The sermon discusses how Albert Einstein envisioned a "cosmic religion of the future" that avoids dogma and sees the natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. It then provides examples of life-changing spiritual experiences in three individuals - St. Paul, John Newton who wrote "Amazing Grace," and scientist Francis Collins. Collins describes how reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" changed his view from militant atheism to belief in God after considering arguments for morality and design in the universe. The sermon advocates being prepared to share one's spiritual beliefs gently and respectfully like the Methodist pastor who listened to Collins' doubts.

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Sermon at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Bradenton, FL, February 25,2018.
COSMIC RELIGION OF THE FUTURE
By Paul H. Carr
For Albert Einstein “The cosmic religion is transcendent and avoids dogma. Covering
both the natural and the spiritual, it is based on a religious sense arising from the
experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”
The “spiritual but not religious” are the largest growing demographic today. Might Albert
Einstein’s “cosmic religion of the future” appeal to them?
The following life-belief experiences can give us hope: (1) St. Paul of Tarsus, (2) slave-
ship captain John Newton who later wrote “Amazing Grace,” and (3) Dr. Francis Collins,
the present head of our National Institute of Health.
Acts 9 (NIV) describes the life-changing experience of Saul, who had persecuted the
first followers of Jesus.
Acts 9 (NIV) “1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the
Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest
2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any
there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as
prisoners to Jerusalem.
3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around
him.
4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he
replied.
6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not
see anyone.
8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So
they led him by the hand into Damascus.
9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a
vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered.
11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man
from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying

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17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said,
“Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming
here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He
got up and was baptized.”
As a result, Saul changed his name to Paul, who became the most influential Christian
missionary, who wrote 12 books in our Bible.
Fast forwarding to 1748 John Newton, a non-religious captain of a slave ship had a life-
changing experience. On a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the
ship through a violent storm, all seemed lost. When he, an experienced sea captain,
perceived that the ship was about to sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy upon us.” In
the calm that followed, he reflected on what he had said. He began to believe that a
higher power had spoken to him through the storm and that grace had begun to work in
him. Grace is when you are given something you don’t expect or deserve.
After coming under the influence of George Whitfield and John Wesley in England,
Newton became the minister who wrote many hymns including, “Amazing grace how
sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I
have already come; ’tis grace has bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
Have any of you seen the Bill Moyer’s video “Amazing grace?” He documents how, in
many different Afro-American congregations, this hymn is very popular. How ironic it is
that some of their ancestors may have been brought in chains to his country in John
Newton’s slave ship.
Let us now fast forward to the life-changing experience of the living scientist Francis
Collins. He was the former director of the team that was the first to sequence the
human genome. He is now director of the National Institute of Health. As a college
student, he describes himself as a militant atheist who would try to convince others to
relinquish their religious beliefs, which he considered irrational and out-of-date.
As a medical student, and later as a resident, Collins treated patients who were
experiencing debilitating and often fatal medical conditions. He noted that those with a
faith perspective were better at dealing with these illnesses than those who had none.
Many, instead of railing at God, leaned on their faith as a source of great comfort and
reassurance. That was interesting, puzzling, and even unsettling to Collins.
One day, he was talking with a woman, who though terminally ill, shared the hope that
was within her. After sharing her spiritual perspective, she asked him, “And what is your
faith?” Suddenly Collins felt embarrassed. He suddenly realized that he did not know
what he disbelieved.
But he did feel compelled to find a bit more about what it was that he had rejected. With
an intention of shooting it all down, he went to speak to a Methodist minister. While

