“UFO’s, Aliens, & Faith | Disclosure and God (Grant Eckhart)” Ep#37

In this episode of Spiritual Hot Sauce, Chris Jones explores the intersection of faith and the "weird" with Grant Eckhart, an ordained Lutheran pastor at Ohio State University and creator of the Ministry in the Weird Substack. Grant shares his journey from traditional campus ministry to being recruited as a chaplain for an alien body expedition in Peru and eventually teaching "E.T. theology" to college students. The conversation bridges the gap between modern UAP whistleblowers and ancient archetypes—such as the reptilian Naga of India and Mesopotamian lore—while outlining a theological roadmap for navigating disclosure. Grant ultimately encourages listeners to embrace the deepening mystery of the unknown without losing their spiritual foundations, emphasizing that faith is built to withstand even the most extraterrestrial questions.

https://ministryintheweird.substack.com/

http://www.jacobsporch.com/

Contact Grant Eckhart at grant@jacobsporch.com

This episode of “Spiritual Hot Sauce” by Chris Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  

Transcript

Chris Jones 0:00

Today, I talk with Grant Eckhart, who occupies a very unique space in the faith world. He's an ordained Lutheran pastor at Ohio State University, but he's also the curator of a substack called Ministry in the Weird, from being asked to serve as a chaplain for an alien body expedition in Peru to teaching E.T. theology to college students. He is helping people navigate what disclosure means for their faith. Welcome. I'm Chris Jones. This is Spiritual Hot Sauce. Grants, welcome to the sauce.

Speaker 0:44

Thanks. Great to be here, Chris.

Chris Jones 0:46

If you would tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background and what you do now.

Speaker 0:51

Yeah, sure. Well, I live in Columbus, Ohio. Grew up in Dayton, went to Ohio State, got a Bachelor's of Science there, and then, you know, went out to the West Coast to Berkeley for grad school, and then ultimately entered seminary, got into the ministry, and I was ordained in the Lutheran Church. That's the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I've been ordained almost 20 years now, served a large church in Cincinnati, Ohio for six or seven years, and now been uh here at the Ohio State University at a ministry called Jacob's Porch for the last 13. And uh Jacob's Porch is a college ministry, mostly college students and faculty, grad students, those types of things. But a little kind of boutique college ministry uh right off campus and I love it. I married two young kids. Life is good. Life is good, life is good.

Chris Jones 1:40

So, how did you get into the ministry of the weird? How did this come about?

