July 2009 will mark two important anniversaries: The first is the quincentennial of the birth of the man more responsible than any other for the biblical reformation of church, family, and state in the West—John Calvin. The second is the 40th anniversary of the one of the crowning scientific achievements in history—the landing of man on the Moon.

Six months before the landing of Apollo 11, three men chose to dedicate yet another historic event by reading some text which would have thoroughly pleased Calvin, himself an ardent proponent of creation in six days. They read the following:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day...

The names of the men reading the passage were William Anders, James Lovell, and Frank Borman—the first three men in history to escape the Earth’s gravitational field and orbit the Moon. The crew of Apollo 8 read the passage on the eve of December 24, 1969, live from the orbit of the Moon. It was the most widely watched broadcast in television history.