If you believe (they put a man on the moon).

Well it’s forty years today since people allegedly walked on the moon, and the world fell for the biggest government conspiracy since scientists and doctors were allowed to decimate the paediatric funeral industry by introducing infant vaccination against polio, diphtheria and measles.

What most people don’t know about Apollo 11 is that I served as Doctrinal Consultant to the ‘mission’. In those days payroll systems weren’t computerized, so an astute accountant could easily inflate their own income by including a few anomalous friends on the books as “consultants”, and it was indeed my honour to serve NASA in this way after an erring parishioner indiscreetly revealed their sin to me during confessional. Naturally I offered them complete absolution in return for a share of the proceeds, and today when you hear reference made to NASA’s enormous cold war budgets I invite you to share in my pride that a not insubstantial portion of that fortune was redirected my way - for ministry purposes, of course.

In return I’m proud of having made a number of important contributions to the space race. It was, for example, me who recommended that in an emergency it’s a much better look for astronauts to say “Houston: I think we have a problem” instead of the original and less restrained : ‘Holy *(!%#*@ - we’re all going to &^%$# die!” At the very least Ron Howard could have thanked me for ensuring Apollo 13 got a PG rating.

Sadly many of my other proposals were ignored, and as a result it’s no wonder NASA found itself gasping for money under Clinton. My advice in the late 60’s was to secure Kissinger’s ongoing support by claiming to have discovered bikini bimbos on the moon, and you’d better believe this would have worked just as well 30 years later. Nor can it still be denied that Buzz Aldrin could have moved on to a career in movies if he’d only been willing to change his last name to “Lightyear”.

Still, at least there’s no denying the Apollo program hasn’t made a remarkable contribution to the world of Biblical Christianity. One look at the comment fields of any conservative blog is proof: clearly there are now more space cadets than ever. What's more you’ve only got to look at little Bobby Duncan to know aliens really have started living in our midst.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.