Episode Details

Some people say that science fiction is just fantasy with spaceships. Others would say that fantasy is about plausible impossible worlds, whereas sci-fi centers on possible, albeit improbable worlds. But is sci-fi something that Christians actually need? We’ll explore that today!

1. Sci-fi is a shared universe inhabited by God’s gift of common grace.
2. Sci-fi explores the genius and madness of humanity, revealing our need for God.
3. The church, therefore, should terraform the strange worlds of sci-fi for God’s glory.

Concession stand

• By design, sci-fi takes us to worlds beyond our comfort zones, so these stories may strike some as heretical.
• In sci-fi, you can fall into black holes of atheistic nihilism, humanism, materialistic utopianism, or many other unbiblical -isms.
• In some sci-fi (such as Star Trek), the most fantastical element is its imagining of a future world devoid of human religion.

“The genre [of science fiction] draws us to its own views of redemption. Carl Sagan recognized the grip that the future, space, and the extraterrestrial hold on the post-Christian Western imagination. Spiritual seekers, then, get some answers and a taste of transcendence without the moral accountability or costly interpersonal commitments of church.”

—James A. Herrick at Christianity Today

1. Sci-fi is a shared universe inhabited by common grace

“We’re living in a science fictional era, thanks to all the incredible technological and scientific discoveries we’ve made. In some sense, science fiction has ‘come true.’ This means science fiction is uniquely qualified to comment on the era we’re living in, and is the only pop culture that accurately reflects the world around us. Science fiction is for anybody who wants to imagine how the world will be, or could be, different.”

—Charlie Jane Anders, author and former managing editor of i09

Science-fiction belongs to everyone.

• First off, sci-fi is no longer a fringe genre.
• The top grossing films and books include lots of sci-fi.
• You don’t have to know the “golden era” or “masters” of sci-fi, because it’s about the future.
• Sci-fi is not always a pure genre but often a flavor or ingredient of other stories.

Sci-fi leads to real-world innovations.

• Science, technology, and tools were God’s idea (Genesis 1:28).
• The spirit of innovation comes from the Lord: Bezalel (Exodus 31).
• These innovations benefit people everywhere, like rain on the good and wicked.

Martin Cooper can recall the moment when he was at a break in his lab watching the episode of Star Trek when Kirk used his Communicator to call for help for an injured Spock, which later inspired him to invent the mobile phone.

The inventor of the MP3 [Karlheinz Brandenburg] can look back to the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where Data was playing music from his computer and conceived of the idea of the digital music file. The series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager pioneered the graphic art of the “okudagram” (named after scenic art supervisor Michael Okuda), the GUI interface in the LCARS operating system, later used in the PADD, (Personal Access Display Device), the hand-held computer interface that foresaw the design and touch functionality of Apple’s iPad and iPad mini.

Science fiction has always been the genesis of our greatest technological triumphs. The idea for land ironclads, first written about by H.G. Wells, were adapted by Winston Churchill into the first tank in military history. The idea of military aeroplanes w