Going to Space

If you know, you know. I’ve been dabbling in writing science fiction lately.

Yep.

Science fiction.

Apparently, The Devotional Guy™ is going to space.

I’m not entirely sure how that happened.

One minute I’m writing about Jesus, wisdom, the Bible and trying to figure out how to navigate this crazy thing called life and the next thing I know, I’m creating an extraterrestrial visitor.

I blame my imagination.

The more I’ve played around with this idea, the more I’ve discovered something I find fascinating:

Christianity and science fiction actually have a pretty long history together.

And honestly, it makes sense.

Science fiction loves asking big questions.

Why are we here?
What does it mean to be human?
Is there intelligent life somewhere beyond Earth?
What happens when technology gets ahead of our wisdom?
What is good and evil?
Can humanity save itself?
What happens when we encounter something or someone we don’t understand?

Christians have been asking versions of those questions for a very long time, long before I started bringing fictional aliens into my blogosphere.

For instance, C. S. Lewis, wrote a science-fiction trilogy about space travel, other worlds, extraterrestrial civilizations, spiritual beings, temptation, evil and redemption.

Yes, the same C. S. Lewis who gave us Narnia and spiritual classics like Mere Christianity.

Madeleine L’Engle did something similar with A Wrinkle in Time, weaving together science fiction, faith, love, sacrifice, darkness and the battle between good and evil.

So maybe my little experiment isn’t quite as weird as I initially thought.

And that’s where The Visitor came to life.

The story I’m writing involves a Christian blogger who begins communicating online with a mysterious visitor from another civilization.

And here’s the question that keeps getting more interesting to me:

What happens when someone encounters Christianity who has absolutely no Christian context?

Imagine trying to explain the Gospel to someone who looks at you and says:

“Wait. You believe the Creator of the universe became one of His creatures?”

Suddenly, Christianity sounds pretty astonishing again. We’ve heard the story so many times that we forget how completely outrageous and beautiful it actually is.

When humanity rebels against the God who created it, God doesn’t walk away. Instead, He enters our world.

Love takes on flesh as grace meets us in our mess. Just as death appears to win, Jesus walks out of the grave.

That’s not small. It’s cosmic.

I think that’s what I like about science fiction. It gives me permission to take the biggest questions imaginable and turn them around in my hands and my mind. It makes me look at my own faith with fresh eyes. When I imagine someone who has never heard the Christian story asking me questions, I can’t simply fall back on Christianese. I actually have to think about what I believe and why I believe it.

Wonder wakes us up.

We spend so much time thinking we l know the answers that sometimes we forget to be amazed by the questions.

I believe that wonder is a doorway to worship. Simply look up at the stars.

So yes, I’m writing science fiction. For sure, I’m still going to talk about Jesus and writing about the Bible. I’m also going to have conversations with aliens, and I’m okay with that.

As the psalmist wrote: