I can’t remember what I said at that chilly Episcopal church on that fateful day that got me into trouble and why it so upset the ornery parishioner sitting next to me. But what I can tell you is what I believe now and why I describe myself as “Universalist Episcopalian.”

A major issue today –as it has been for decades, even centuries–is the apparent conflict between religion and science and how to reconcile the two. We know so much more now than the religious people did who composed the early Jewish scriptures that we Christians call the Old Testament of the Bible. And we know so much more now about how the world works than the brilliant scholars and theologians who over the years have interpreted the scriptures.

This is what science tells us: The universe started with the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago. Virtually all scientists who study the universe agree on this now. Our planet was formed about 4.6 billion years ago when gravity pulled together cosmic dust to from a solar system with our sun in the center and eight major planets circling around it including Earth. The planet Earth is in the “Goldilocks zone” –not too far and not too close to the sun, providing the right temperature for life to begin. Plus, it is large enough for its gravity to hold an atmosphere and is rocky with a hot core. Scientists tell us that these are the conditions that are favorable for life to form.

The first major challenge to the veracity of the creation story in the Bible came in the mid-Sixteenth Century. A Polish scientist named Copernicus figured out that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not vice versa. Galileo followed early in the Seventeenth Century with more discoveries that confirmed what Copernicus had discovered and expanded on that by announcing that some of the stars in the sky were planets like the Earth. And our Sun was just another star. In other words stars did not revolve around the Earth, a finding which shattered the idea that Earth was the center of the universe. For his efforts Galileo was tried and convicted as a heretic by the Inquisition and spent the remaining years of his life under house arrest. Darwin came later in mid Nineteenth with the stunning discovery that we humans were not created by God on the Sixth Day as the Bible says but rather evolved from lesser species over a period of millions of years due to a process he called “natural selection.”

It is not hard to imagine what a stir this caused at the time. If creation did not happen as it was described in the Bible, then what else is in the Bible that might not be true? While many scientists defended Darwin, religious leaders and others immediately rejected his theory, not only because it directly contradicted the creation story in the Book of Genesis, but also because it implied that life had developed due to natural processes rather than as the creation of a loving God.

 And of course, the early scientific discoveries were just the beginning. Einstein, modern physics, and the discovery of subatomic particles were to come later and raise more questions about traditional religious authenticity and what is true and what is not. In the early Twentieth Century Edwin Hubble discovered that some of the stars in the sky–which at the time were thought to constitute the entire universe–were not stars but rather were different “galaxies” with their own stars. Furthermore, our sun was just one star of the many millions of  stars in our galaxy, called the Milky Way. Now, using advanced telescopes many scientists believe that the number of galaxies in the universe number over one trillion. Some even believe that our universe may be part of a “multiverse.”

These discoveries, of course, happened many centuries after the Bible was written. This is important because the writers of holy scriptures were dealing with what they knew at the time, not what we know now.

Yet these discoveries were quite controversial at the time and had a huge impact on traditional Christianity. Some Christians made the transition and started to interpret the Bible in less literal ways. Others hunkered down and still maintain that every word is true in the Bible. According to fundamentalists and some evangelicals, those who do not believe the Bible’s total authenticity should be condemned for their heresy.

And there is more: What does science tell us about life on the planet Earth? We now know that our planet came into being when our solar system was created 4.6 billion years ago and that in another five billion years our sun will give out of hydrogen and die. Before that happens, it will turn into a red giant and then a white dwarf. The red giant phase will start a couple of billion years from now and will encompass Venus and cause temperatures to rise astronomically on Earth.

There are many other findings and discoveries that challenge traditional orthodoxy. Scientists tell us that the earliest cells that produce life began to appear on this planet starting about 3.5 billion years ago, about a billion years after the planet was formed. What is even more interesting is that over the course of 3.5 billion years of life on Earth there have been five mass extinctions, which wiped out between 85 and 95 percent of all the plant and animal life that existed on the planet at the time. The last mass extinction happened 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Yucatan causing a kind of “nuclear winter” that wiped out the big dinosaurs (which had roamed the Earth for over 165 million years!) opening the way for us mammals to flourish and multiply. It turns out that these mass extinctions tend to happen every 100 to 250 million years. Those who keep track of this sort of thing warn that the Earth has already entered the Era of the Sixth Mass Extinction. We humans are the culprit because we have destroyed the habitats of so many animals which have now disappeared. The important question is whether we humans also  will be part of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Now that we have nuclear weapons, it is certainly a valid question.

And what about us, the human species, Homo sapiens? The creation stories (there are two) in the Old Testament say God created man on the last day before He rested. Well, it was a long day. Archeologists discovered the remains of “Lucy” in 1974, who was the oldest human-like creature ever found, estimated to be 3.6 million years old. It turns out that there have been many human-like creatures before we Homo sapiens arrived on the scene. The Smithsonian has listed some 21 species. Some scientists believe there were many more. Homo sapiens evolved late in the game, “only” about 300,000 years ago, and the rest is history. What distinguishes us humans from other human-like creatures like Neanderthals is the large size of our brains compared to the size of our bodies. In other words, compared to our human-like, deceased cousins, we are smarter, and part of being exceptionally smart is to ask questions about the meaning of life.

