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The Church of England and the Anglican Communion

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Religions and Extraterrestrial Life

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Abstract

Those who have set forth their ideas on how extraterrestrials would fit into Anglican theology have offered every possible solution. Perhaps extraterrestrials will worship God but will not be Christians; perhaps they will worship the Christian Trinitarian God and know, somehow, about Jesus of Nazareth; or perhaps the necessity of knowing about the birth and death of Jesus in order to be a Christian, and the necessity of being a Christian in order to know God, is proof that humans on Earth are the only intelligent beings in the universe.

Christians have to ask themselves … What can the cosmic significance possibly be of the localized, terrestrial event of the existence of the historical Jesus?

Arthur Peacocke (Peacocke, A. (2000). The challenge and stimulus of the epic of evolution to theology. In S. J. Dick (Ed.) Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life, and the theological implications (p. 103). Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/history/detailed-history.aspx

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    Milne, E. A. (1952). Modern cosmology and the Christian idea of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  4. 4.

    Mascall, E. L. (1956). Christian theology and natural science (pp. 36–46). London: Longmans, Green and Co.

  5. 5.

    Lewis, C. S. (1960). Religion and rocketry. In The world’s last night, and other essays (pp. 84–91). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

  6. 6.

    Bonting, S. L. (2005). Are we alone? Theological implications of possible extraterrestrial life. In Creation and double chaos: Science and theology in discussion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

  7. 7.

    Bonting, S. L. (2003, September). Theological implications of possible extraterrestrial life. Zygon, 38(3).

  8. 8.

    Hebblethwaite, B. (2001). The impossibility of multiple incarnations. Theology, 104(821), 323–334.

  9. 9.

    Peacocke, A. (1993). Theology for a scientific age (pp. 65–66). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

  10. 10.

    Peacocke, A. (2000). The challenge and stimulus of the epic of evolution to theology. In S. J. Dick (Ed.) Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life, and the theological implications. Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

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Weintraub, D.A. (2014). The Church of England and the Anglican Communion. In: Religions and Extraterrestrial Life. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05056-0_10

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