Speaker 1:46

It probably overlaps with my being involved with college students and their questions. You know, when I serving a standard kind of suburban congregation is very different than with college students. And so early on at Jacob's porch, a lot of atheist dialogue, friendly atheist dialogue. Every week we'd meet. And that was a big stretch for me, having not uh done that so much before. And then we got into a season where we had a lot of pagans and witches, and I say that, you know, these are great students, appreciably that were coming to our ministry. Because we have Christians, but non-Christians, people figuring it out, all kinds of different people come through this little eclectic ministry called Jacob's Porch. It's been here for a hundred years now. Oh wow. And then, yeah, and then got more into the bizarre side of things with non-human intelligence, UAP, probably a couple, almost two years ago. It hadn't been something part of my life at all. I mean, I like a good sci-fi book or TV show as much as the next person, but never looked into anything until a faculty member that I know really well at Ohio State, because I relate to a lot of faculty, been there a long time. I'm about their age, friends with a lot of these folks. He he said, Hey, can you be a chaplain for a group of us from Ohio State on an expedition down to Peru? And I said, What in the world? These are very, you know, these aren't questions that I get normally. And I said, Maybe. First of all, why do you need a chaplain? Where are you going and when is this thing happening? And he said, Well, we're not sure when yet, but we've been invited by the University of Ica, south of Peru, to go look at uh supposed alien bodies with tridoctal hands and fingers. Wow. And he said, Well, it's not just us, it's a team from Ohio State, but a team from three other universities. We've all been invited to go down there to look at this from different angles. And so, as a good obedient Lutheran, I asked my bishop, and I said, because we have bishops, and I said, Hey, they've asked me to do this. It's a little outside of the ordinary. Do you mind if I go with them? They're asking me, you know, basically to be their spiritual advisor chaplain, because they weren't sure what it might do to their faith. They were a little concerned about that. And my bishop said, Well, yes, this is out of the ordinary, but you're supposed to be ministering to the university. That's why you're there. And if they're asking you into that space to be their chaplain, yes, go ahead and go with them. And then she said, But don't Indiana Jones does that card. I said, I said, uh sure. Yeah, I don't know what's gonna happen. They're talking about flying on planes over all these things, you know. And then we got some movie groups involved. I know a few people in the movie industry, and we were talking to the Roswell Gazette and the History Channel, and even Netflix was being communicated with to maybe do a documentary of this situation. We were in those talks, and meanwhile, some of the advanced teams from the other universities were down there. They were looking at these bodies that had been given by the Peruvian Navy over to the university for further examination. And we were getting in the mail, like these secret envelopes with CAT scan files, you know, MRIs, all these kinds of things. And so we went over somebody over at the medical college and looked at these CAT scans, and the doctor said, Yeah, these are definitely CAT scans. We don't know what we are looking at unless it's an incredibly disfigured, you know, child or something. But this was way beyond because the bone structure, everything's completely different. And we're getting DNA samples coming in from other people, putting these things, you know, back around a thousand AD or so. So we're tracking all that, we're getting the information here. And then we started to do a series of videos, lectures on campus with the professor. Well, you can look him up, his name's uh Dr. Steve, Stephen Brown, he's in the philosophy department, and he's got a lot of videos out there. And uh, we did one on campus and we did one at my church, invited the U UFO club over. And that's where my students at Jacob's Porch got a little more interested in this in just asking the alien kind of question of what if these these things are real. So I'll fast forward just for the sake of time. And turns out, after lots of examinations, some teams finally on the ground. We never actually went down there, just as we were planning to buy our tickets and everything. One of the university teams down there started to cut into the specimens and not just look at the CAT scans and the DNA. But what they found, which I think people are more cut, this was a couple years ago that we were involved in this. I think more and more is coming out now. There were like four different species we were looking at. And three of the four for sure were forgeries. I think the fourth one probably was when they finally got in and could see these high-level precision things that were being how they were making these dolls. And it was not a low budget situation. And it sounded like one of the guys said you're on an interpol list now because your lectures that you were doing at your church was building up the price of these things on the black market. But now that you came out and said they were a fraud, we trust you again, and don't worry, we're not watching you any longer. And I was like, I didn't know I was being watched. What are you talking about?

Chris Jones 6:54

But that's what got you into this. This is what I lost you in.

Speaker 6:57

That's that's what got me into it. Yeah, that's what got me into it and got and kind of got my ministry into it as well, because now the students are curious and they're like, Oh, we could, we didn't realize we could ask about these things. And I said, Yeah, you've always been able to ask about anything. And so last spring, as we always do, we said, Well, what do you guys want to look at and study next year? What do you want the staff to provide? What do you guys want to lead? We always do that. And and they said, Well, Pastor, we want you to do a comparative study on alien lore and Christianity. And we'll call it like an ET, E.T. alien theology class. So I had never read any alien lore at all. Of like, you know, like the Whitley Strebers, the John Max, the Jacques Villet's, and all that stuff. Never read it. So I spent the summer and I enjoyed it, reading a lot of those big texts, you know, that people people cite. Diana Pasulka loved her book, uh, the Chris Bledsoe book, a lot of stuff on remote viewing. Got, you know, just read broadly on all that kind of stuff to prepare for the class. I mean, I'm personally interested, and that's you know, been I've just been stretching for my faith, and I think in in mostly good ways, honestly. But uh job related, I'm like, well, I can spend time in my job because they're asking for this. And so we put put on a class, and the students, some of them couldn't make it. And as I started talking about this, so I started blogging about it, because not only students, but other pastors, some bishops, some other people. Now that I'm out and saying I'm studying this stuff, they're all coming out of like the secret kind of thing on the side and saying, I think these things are real too. Can we talk about it? I can't talk about this with everybody.

Chris Jones 8:33

Well, you know, and I think that's a that's a good place to talk about this because you you're right. You've you've hit on something that's going on in our culture. And that is people like me. I grew up watching these things. I love the whole UFO lore and these shows and these real accounts. And as I got older, I kind of grew out of it. I got into the Bob Lazar. And and kind of getting ready for this, I went and watched Death 4, the new, the new thing, the new movie that just came out. I haven't seen that yet. It's really good. Excuse me. It's really good if you're into that. But you know, but you know, life happens, I get busy and and I grew out of it, and and it's just not a priority because now it's just, you know, it's fun stuff. Up until we have whistleblowers. And this isn't people going to the media. This is people giving testimony to Congress. And now it's a whole different posture. It's everything is looking a little different. So kind of open up about the whistleblowers because I know a little, but I I'm sure I don't know the full depth of what's going on.

