SCIENTISTS IN
CONGREGATIONS

Popular science and natural history presentations on TV and the web use stunning visual imagery to draw people towards an appreciation of the wonder of creation and science’s understanding of it. In such a visual age, “God saw that it was good” aims to take people on a further step of encounter. Beyond wondering about the “how” and “why” of science’s mechanistic approach towards an encounter with the God of creation through the visual senses.

With a focus upon environmental topics – sky, trees, coasts, and life – the project is led by two Baptist ministers who share a concern over the climate and environmental crisis. Dave Gregory, a former meteorologist and climate scientist, is a Baptist Missioner in Science and Environment and leads the Baptist Union Environment Network (BUEN). Andy Thomas is a Pioneer Minister, film maker and leads “The Fuel Cast” media production company.

Drawing upon scientific and faith perspectives, “God saw that it was good” uses large photographic images to help people encounter the wonder of the natural world.  Accompanying audio reflections on YouTube shaped by themes of divine creativity and wonder, the diversity of creation and divine playfulness, and the inter-connection within creation and the Spirit drawing all things back towards the love of God, will suggest a way of seeing the image both scientifically and with the eye of faith. Building upon the photographic display, a series of short popular science videos will be produced, allowing deeper exploration of scientific issues and richer spiritual refection and encounter.

Engaging the heart as well as the head, the project seeks to re-enchant people’s perception of the world around them. Recognising its value in connecting them with the divine shaper of creation, it will bring not only scientific appreciation but also inspire practical action as to how walk more softly with God among his creation in an age of climate and environmental change.

‘Science in Café Church’ is about creating a space where families will enjoy learning about both science and the Christian faith, and will see how important both are to their lives. It will also focus on ‘Loving God’s world and looking after what the Lord has commissioned us to look after.’

There will be fun packed science experiments incorporated into 10 biblical modules in the Cafe Church programme running every Saturday from 2-4pm, July to November.

The particular science experiments chosen for that Saturday will introduce the biblical themes and the programme will also include worship, dance, puppet shows, drama, craft, food, and games.

Each science experiment will be interactive and offer opportunities to people of all ages including parents, and people of all denominations and other faiths will be encouraged to participate.

Additionally, there would be trips planned to the Science and Natural History Museums and also the Zoological Museum in Cambridge (enabling the young people to see Cambridge in a different light); enabling them to grow and flourish as they experience the presence and wisdom of God at work in the world through science and scripture.

They will learn more of the awe and wonder of God’s creation and discover how science-based activities can be used to explain the Christian faith to children, young people and adults, and help them to understand how the amazing world in which we live works.

The teaching will also be used in the once a month all-age family service to encourage the whole congregation to go further and deeper in both learning and discipleship.

We also want to increase the confidence of other churches in Haringey engaging with families in ways which are relevant and practical, helping children and young people to grow and flourish in their understanding of science and faith.

This project is being undertaken by St Mark’s Church, Caia Park, Wrexham jointly with Xplore! Science Discovery Centre, based in Wrexham town centre.

Following on from the success of the ECLAS funded ‘Xplore! Goes to Church’ project in 2021-22, when Xplore! visited churches across North Wales to co-deliver interactive science-faith based activities for children and families; this year’s project will develop science-faith resource boxes for congregations to take away and enjoy within their children’s groups and family sessions, and at community events.

Those working with children and families within churches in North Wales and the surrounding areas, will be invited to attend showcase events to try out the science-faith activities for themselves. Each church group will depart with a box filled with activity information sheets, equipment and other resources needed to deliver activities linked to four faith-based science themes.

Congregations will have the flexibility to deliver the activities as they feel best fits their own church and the families and wider audiences they engage with. The resources developed will be adaptable to suit different ages, prior knowledge, and length of sessions.

Participants will be able to discover how their understanding and enjoyment with science can help them to grow in their Christian faith. The activities and resources will stimulate further discussions with adult members of the congregation, excite children about how faith relates to everyday science, and will also engage the wider community.

York Minster will develop a suite of specially designed trails which take children, families, school groups, visitors and worshippers around the Minster highlighting how the building, its history, use and origins can be navigated via Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  

The subject areas will cover: Astronomy, Mathematics, History of Science, Engineering, Light and Sound, Ecology and Biodiversity as well as aspects of heritage science.  The Astronomical Clock, images in Masonry and Stained Glass as well as key historical figures in the life of York Minster such as Alcuin.

The Light and Colour Trail will explore the science of colour and light using the Cathedrals extensive collections of Stained glass and draw up the latest scientific knowledge in this field. The Ecology Trail will take visitors around the building and outside in the precincts exploring green spaces, wildlife, the sensory garden and green technology being deployed around the Minster and its environs. The Engineering and Maths Trail will explore the science and engineering which helped build the Minster, the stunning geometry of the Chapter House roof and Rose window, as well as the engineering that maintains the building for future generations.

Canon Victoria Johnson, project lead and a former scientist said: “We are thrilled to begin this exciting project embedding Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths into our daily life and work, and hope that many more people will be able to engage in the christian faith through the lense of science and technology.”

The STEM trails will be launched in 2023 as part of an exploration of ‘Cathedral Thinking’ in this context, where ideas across disciplines and beyond established boundaries are explored to address the needs of our world both now and in the future. 

The health benefits of musical participation (both as a performer and as a listener) are well documented, with recent physiological studies demonstrating lowered heart rate, psychological studies demonstrating enhanced happiness, and sociological studies demonstrating increased communality. Yet there has been no study of music’s capacity in a liturgical context to effect such beneficial health outcomes. At St Paul’s Knightsbridge we aim to explore this area of research, in a project led by parishioner Dr Tom Tull, a medical doctor and scientist, and Dr Joseph Fort, Director of Music. 

This project will consist of a series of liturgically oriented spiritual reflections, designed to probe the scientific basis for liturgical music’s capacity to engender a sense of spiritual, mental and corporeal wellbeing. We will create an innovative mid-week service that uses different artforms to create an informal, flexible liturgy, which we hope will enable us both to reach our current congregation in new ways and a new congregation to whom this liturgy might speak more readily. The flexibility of our new mid-week reflections will enable us to incorporate worship activities that have behind them scientific questions, and to measure their outcomes through the collection of survey data. This will enable us to begin to understand better some of the phenomena that we already observe empirically in terms of liturgical music’s capacity as an agent of healing, and to promote this understanding more widely.  

