Recently, Christian astronaut Victor Glover was reminded of the memorable Christmas Eve reading from Genesis on Apollo 8 in 1968, and he was asked to give an Easter message from Artemis II. This is the story …
The space race
The 1960s was the time of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War was a clash of ideologies, with rivalry between communism and capitalism played out in space and on Olympic playing fields rather than in military conflict. It was also seen by some as a clash between Western Protestantism and atheist Marxism. Except it was not that simple: not all the American astronauts fitted the stereotype of evangelical Christians, and not all the Russian cosmonauts fitted the stereotype of atheists.
At first, the Soviet Union was ahead in the space race. The first man in space to return alive was Yuri Gagarin, an amiable and popular Russian cosmonaut. His rocket left Earth on 12 April 1961, and he entered space on Vostok I. When he landed in Siberia, he had to persuade locals that he had come from outer space because they did not believe him. Later, the Americans caught up and overtook the Russians in technological capability, and the Apollo mission landed on the Moon in 1969.
Did you see God?
The story goes that when Yuri Gagarin landed, he was asked if he had seen God in space, and he said something like, “I looked, but I didn’t see God.” When Neil Armstrong was asked the same question after his return, he replied, “No, but if I had stepped out of my space suit, I would have done.” Well, that was how I heard it once in a sermon, and it made a great illustration, contrasting the atheist cosmonaut’s worldview with the Christian American’s worldview. Except it turns out that neither was true.
According to another alternative anecdote, Khrushchev asked Gagarin if he saw God in space. “Of course I’ve seen him,” he said, and Khrushchev replied, “I knew it! But don’t tell anyone else.” This, sadly perhaps, is also a myth.
Rather, it seems it was Nikita Khrushchev who spoke at a session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party about the question of promoting atheism. Khrushchev then set the task for all Party and Komsomol (Young Communists) organisations to promote anti-religious propaganda. He spoke in Russian, but the words translate something like: “Why are you clinging to God? Here Gagarin flew into space and didn’t see God.” Sometime later, these words were adapted and falsely attributed to Gagarin himself. Like many Russians, Yuri Gagarin was Russian Orthodox and kept his faith quiet in the midst of a political climate where religion was taboo and the regime officially promoted atheism. Whatever he thought about the words falsely attributed to him, he probably reasoned it was safest to keep quiet.
Reading the Bible from space
The American Apollo 8 mission was launched into space by the Saturn V rocket just before Christmas, on 21 December 1968. The three American astronauts were Lunar Module Pilot William “Bill” Anders, Command Module Pilot James “Jim” Lovell, and Commander Frank Borman. They became the first humans to leave Earth’s orbit, the first to enter the orbit of another celestial body, and the first to gaze upon the far side of the Moon.
On Christmas Eve, while orbiting the Moon for the ninth time and approaching the lunar sunrise, they decided to quote the first ten verses of Genesis from the King James Version. Anders started with, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth … ” Then Lovell continued, and Borman closed with the gathering of waters, ending with, “and God saw that it was good.” This was transmitted live on television. Fewer people had televisions in those days, but it was then the most-watched broadcast of all time and was immensely powerful. You can watch it here on YouTube.
Lawsuit
However, not all Americans appreciated it. One of them was Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919–1995), who was evangelical in her atheism. Five years earlier, in 1963, she had founded the “American Atheists” movement. She had waged a successful campaign to remove prayer and Bible readings from American state schools as a violation of the constitutional separation of Church and State. Now she had a new campaign. She felt that NASA had endorsed religious activities during their missions, and she wanted to stop it. She encouraged others who also disagreed to write letters of complaint, and 30,000 letters were received complaining about the reading.
In early 1969, Murray O’Hair filed a lawsuit against NASA on the matter. However, her actions inspired a massive counter-campaign known as “Project Astronaut.” Christian groups and churches rallied their members, and letters were written in the millions to NASA and the astronauts themselves, supporting the astronauts as a matter of religious freedom.