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sitting in his office, Collins made all sorts of accusations and blasphemous things about
the faith that the minister stood for.
However, the minister was tolerant and patient. He listened and suggested that the
Bible would be a good place to start. Collins was not interested at that point. Then the
minister said that Collins reminded him of a scholarly atheist, C.S. Lewis, who had
written about his conversion experience. Collins had no idea, really, of who Lewis was.
The idea that Lewis was a scholar, though, appealed to Collins’ intellectual pride.
Maybe someone with that kind of a title would be able to write something that he could
read and appreciate.
So this faithful minister picked up his own copy of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis’ slim
book and gave it to Collins.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not
only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
The following is how Collins described his own experience:
To my surprise, I found myself easily compelled by his arguments about the existence
of some sort of a God, because even as a scientist, I had to admit that we had no idea
how the universe got started. The hard part for me was the idea of a personal God, who
has an interest in humankind. And the argument that Lewis made there — the one that I
think was most surprising, most earth-shattering, and most life-changing — is the
argument about the existence of the moral law. How is it that we, and all other members
of our species, unique in the animal kingdom, know what's right and what's wrong? In
every culture one studies, that knowledge is there.
“Where did that come from? I reject the idea that this is an evolutionary consequence,
because that moral law sometimes tells us that the right thing to do is very self-
destructive. If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't
know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that
person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares
about the guy who's drowning? He's one of the weaker ones, let him go. It's your DNA
that needs to survive. And yet that's not what's written within me. The moral law within
me is not of me.
Lewis argues that if you are looking for evidence of a God who cares about us as
individuals, where could you more likely look than within your own heart at this very
simple concept of what's right and what's wrong. And there it is. Not only does it tell you
something about the fact that there is a spiritual nature that is somehow written within
our hearts,
I know this is not a new idea that Lewis came up with. It builds upon long traditions over
centuries of careful scholarship and thought. But I'd never seen it before, and I don't
think I've ever seen it explained as well as is in his book, Mere Christianity.”

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Collins now believes this:
“I find those rare moments of scientific discovery to be acts of worship also, in which
some new aspect of creation is appreciated for the first time.” Collins’ book “The
Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” was so popular and resulted
in so many questions that he founded Biologos.org
to answer them.
The key persons in Francis Collin’s belief-changing experience were the terminally ill
woman who shared her hope and the pastor who listed patiently and recommended that
he read C S. Lewis Mere Christianity.
Back in the 1970s, I was a leader in a Trinitarian Congregational church that was trying
to grow and expand its membership. I read Gabriel Fackre’s book
Do and tell: engagement evangelism. This book cites 1 Peter: 3,
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for
the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
This was in Bedford, MA where the Trinitarians had had, in the 1800s, to move a block
down the street when the Unitarians had taken over the historical original meetinghouse
church on the town common. Some of the Trinitarians would say, “The Unitarians do
not believe anything, but they have not gotten over the habit of going to church.”
However, in 1995 I started attending the conferences of the Institute of Religion in an
Age of Science (www.iras.org) at the historic UU and UCC conference center on Star
Island off Portsmouth, NH. There I met many UUs and heard many UU ministers lead
our morning worship services. When I started wintering in Florida, I would drive past the
Manatee UU Fellowship in Bradenton. I decided to try their morning worship services
and made many friends during their refreshment time after that. It was through these
friendships that I have come to speak with you today.
I hope that many of you will join me at this year’s Institute of Religion in an age of
Science Conference “Artificial Intelligence Turns Deep. Who’s in charge?” You can
learn more at www.iras.org
Might we in the future be like the Methodist pastor who quietly listed to Collins doubts,
or maybe like the ill woman who shared her hope in a conversation with him?
In any case, we all may know of someone whom we can invite to come to our fellowship
and to share.
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for
the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

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“The cosmic religion of the future is transcendent and avoids dogma. Covering both the
natural and the spiritual, it is based on a religious sense arising from the experience of
all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”
Order of Service
Opening Words. #458 “Mindful of truth exceeding our knowledge.”
Opening Hymn # 205 “Amazing Grace.”
Responsive Reading #530 “Out of the stars.”
Sermon “Sharing the Cosmic Religion of the Future.”
Closing Hymn #398 “To see the world in a grain of sand.”
Benediction #682 “Beauty is before me.”
One of these was Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, which is his own personal account of
his life changing experience:
3 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I
persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in
Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely
zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from
my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in
me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was
not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those, who
were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with
Cephas[b]and stayed with him fifteen days.