We believe that the complementary combination of our whole team’s gifts and experience uniquely places us to explore how a scientific approach can inform a better understanding of the impact of liturgy and liturgical music on people’s wellbeing, and to share our findings with other faith communities, demonstrating the complementarity of science and faith, and the potential of scientific inquiry to strengthen the life of the church.

The Diocese of St Albans has a strong track record of promoting the science and faith conversation. In 2016, it was awarded a grant from Scientists in Congregations to run a project called “Take Your Vicar to the Lab”. Moreover, the Cathedral has appointed an honorary Canon Scientist and has, for several years, organised events in the area of science and faith through its Study Centre. This project integrates the work of both the diocese and the cathedral.

Using the theme of “Light” as a unifying principle, the project aims to bring a fresh approach to way in which science and faith are viewed by the wider public and members of local churches across the diocese. 

This will happen in a number of ways. First, we will provide members of the general public with interesting and engaging examples of how science can inform faith and faith can inform scientific endeavour, based on the theme of “Light”. Second, we will build on this to address issues of science and faith within the broad topic for those who wish to explore and discuss these issues at a deeper level. Thirdly, we intend to inform clergy and congregations and equip Christians with the knowledge and confidence to address and debate issues of faith and science within the Church and more widely in their communities. This will be achieved both by creating a short course that can be used in congregations and by linking churches with engaging speakers who can provide local input. Finally, we hope to change perceptions and influence opinion-formers both within congregations and within the scientific community to provide a catalyst for future constructive debate and publication.

Since 2017 the Scientists and Engineers amongst the congregation at St Peter & St Paul Church in Great Missenden have arranged an annual festival to celebrate the work of scientists and engineers.  The aim is also to show that God is with us in every endeavour we do and that the inspiration and perseverance to develop and deliver all of humankind’s best ideas is nurtured in faith.  There has been excellent engagement from the broader congregation, the local schools and the community.  In 2022 we hope to widen the scope of the festival with more talks from external speakers and with more displays and fun events for the whole community.

The festival links with the local schools and the pupils from the schools get the chance to listen to inspiring talks on the subject as well as contribute to displays and exhibits.  School science projects are also supported and an enterprise and innovation opportunities stand is intended to form part of the festival.  More simple fun learning projects have been instigated in the past such as the home made steam engine project in 2019.  For our festival in 2022 we hope to have more fun learning projects such as gravity propelled buggy race and home-made paper aeroplane competition.

Messy Church Goes Wild is the movement within Messy Church which encourages Messy Churches to meet God outdoors, love the natural world, experience a sense of awe and wonder there and be more eco-aware in all we do, both inside and out, as gathered and dispersed church, for the good of the planet. 

In 2021 and 2022, with the support of Scientists in Congregations, twelve Messy Adventures were created: twelve units of materials to give the most unconfident Messy Church leader the tools and confidence to take their Messy Church outdoors for hands-on activities exploring scientific discovery and appropriate biblical themes; leading to worshipful expressions of awe and wonder in the presence of Christ and transformed lifestyles. 

Messy Church Goes Wild: Messy Advntures Phase 2 will introduce the  Messy Adventures, and the ideals and activities of Messy Church Goes Wild,  to the wider Messy Church movement. Activities include the following:

• Four Messy Adventures Roadshows will be delivered in different locations. 
• A Messy Masterclass for Messy Church leaders on the Messy Adventures will be developed and delivered.  
• Downloadable resources will be created and printed.
• Sustainability and behaviour change in Messy Churches will be championed. 

These activities will build national leadership in experiencing the awe and wonder of God in Creation, especially among young people aged 9 – 18. 

Project leads Deb Fozzard and Rebekah Allon-Smith

The Faith in Mind project will explore topics such as trauma and addiction through the lens of neuroscience and psychology to support Christians in Sunderland to serve people affected by these challenges more effectively.

Sunderland churches are involved with missional projects relating to homelessness and food poverty. These activities bring church leaders and volunteers into contact with those who struggle with mental ill-health, addiction and other complex challenges. This project will educate, equip and inspire Christians in Sunderland through engagement with neuroscience and psychology. 

A series of workshops will provide an opportunity to explore topics such as the neuroscience of trauma, neurobiology in human relationships, intergenerational trauma, epigenetics, and shame. The workshops will incorporate faith themes and psychological theory to support participants to deepen and extent missional activity in the community. Modern neuroscientific and psychological developments have a lot to teach us about God’s world and what it means to be human. Synthesising this with faith perspectives provides a rich opportunity to deepen our knowledge of God, and of our neighbour, created in his image. 

The project will run from September 2022 to June 2023, with a series of workshop events. It is being led by Deb Fozzard of Sunderland Connect Network, and Rebekah Allon-Smith, a Psychotherapist with a passion for building bridges between faith and spirituality, and modern psychological perspectives.

Chester Cathedral and the city of Chester are taking the responsibility to advocate and educate on the climate crisis seriously. Chester Cathedral wishes to contribute further to this discussion on how the Christian faith speaks powerfully and pointedly alongside science and ethical considerations surrounding the global impact of climate change. 

Measuring seven metres in diameter and created from 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface, UK artist Luke Jerram’s artwork provides the opportunity to see our planet floating in three dimensions. The Gaia model will give audiences the chance to look at our planet with renewed awe and wonder as we explore the science, faith and social responsibilities linked to climate change. 

Over a three week period from 6 February–5  March 2023, Chester Cathedral will deliver a series of activities and events incorporating creative reflection, education and advocacy in response to the  climate crisis, building upon a recent young persons conference on Climate Change led and organised by Chester Cathedral in partnership with the University of Chester.

As part of a required module on Bioethics for their theology degree course, St Mary’s Oscott will invite leading scientists and clinicians to present on their work, engaging with students and tutors on ethical dimensions. The topics addressed in class will be embryonic research and cell-lines, abortion, contraception, transgender issues, ordinary and extraordinary means, and organ transplantation. The project would also include an event on COVID vaccines and treatments, focusing on questions of efficacy and safety. A panel of scientific experts will address these issues and how to assess scientific claims, especially in relation to misleading claims found online and amplified by social media. The aim of the project for students is to engage with the most up to date clinical information in the bioethics field and reflect on how to bring it to bear on pastoral ministry.

