Having said that, he was a sincere man in his beliefs and potential consequences aside he was excited to be on this journey of discovery.
Julie wasn’t sure what the doctrine of the Neo Christian church was other than it was listed as nondenominational, but she had some thoughts she wanted to give voice to and it would be nice to do it with someone that could at least follow along and hopefully offer insight.
“Rev. Rohn, do you think the Christian churches back on earth will accept that the Noridians and others we share a genetic ancestry with are human?”
“I don’t know, but I hope so.
“Dr. Schein, you have identified what I consider to be my mission imperative—to find an answer for that question and return to Earth with it… are the Noridians also the Children of God?
“The Noridians,” he continued. “Have given me access to their theological history and although they are dogmatically atheist I think there is enough information about other societies to piece together a galactic spiritual history of sorts.”
“They’ve given you that much access?” a surprised Julie asked.
“I don’t think they feel it is an area of importance,” he responded with a grin.
“At any rate I’ve barely begun and I have a tremendous amount of research ahead of me, but I am hopeful to find enough common ground to put forth that doctrine. I can only hope and pray that others see it the same way. I suspect, unfortunately, that it may well depend on the nature of our relationship with the Noridians. If it goes the way many here at HQ are suggesting and we welcome them as friends of earth then I don’t expect it to be much of a problem.”
“What about the Creation stories in the Bible; Adam and Eve?”
“There will definitely be some that resist any new ideas and they’ll be the ones I suspect that will have the most difficulty. My experience Julie is that most people simply adapt. I don’t claim to know all the faces of God and I certainly can’t claim to know His plan. I don’t think however that this will spell doom for Christianity. If anything I hope it opens us up a new era of belief.”
”Reverend,” Julie said carefully. “If the Chextigans really did tamper with our DNA and create Homo sapiens that doesn’t seem to me to be a small matter of interpretation. It seems like a direct conflict with The Bible.”
“The thing is Julie,” he replied after a moment. “We’ve gone through this before.”
Julie couldn’t help her questioning look.
With a smile he continued, “For decades science has pointed to the Book of Genesis to ‘prove’ that science and God cannot coexist. Many Christians were content to accept the six day creation story as an allegory while a smaller subset insisted that science was wrong and that it literally took six days to create the heavens and the Earth. It looks like a direct conflict but it turns out that both opinions were correct.
“It’s all about frames of reference and gets into Einstein’s Laws of Relativity but basically we Christians believe that God created the heavens and the earth. Therefore God’s frame of reference is from outside of the Big Bang—that initial explosion that created the universe. Man’s reference by definition must be from ‘inside’ the event itself. How long it took depends upon where you were standing, so to speak. Looking at the event from the ‘outside’ it only took six days for the universe to form into the state of matter and energy that we see today. From the ‘inside’ however time was moving at a much more accelerated rate and took close to a half billion years.
“Most people are comfortable with the idea that if you were travelling at the speed of light time is different for those on the spaceship than for those back on Earth, but Einstein showed us that not only speed but gravity and the expansion of space itself also affect time.
“There are a relatively large number of physicists, some of them very prominent, whom have done the calculation using the speed of light as a standard for measure. They all essentially agree on the timelines; even to the point of calculating that when God said ‘Let there be light’ it matches up with the point at which the Big Bang’s matter and energy had cooled and expanded enough for light to escape the gravity of the Big Bang itself.”
Julie was surprised; she’d never heard this before.
“Why don’t more people know about this?” she asked.
The Reverend replied with a sigh, “It’s not for me to say. I think the explanation is very technical but I also believe that there will always be those that oppose Christianity. I’ve always found it ironic that while some scientists scoff at the idea of having faith they expect others to believe in scientific and mathematical principals that are over their heads. So I guess it’s ok for people to have faith in science they can’t understand but it’s not ok for them to have faith in a Creator we can’t understand.
“My point is,” he continued. “That conflicts like how long it took God to make the Heavens and the Earth only seem to be conflicts because of our lack of understanding. Who’s to say that the Chextigans weren’t part of God’s plan and who’s to say that time won’t bear that out?”
“Rev. Rohn, what I need to be most concerned with right now is the amount of religious violence this whole mission could spawn. I’m worried that globally there could be many churches that don’t want to be flexible in their dogma for fear of shaking the Faithfull’s vision of God.”
After a moment Rev. Rohn thoughtfully responded, “I understand your fear Julie but think about this; everyone assumes that what we discover among the stars will further test our belief, but what if it’s just the opposite? What if we discover reasons to strengthen our faith? I personally believe that the harder and farther we look the more reasons we’ll find to believe in Him.”
It was at that moment Dr. Sullivan contacted Julie and asked her to assist him in the HQ Hub.
“Reverend, find a way to get that message out. I’m afraid that you have a terrible burden on your shoulders—when we return to earth you may be giving the most important sermons of your life.”
Rev. Dr. Charles Rohn accepted Julie’s words with a smile and as she left his quarters she was thinking that on purpose or not Earth’s governments had selected the right person for the job.
Chapter 22
Dr. Mark Spencer
“You’re just using me for sex,” I said as I watched Hiromi dress.
“Does this truth bother you?” she asked.
The truth was it didn’t bother me at all. She wasn’t trying to claim me, own me, or control me. I know she enjoyed me and liked me just as I liked and respected her. It was also kind of fun; never knowing if someone was going to end up in my bed when I turned off the lights each night.
It was very early morning and as usual she was leaving before anybody else awoke.
Many years ago I had learned that unless a woman had decided that YOU’RE THE ONE they usually appreciated a man being discrete. Even back in college while all my buddies were busy bragging about their conquests I think I actually had some relationships just because women knew I’d be discrete—at least one female friend had admitted as much.
“You know,” I said. “Only a beautiful ninja, samurai, SDF warrior could make scars look sexy. I think it must be something about the danger of you losing control during an orgasm and tearing me limb from limb that excites me.”
Hiromi suddenly sat down on the edge of my bed and placed her hand softly on my chest.
“Mark, for such a smart guy you’re pretty stupid when it comes to figuring yourself out. You’re fun to be with and we don’t want an emotional attachment but I don’t think you’d recognize your soul mate if you worked with her every day.”