by Keith Bassham
My wife and I have been watching space films lately. Not the fantasy, Buck Rogers kind. This is NASA/Discovery Channel stuff — that, and some dramatic series based on the real thing. We just finished the film that portrayed the capsule fire in which the three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, lost their lives February 21, 1967.
Putting live men into space and returning them safely is an incredibly complex affair, and with all the moving parts, electronic glitches, mission outlines, and the unforeseen human element, problems will occur. Often they are minute in importance, simple to overcome, and without serious consequences.
Others, well, there is always the unexpected.
In the aftermath of what would have been the first Apollo mission, it seemed important to hold someone or something accountable. Some who were against space exploration on principle wanted to hold NASA to a zero-risk, absolutely safe standard. Others wanted to support NASA’s mission, indeed, the American goal of putting a US astronaut on the moon by the end of 1969, so they would have contented themselves with finding a person, or a procedure, or a manufacturer to blame. They were okay with a certain amount of risk provided safety was always on the front burner.
In the congressional hearing, things were going badly. Even astronaut Frank Borman, the first to go into the burned capsule after the fire, had been forced by his commitment to the truth to give damaging evidence. And then, just as it appeared the space program was doomed, committee chair Senator Clinton Anderson asked Borman, “What caused the fire?”
According to Borman’s portrayal in the film series From the Earth to the Moon, he responded, “A failure of imagination. We’ve always known there was the possibility of fire in a spacecraft. But the fear was that it would happen in space, when you’re 180 miles from terra firma and the nearest fire station. That was the worry. No one ever imagined it could happen on the ground. If anyone had thought of it, the test would’ve been classified as hazardous. But it wasn’t. We just didn’t think of it. Now whose fault is that? Well, it’s North American’s [the capsule manufacturer] fault. It’s NASA’s fault. It’s the fault of every person who ever worked on Apollo. It’s my fault. I didn’t think the test was hazardous. No one did. I wish to God we had.”
Since viewing the film and reading the transcript, I have learned Borman did not coin that phrase, “a failure of imagination.” It was used at least once in an evangelistic situation. The evening before C. S. Lewis knelt and became, in his words, “the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom,” he had been walking and talking with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis, though partially persuaded of the truth of Jesus Christ, was still full of objections. At one point Tolkien interjected, “Your inability to understand stems from a failure of imagination on your part!”
For all I know, perhaps Mr. Tolkien had heard or read the phrase elsewhere, but that is of no matter. What Mr. Tolkien and Mr. Borman were getting at amounts to the same thing: we cannot think of everything, but we should try to.
For instance, we take it for granted that as fallen but redeemed men and women, committing sin is an inevitability for us. My systematic theology says it is so. Some mourn that fact, much as the Puritans did, and do all they can to avoid sin. Others use the truth almost as an excuse, as in, “Well, you know, no one is perfect,” or “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.”
We are, after all, merely sinners saved by grace.
The statement reminds me of one of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strips. Pogo Possum was quite taken for a time with the French-speaking skunk Miz Hepzibah, although he was denying the attraction publicly. When another of the swamp characters began showing romantic attention to Miz Hepzibah, he could no longer hide his feelings. After a good pout, he confessed to Porky Porcupine that his whole attitude was wrong. He said that he should not get worked up over “a mere skunk.” Porky replied, “There’s nothing mere about a skunk.”
Perhaps this is an example of a failure of Christian imagination, or Christian imaging if you will. We can manage to abstain from sin for short periods of time, certainly from the more egregious ones. What would it be like if we could extend those times? In other words, does the bulk of the New Testament teach that we are sinners who occasionally do the right thing, or are we saints who occasionally sin?
And how much of what God would accomplish through us is stifled by a failure of imagination on our part? Noel Smith was fond of saying that we are doing God’s business in great waters, and for sailors in the pre-modern world, heading out to great waters was just as uncertain as going into space is today.
Let us not fail to imagine all that God could do through us if we truly gave ourselves to Him without reservation.