St Patrick’s will include three lectures on science-engaged theology in their core curriculum. Featuring prominent theologians and scientists, they will introduce seminarians to key themes at the intersection of natural science, philosophy, and theology with a focus on the relationship between divine action and the sacramental means of grace. The lectures will build toward an international workshop, public lecture, and a study day for Roman Catholic seminarians.

The St Patrick’s Science for Seminaries project team will be led by Dr Andrew Meszaros.

Union Theological College in Belfast will organise a number of events to engage pupils, teachers, students, ministers and the wider public on bioethical issues. Through the medium of film, Union will partner with Stranmillis University College in hosting a screening of a film for teachers and Religious Studies A-Level pupils, raising bioethical issues to be unpacked and discussed; the viewing will be followed by a Q&A from leading experts in bioethics and science. A screening, open to the wider student community and general public, will also take place. In addition, an event will be held for those in Christian leadership and Church Ministry, exploring ‘Why the Church needs Bioethics’. The event will be aimed at ministry students, ministers and leaders in the Presbyterian Church, but open to other churches and the wider public.

The Union Theological College Science for Seminaries project team will be led by Dr Olwyn Mark.

The Great St Mary’s project will work with schools, coalescing around two of the greatest problems that challenge both scientists and God’s creation, especially humanity: climate change and human actions that lead to the spread of bacterial disease – because of anti-microbial resistance – and new viral diseases.

Both topics are appropriate in the current circumstances as we move towards the COP26 conference in Glasgow. The aim is to work extensively with schools to nurture a sense of the nexus between faith and science, and humanity’s responsibility as stewards of God’s creation to mitigate our negative impact upon our planet. Great St Mary’s will appoint a Science in Faith Engagement Officer who will assist in both the development and administration of the project and the engagement with schools. They will develop materials and resources for dissemination to schools and work with teachers and others to grow the project and to ensure that it has impact.

Messy Church Goes Wild is the movement within Messy Church which encourages Messy Churches to meet God outdoors, love the natural world, experience a sense of awe and wonder there and be more eco-aware in all we do, both inside and out, as gathered and dispersed church, for the good of the planet. 

Messy Adventures will consist of 12 units of inspirational material to give the most unconfident Messy Church leader the tools and confidence to reimagine their Messy Church outdoors. There will be a strong scientific focus – each Adventure will be packed with opportunities for people of all ages to learn more about the natural world through fun activities, questions and ‘Big Thinking’ provided by scientific consultants in relevant fields. The material will also suggest ways of responding in Christian worship with awe, wonder, and celebration, and provide encouragement to go further and deeper in both learning and discipleship.

As usual with Messy Church, the context will be all-age, hospitable, creative, celebratory, Christ-centred and accessible to everyone, especially those with no previous experience of church. It will be written with both urban and rural settings in mind and piloted in both. And will be as weather-proof as possible!

There will be materials for three approaches: 

• Take your Messy Church on a walk with ‘stations’ to pause at and discover more about the particular Adventure theme
• Enjoy the open air at a fixed site, where you might stay for a longer period and explore the theme in greater detail, surrounded by a created world that speaks about God
• Or simply explore ideas on the theme through Messy Church activities suitable for a churchyard, garden or carpark. 

St Peter Mancroft, Norwich is delighted to be hosting an enormous model of Planet Earth in October 2021.  The intention is to focus attention on the global climate emergency. Designed by Luke Jerram, Gaia allows us to see our planet, floating in three dimensions.  Visitors can share the experience of astronauts in a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the natural environment.

Gaia will dominate the interior of Mancroft and be clearly visible from the city centre.  In the lead-up to COP 26, the hosting of Gaia will enable the church and the city to engage creatively and thoughtfully with the challenge of the climate crisis. The free flow of visitors into and around Mancroft opens the possibility for diverse conversations about the ways in which science and faith can work together to address the pressing issue of climate change.

The team will be working in partnership with Norwich Science Festival, Science and Faith in Norfolk, Faraday Kids, and Christian Aid in developing this programme of events. The objective is to provide opportunities for people of all faiths and none to learn from the science of climate change and to examine its implications within a theological and social framework.  

The award of a grant from Scientists in Congregations will support the offering of high quality events to engage people in reflecting on the wonder and beauty of our planet home, emphasising the urgency with which we must address the serious consequences of climate change. 

As a follow-up to the Gaia Exhibition, St Peter Mancroft will develop a long-term programme on the theme of “Eco Church”. This will involve a three-stage process. The Exhibition itself will represent the phase of “Preparation” by raising awareness for the church congregation and the wider community of Norwich. The second phase will be a local “Declaration” that the global climate emergency is the responsibility of everyone, worldwide. Finally, the church will seek to make an “Impact” by partnering with the local community to improve our care for the environment and to address the challenge of climate change in many different ways.

Three Days in January is a project which will create an engaging public dialogue between communities of science and faith in East Kent, the landscape that was the cradle of Christianity in England, with the primary aim of building bridges between church congregations and wider society by drawing upon popular fascination with archaeological and forensic science, and by exploring the extent to which science can address fundamental questions around what is ‘real and true’ in the often-overlapping contexts of religious culture, belief, and heritage.

The project will explore how science can throw light on matters of faith, and how faith can affect scientific investigation, using the collaborative investigation into the authenticity of the relics of St Eanswyth that took place in the parish church of Folkestone in early 2020 as a foundational case study.

That investigation resulted in confirmation that the remains are almost certainly those of St Eanswythe, one of the earliest English saints and a member of the Kentish royal dynasty, who died around AD 660. The news of this discovery generated international media coverage and interest across the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. It brought together a team of scientists in the fields of archaeology, osteology, conservation, radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, and isotopic analysis with members of a church congregation and wider community to establish a temporary laboratory inside the church. 

Key activities will include public panels and debates; online materials; production of a short film; interpretation panels for use at the Shrine of Eanswythe; and in the second phase, exploration of other examples of the interface of faith and science through the investigation of sacred objects, places and traditions of pilgrimage in Kent – for example in the historic churches of St Martins, Canterbury; St Giles, Kingston, and St Eanswith, Brenzett.

The project outcomes will be disseminated and promoted through established networks and channels within Folkestone and East Kent (including via the church and congregations as well as local authorities, schools, local community groups and academic and scientific partners) as well as via websites and social media. 