Speaker 9:36

Well, and I don't know the full depth either, but I can tell you how I got I got involved in it. So that same faculty member that got me into the Nazca situation, he he was never into UFOs or anything before David Grush testified in 2023. And I didn't even know that happened. I wasn't paying attention to it. You know, we're into 2024 before I'm even talking about anything. But he said for him, that was like, wait a minute, this guy would be a guy in the know. He's saying, under oath, this stuff is real. I at least at least need to start paying attention to this. So then we start talking, and then I'm like, well, I need to watch all this stuff. So I watched all the congressional hearings. I wrote up on my blog a summary with links to every paper submitted there, all the different guests, the all the whistleblowers. And you know, for me, it's when you if you actually for those few that have actually watched all of that stuff, it's either this there's a phenomenon here that is real and unexplainable that we that that needs to be revealed, or they're all liable to go to jail. Yeah. And and I don't think because they perjured themselves severely. And I don't think the latter is the case. I think they're in earnest with great risk to themselves, came and spoke. Now they don't give the big cosmic narrative of what all this means, but just kind of what they saw and the documents they have. But even there, I mean, it's incredibly, incredibly.

Chris Jones 11:05

And correct me if I'm wrong, but they didn't share everything because a lot of this they are still under of what would you call restriction. They can't share what they know. They only shared what they could share.

Speaker 11:16

Yes, I think those that have that that still worked for the government or had non-disclosure agreements or, you know, the dopps or all those things that they can some of them, some of them were only allowed to say what they said. Others were a little more free because they didn't have agreements, like George Knapp, you know, from Las Vegas. He's not in Congress, but he tested him. I think he could kind of say whatever he wanted. You know, I have found it interesting that, you know, after President Trump had said, you know, released the files, my first thought was, well, we don't need, you know, great if they can release other stuff, but we know they have some things because these things were submitted without the documentary evidence, like the videos or documents, most of them. There's some documents submitted, where they're describing things that are fantastic. Things that they heard, you know, some things they saw in skiffs, even.

Chris Jones 12:06

Well, let's talk about skiffs. What's the skiff? What's the skiff mean? What does that mean?

Speaker 12:10

Oh, yeah. Well, the um, you know, not being a gu, just being a lonely pastor here, never uh having been in one myself. My understanding is it's a you know, a secured facility where you can look at documents, but you can't bring your phones in. You look at something, you have a private conversation, and you can't share uh what comes out of that. So in a skiff, yeah, you can't disclose it. So you get these, you know, after the the whistleblowers uh come forward, then you kind of get the trifecta of mostly Republican folks in Congress, like Anna Paulina Luna, Eric Burleson, Tim Burchett, who really take up the mantle and start pushing into these areas and saying we need this stuff to get out. And so recently, Anna Paulina, representative of Anna Paulina Luna, wrote a letter to Pete Hegstath, the Secretary of War, now it's called, and said, Why don't you release these 46 videos that we've seen in the SCIF just release these things? One of them is in Columbus, Ohio, because she posted what the guy got posted online the 46 videos or documents they wanted to wanted that they knew existed, that they wanted released, wrote that letter, and tomorrow is a deadline that that Luna had put forward. Now, if they get released, then who knows. But even if those are released, um that's really significant. So that's kind of where things stand at this point.

Chris Jones 13:33

But I mean, kind of tell us what is it that they're saying that they're seeing. What is what are these things that they're talking about? I guess vehicles, they call them UAPs now.

Speaker 13:42

Yeah, I mean, you get in the grush testimony. He, you know, people look to him now as the beginning of the latest round of disclosure efforts. And, you know, under oath, he says that we have non-human crafts and non-human biologics. He said that before Congress. So we're talking about, you know, ships and beings of some kind. Now, the nature of all that, who knows?

Chris Jones 14:10

Now, is he the only one that's saying this, or is there other people corroborating?