Stamp
On 5 May 1969, the United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a six-cent postage stamp to commemorate the Apollo 9 mission. USPS was not troubled by the lawsuit against NASA. The stamp featured the famous photograph of the Earthrise, but over the blackness of space between the Moon’s surface and the rising Earth, the stamp has the words “In the beginning God … ” directly quoting the Bible and recalling the reading from Genesis. These stamps are now sought after by collectors.
The Moon landing
The Apollo 11 mission launched on 16 July 1969 and landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Neil Armstrong stepped out first and said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” He did not say anything religious, but in a 1969 CBS interview, Armstrong said that he was “certainly not an atheist.” By contrast, his colleague Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin was a devout Christian and an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Texas, known as “the Church of the Astronauts.”
At NASA, there was nervousness after Murray O’Hair’s lawsuit, and they wanted to avoid broadcasting religious messages. However, Aldrin’s pastor, Rev Dean Woodruff, helped him plan some private readings. Aldrin secretly took with him a small piece of card measuring just three by five inches, on which he wrote the words of John 15:5 and Psalm 8:3–4.
When he was on the Moon, he radioed to Earth: “Houston, this is Eagle, the LM Pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. Over. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in their own individual way. My way shall be by partaking of the elements of Holy Communion.”
He had taken with him a wafer in a plastic packet and wine in a small silver chalice from his church, which his minister had pre-consecrated. Aldrin then took communion and silently read to himself Jesus’s words from John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.” He was the first and only person to hold a religious ceremony on the Moon. His fellow astronaut, Neil Armstrong, watched but did not partake. NASA avoided broadcasting it.
However, on the return trip, on the evening before splashdown, there was a live broadcast from the capsule, and Aldrin took the opportunity to read Psalm 8:3–4 from the King James Version: “When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?” NASA was unprepared, and it went out live. The splashdown occurred on 24 July 1969 in the Pacific Ocean.
The events are recalled in his book Return to Earth (1973) and in Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon by Buzz Aldrin and Ken Abraham (2009). In 2007, his small 3" by 5" card with the Bible verses was auctioned for $179,250.
Change of attitudes
On 1 December 1969, Murray O’Hair’s lawsuit against NASA was dismissed on the grounds that the broadcasts were voluntary, not organised by NASA, viewers could simply choose whether or not to watch, and no taxpayer funds were spent on the promotion of religion. Murray O’Hair appealed, and her appeal was dismissed in 1970. Ten years later, in 1980, her son William Murray became a Christian and is now a Baptist minister. He told his story in My Life Without God, published by Harvest House in 1982.
After the fall of communism, many Russian cosmonauts felt freer to express their faith openly without fear of repercussions. Now it is not uncommon for an Orthodox priest to conduct a blessing service in front of the Soyuz FG rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In 2014, to mark the 700th anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Russian cosmonauts posed for a photograph on the International Space Station with their Orthodox icons.
So now Americans and Russians are free to express their faith in the context of space travel.
Artemis II
All this is the backstory to recent events when Artemis II went round the Moon in the most recent NASA mission. The pilot, Victor Glover, is a Christian who attends Southeast Church of Christ in Friendswood, Texas, and took a Bible with him on the trip. On Saturday, 4 April, as Artemis II’s Orion capsule sped toward the Moon, a journalist reminded him of the famous Bible reading from space at Christmas in 1968 and asked if he wished to share any Easter thoughts.
He was asked: “Apollo 8 had a memorable Christmas Eve reading from Genesis. Do you have a message you would like to share from space about Easter Sunday?”
Victor Glover then gave an inspirational reply, openly reflecting his faith. He said: “You know, I don’t have anything prepared. I’m glad you brought that up, though. I think these observances are important. And as we are so far from Earth and looking back at the beauty of creation, I think, for me, one of the really important personal perspectives that I have up here is that I can really see Earth as one thing.
"And, you know, when I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us … you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos.
"I think maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you. And I’m trying to tell you - just trust me - you are special in all of this emptiness. This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.
"I think as we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures all around the world - whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not - this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we’ve got to get through this together.”
You can watch it here.
