"The last time I checked, demons don't fly physical craft or have physical bodies."
Dr. Joel Parkyn is a theologian who says both sides of the UFO argument have it wrong.
When a sitting vice president says UFOs are demons, Parkyn calls it "demonological reductionism" - a theological firewall thrown up by people who have never done the ufological work. But when Vatican astronomers say extraterrestrial life poses no problem for the faith, he calls that theological overconfidence, and says it answers a question nobody is really asking. His argument is that UFO disclosure is not only a national security story. It is a civilizational one, and the churches are not ready for it.
He wrote an executive brief addressed to the House Oversight Committee and its Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets making that case. In this conversation he says he handed a copy to Rep. Eric Burlison.
What makes Parkyn unusual is that he is not a skeptic of the spiritual. He left a Marine career after an unexpected spiritual experience, and as an undergraduate he worked with the Warrens, the Connecticut demonologists. He says demons are real. He just says these are not them.
His line, and the reason this episode exists: "Christianity is resilient against expansion, but vulnerable to displacement."
ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Joel L. Parkyn is an adjunct professor of theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and the author of Exotheology, a study of non-human intelligence and religion built over six years with more than 1,000 footnotes. He works at the intersection of theology and ufology, a combination almost nobody occupies.
www.exotheology.space Email is exotheology@yahoo.com
BOOK REFERENCED Exotheology by Joel L. Parkyn (2021, 350 pages)
CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 1:49 From the Marines to theology 4:13 Why UFO disclosure is not just a Pentagon story 7:09 If it were confirmed tomorrow, what changes in church on Sunday? 11:45 "Resilient against expansion, but vulnerable to displacement" 16:00 What if they know what happens after we die? 19:35 When a vice president says they are demons 25:18 "Demons don't fly physical craft" 29:53 Did the brief reach Congress, and does the Vatican know more? 35:57 Alien abduction and Christian morality 40:49 Reading UFOs into the Bible: Ezekiel and Revelation 42:04 Discovery, disclosure, and contact are not the same thing 46:01 What is exotheology? 51:49 Recommendations to Congress, and a message to Pope Francis 56:44 Where to find his work
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