Televangelists, Flying Saucers, and Soul Eaters

Abstract

Abstract This article outlines the general history of American Evangelical Christianity’s textual response to the UFO phenomenon, framed by the literary genre of the jeremiad and as part of the apocalyptic turn of the twentieth century. Beginning with its early entanglement in the 1940s and moving to the present, it highlights the shifts in the narrative from angelic harbingers to demonic co-conspirators. The article pays particular attention to a new Evangelical approach to the phenomenon through novelization that at once mirrors contemporary politicization and utilizes the literary form to initiate adherents. While “new” in some regards, the extended discussion and examination of Michael Heiser’s novel The Façade reveals a continuity with earlier forms of occult literatures birthed in the mid-twentieth century. Ultimately, the metaphysical and mystical nature of UFOs together with the similar qualities of the novel have been and are being appropriated by American Evangelicals in a hyperreal mode to extend their cultural influence.