The lessons of the unique collaboration between scientists and congregation that took place in Folkestone have not yet been widely considered or shared, in large part due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but there is much to be learnt from this experience that is of direct relevance to the relationship between contemporary religious faith and scientific thought, with great potential benefits to both. A short film about the project, created in March 2023, can be found on our Resources page.

In conjunction with Xplore! Science Activity Centre, based in Wrexham town centre, St Mark’s Church is undertaking a project that provides opportunities for children and young people to take part in interactive science-faith based activities, taking a fun-based approach to explore scientific concepts and their link with Christian faith and teaching. 

Xplore! first started to support St Mark’s Church with input and resources to maintain engagement with children during the initial period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The team are excited to discover how they can use science-based activities to explain the Christian faith to children and young people, helping them to understand how the amazing world in which they live works.

The science-faith activity sessions the team are developing are really engaging children and families in the local community. They would like to share this vision with other churches across the North East Wales area which can be adapted to suit the settings and context of different congregations of all Christian denominations.

The funding given by the ECLAS Scientists in Congregations project will ensure this project continues to move forward at St Mark’s and will also enable other churches the opportunity to develop science-faith based activities for children and young people in their own congregations. 

The team hope that children will enjoy learning about both science and the Christian faith, and will see how important both are to their lives. They want to increase the confidence of churches in engaging with families in ways which are relevant and practical, helping children and young people to grow and flourish.

St Lawrence, Barnwood (Gloucester) will implement a programme of teaching and engagement on Science, Faith and Care for Creation that will impact the church, the local community and beyond.

Through production of materials for use with children in churches and church schools, the team will address a real desire among children and teachers for greater understanding about questions of science and faith, including origins, the Bible and science, and how we can find hope in the face of challenges such as climate change and extinction of species.

Drawing on the two children’s books Science Geek Sam and his secret logbook (Lion, 2017) and Science Geek Christy and her Eco-logbook (Lion, forthcoming September 2021), the resources for children will have two strands: “Awesome Science” (astronomy, geology, fossils, dinosaurs, evolution and people) and “Explore Creation” (ecology, environmental science, care for creation and tackling climate change). Both strands will help children relate these topics to a Christian understanding of the world.

Alongside this, through a programme of engagement with the church community, the team will build on initial teaching about creation care and open up key questions, helping people to overcome misunderstandings about the relationship between science and faith.  This will inspire a deeper understanding of the natural world as God’s creation, and encourage care for creation as an integral part of following Jesus Christ. Activities will include a monthly themed service, a special day in the Cotswolds, and a blog about creation care and science and faith themes. 

All the resources produced will be trialled locally through book clubs, workshops and lessons at the local C of E Primary School and at church, and will then be made freely available online.

This project is about a pilgrimage – a journey – which takes people around five churches in the Western Mission Partnership, one of four groups of parishes on the Island. It will map out different actions that could not only help each of the individual churches on their own journey towards carbon neutrality, but also encourage the visitors to be thinking about the principles that are displayed so that they can apply them to their own lives and homes. 

For more than a decade there has been a popular Flower Festival in National Week (4-10 July 2021)  involving hundreds of people visiting up to 20 churches across the Island. It was cancelled in 2020 because of Covid-19 and reduced in 2021 as flower arrangements in one central location in the  West. The Parish of the West Coast has decided to link up with this venue and provide a complementary ‘Green Pilgrimage’.  

This will provide displays and exhibition materials at the Cathedral and each of three Anglican churches within the Parish of the West Coast, and a further one within our Mission Partnership, on the theme: ‘Tread lightly, think smartly’. Only local and recyclable materials will be used, in partnership with the Western Amenity Site (the local recycling centre). Each visitor/pilgrim will be invited to pause and consider how as individuals and within their communities they can become:

∙ Instinctively smart (reduce, reuse, recycle) 

∙ Technology smart (from traditional technologies to state of the art consumer products, data and services). The Technology will be explored both theologically and scientifically.

∙ Smart about outcomes (one small human footprint, one giant leap for humankind – world examples of benefits of footprint reduction). 

The follow-on project will take the road show to five churches in other parts of the Island in 2022.

See this page for resources from the project.

The members of St George’s Church in Leeds have acknowledged that climate change is an emergency, requiring urgent and decisive action informed by both scientific insights and a robust engagement with ethical considerations. The Christian faith speaks powerfully into those ethical considerations, and alongside engaging scientific and artistic resources, the Earth@Trinity Gaia exhibition in the very heart of Leeds city centre will focus on climate justice in the coming decade.

Earth@Trinity will run for three weeks (7th – 25th November 2022) in Holy Trinity Church Boar Lane, adjacent to the well-known Trinity Centre, a retail complex expected to generate high footfall in the run-up to Christmas. The main feature of Earth@Trinity will be Gaia (www.my-earth.org), a seven-metre diameter artwork, which uses NASA imagery to create a stunningly realistic model of our planet. Alongside Gaia, artistic installations throughout the building will encourage dialogue and discussions at the interface of environmental science and faith. A keynote speaker will further develop these discussions, alongside promoting awareness of local environmental community action and campaigning for climate justice. 

Holy Trinity Boar Lane is part of the Team Ministry of St George’s Leeds. Together, the project team will run a sermon series specifically on the subject of climate justice understood from a combined theological and scientific perspective alongside Earth@Trinity. This will be accompanied by small group resources, and a programme of study for the wider church, able to be utilised by other churches, and St Hild Theological College.

Beginning alongside the initial project, and carrying on through to the end of 2022, drop-in sessions and workshops will be held, with potential assistance from green energy entrepreneurs, to help encourage businesses and individuals to make lifestyle and commercial choices to combat climate change. Earth@Trinity will enhance congregational understanding of the links between science and faith, as well as having a significant impact in making Leeds a greener, more climate-just city.

Scientists in Congregations supported this event in December 2020 which brought together a panel of epidemiologists, scientists and church leaders to answer the question ‘Does God Want Me to Take the Covid-19 Vaccine?’ The online event was hugely popular with over 400 participants and deep audience engagement and was aimed at members of the Pentecostal community.