Voila! Enter religion and the belief in a higher, invisible power that humans believe influences life on the planet. This higher power is called “God.”            

If you look up the word “God” on the internet, this is the definition you will find: “The supreme or ultimate reality: being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness, who is worshipped (as in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) as creator and ruler of the universe.”

Humans developed the idea of gods being real very late in the evolutionary process–“only” about 50,000 years ago. It took much longer for the idea of many gods to evolve into the idea of one supreme deity. The early Hebrew religion, which began in the 15^th Century BCE, or about 3,500 years ago, acknowledged many gods but believed their god, YWH (or “Yahweh”), was the most powerful and the highest of all the gods. Monotheism did not supplant Hebrew polytheism until at the time of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, or about 3,000 years ago; and even then, it remained the belief of only a small elite group before gaining ascendancy in the Babylonian exile starting about 600 BCE or 2,700 years ago.

Christianity was the first religion to make the direct connection between a distant God, creator of the universe, and humans on Earth. While we date the modern calendar from the birth of Jesus, Biblical scholars put his birth at between 4 and 6 BCE. His ministry only lasted a year (according to the “synoptic gospels,” three years according to the Gospel of John.) Most Biblical scholars put his death on the cross at 30 CE. 

When you use AI to find out about Jesus, here is what you get:

The gospel that Jesus preached was “the gospel of the kingdom of God,” which was a message about the good news of the coming Kingdom of God. The word “gospel” means “glad tidings” or “good news”. 

The gospel of the kingdom included:

• The message that Jesus had saved sinners 
• The idea that Jesus’ resurrection inaugurated a new creation 
• A place of peace and perfect righteousness 
• The idea that the Kingdom of Heaven was near and present, not just an afterlife heaven 
• The idea that people should repent and believe in the gospel 
• The idea that people should seek first the Kingdom of God 

Jesus taught the gospel of the Kingdom in many ways, including: 

• Teaching in synagogues
• Healing people who were sick or diseased
• Preaching in cities and villages
• Sending his disciples to preach the Kingdom of God
• Performing miracles

However, the gospel that Jesus preached and that his followers preached about him would not have emerged as a new religion were it not for the Resurrection or what I call “the Resurrection Experience.” On the third day following his death, Jesus was believed by his disciples to have risen from the dead. Something surely happened for them to think this, and it was compelling enough to believe that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God. The Resurrection was followed by Pentecost, 50 days later, when the Risen Christ appeared to a large crowd of his followers before ascending to heaven. However, this new religion probably still would not have resonated and spread were it not for an erudite rabbi named Saul of Tarsus, who personally experienced the Risen Christ on the Road to Damascus. (And immediately changed his name to Paul.) Scholars do not know the exact date of this event, but most put it at a few years after the Resurrection.

Now in my view, what I have just described is the basic story of the origin of the Christian religion. Paul and other missionaries took the message that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of Humankind to people living in the Roman Empire where it resonated especially among the Gentiles. And we know the rest: Christianity is now the most popular of all the world religions where almost 25 percent of the people on the planet Earth (who were surveyed by the most recent Pew Research Center poll on religion) say that they identify as Christian. Almost as many say they are Muslim, and their number is expected to overtake Christians in the next few decades.

But the question remains whether the Christian message is true. And what does it mean? And if you do not believe that the Christian message is totally true, does it mean that you are doomed to an eternity in hell, as some who call themselves Christians argue?

And what about devout believers in other religions? Are they also excluded from heaven and eternal life? Some people believe this.

Well, I don’t.

Here is what I do believe:

