Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street.
Well, recently, Vice President J.D. Vance admitted that he is quote-unquote obsessed with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors. He then suggested that what are often identified as aliens could be masquerading demons. As Vance put it, quoting many others who have said the same thing, one of the devil's great tricks is to convince people he never existed. Vice President Vance is in a growing company of those, including many Christians, who are now fascinated with aliens.
And especially for Christians, to think rightly about E.T. must begin with getting our worldview right about the existence of the natural and the supernatural. In fact, it is the rise of vague spiritualities not firmly rooted in Christian doctrine that has fostered so many of our modern beliefs about aliens and UFOs. Decades ago, C.S. Lewis rightly stated why we so often prefer vague spirituality over encountering the real God.
Quote: An impersonal God? That's well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness inside our own heads? Better still. A formless life force surging through us, a vast power that we can tap, that's best of all.
But God himself alive? pulling at the other end of the cord. perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, the king, the husband? That's quite another matter. ⁇ Well recently CBN News produced a documentary that explored aliens in terms of the supernatural.
And in his interview for the documentary, well-known astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross claimed that the strongest evidence for demons today is asserted encounters with UFOs. And that statistically, there's a high correlation between those who claim encounters with UFOs and those who have dabbled in the occult or who have had close relatives tied to the occult.
So it's not surprising, then, that scholars like Diana Pasalka are identifying these days what's being called UFOology, a new kind of religion that attempts to fill the void that Christians know will only be filled by God alone. It's also not a coincidence that the rising interest in aliens and UFOs is happening at the very same time as our increasing concerns over AI. Among those concerns, some claim, is that transdimensional non-human intelligences are using our technology to communicate with us. And so, between AI and UFOs and alien life, it seems we're having a lot of conversations about demonic activity in a more mainstream way than just 100 years ago. In a couple of his books, the late historian Rodney Stark observed that the earliest Christians condemned irrational fear of supernatural beings, including demons.
Rather, they believed that Satan's defeat by Christ on the cross was definitive, and that Christ's resurrection had enthroned him above any and all other powers throughout the entire universe. And of course, that's what scripture proclaims, especially Paul. And that makes it an important starting point for Christians who are trying to think well about things like UFOs, aliens, and AI demons. In short, even when we're talking about this crazy stuff, Christians are still people of hope. Another factor in making sense of our contemporary fascination with aliens is that a naturalistic worldview that so dominates today, even a secular humanism in which man is proclaimed the measure of all things, has in fact brought the world to the ironic place of devaluing humanity.
There has to be other beings in the universe, or else we're the best there is. And that can't be true in this worldview. That drives, at least to some degree, this incessant search for other, more intelligent life forms.
Now, of course, there's just so much we do not know about aliens, UFOs, and unknown life out there. Much of the unexplained activity could also be explicable by other more simple means like drones, weather balloons, and government operations. But we must not rule out the very demonic activity that's described so clearly in Holy Scripture, such as in the book of Ephesians. Scripture is plain. There is a God.
Humans are made in his image. And the demons who do really exist are very jealous of that. Ephesians also teaches us that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil and their use of cosmic powers. Scripture also makes plain that through his work on the cross, Christ has disarmed all such authorities, has put them to shame, and has triumphed over them. In his book, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be, A Brevery of Sin, philosopher Neil Planiga explained that Christians should talk about evil as if it is real and as if it is a real foe, because it is.
But we also, he said, should always talk about evil as if it is a defeated foe. because Christ is risen. Thus we should see even the unexplainable in the world around us with this certainty. That the Christ who has risen is Lord, and he is eternally triumphant over everything. both seen and unseen.
For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, please leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources and to share this commentary with others, go to Breakpoint.org. Educators, join us in Colorado Springs June 15th through the 17th for the 2026 Rooted Educators Worldview Summit.
This year's theme is created and called Biblical Anthropology for Christian Education. We'll hear from John Stone Street, Sean McDowell, Megan Allman, Elizabeth Urbanowitz, and more. Save $50 when you register by March 31st with the code Rooted50. Register at colsoneducators.org slash rooted. That's colsoneducators.org slash rooted.
