In a world where we no longer fear the dark but have become obsessed with controlling it, the return of the dire wolf is not just a scientific headline—it is a spiritual parable. Texas-based Colossal Biosciences recently announced the birth of three genetically edited wolf pups that carry the DNA of dire wolves, creatures long extinct and dead to the world for more than 10,000 years. The company’s feat, hailed as the world’s first true act of “de-extinction,” is no doubt an impressive one.
Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi. Names carved from legend and fantasy, but now real, warm-blooded, growing beings. They are not exact replicas, scientists admit. But they are close enough to reignite our fascination with what once was. This is no longer fiction. This is science’s attempt at resurrection.
Yet, while laboratories strive to breathe life into fossilised fragments of the past, the same world continues to scoff at the one resurrection that altered time and history—the resurrection of Jesus Christ. How ironic it is that we believe in our own power to raise the dead, but not in God’s. We build machines that mimic miracles, clone creatures from scraps of DNA, and call it progress—yet we dismiss the empty tomb as a fable.
Modern man is not just obsessed with defying death; he is addicted to not letting the past go. In fact, he clings to it with a nostalgia so intense that he romanticises even the past he never experienced. We mourn the Ice Age beasts we’ve never seen, long for a wilderness we’ve never walked, and idolise ancient power as if it once belonged to us.
We script legends into laboratories, not because we remember, but because we ache for a time when meaning seemed primal and clear. This is not remembrance—it is yearning. And it reveals a deeper void: a hunger for eternity that we try to satisfy with replicas.
But while we resurrect symbols, we reject the Saviour. We are homesick for a paradise we never knew, and yet we resist the one who invites us into the only future worth longing for.
This ambition is rooted in a theological error: that human beings can conquer death not by grace, but by intellect. It is Eden all over again, but this time in sterile labs with genome sequencing instead of forbidden fruit. We do not just want to know the past. We want to command it.
Colossal Biosciences is not alone in this venture. Projects to revive woolly mammoths and dodos are also in the works. The company boldly calls this work “a platform for conservation,” even an ethical imperative in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss. And yes, to give back to nature what we destroyed does carry moral weight.
But we must be honest: this is not conservation. This is imitation. It is not resurrection. It is replication. These are not the same dire wolves that once howled beneath Ice Age moons.
They are genetically modified memories. Living relics. And while they are extraordinary, they are not salvific.
This leads us to a broader reflection: how we treat the dead speaks volumes about how we understand life. To raise ancient beasts in laboratories while denying the risen Christ in churches is to misplace our reverence. One is a marvel; the other is a miracle. One is a spectacle; the other, a salvation.
The Christian faith is founded on an event just as unbelievable, just as world-altering: the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Unlike the wolves, Christ was not assembled in a lab or constructed from data. He rose, by divine will, conquering sin and death not with a scalpel, but with surrender. Not by editing genomes, but by enduring the grave.
And yet, for some scientists and secular thinkers, this resurrection is absurd. “Fairytale,” they call it. Ironically, they do not hesitate to pour billions into reviving extinct animals, to believe in cloned possibilities, or to trust in the sacredness of DNA. The issue is not with resurrection itself. The issue is with who gets to perform it.
It is telling that the pups were named Romulus and Remus—mythic founders of Rome raised by a she-wolf. It is even more telling that one is named Khaleesi, a fictional queen, made popular by Game of Thrones, who commands dragons. These are not neutral choices. They symbolise power, empire, control.
In resurrecting beasts, we are not merely curious; we are triumphant. But this triumph is hollow. For all our ability to copy and clone, we cannot reverse death’s finality. We cannot heal a soul, forgive a sin, or restore what was lost in the garden of our own making.
Humanity is building again—not a tower, but a genome. And like Babel, we seek to reach the heavens, to assert that nothing is beyond our grasp. We build not with brick and mortar, but with CRISPR that allows scientists to make precise changes to the DNA of almost any organism and ambition.
But what happens when the wolves we raise do not fit in this world? What of the ecosystems that have moved on? What of the animals whose time has passed? Not everything that dies should return. That is both ecological and theological truth. Bringing back the dead sounds noble until we realise the world has changed, and they no longer belong.
The world that the dire wolf once roamed no longer exists. To reinsert it now is not restoration—it’s dislocation. Disruption. The equivalent of reviving ancient sins and calling them virtues.
Spiritually, we do the same. We cling to past rebellions, old idols, ancestral myths. We romanticise what should remain buried. But Christ did not come to give us a better past. He came to give us a new future. Real resurrection doesn’t resurrect our old selves. It redeems and transforms them.
Christianity does not glorify death. But it does honour the grave. It teaches that some things must die so that new life can begin. That Christ’s body was not stolen, nor digitally resurrected, but transformed. It was the same body, yet glorified. This is the heart of the Gospel: resurrection is not reversal; it is redemption.
When we attempt to mimic that mystery in petri dishes, we confuse our role in the grand design of our creator. We are not gods. We are stewards.
The dire wolves may roam again, in reserves and on magazine covers. Their white coats may dazzle, and their names may inspire. But they will not save us. They are not signs of a new Eden, but of an old hunger—the hunger for immortality apart from God.
In a world hungry for miracles, we offer mutations. In a world dying for hope, we offer headlines. But what we truly need is not to raise beasts, but to raise belief. We need the courage to believe in the One who rose not in the wilderness, but from the tomb.
And we need to remember: the greatest resurrection is not the one we perform. It is the one we celebrate and proclaim on this Season of Easter – the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Father Nkadi O.P. wrote from Obosi. He can be reached via: [email protected]