Speaker 14:14

Yeah, there's uh, you know, pretty almost everybody who has testified um has testified to seeing some kind of ship. I mean, I think most most interestingly, you know, you had Jeff Nucitelli, who was in the military, and he testified under oath. And the way he described it was was really fascinating. He's seeing a big triangular black ship come over him on the base when he was out for a smoke break. And then he goes on to say it looked like kind of some lava flowing over the outside of it, the coloration and texture all around, and then it it took off. So these are the kinds of things you're hearing. And then Eric, uh, Eric Davis, who works for uh the jet propulsion labs, I believe that's where he works, he's a scientist, in a not a congressional hearing, but a briefing on Capitol Hill that Lou Elizondo was leading, and Admiral Gayadette and Burleson and Burchett and that whole group was there. As Eric Davis is sitting next to Admiral Gayadet, uh somebody asked, the man named Burleson asks him, so what are the species? You guys talk about these non-human biologics. What are the species? And just like he's talking, you know, politely to his children, he says, Well, there's four that I know of, you know, reptiliads, mantids, nordics, and grays, and just says it like nothing. No emo no and everybody looks over from Admiral Galli. Yeah, yeah, Admiral Galli. That's like, wow, you said that out loud. Okay. So so who knows? I mean, I think he's qualified later. He's like, Well, I haven't personally seen them, but I've, you know, I've heard from people, blah, blah, blah. Now is it possible? But yeah, so that's where the conversation is.

Chris Jones 15:51

Yeah, is it possible that the the people that would have these of what they do have, they release fake information. So, you know, I Bob Lazar had said that in a special. They'll give you some fake information. So if it comes out, you were the only one that had it, they know where it came from. So it is possible that whatever they're giving out is a part of the truth. So it just kind of convoludes the water. So you never really know what's happening.

Speaker 16:17

Right. Well, and that's the the challenging thing. You know, being in the area of more scholarship for most of my life, you know, there's a certain process to where things are better.

Chris Jones 16:25

Empirical evidence.

Speaker 16:26

And you go through peer review, and you have the degrees, and you have, you know, this this reputation built up. And the the challenge with so much in the the UFO space is that there's not really a process to vet a lot of these things. Yeah. And so everything you have to take as a potential falsehood or potential true thing, and and you know, what everybody says in this world that I talk to, they're like, they'll always put some truth in with a bunch of a bunch of false stuff so that you know people clue in. So just because the government releases it, it doesn't mean we all automatically say, well, that's absolutely true. Right. Like that's the beginning of a process of discernment.

Chris Jones 17:07

I think the difference here is we got people testifying to Congress and we've got members of Congress. And I've just heard the guy, I think he oversaw that committee, and I forget his name, he's from Tennessee. Burchett. And I heard, yeah, he just said the other night, if you knew what I knew, you would have nightmares. Yep. Yeah. And I was like, that's that's a scary statement. Now, but is this disinformation he's being fed? Again, you know, it's secondhand information of what we don't know. But we, you know, what we do know is the this is not a new idea of visitors and different species. This isn't, you know, we we like to think that this came about probably since the 1940s, since the uh the atomic bomb, but this is ancient stuff, is it not? I mean, there are ancient cultures that had these ideas.

Speaker 18:01

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's where you get into more of archaeology and religion, you know, at that point. If you're going pre-20th century, when you're going into religious texts, things can go either way. You know, like, okay, you know, it's there's a lot of myth in the Bible, which doesn't mean that it's it's not true. It's it is true. It's just like these are conceptual frameworks to get across the point the author wants to get across. When they're talking about, you know, be beings descending, you know, from the heavens, you know, for all those that love first Enoch, you know, the the Watchers or other like Sumerian texts with, you know, all those folks. I mean, you so the oldest texts have beings from the heavens coming down. Now, what those are, that's where the debate is. But I think it has been part of the human experience ever since we've had written language that we can track, that there is this kind of descending group that comes here. Now, what those are is going to be interpreted variously. But in that context, I would say this goes, you know, goes way back. And even crafts and things you get, you know. I was in Egypt recently, and it's like, that does look like a craft, but who knows what that is. You asked the guy, no, it's not that. It's like, okay, maybe not. You kind of, you know, I tend to trust the literature, but lots of odd things.

