My History with God and Science

While I was raised in a Catholic family in South Wales, Great Britain, I was an altar boy, and had religious education. But I was so good at science in school that I rapidly became an atheist, and debated my local priest. This upset, my dear mother, who couldn’t imagine why I would debate and disturb the Monsignor.

I was the nerd in grammar school (UK High school) who always had his hand up with the correct answer in science class. This gift enabled me to skip a class and, in 1970, to enroll in a university in England at age 17. There I earned a BSc in biochemistry by the time I was 20.

I spent the next five years in London working as a scientist, later as a senior scientist, for Big Pharma in the field of asthma, and got a few science papers published, including one in Nature, the preeminent science journal. I think I can claim to be a certified science nerd. I was good in the laboratory. I had no financial concerns, along with five weeks’ paid vacation every year!

In my third year, as per company policy, I was enrolled in a PhD program, and started work on exploring the dual antagonistic roles of the cyclic mononucleotides - cAMP and cGMP - in cell communication.

In my fifth year there, I decided with a friend to “Go See America!” together. Exciting, but he just could not persuade the American consulate to grant him a visa, so we agreed that I should go by myself. On my final day at work, I was walking with Elizabeth, my Swiss lab assistant, who suddenly said, “I don’t think you are coming back.” I thought this rather inane as there was no conceivable reason not to come back.

In June 1975, I arrived in the USA and stayed with my university pals in Queens, NY. I had a great time, but was limited in scope by my friend’s work schedule. With the song refrain, “Are you going to San Francisco?” in mind, I thought “Why not?” and, with just a change of clothes in a plastic bag, left for a few days in SF.

On the third day there, I was planning to sunbathe at the Embarcadero but the unexpected beastly fog was chilly. I had thought of exploring the subway system, and this seemed a good time to do it. The BART map in the station was intimidating, but I recognized “Berkeley” from its riot days, and got on. Reading the Berkeley station city map, I saw Sproul Plaza of student protest fame, and took off to see it.

Strolling across the Plaza, I met a fellow with a guitar on his back, my soon-to-be spiritual father, Garry Barker.

Elizabeth was right, I didn’t go back.

I was particularly moved by this concept, expressed succinctly in the 1-Hour DP lecture: “Religion and science have seemed, in the course of their development, to take positions that were contradictory and irreconcilable… there must emerge a new truth, which can reconcile religion and science and resolve their problems in an integrated understanding.”

I thrived in the Oakland Church under the parental guidance of Dr. and Mrs. Durst and my mentor, Noah Ross. A year in, while sitting at the witnessing table at Fisherman’s Wharf, I heard a voice that stated, “Yow will write a textbook on God and Science.” I was startled, but never forgot it.

Within in a year I was a group leader (with a new name) and then a 7-Day DP lecturer. The most demanding aspect of this was not learning the content; it was learning how to deal with the wide range of questions in the Q and A session after each lecture. With over 100 first time participants each week, Q and A was always a challenge. You only really know something when you can simply explain it.

This was the era of the deprogrammers, media attention, false information, etc. My education and accent resulted in me being thrust into the role of PR spokesperson. I was in the newspapers, on TV and the radio. Again I had to be able to deal with any question thrown at me in a live situation. I returned briefly in 1976 to New York to aid the Yankee Stadium rally, and was left in charge when almost everyone else went East for the Washington Monument rally.

In 1982, the Oakland Church colonized New York City and Dr. Durst became the church president. On

one Sunday at Belvedere, True Father, translated by Dr. Pak, explained his vision for the Washington Times, a four-hour talk that, at the very end of which he added, “So that it does not become a church newspaper, Dr. Pak will also create another newspaper for the church, the Unification News.”

This paper started with a staff of six, all Dr. Pak’s members. Needing more, he asked Dr. Durst to add someone, and it was me. Within a few months, one by one Dr. Pak extracted his people, and I ended up doing all the jobs by myself. Now a monthly, this was doable. I even had time to write a column on science, innocently dealing with topics such as, “God made the neutrino so we could have gold Blessing rings” and “the problems of evolution”. I decided to complete my PhD, this time with a larger focus for my dissertation, “The effect of the quantum revolution in physics on the biological sciences.” I got my degree and, with my advisor’s support, rewrote the dissertation as my first book: Do Proteins Teleport in an RNA World.

I must have struck a nerve! I was talking to Professor Kaplan about coverage of PWPA when he told me that, at a meeting at East Garden about the upcoming ICUS, I had been accused of heresy by a senior church member (he would not say who). That I was using my position as the editor-in-chief of the church newspaper to promulgate false views. “What did Father say?” I cautiously asked. “Let the ideas collide, the truth will ultimately win,” Dr. Kaplan happily reported.

My writing on science and theology bought me an invitation to give a talk at the annual meeting of the Unification Thought Institute in Tokyo. This must have been a successful debut since they invited me for back, for the next 10 years, to participate in their annual event.

Following this, I presented two Science and Religion weekend seminars in New Jersey for 2nd Gen. interested in science. This led to working with CARP to develop a religion and science content for college students.

All this exploration of Science and Religion came to fruition when Dr. Jin, president of the Hyo Jeong Academy of Arts and Sciences, asked me to write a book on God and Science in Unification Thought, commenting that, “Dr. Lewis is the only one who really understands science in Unification Thought.”

The plan was that I would write the manuscript, and HJ Academy would print up copies to distribute to the participants in the great convocation in early 2020. I wrote the manuscript, and rewrote it, responding to commentary at least three times. They waited, and waited but no publication. I later learned that funding had dried up (luckily they had compensated me already) and that in late 2020 I should self- publish the book. This is the result:

I m d li hte t nn un th t my b ki n ‘labl fr m Am n!

G()d and Scl• nca In God and Science in Unifica ion Thought Unlrlcallor, “101.Jo\l Ill by Richard L Lewis I S p 21, 2022 • ._.l._-., Pp rb ck

$2000 FR E O livery for Prim memb rs