The Giant Leap...

Fifty years ago, the Sterling family was returning from vacation, and the oldest child (yours truly), who was so caught up in the American space program that he could easily be labeled a "space geek," was sitting in the back seat of the car looking at a road map. 

"Turn HERE!" I shouted to the driver (my father). 

"Why?" 

"Just TURN HERE!" I shouted again, with apparently enough passion and bossiness that he did. 

"Where is this taking us?" he asked. 

"To Wapakoneta," I informed. 

"WHERE?" he asked, with a strong sample of incredulousness in his question.

So, then I took the time to explain that Wapakoneta, Ohio was the home of the man who had just returned from walking on the moon. Neil Armstrong was in isolation with the other two Apollo 11 astronauts, just in case they brought back some alien germs in the dust and rocks they delivered to planet earth. And I figured that Neil's hometown must certainly be celebrating their favorite son's accomplishment, and Wapakoneta was only about eleven miles South of our route home. Thankfully, my father was almost as much a space geek as I was, so we motored into the tiny, sleepy town about 50 miles north of Dayton.

Sure enough, Wapakoneta was festooned with banners, bunting, and congratulations aimed at Mr. Armstrong who, it turned out, would be returning for a parade and a public tribute just a couple of weeks after being sprung from isolation in Houston. A storefront had been transformed into a Neil Armstrong homecoming celebration headquarters named, creatively, "Tranquility Base." And several utility poles around "Tranquility Base" had these posters (shown above) stapled to them, encouraging local residents to stop in to "sign scroll to be presented to NEIL ARMSTRONG" upon his return. There was one less poster after we left, and this one, yellowed from years on my bedroom--and later dorm room--wall, has been laminated and displayed in my church offices over the past 34 years. Once a space geek, always a space geek...

Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, the challenge of President John F. Kennedy was fulfilled. (Actually, it was four days later, as his challenge included "returning him safely to the earth.") Kennedy's challenge was apparently more about advancing technology and inspiring humankind than it was the "space race," which has been the most highly touted reason for it. If you've been watching the PBS historical tribute series "Chasing the Moon" recently, this fact was one of the most startling, as the series reports that JFK had been negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev to enter into a collaborative effort to put a man on the moon, something that this new series stated might have happened, had our president not been assassinated, and Khrushchev pushed from power in the Soviet Union. For those of us who lived through the actual event, it was an incredible experience, and one of the few times "the people of the earth were truly one," in the words of Richard Nixon, during his phone call to the moon-walking astronauts, Armstrong and Aldrin. Of course, this planet-wide unity only lasted about a day.

Landing people on the moon was a major technical accomplishment, indeed, and when you figure we did it with 1950s and 60s technology, it's even more amazing. In the earliest days of the space program, "computers" were human beings, aided by huge, mechanical "calculating engines." Digital computer technology would be greatly advanced by the space race, culminating in the Apollo guidance computer (AGC) that had a whopping 2k memory and weighed 70 pounds. Many modern authors serving as apologists for the Apollo missions trumpet the technology and "spin offs" of the moon program that benefited everything from kitchens (microwave ovens) to operating rooms, although recent documentaries have pooh-poohed the notion that Tang and Velcro came from NASA, as opposed to being merely employed by them in spacecraft.

So, what was--or is--the value of manned spaceflight, including the six trips to the lunar surface? Technology? Honoring the visionary wishes of an assassinated president? Scientific exploration? One could make a case for any and all of these, but a line from an obscure little Australian film centered around the Apollo 11 mission maybe advances the best theory of its value: "It makes our spirits soar." That line, spoken by Sam Neill's character Cliff Buxton in the film, "The Dish," sums it up. A tremendous vision is cast by a charismatic national leader, a team of engineers, astrophysicists, and daring aviators bring it to pass, and all of humanity gets caught up and inspired by it coming to fruition. Apollo 11 truly "made our spirits soar." Other than for us space geeks, the space program--going forward from Apollo 11 up to the present time--has only caught the broader public fancy in times of crisis or tragedy (Apollo 13, and the destruction of Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia). Only the private space program of a character like Elon Musk or the idea of going to Mars even gets much press today. And it's not like we don't have a need to BE inspired today, given that there is much to be bored with or disappointed in what is happening around us.

This brings me to draw a parallel between conquering space and religious faith, and while this is probably a bad idea, here goes: Even as people are "ho hum" about space efforts today, so have they become widely disaffected by religion. Each has lost its ability to inspire, or to "make our spirits soar." Good religion follows the script of the Apollo program: a vision cast by a charismatic leader, a team of dedicated "followers" to bring it to fruition, and an audience inspired by both its tenets and its heroes. Today, maybe we're guilty of so much bad religion--little vision being cast by anybody, followers who use their religion to bash those who don't agree with them, and their target audience being scared off by either boredom or disappointment. Not only are we not making "spirits soar," but to paraphrase a country song, we've "ripped that sucker out and stomped it flat!" Religious fundamentalists are actually doing harm to people; religious liberals have lost their creativity and their voice; and centrists are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If our message had been watered down, we could spice it up; if it had been given too sharp an edge, we could hone and temper it with love. But we just don't even know what the message is today, let alone being able to use it to inspire anyone to want to believe it.

Not wanting to end on a cynical note, I guess I'm suggesting we need an "Apollo program" for religious faith. The pages of scripture have lots of things that could inspire us--the chastening words of the prophets or the empathetic and stirring words of characters like Moses and Jesus (or Mohammad, if your holy book is the Quran). If our religious bodies could begin to see themselves as a team coming together to bring to fruition the hopes and dreams of these scriptural visionaries, and if our efforts begin to create a meaningful intersection between God, people, and life, maybe religion could again experience "ignition and liftoff." Until we rediscover our inspiring words and work together to bring them to a "spirit-soaring" reality with the potential to engage and transform lives, our audience will be underwhelmed, and will "vote with their feet" to cancel the program. As long as religion continues its currently dominant course of being the gatekeepers of "who gets in" and "who is left out," instead of shouting God's reconciling, and affirming love from the housetops, it will find fewer and fewer adherents in an age of apathy and doubt. As Woody Allen said, "My God, my God, what hast Thou done lately?"

P.S. After touring Wapakoneta, we stopped at a gas station to fill up, and my father was talking with the service station attendant (yes, it was called a "service station" back then, and an "attendant" would pump your gas, wash your windshield, and check your oil) about how his "crazy son" ordered us to Wapakoneta. The attendant said, "If he's a big fan of Neil Armstrong, you should stop down at their house. It's right down the road, and I'll bet his parents are home." So, we did, and my dad and I knocked on the door, and Mr and Mrs. Armstrong stepped out on the porch and chatted with us for about 15 minutes! That was certainly an America that used to be...