Chris Jones 19:26

I I'm thinking if I really want to. If I was them and I was wanting to lead everybody kind of astray, away from what the actual truth was. And like you had mentioned, one of the four things that was mentioned was reptilian. And then I think about the Naga of uh from ancient India, you know, that they believed this shape-shifting serpent that was about seven feet that was superior to us, that had knowledge that gave it to us, a single horn, and it ruled us, and we got our knowledge from it, and then they left. But you also have the serpent in the Bible. You you also have the serpents of Mesopotamia, you have the judges, the the seven that ruled from, I guess you could say the quantum, because it's not talking about it's the underworld. But they all look the same. They're all described as seven-foot kind of snake-like beings with a single horn. So I mean, in monomyths and and I would say that there is the moral of the story is intact, but the vehicle in which it's given is not. You know, it may not be, I should say. So I don't think necessarily that it's we have to say, oh yeah, there they were definitely that. I don't think that's what it is. But in modern times, if I'm trying to create a psyops, I'm going, you know, there's a lot of people and Jungian archetypes, and you have this monomyth of these nagas and these serpents. Why don't we just bring that into this? And so I don't think, but well, I guess what I'm saying is you can go hard one way or you can go hard the other way. Yeah. But it's it's definitely something that's interesting and pulls you into it because now you want to, because it it makes you want to figure out what's going on.

Speaker 21:12

Right. And at the end of the day, you know, I love that I didn't realize when I got into alien lore that there'd be so much religion in it. And, you know, there's there's people that have never read the Bible before, that are reading the Bible, reading Sumerian texts, reading, you know, Second Temple Jewish texts. And so at the end of the day, I'm like, the more people are reading that stuff and familiar, that's great. Because I think, especially post-Enlightenment in our modern world, you know, it's it's it's it's a world largely disenchanted. And I I think that, you know, the world of these ancient scriptures are fully enchanted. And for me, that's the part I love the most. The ministry in the weird that, you know, I mean, I believe that angels are real. I believe, you know, all that kind of stuff. And to me, that's where the juice is. Now, I didn't always believe that. You know, I grew up fairly liberal Protestant, went through seminary at the GTU at Berkeley and pretty much it deconstructed at that point. But I like the teachings of Jesus, wasn't sure about the rest. But as I've gotten older, as I've studied more, to me, the most precious things are the more fantastic elements, as long as they can stay a little grounded in the good, you know. And so I love that people are looking into it. And it's hard to deny that there are, you know, there are serpents in so many different cultures and stories. You've enumerated a lot of them. Sometimes they're negative, sometimes they're positive, sometimes they're a mix of both. The Bible certainly is a mix of all these kinds of different things. These other texts are as well. And so it leads people into the mystery. You know, I had breakfast with uh Dr. Jeff Jeff Kreipel uh from Houston a couple weeks ago, uh, university, Rice University in Houston a couple weeks ago. He was in town for a conference at Ohio State. And, you know, he's more well-read on all this stuff than I am. He used to teach at Harvard, and he, you know, has all the files from John Mack and Jacques Fillet and all those at in Rice at the Impossible Institute down there. And I asked him, I said, Well, what do you think is going on? You know, just from your perspective. And he said, I don't know that we will ever know the full picture. And he's like, and I've read more than a lot of people, and he he said, I really appreciate Jacques Fillet. He said, as soon as you think you figure that out, the next thing you learn shows that you are nowhere close, you know? And I like that deepening into the mystery. For my for me, my faith is you're being led into the mysteries. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's an ongoing process, even on the other side of death, you know, depending on on which tradition you're at, there's still ongoing discovery and learning.

Chris Jones 23:43

I agree with you. Well, let's get into the deeper side of this. Let's talk about the non-human intelligence and ethics. What does that mean? I mean, how do they see us ethically? And how do you and how do we see them ethically? What how does this play out for us?