The recording can be viewed here: https://fb.watch/v/bW-42Fwjo/

The York-based theatre company will build on the success of their earlier Scientists in Congregations-funded play ‘Faith in the Questions’ which explored science-faith questions in the context of the Book of Job.

‘The Uneasy Sleeps of Max Maxwell’ will include a play, a panel discussion, and an opportunity for the audience to ask questions of experts in Artificial Intelligence. A national tour is planned.

This project draws upon insights gained during a previously funded Scientists in Congregations project, ‘Faith, Technology and Tomorrow’, carried out in 2017. The project team, led by Revd Justin Tomkins, will carry out research among professionals working in science and healthcare, listening to their stories of responding to God’s call in their own professional lives, seeding a number of new projects in their parishes, fostering new partnerships between those professionals, and building new connections with relevant organisations.

These stories will be drawn upon to enable the congregation of St Andrew’s Church, Great  Yeldham, as well as those in surrounding churches, to deepen their own explorations of  issues of science and faith.

Elijah, The Tishbite – Let’s Talk About Mental Health is a project based on the mental health challenge of the prophet Elijah as documented in the Bible in 1 Kings 19:1–21. The project will explore the strategies he went through to experience a recovery and continue with his profession and life. The project aims to provide equivalent strategies that are applicable in current times to address mental health conditions. 

The vision of this project is to foster a healthy engagement between the Christian faith and science using mental health as the basis for the interaction.

In this project, the team plans to create a conducive forum to talk about and seek help for mental health conditions by: 

1. creating more awareness about mental health conditions;
2. addressing stigma issues surrounding mental health in Christianity and our communities; 
3. encouraging more people to seek help to address mental health conditions.

RCCG Royal City, Sevenoaks plans to write and produce a workbook, using the seven steps that assisted Elijah in the recovery process – Diet, Sleep, Retreat, New Information, New Perspective, New Assignments and New Relationships. The team will identify and include contemporary equivalents that are available to help in the recovery process from science, mental health, and Christian perspectives. They intend to produce a short film adaption of the workbook. 

They will organize series of Let’s Talk About Mental Health events where both the workbook and short film will be used to educate and initiate discussion around the subject of mental health. A panel of experts drawn from the science, mental health, pastoral, and local mental health charities will be available to provide further insights on these subjects. 

The target audience is primarily Christians within their local communities and the wider network of Churches. The team plan to hold two events and will explore further opportunities to use the resources to replicate the project in other congregations and communities. 

https://royalcity.org.uk/elijah-the-tishbite

Radio Maria England (RME) Science and Faith is a volunteer-run radio programme. Their aim is to promote a reciprocal understanding between science and faith that is both intellectually and spiritually honest. 

The first stage of their project, called “Radio Maria on Tour: Faith Journeys in Science”, focuses on local parishes. The show will feature Catholics with a fascinating story to tell about how science and faith have impacted their lives and the lives of others. The second stage will adapt this model for Catholic universities and chaplaincies, in order to scout the next generation of science and faith communicators.

The RME Science and Faith team will go into parishes and universities, where they will record science and faith conversations that are accessible to live audiences and radio listeners, in order to revitalise engagement with the intellectual and spiritual tradition of the Church. Radio Maria aims to inspire congregations through the testimonies of Christians whose lives have been changed by the interactions between science and faith. In addition, they hope to inspire secular scientists through encounters with Christian people who are honest, intelligent, and open to new scientific inputs and discoveries. 

You can listen to the latest RME episode here: https://anchor.fm/scienceandfaith1

The Faith Experiment presents fun, interactive and family-friendly workshops exploring questions on the interface of science and faith. Each workshop will use games and demonstrations alongside a short talk to help summarise the arguments, explore ways in which agreement can be found and finally provide enough information for participants to make up their own mind and defend their beliefs in a positive and constructive way.

The aims of the project are twofold. To prepare and educate Christians so that they feel confident and knowledgeable engaging in conversations about faith and ready, if challenged, to defend their faith when presented with challenges; and for non-Christians to open their minds to the truth that science and faith need not be in conflict and should indeed strengthen each other, and to encourage exploration of faith.

Speakers Matthew & Davinder Gardner are both healthcare scientists by background. They bring their own experiences and perspectives of using science to help diagnose and treat disease to highlight how healthcare science in particular can be an area where science and faith exist in harmony. 

They’ll be organising a special one-day Faith Experiment course to be followed by a series of smaller-scale events for churches and community groups, inviting participants to consider questions such as:

Does it matter that the Bible largely lacks scientific detail?

Does life simply need the right conditions – or is there more to it?

Are we just improved animals? Or is there something truly special about humans?

Fly Me to the Moon is a school event for Years 5 and 6 at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in September 2022. The Project Co-directors (pictured) have many years’ experience in working with children. The event is planned to run for 10 days, with approximately 1,200 children attending.

Fly Me to the Moon will include a play based on the story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American Christian who worked for NASA as a mathematician in the 1960s and whose work aided the first moon landing. The play will explore her story as a Christian and scientist in an exciting, fun and educational way. The re-telling will involve children in the audience, as well as giving some science demonstrations appropriate to the story. The aim is to help the children recognise that science and faith can go hand in hand.

The second half of the event will be Messy Church in style. The children will enjoy activities helping them to see that:

i) science and faith are complementary;

ii) that scientific understanding can help to enhance faith, and

iii) enable children to appreciate the wonders of the world God has made.

The intention is thus to begin a journey, helping children to see that science is indeed welcome in the church. 

The two-week Fly Me to the Moon event includes a family day. The team are sure many children will want to invite their parents along, helping to foster healthy conversations about science and faith in the home!

Schools taking part in the event will have the opportunity for follow-up in-house workshops. These will enable the team to tailor the sessions to the current questions and challenges in the school, enabling pupils to participate in science-faith discussions at a deeper level.

From August to October 2021, the south transept of Lichfield Cathedral will be transformed into ‘The Laboratory’, an interactive art installation enabling visitors and congregations to engage with physical, chemical, and biological sciences, and the scientific method. ‘The Lab’ will be the centrepiece of a summer of creativity, spirituality, and science at the Cathedral, including ‘The Great Exhibition: SCIENCE’ which will run for 12 nights in August and transform all parts of the Cathedral through light, sound, visual arts and multimedia. Free family activities will take place at ‘The Lab’ during the school summer holidays, including science experiments and craft activities, to encourage children to develop skills of design, scientific method, and creativity.

