I am re-posting this blog in honor of Astronaut James Lovell who recently died old and full of days.

One of his most memorable “days” came on Christmas Eve 1968 while Apollo 8 was the first spaceship to orbit the Moon.

At the same moment as this stunning triumph of science and technology was occurring, the 3-man crew (Frank Borman, William Anders, and Lovell) relied on the Bible to describe the creation of the Earth and the heavens by reading from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis Chapter One. This was a stunning triumph for spirituality and religion, showing that our need for God and the Bible becomes more urgent even as our reliance on science and technology grows.

This blog is taken from the section “Apollo 8” in my book Visions of America, published in 2004 in one volume together with Visions of the Church:

Apollo 8

Many reasons are given for the success of the Environmental Movement in the 1970s.

Certainly, television was important. For the first time, all Americans could see the ugly face of pollution.

However, the picture that I believe most encouraged the Environmental Movement was not a picture of the ugliness of pollution. It was a picture of the beauty of the Earth. It was a picture that the spacecraft Apollo 8 took, on Christmas Eve in 1968, of the Earth rising over the rim of the Moon.

The Earth looked so vulnerable. So precious . . . nothing but a fragile blue and white oasis hanging alone in the darkness.

The lifeless, dusty pallor of the Moon accentuated the lively, colorful glow of the Earth. This new perspective on the Earth, Humanity, and God inspired the reading of Scripture by the Apollo 8 astronauts to “the people of Earth” on Christmas Eve.

Christmas is a time to thank God for his gifts to us and to give gifts to others.

Therefore, at a typical Christmas Eve service, people read from the Bible about the birth of Jesus Christ—God’s gift to Humanity that brings us joy and peace.

However, as the Apollo 8 astronauts orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve, they read from the first chapter of Genesis.

They reminded us that God created the heavens and the Earth. They assured us that, after God created the Earth, “God saw that it was good.” They wished everyone a Merry Christmas. Then they closed their “Christmas Eve Service” by asking God to “bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth”.

Through the eyes of the Apollo 8 astronauts, all humans saw Earth in a new way—as God’s gift to Humanity . . . and we saw that it was good.

Through the eyes of the Apollo 8 astronauts, we could see that the birthplace of Humanity was a “Garden of Eden”—a paradise that humans must cultivate with love.

The Bible warns us that “[w]here there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).

Fortunately, in 1968, Apollo 8 gave us a new vision of the Earth, Humanity, and God. It was a vision of the Earth as a Garden of Eden—a paradise that must not perish.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Why would a picture of the beauty of the Earth inspire people more than a picture of the ugliness of pollution?

Similarly, why is it more effective to inspire people with visions of how good Jesus, Heaven and the Future are, rather than to scare people with visions of how bad Satan, Hell, and the Future are?

READ MORE

Please read my book Visions of the Church to learn about the flight of Apollo 13 commanded by James Lovell and ways that the “successful failure” of Apollo 13 illustrates the first 2,000 years of Church history.

For related ideas, please read my blogs “Get Mutual Assured Shalom, Not Mutual Assured Destruction” and “Tech Made for Humans, Not Humans Made for Tech”. Learn why I want to replace The Turing Test (to discern whether an artificial intelligence has become a person) with The Image of God Test.