Speaker 24:01

Yeah, I mean, when you're talking non-human intelligence, this is where the the alien lore stuff is is tough because it's, you know, what is the bigger picture? In my first blog post on my Ministry in the Weird Substack, uh, people said, Well, do you believe in aliens? And I said, What, like I believe in Jesus? I said, it's a the question of belief is a complicated one. You know, just to just to say, I believe, even that doesn't mean a lot. Like, what are you believing? What's the larger narrative? So for me, just all the, oh, we have another sighting, another ship, another hypothesis. It's interesting, but for me, I want to know what's their religion if they have one, what's their concept of God? What are their ethics? What do they think is the good? What are their purposes? All that stuff is what I'm particularly interested in because that compares then, you can do some comparative study with religion. And so it's varied, right? Like we, you know, a lot of the popular lore, you know, reptilians bad, Nordic's good, or vice versa, or you know, it's you're not sure what's going on. And I was talking to another ufologist recently, and I said, I can't ethics-wise, I still have to believe that you know, behind it all, God, ground of being, whatever you want to, like that one has to be good, you know, and and perhaps evil is privative. That's you know, more of a Christian concept. In alien lore, you get you get all over the place. Sometimes the God is more of a metaphysical duelist dueling kind of situation where there's good and bad in the creator himself. And that's I'm like, man, if I die and I find out that's true, that is like the most disappointing scenario that does frighten me if I can go far too far down that road. Because then just nothing means anything. There's no purpose uh, you know, towards the good at all. And there's no way to even tell the difference there. So, you know, I wrote on my my blog post in Ministry in the Weird the uh a whole story to trap a god, because I needed a store that I'd kind of more or less made up, but to do comparable studies with Christianity, but based on a lot of a lot of readings and whatnot. And you know, in that story, I tell, you know, genetic manipulation to where we were primates and then you know joined with alien DNA, and and that ultimately, and I I kind of pick up on some more Gnostic tradition because a lot of alien lore is fairly Gnostic. Not all Gnosticism is bad. There's Gnosticism in the New New Testament and certainly in the you know the Old Testament and whatnot, but but it's not all bad. Some things are more problematic. But one of the things that comes up in some of these circles is that, you know, God contains all the good and the bad, and we're immortal spiritual beings. You can get that from Scientology or some different things, and we just kind of pop in and out of bodies, but our you know, our soul is immortal. And, you know, we'll find out if that's true or not, but I think one one thing I appreciate about Christianity is it's got a very strong doctrine of personhood that you are who you are, who you are in this life and in the life to come. You're not memory-wiped, right? Right, right. You're not memory-wiped, it's perpetually you're aware of who you are.

Chris Jones 27:27

Yeah.

Speaker 27:28

And, you know, if you're popping in and out of bodies, I mean that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It's not certainly not Christian doctrine, but there's a sense of unity. And because Christianity places such a strong emphasis on the person, now all of a sudden the body is something that should be guarded and uplifted and sanctified rather than killed, destroyed, and trashed, uh, which, you know, has happened throughout history. Even Christians don't have a great crack record of that either, but at least doctrinally, it's there.

Chris Jones 27:55

I think you're right. I think when we start looking at these things and we start down that path of the rabbit hole of looking at whether there is intelligence out there, how many species there are, how long it's been here, how it's impacted us, has it affected how we've evolved and given us this other thing. That we have to figure out what our truth is. I mean, for people of faith, that is our scriptures. And then that's what we have to hold to. Otherwise, there's no trust there. And trust is actually kind of the meaning of faith, that we have to trust God through this process, no matter what it looks like.

Speaker 28:33

Yeah, I think so. And you know, one thing I've been appreciative of going, getting to know more people in this alien lore communities that kind of been swept into this, is that a lot have converted, oddly, to Christianity as they've been looking into UFOs. I mean, not everybody, certainly, but more than I would have expected to say that it's because of this that I became a Christian. And you know, when I thought about aliens, maybe I mentioned this before, but it was all like, you know, taxi ships, bodies, little green men from Mars or something. And that's interesting. But as I've gotten deeper into this now, a year deep or so, more than that, it's there's a huge spiritual dimension to it. And people are, you know, talking about, you know, very, very spiritual topics, and it's not just this materialist, physicalist kind of modern paradigm. I like that the esoteric and alien worlds, they're way more open to the weird stuff and the possibilities and the angels and all that than I see in just most kind of standard people, even some people of faith, you know, where we've that we've let's get rid of all that. We'll just stick to the teachings of Jesus, but all the weird stuff let's just put out of our mind. I love that the alien community is kind of bringing all that back into culture. I think it's something that it gets our minds up.

Chris Jones 29:56

There's intrinsically something in us that kind of needs that we have to explore it. It's in monomyths, it's been with us since the very beginning. It's, you know, the hero's journey was the first nonfiction piece we wrote about 4,600 years ago, you know, in Mesopotamia. Right. Right. So right. So how should you think? I mean, because you're a pastor, what do you tell your uh students when they come to you and they have these concerns? And I'm sure you've had this conversation a lot. Okay, what does this mean for me in my life and my faith? I mean, what does this change for me? Well, what do you tell those people?

