Posted October 08, 2026
Drake Maye is one of the most accomplished young quarterbacks in the NFL. He led the New England Patriots to last year’s Super Bowl (where they lost to the Seattle Seahawks) and was nearly named the Most Valuable Player in the league.
Now he’s in the news for a rather different reason.
In a recent podcast interview, Maye was asked if there is a conspiracy theory he secretly believes. His response:
I don’t know about the moon, you know. I think it’s … I can see back in the day … of why we would put on the mass we went there, but I’m not really sure 200 percent if we went there or not. I wouldn’t say I’m leaning one way or the other. I just know I’m a little bit skeptical.
The hosts then said they had their own moon-landing theory. One of them said, “There’s so much literature out there.” He claimed to have “read all of it” and said, “I absolutely believe we didn’t land on the moon.”
Of course, it’s not just the 1969 moon landing that conspiracy theorists must explain. It’s the other five successful NASA landings on the moon, involving a total of twelve American astronauts, and the lunar samples that were returned to Earth. It is also estimated that four hundred thousand people worked on the Apollo program, with the support of over twenty thousand industrial firms and universities.
That’s a lot of people to deceive or to keep the deception a secret. Nonetheless, “moon deniers” are perhaps more common than you might think.
I had two great-aunts named Daisy and Clella. I remember a childhood conversation with them in which they insisted that humans never went to the moon. “What about the TV coverage we saw?” I asked. They insisted the whole thing was staged on sand dunes in Arizona.
“What about moon rocks?” I then asked, mentioning that I had seen some in a museum. They replied, “How do you know they’re from the moon?”
Like astronauts walking on the moon, the Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth walked on our planet, died on a cross for our sins, and rose from the grave can seem far-fetched. Over the centuries, a number of conspiracy theories have been proposed, among them:
One: Jesus was a figure of myth rather than history. However, ancient nonbiblical records prove the opposite: there are clear references to Jesus and early worship of him as God in the writings of Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Josephus. The last is especially interesting: a religious studies professor has just published a study of the Jewish historian’s statements regarding Jesus, demonstrating their authenticity as evidence for his historicity and divinity.
Two: Jesus didn’t die on the cross, but faked his death and then his resurrection. However, a spear was thrust into his side, piercing the pericardial sac around his heart (thus blood and water came forth), which would have killed him. So would the airtight mummified shroud in which he was buried. Even if he survived all that, he would have to push aside the stone covering his grave, overpower the guards, appear through locked doors to the disciples, and perform the greatest high jump in history at the Ascension.
Three: The women and the disciples went to the wrong tomb. But the authorities knew the location of the correct tomb, as did its owner. The moment Jesus’ followers pronounced him risen from the dead, their opponents would have produced his crucified corpse.
Four: Early Christians hallucinated the resurrection as a kind of wish-fulfillment. But the disciples did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead, and five hundred met the risen Christ, far too many to share precisely the same hallucination. (For much more, see my website article, “Why Jesus?”)
At the end of the day, there is no plausible explanation for the changed lives of the disciples after Easter. For so many to keep their “conspiracy” a secret and then die for their lie is beyond credulity.
Of course, all such argumentation is insufficient to compel faith in Christ. In our “post-truth” culture, many skeptics will hear all of that and say, “That’s just your truth.”
May it be so.
If the resurrection is truly “our” truth, we will make the living Lord Jesus the king of our lives every moment of every day. We will submit to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and ask him to continue his earthly ministry through us as his “body” (1 Corinthians 12:27).
We will experience his omnipotence as we do “all things” through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13). Since “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27) and “none can stay his hand” (Daniel 4:35), we can pray with Jesus, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you” (Mark 14:36).
Then, as Jesus does in and through us all that his omnipotence chooses, our dark and fallen culture will see his light in our lives. The darker the room, the more obvious, powerful, and compelling the light.
The historian Jaroslav Pelikan noted, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.” The German theologian Wolfhart Panneberg was right:
“The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things. First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.”
Do you “believe it happened”?
“It has never at any time been possible to fit the resurrection of Jesus into any worldview except a worldview of which it is the basis.” —Lesslie Newbigin
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