In Autumn 2021, the theme will continue as Lichfield Cathedral hold four themed weekends encouraging people to consider how science and spirituality can enrich life, improve health, and enable human flourishing. Themed weekends will include sessions on horticulture and music, including how this can improve human health, mental health and wellbeing, and will influence our worship. Other topics will include dealing with isolation and responding to community trauma and tragedy in the wake of the pandemic. 

Alive in Hope will host conversations about the relationship between religion and science and how this can relate to the pressing challenges of today, including those presented by the pandemic. Activities in the lab will be ‘hands on’ after over a year of virtual learning. For more information about all these events, visit www.lichfield-cathedral.org.

This project asks the questions, ‘Why should we as Christians care for our Earth?’, and ‘How do scientists in our congregation and the wider community help us learn to do so?’, exploring the answers through the prism of God having created the Earth.  

In August 2021, Hull Minster hosts Gaia’s Earth as its opening exhibition post-Covid. In the lead-up, the project team will use their Scientists in Congregations funding to hold a series of talks by scientist members of the congregation, and associated churches and local industry, based around the seven days of creation in the Bible. The aim is to reflect the Genesis story of the seven days of creation, so on day two, the creation of water and sky, the talk will focus on renewable energy. 

All the talks will be based around the sacred nature of the earth and our duty to nurture and maintain it through modern science. The team’s aim is to hold these events to introduce the Gaia Exhibition, and to have display boards at the east end of the Minster providing a summary of each day and QR code access to the full talks. After the exhibition, these resources will be shared with  schools, colleges, and other churches in the area. 

Believing Science will directly tackle unhelpful misconceptions around science that can be prevalent in the Church and at the same time aim to transform local churches into active pro-science centres within their local communities. They want to help all people to see the positive aspects of both science and faith and to understand how they can be successfully integrated with each other. 

Believing Science will operate primarily from Holy Trinity Stalybridge on the eastern edge of Greater Manchester. They will partner with churches in Blackpool (St Thomas’) and Wakefield (St Catherine’s). Other churches in these localities will also be invited to take part.

As well as providing direct teaching and training on science and faith to the Churches involved, the project leaders will organise community-focused, science-themed activities through local schools, foodbanks, youth and senior groups, and other avenues as they arise. Each church will also host a large scale science-based family fun day for their local community, called a ‘Wonder Day’. This day will offer opportunities for creative, experiential encounters with science by providing workshops, shows, and hands-on opportunities for people in the local area.

The project will also produce a set of online resources to promote its activities, and provide an online hub for other interested churches and groups to learn how to put on these activities in their own local settings.

The project leaders hope that the presence of multiple local churches driving forward these pro-science events will not only inspire and encourage engagement with science by Christians but will also send a strong message about the compatibility of science and Christianity to those outside the Church.

The congregation have several activities planned for Summer 2022, including an information trail, a talk with A Rocha, “Compline for Creation,” a Q&A with Bishop Graham Usher, (Bishop for the Environment), a quiz and renewable art installation.

Exeter Cathedral hosted the Museum of the Moon in February 2022. During this period a number of Sunday sermons focused on scientific and theological issues associated with the moon. The Cathedral hosted a successful mini conference for Key Stage 4 pupils to explore environmental issues. In 2023 a series of events are planned to coincide with hosting “Gaia” alongside a poetry competition on environmental and climate themes, and a sound and light show.

ChaplaincyPlus is a non-denominational Christian charitable trust formed in 2003, run for the  Birmingham business community and located in the  heart of the city.

‘Science and Faith in the City’ envisions a series of public lectures in Birmingham throughout 2022 promoting a Christian apologetic that science is not a barrier to the Christian faith. Each event will have more than one offering – with a short daytime event followed by a longer evening event, both of which include space to share a meal together – and events will be live-streamed and recorded.

The team will work with church leaders across the city and with scientists and students of science to encourage them to see science as a gift from God, and to encourage them to think about the ethical and practical implications of their faith.

The talks will be used to create resources in the form of YouTube videos, with accompanying study materials for small group study across the city of Birmingham.

The “Life on the Edge” project incorporates a wide range of activities that aim to engage congregations in science and faith issues in exciting and thought-provoking ways. Project participants will explore, scientifically and theologically, the World Ocean – the single, huge, continuous body of seawater that covers about 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. In the words of project co-director Revd Alistair Sharp, “We are seeking to lead our community out of the church, onto the beach… and into the sea.” 

The project includes:

• Ocean Sunday beach activities designed for participants to experience the awe and wonder of God’s creation; 
• talks from a Christian perspective by marine scientists on “what the Ocean does for us and what we do for the Ocean”; 
• a Lent course that uses ocean science principles as a springboard for discourse, discussion, meditation, and prayer; 
• a Messy Church does Marine Science event; and 
• celebrations of World Oceans Day (around June 8th) and the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (around September 1st).

The project hosts are two Cornish Methodist Churches: Cornerstone at Wadebridge and Tubestation at Polzeath. They are ideally placed to explore the ocean through science and faith: Cornerstone is close to the Camel Estuary, and Tubestation overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.  The project leaders are keen to share the project outcomes with other churches. Plans are already in place to roll out the Ocean Sunday beach activities and other events with Croyde Baptist Church on the north Devon coast.  Where possible, activities will be delivered online as well as face-to-face, and booklets and other resources will be made available to other churches.

Amazing Light is a travelling workshop for primary schools.

Set in a pop-up science tent, children will investigate the extraordinary nature of the physics of light and how light is used as a metaphor for Jesus as the light of the world.

The tent will allow small groups of children from a year group bubble to undertake a series of experiments and activities in a COVID-secure way.

Children will think about what the light can make visible from dark places. For example, in relation to inequality, Jesus was the champion of the oppressed.

They will ask and be asked questions about the metaphor ‘Jesus is the light of the world’ and use some of their responses to write a pyramid poem on an acetate-stained glass window.

Churches have used light and colour over the centuries to help people worship as a means of reflection or telling the story. The children will decorate the frame of their pyramid poem with images or using colours in a more abstract way to represent ‘Jesus as the light of the world’.

In the future, Chester Cathedral hopes to follow up Amazing Light with:

1. ‘Living in the Light – Jesus is the way.’ Children will investigate the electric light bulb as a source of light and investigate what makes the light brighter or stops the light.    