Speaker 30:32

Yeah, and that question certainly comes up a lot. They want to, you know, the first thing is, well, how are you in, how are you doing with all this? And they want to hear that first typically. And in some ways, it's the same thing I've always done. And in the Lutheran church, at least my denomination, there's a wide berth on an appreciation for asking questions. You know, that if we believe that there's a big T truth in Jesus, then we should be able to ask anything. And nothing should be off the table. And so I've led that ministry, our ministry that way for years, even before that came up. So in some ways it's it's the new thing. Like, well, if you're interested, keep exploring it, you know, and and if not, that's fine. I mean, we have you know, we have worship and sermons and Christian Bible studies and all that kind of stuff, but then also just a lot of general conversation. And usually after a sermon on Sunday, we have a small enough group where we can have you know a conversation there in worship of what do you think about this? And they can disagree with me. Yeah, and I think you know, if I share for what it's done for me, it's stretching, you know, because when you're reading so reading something exclusively for a while, it kind of takes over, you know, and there's moments where I've been rattled, like, wow, I hope that's not true. Gosh, I hope that thing's not real, or that would be interesting if that was real. But I think overall it's oddly uh strengthened my face, because faith, because it's you know, brought a lot of mystery into the front, the fore. And I think even if you what I appreciate in alien lore is everything seems to be a little closer and it's a little, you know, everything's happening in this universe or through multiple dimensions, but it's it just feels very, you know, we're we're in the midst of where all this stuff is going on. And I think sometimes in my personal faith life, I felt like Jesus is near, you know, in the bread and the wine. I feel you know, Jesus near when I pray. But in some ways I think, well, Jesus is way far away in the you know, the throne room of God interceding for us. And there can be a sense of distance. Like, I don't know how far away that is, or that's a different thing than I can comprehend. When you put some of this into alien lore, everything feels a little closer. And so I feel you know, Jesus a little closer, like the Holy Spirit's closer in some ways. And I kind of take the perspective that you know, if there is some big disclosure of aliens and somehow it can meet a threshold of being real, I mean, it's already met a threshold for me to take it seriously, yeah. But to where you I really have to wrestle through it, you know, I think we'll cross those bridges when we come to it. I outlined in a blog post, I don't think I've posted it yet, but that there's basically four four things the church can do after disclosure. It's not saying what what path people will choose, but it's more or less the four paths that the church has always chosen when confronting a new ideology, a new a new revelation of some kind. It's, you know, either you synthesize the material, so you know, say, you know, Saint Augustine, you know, he was he worked through paradox a lot through his synthesis. He's like, how can Christ be both king and crucified? You know, those are opposite things, and then you can synthesize that theologically so it doesn't take away from Christ's divinity or humanity, but now you're going deeper into the mystery, deeper into the identity. That's what kind of synthesis does often through paradox, where you're seeing a new revelation and there's enough connection where you can synthesize it into something deeper. That's one option depending on what the material is. You can syncretize it, which means that you can, if a new revelation, a new part of history comes forward, you can syncretize it, which basically means that you you whatever say that the church was encountering a different religion. You know, these happen throughout throughout history, yeah, and they were the more dominant force in the area. Well, they said, well, you know, that that God is actually our God. And that's a syncretistic move. You know, you're you kind of have the power to do that, you're persuasive enough that people are like, oh, this thing that we were calling something else is actually what you're calling it. That's and some don't believe, obviously, but enough kind of agree that they they joined up. So an alien lore, like it could be synchret, you know, syncretized. We see something that's released. Oh, the church has always taught, and that's been more like this. Or some Christians get syncretized into that, where it's, oh, that's where that's the more true thing. I'm gonna have to find a way to incorporate my faith syncretistically back into that. You know, then the the the weaker ones are just like this to synergize. They are you know, I'm a I'm a preacher, so I've got four S's, right? You've got syncretism, synthesis. You know, you can synergize something, uh, synergism, which is like a cooperative, cooperating operations, cooperating energies, where you're not believing what the other thing is, but you're finding ways to work together for something. So maybe the church doesn't say, We're all on board with aliens now, but for those that are traumatized or hurting from that, we will walk alongside you in that. We're not gonna believe it, but we'll kind of be with you, sin, you know, sin, uh sin there gaya. You know, we will be with you and use our energies to walk with you. And the final is schism, where something dramatically happens, it divides the church. And some say we're not gonna touch the alien stuff, and some say we're gonna incorporate it in in a new way. And so those are kind of the four options that I see moving forward. Now, every denomination, every church, maybe even every individual person will figure out where they are if if there's like significant disclosure that really captivates a mass population. You know, that's that's those are options people can take.

