Creationist Ken Ham, who built a giant Noah’s Ark-themed attraction in Kentucky, said he doesn’t think there’s life outside of Earth.
And if such life existed, they shouldn’t expect any form of salvation from Jesus Christ.
“Jesus came to save us, not to another planet to save another race of beings,” Ham wrote on Twitter, adding that it’s clear “salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race,” aka human earthlings.
On the bright side, however, Ham said they won’t need redemption anyway ... since they don’t exist. The Bible, according to his strict interpretation, says only Earth was made to be inhabited, “and the other celestial bodies were created for signs, seasons, days, and years,” he tweeted.
Ham was responding to a recent poll that found deeply religious Americans are less likely to believe in intelligent life outside of Earth. He has made similar comments before, writing in 2014, “Jesus did not become the ‘GodKlingon’ or the ‘GodMartian’! Only descendants of Adam can be saved.”
Not all Christians agree with Ham.
Pope Francis, for example, has said that he would baptize Martians if they came to Earth and asked.
“Who are we to close the door?” he said in 2014.
In 2008, Jesuit Father José Funes ― who, at the time, was the director of the Vatican Observatory ― said space aliens would not be inconsistent with the Bible.
“This is not in contrast with the faith, because we cannot place limits on the creative freedom of God,” he told the Catholic Review. “To use St. Francis’ words, if we consider earthly creatures as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters,’ why can’t we also speak of an ‘extraterrestrial brother’?”
Funes added that such aliens may not even need redemption from Jesus, who may have come to Earth only because humans are the “lost sheep” of creation.
“God became man in Jesus in order to save us. So if there are also other intelligent beings, it’s not a given that they need redemption,” Funes said. “They might have remained in full friendship with their creator.”
The late evangelist Billy Graham also felt similarly.
“I firmly believe there are intelligent beings like us far away in space who worship God,” he once said, adding that there’s no need to fear such beings since they’re also part of creation.
Ham’s fundamentalist view of the Bible has led to odd exhibitions at his Noah’s Ark-themed attraction, including dinosaurs, which he believes lived alongside humans on a planet he claims is only about 6,000 years old.
Most scientists believe Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and nearly all agree that dinosaurs were wiped out around 65 million years ago, long before the first humans appeared.