1. We humans are by nature religious creatures. This is due to the large size of our brains. Just think of what we as a species have accomplished–the fabulous art, literature, science, music, athletics, medicine, technology–and philosophy and religion. The list is long. Because of our large brains we cannot help asking questions regarding the meaning of life and of our lives. Religion involves the process of trying to figure this out–and probably even more important–in trying to live lives of meaning and purpose.
2. Religion can take many valid forms. As noted above, the earliest religious beliefs began about 50,000 years ago and have evolved to what they are today. There are at least five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism and a whole bunch of less significant ones. The sad thing is that there have been so many religious wars between and even within religions. Christians versus Muslims, Protestants versus Catholics, Sunni versus Shiite, the Crusades, and the Salem witch trials. The list is long. Just look at what is happening right now in Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, and Iraq. It is true that religion is usually not the sole or even the main cause of these conflicts, but it is a factor. How many millions of human beings have died over the centuries because religion was a factor?  For many people who say they are religious, it is often “my way or the highway.” I have been warned more than once by people who attend church regularly that due to my inclusive view of Christianity I am walking on thin ice. My belief is “one destination, many pathways.” This is why I call myself a “Universalist Episcopalian.”   And when I get a lot of negative pushback, I think of   Mark Twain’s famous comment, “I will take heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
3. You don’t have to be a formal member of a religious institution to be religious or have a religious faith. Of the number of people who answer the Pew Research Center questions about belief in God, only about 15 percent say they are agnostic or atheist though the percent who do not participate in religious activities is far higher and varies widely by country and religion. The takeaway here is that people can be religious and have a religious faith without being part of an organized religious community or congregation.
4. Most people believe in an afterlife. Despite not being part of a formal religious group, according to recent Pew surveys, a large majority of Americans–and people in other countries– believe in life after death, with around 80% of Americans reporting belief in some form of afterlife. What an afterlife might be like includes a wide range of beliefs– heaven, hell, reincarnation, and other spiritual continuations. I must confess that this is one thing about religion that I have a hard time getting my arms around. What would an afterlife be like? The creeds used in the Episcopal liturgy state, “We believe in the “resurrection of the body.” How does cremation figure in and what about those who have been disfigured or deformed? And how does this all fit into a universe with more than a thousand galaxies? What happens when we die will remain a mystery to all who are alive. The analogy that I tend to cite about our life on Earth is this: We humans are all in a race that has a beginning and an end. The beginning is birth.The end is  death. The goal is to give the race our best effort until we cross the finish line. It could be short as was the case with our first child, Katherine, or long as was the case with my father, who lived until he was 92. But when we stumble across the line, we want to be able to say, “We’ve given it our best shot.” What happens next will take care of itself.
5. The reason a lot of people attend church often has relatively little to do with religious beliefs. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where everyone was supposed to attend church on Sundays and most did. I did not have a single friend whose family did not attend church. (I did not have any Jewish friends.) I am an Episcopalian because my parents were very committed Episcopalians. That probably is the main reason I am an Episcopalian now. I suspect that there are some readers who could ask if I do not believe everything that is in the Nicene Creed, which Episcopalians say every Sunday, why even bother with church. My answer is that there is something important about being part of an accepting, diverse religious community where the conversations are not exclusively about politics, how the our favorite sports teams performed, or how bad Trump is, and where religious concerns are discussed and where prayer and worship happen. Being part of an accepting and honest spiritual community is a strong motivator for me and for many. It provides the opportunity to focus on religious issues and questions, even though there are often no hard and fast answers. After all, we are merely human and true understanding of the meaning and purpose of life and of what happens after we die is above our pay grade. It will always remain a mystery. This is the way it works for us Homo sapiens on the planet Earth. 
6. Sadly, we are a fundamentally flawed species. The Bible has a word for this. It is called Original Sin. Yes, we Homo sapiens are capable of accomplishing great things–which I identified above–art, music, literature, science,  technology, medicine, and many more achievements. And we are capable of  selfless love, kindness, and sacrifice. Many on the planet have lived kind and gentle lives. Yet on the whole we treat other members of our own species terribly, and we are  responsible for what is now the Sixth Great Mass Extinction due to our destroying the habitats of so many living  creatures. We continue to trash this beautiful planet and are the main culprits in the devastating climate change we are now experiencing. Our primary means of resolving conflicts continues to be war and physical force, and there are wide differences between those who have enough resources to live comfortable lives and those who don’t. Most frightening, we have the wherewithal to destroy life on this planet with our nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; and if past history is any guide, odds are that  unless these weapons of mass destruction are destroyed, at some point we will use them. We are also herd animals. Our leaders make a huge difference. We have had the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Mao, and  Putin but also both Roosevelts, Churchill,  Kennedy, Mandel, Gandhi, and Obama.  It appears we are entering a dark period in the history of the planet Earth with regard to the leaders of many nations, especially the United States. All of us humans have our flaws, however. We are far from perfect. That is why besides the Lord’s Prayer, the one prayer that I am most comfortable saying in the Episcopal prayerbook is the confession. 

Some have asked me why I have remained an Episcopalian and have not jumped ship to become a Unitarian. The other All Souls Church in Washington, by the way, is All Souls Unitarian Church. The honest answer is probably inertia, habit and convenience (All Souls is a short walk away.). However, despite its faults, the Episcopal Church provides a big tent where there is room for all who seek  spiritual truth, even for people like me. Plus when done right the Episcopal liturgy can be quite beautiful and even inspiring, though I admit that I would not protest if in the future the Nicene Creed was dropped or at least made optional. At All Souls we have been blessed with excellent clergy over the years and have an extraordinary rector now, a mature woman and a former Brit, whose strong faith and authenticity are genuine and contagious. And against all  the odds–in the era of the Great “Dechurching”–our congregation  is growing again.

And finally this: A few years before I graduated from Davidson, a student graduation speaker who was expected to deliver an inspiring speech of 15 or 20 minutes was said to have made the following address and then sat down: “Many people have lived, and many have died. One who lived two thousand years ago whose name was Jesus Christ said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ I have nothing more to add.”

Neither do I.