Chris Jones 37:04

So for our people, our folks here that are listening, now that we've talked about some crazy things and but I mean things that's real, that's happening in our world, give us one final bit of information of help and comfort as we leave this podcast.

Speaker 37:23

One thing I said to uh a friend recently who's been struggling with faith as a result of disclosure, UAP disclosure. I said, you know, even within the UAP world, don't let go of Jesus in this. Even if you don't believe who is, he says he is, he pops up everywhere in this stuff. This isn't the time for you to renounce anything. This is the time, yeah, you're exploring and whatnot, but don't lose that piece. Because that, you know, I think Jesus has a part to play in all this. Perfect. I'm a pastor, I'm gonna say that. I think the Holy Spirit, you know, I follow the Chris Bledstone story. I'm writing a blog post on that now, almost done with it. You know, I've been following that very closely. And he says these orbs are, you know, one name is the Holy Spirit. There's other names, but all this stuff is gonna be tough to figure out. But at this point, like, it's oh, you know, if you lose your faith, that happens, you can come talk to me. But hold on to it for now. This doesn't overturn everything necessarily, right?

Chris Jones 38:18

You know, you know, typically I find out when we go through adversity and the fire of what we think is this is gonna cost me my faith or this is gonna hurt my faith. It's the opposite. When it's all said and done, it's built your faith, it's redefined it, and it's kind of purified it.

Speaker 38:34

You know, I've that's happened to me many times over many different things, and it always comes back stronger. So, so we'll see, you know, where this goes. But I think people of faith, that's like double down on Jesus and don't be afraid to explore this stuff and to talk about it. You shouldn't have any shame about it. You know, look into it, examine it, you'll find out how complicated it is, and there's not, it's hard to verify what's true, but you don't need to be afraid of it. And I think faith actually can help us through this. I agree.

Chris Jones 39:02

And I think also connecting yourself to a good community so that can help keep you grounded and have perspective like Ministry in the Weird. So if people do want to connect and they do want to read all these things and follow you and hear the stuff, how do they do that?

Speaker 39:19

Yeah, thanks for asking, Chris. Yeah, they can go to my my Substack, which is just ministryintheweird.com. It's free. I'm not a platform builder. I I work at a church. I just did this because people asked me to. It's it's odd, though. It's gotten like over a half a million views. So a lot of people are I don't have many posts either. I've got a few that I promised people I would do that I'm trying to work through. But they can go there. It's free to sign up. If you're in Columbus, stop by Jacob's Porch and go to Jacobsporch.com, look at our ministry, or if you've got some young people that would like to connect and are kind of the weird sort that want to get good doctrine, but also are open-minded thinking, come over to Jacobsporch and check it out. But those are the two best places.

Chris Jones 39:57

Awesome. And Grant, if somebody is struggling with this and they feel like maybe you're the person that could help really give them some insight, is it okay if they reach out via email with some concerns or comments?

Speaker 40:11

Absolutely. My email is just Grant at Jacobsporch.com. You know, I talk to a lot of folks. Uh, it might take me a little while to get back to you, but I will follow up. I feel like that's my calling in life is to walk people through all kinds of different faith things that are going on with them. And that's a calling, and I love to do that.

Chris Jones 40:28

Grant, this has been fantastic. I've really enjoyed this, and I think you've shed a lot of light on what you used to call them the four S's. I think it's important that we all have that piece because we don't know what's going to happen, but yet that's incredibly valuable, and it's figuring out how we need to see it. So thank you for coming on. Thanks for giving the time. I appreciate it. And uh we'll talk again soon.

Speaker 40:53

All right. Thank you so much, Chris. It's been a pleasure. You're a great interviewer, and I wish you all the best.

Chris Jones 40:58

Thanks, sir. Well, that was a lot of fun. But I gotta say, as we are inching closer and closer to disclosure, and we are, whatever that means, I think Grant offers a very grounded perspective that helps us navigate. So we're gonna have you back on the show. We're gonna do a deep dive. So email me at spiritualhotsauce at gmail.com and let me know what you want us to deep dive. Also, if you want to hear an expanded version of what we talked about today, you can go watch the video on YouTube. I'll see you again next week, but only if you follow.