2. ‘Mysterious Materials.’ Children will investigate three properties of materials and then consider, ‘Why do we need rules and what are God’s rules?’

Nazarene Theological College equips people for Christian ministry, offering undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in theology validated by the University of Manchester. Rooted in the Wesleyan holiness tradition, its student body is drawn largely from low-church evangelical and Free Church backgrounds. Its student intake comprises around 70% mature students, with 30% of the student body from BAME backgrounds, and around a third of the undergraduate population coming from Low Participation Neighbourhoods.

 NTC will be teaching a core unit in 2020-21 which engages students with Science and Theological Ethics, and which will act as one focal point for undergraduate engagement with scientific themes and questions.  A new undergraduate module exploring Contemporary Issues in Science will be developed for September 2022 delivery. The MA in Theology and Ecology will be developed and enhanced as part of the Science for Seminaries project.

Nazarene Theological College will also engage local churches, clergy, and academics through a collaborative ‘God Loves Science’ conference. A new series of ‘Science Goes to Church’ video conference training sessions will be developed for clergy as a form of continuing education for ministry, and an existing ‘Three Minute Theology’ suite of video resources will be expanded to include engagement with scientific topics, thinkers and questions. 

 The Nazarene Theological College Science for Seminaries project team will be led by Dr Peter Rae.

Wycliffe Hall is an Anglican theological college in the evangelical tradition. Most students attend courses through the University of Oxford, with some ordinands studying through the University of Durham Common Awards scheme.

Wycliffe Hall’s Science for Seminaries project focuses on redeveloping the core Introduction to Christian Doctrine course to include scientific input, drawn from existing ECLAS resources, in three areas. A lecture on the doctrine of creation will be updated to include perspectives from environmental science; a lecture on theological anthropology will explore issues of human distinctiveness compared to animals; and a lecture on evil will engage with scientific insights on the problem of evil. Scientific engagement will also be programmed into Wycliffe Hall’s weekly Principal’s Hour lectures, which are attended by all ordinands. As part of the Science for Seminaries project, scientists will deliver two lectures per term, with Dr Max Baker-Hytch reflecting on theological implications in a third.

Wycliffe Hall’s outreach activities for Science for Seminaries project include a three-day Science and Faith Summer School in 2021/22, subsequently in alternate years, aimed at Wycliffe Hall ordinands and including contributions from ECLAS speakers. Under a new initiative, students will be given the opportunity to participate in a laboratory tour, in order to deepen their understanding of scientific practice. 

The Wycliffe Hall Science for Seminaries project is led by Dr Max Baker-Hytch.

The University of Aberdeen’s Divinity School is home to three undergraduate and four postgraduate programmes in theology. In the 2021-22 academic year, the Divinity School will be engaging with the Science for Seminaries project by reworking the core ‘Introduction to Christian Theology’ module, which is taken by all students on the BD, BTh and undergraduate MA courses. The redesigned module will integrate scientific topics such as the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, evolution, AI, and end of life issues with theological considerations of creation, theological anthropology, and redemption.

A new core module for ministry students on ‘Utopia and Apocalypse: Dreaming the Perfect World in Science and Religion’ will be developed for launch in Autumn 2021/2. 

The Divinity School will carry out a range of outreach activities including a campus-wide series of lectures, jointly presented by a theologian and a scientist, and a new six-module online CPD course for those already in ministry: ‘Developing a Healing Ministry: Insights for Theology and Science’. 

The project leads are Professor John Swinton and Professor Tom Greggs. 

Sarum College is an ecumenical centre for theological study and research, offering programmes in the areas of Christian spirituality, theology, imagination and culture, formation for ministry and biblical studies. As part of the College, the Sarum Centre for Formation in Ministry provides training for lay or ordained ministry within the Church of England, validated through the Common Awards programme at the University of Durham. 

The Sarum College Science for Seminaries project enables students to encounter and engage with modern science through its core Christian Faith and Ethical Living module, taken by most candidates for ministry. Across the project as a whole, students will encounter three key areas of science: artificial intelligence, climate change, and specific aspects of human life science, and will develop the skills to assess the benefits and limitations of future scientific developments during the course of their ministry.

From Autumn 2021, a series of day conferences and lectures on the interface between theology and science will widen participation to include lay and ordained ministers working locally, particularly those in rural ministries, as well as the general public. A five-day summer school on science and ministry practice in August 2022 will engage the whole student body in an immersive learning experience on the climate crisis.

 The project planning team is made up of the Revd Paul Burden, Canon Dr Jill Hopkinson, Dr Eleanor McLaughlin, Dr Karen O’Donnell, Dr Jayme Reaves and Prof. Christopher Southgate.

St Augustine’s College of Theology, based in London and West Malling, Kent, provides full and part-time formation for women and men training for ordained and licensed ministry in the Church of England, as well as theological education for those not seeking ordained ministry. 

Thanks to Science for Seminaries, St Augustine’s is developing its core ‘Spirituality and Discipleship’ module to act as a hub for other modules, integrating scientific themes into the study of worship, doctrine and pastoral care. The new content will include scientific accounts of human transcendence; neuroscience and religious experience; and scientific and religious perspectives on the relationship between knowledge and participation. A biannual two-day symposium will help students to synthesise this material on science and religion. 

Science for Seminaries funding will also be used to develop a new Faith in Science placement option using the Common Awards module ‘Ministry and Mission in a Specific Context’. Participants will undertake a school placement in which they observe and contribute to the exploration by primary and secondary school children of religious faith and the discovery of the world through science. The Faith in Science Schools Project will be developed in partnership with the Canterbury and Southwark diocesan boards of education, as well as with the Learning About Science And Religion (LASAR) research centre at Canterbury Christ Church University.

St Augustine’s ‘Science for Seminaries’ project leads are Dr Guido de Graaff, the Revd Dr Alan P. Gregory, Ms Buki Fatona and Prof. Charlotte Sleigh.

Regents Theological College, in West Malvern, is the main education institution for the Elim Pentecostal Church. Through undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in applied theology, including specialisms in youth ministry and church leadership, it trains students from Elim Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical churches for a range of ministries in church congregations and other contexts.

