are the heavens of the LORD, But the earth He has given to the sons of mankind. (Psalm 115:16).
Remember all the past deceptions, remember the future deceptions too!
Every time science seems to find something that ‘contradicts’ the truth of the Bible, we later discover it was fake. The Piltdown Man of 1912 was supposed to have proved evolution. Someone took bone fragments from a then-modern human cranium and an orangutan jawbone and deliberately stained them to alter their appearance to look more ancient. It was hailed as ‘the missing link’ between apes’ evolution and man’s. It was thoroughly debunked in 1953.
As technology has increased it has both become easier to make fake bones and harder to spot them. Chinese farmers have discovered how lucrative it is to make them and they have a thriving industry going in faked fossil bones:
“The farmers do not believe this is wrong, they look at it as restoring an art object to make it more marketable. The whole commercial market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery.”
Source Jeff Hecht, “F is for fake”, New Scientist 165(2226):12, Feb. 19, 2000; and Answers in Genesis.
Remember the buzz that fossils seemed to confirm that dinosaurs evolved into birds? The seminal Archaeoraptor fossil issue was found to be a hoax. Even National Geographic recanted on that one. (Source).
In 1993 an experiment claimed to have successfully found a link between male homosexuality and a specific area on the X chromosome called Xq28. This was the much hailed “gay gene”. It was found to be false and is now totally debunked.
Don’t worry, the hype around Disclosure Day is just that, hype. It will eventually die down and fade away.
The Bible tells us that there will be many future deceptions as well. We can see glimmers of that potentiality now with how true to life AI is, holograms, and other technological innovations. Videos put words into people’s mouth they never said, but seem so real. This is an era of heightened sin, so don’t forget that people deliberately lie and try to combat Christianity with fakery designed to knock us off the Rock.
Romans 1:21-25 speaks of how the foolish who reject the obviousness of God’s existence become futile in their thinking. Then they will believe anything- except the truth.
There will be deceitful spirits in the end times, says 1 Timothy 4:1. The coming Antichrist will be “in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders”, says 2 Thessalonians 2:9.
People who experience the unexplainable, the unmeasurable, are actually experiencing the supernatural. Their minds are futile so they refuse to believe in God, good angels, demons, and interheavenly warfare, so they try to explain the best they can in their finite, secular minds.
“I don’t believe there is anything more to UFOs than manifestations of supernatural powers by Satan himself.” John MacArthur, Q&A, 1976.
We have never needed science to confirm the Bible. Ever. God is outside of science, transcendent and holy. His truth is the only truth. We should never be shaken by anything that man devises, presents, or produces, that SEEMS to be at odds with the Bible.
We don’t receive our theology from movies and we don’t change our theology because of movies. Remember, Spielberg is not a Christian. He has the futile mind of Romans 1. We can appreciate his creative abilities in making movies, but he has nothing to say to us about God, faith, and belief.
We don’t place our theological trust in governments, either. Even though God set up government, and we submit to its laws and its representatives, we don’t blindly trust everything it says to us. Government is made up of people, and people are sinners.
Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13).
In that way, be prayed up and checked our own selves so we can be firm in the faith. We should have scripture like the ones above at the ready.
When I was seeking answers, I asked a women who attended the local Baptist church about fossils. I do not remember any detail about what she said, but I remember vividly her confidence in her answer. She replied just as Peter said to, with an answer at the ready in full, settled faith, but with love and respect. Even if you don’t have all the answers ready (and who does?), being faithful with confidence in the Lord and His truth will be perceived and remembered.
Further Resources
Alien Life: Answers in Genesis. The link is a compendium of essays from AIG on the topic of extraterrestrial life.
the-end-time.org 