A distinguished scientist on the resurrection of Jesus

Richard Smalley received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996. A year ago I heard Fritz Schaefer give his "Scientists and their Gods" lecture and he mentioned Smalley. Apparently for most of his life he was critical of religion and he did not have a reputation of being a very nice guy.... However, towards the end of his life there was a big change. Fritz mentioned the following account:

Hope College presented Dr. Smalley with a Distinguished Alumni Award during Alumni Day on Saturday, May 7, 2005. He was honored in absentia because his illness prevented him from attending, but prepared remarks that were read at the awards banquet. “My short two years at Hope starting as a freshman in 1961 were immensely important to me,” he wrote. “I went to chapel, studied religion, and attended church more than I had ever done before, and was with people who took to these issues seriously. I valued that greatly back then. Recently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2,000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ.”“Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it’s true,”