Regents will use its Science for Seminaries award to integrate science into two core modules on the Torah and Pentecostal Theology. The Torah module will include exploration of Genesis 1-11 in light of current scientific theories about the origins of the universe and human evolution. The Pentecostal Theology module will introduce the history and philosophy of science, exploring the topics of healing and modern medicine and eschatology and environment. A further module, Pentecostal Theology in Transformation, will consider how Pentecostal accounts of religious experience can interact with modern neuroscience.

A range of activities will encourage the wider student body and local church leaders to engage with the conversation between pentecostal theology and science. A conference for Regents students, alumni, local church leaders and Elim ministers across the UK will explore the theme of ‘Signs, Wonders and Miracles’, including inviting as plenary speakers two scientists and two Pentecostal science-engaged theologians, with the aim of publishing some of the conference presentations in book form. The conference would also see the launch of a dedicated website on science and Pentecostal theology, hosted by the Institute for Pentecostal Theology, making the conference presentations and relevant resources available to the wider public. 

The Regents Theological College Science in Seminaries project team is led by Dr Simo Frestadius. 

The London School of Theology (LST) is an evangelical, interdenominational college in North West London, offering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in theology, with joint programmes available in Theology & Counselling, Theology, Music, and Worship, and Theology & Worship. BAME students make up 38% of undergraduates, and black majority churches are well represented.

As part of the Science for Seminaries project, LST will be developing its God and Creation module to further integrate scientific themes including the Big Bang and evolution, natural laws, the imago Dei, and creation care. A prize will be created to recognise the best final-year project in the area of ecology and theology. LST will also further integrate dialogue with scientific topics into other modules, including Introduction to Doctrine, which will explore scientific perspectives in relation to various theological topics, and Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, which will engage with environmental science and creation care. 

A wide range of outreach activities will embed engagement with science into the life of the college. LST’s 2021 Research Conference is on the theme ‘Exploring the World of Human Nature, Science and Faith’, while the Summer Conference in 2021 will explore evangelical eco-theology. After the Laing Lecture of November 2021, delivered by the Revd. Prof. David Wilkinson on a science and theology theme, the Summer Conference of 2022 will reprise the theme of eco-theology, further developing this cutting-edge conversation in evangelical theology.

The London School of Theology Science for Seminaries project is led by Revd Prof Mark Cartledge and managed by Clare Miller. 

Ripon College Cuddesdon (RCC) is a theological training college outside Oxford, which primarily trains ordinands for ministry in the Church of England. It awards degrees both through matriculating students to the University of Oxford, and through the Common Awards scheme at Durham University.

RCC’s Science for Seminaries project focuses on redeveloping a core module on soteriology, currently taught to all second year students, by including perspectives from empirical psychology and environmental science. New material will explore the doctrine of sin and addiction, theories of atonement and the ‘affective salience’ of doctrine, the psychological role of ritual, transhumanism, and the salvation of non-human animals. In addition, the Introduction to Christian Ethics course will be revised to include greater interaction with climate science and environmental ethics. 

Two activities are planned as part of the project. ‘Preaching for Specific Learning Difficulties’ workshops (SpLD) will help students who experience SpLD themselves to prepare sermons and preach effectively, and help all students consider how to preach in ways that connect with congregation members with SpLD. The ‘Befriend a Scientist’ programme will pair ordinands with a practicing scientist for a series of informal conversations, through which they can deepen their understanding of science and explore the relationship between faith and science. 

The Ripon College Cuddesdon Science for Seminaries project team is led by Dr Tobias Tanton.

Cranmer Hall forms part of St John’s College, Durham University. It offers theological formation for ministry candidates in the Church of England, Baptist, Methodist and Free churches, who study alongside other students on Cranmer Hall’s own undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, which are validated by Durham University as part of the Common Awards scheme.

Cranmer Hall’s Science for Seminaries grant will be used to develop a new core undergraduate module: ‘From Conflict to Confidence: Science and Faith – Changing the Narrative.’ Once approved through the Common Awards scheme as a level 6 module, ‘Topic in Church History’, this can be taught by any Theological Education Institution (TEI) that is validated under Common Awards. The Cranmer module will cover the historical rise of the ‘conflict narrative’ between science and religion; cosmology; evolution; and issues in religion and science as they occur in ministerial practice. Cranmer Hall will also offer a college-wide study day on the subject ‘From Conflict to Confidence’ or another other science-engaged theological theme.

Cranmer Hall produces a podcast, ‘Talking Theology’, which has around 1000 downloads per month. As part of the Science for Seminaries project, the podcast will host a dedicated series of conversations on faith and science, featuring key individuals working at the interface of Christianity and science. 

Cranmer Hall’s Science for Seminaries Project will be led by the Revd Dr. Nick Moore.

Cathedral Isle of Man is developing a series of 19 gardens around the Cathedral, half of which were opened in the summer which tell a variety of stories from a number of perspectives: Social and religious history of the Isle of Man, display contemporary art, explore health, allow for play and deal with the interface of Christianity and Science.

The areas of sciencific exploration are particularly geology, plants and animals.  The Maughold garden gives an indication of how these stories appear in a single garden.  The garden tells of the arrival of Christianity on the Isle of Man from Ireland in the 5^th century.  The garden is a recreated beach showcasing the geology of the Island with rock outcrops indicating the main geological features.  The planting scheme has flora associated with the coast.  The legend of Maughold (which includes the banishing of snakes from the Island), is the opportunity for telling the story of the uniqueness of the fauna on the Island, for example, animals not present like the squirrel and the presence of other animals unique to the Island such as the tailless cat.

Material is being developed for each of these trails for the use of all ages including Key stage 1 and 2 for school groups.

Messy Church Science

Our family focus means we can inspire scientists of the future. We can teach them some basic scientific skills and influence their attitudes and expectations towards science and faith. We can help train a generation to see no dichotomy between science and faith, but rather how the two can fruitfully exist side by side.

BRF’s Messy Church has been embraced wholeheartedly by many local churches and through it we have the opportunity, as well as the creative imagination and energy, to bring science into the way we ‘do church’. We can help the subject become an accepted and expected part of worship and learning; and a means by which we can meet God and learn to love the natural world.

Our family focus means we can inspire scientists of the future. We can teach them some basic scientific skills and influence their attitudes and expectations towards science and faith.

Messy churches provide creative sessions for children and families to learn about the Christian faith. The grant will be used to develop materials to help Messy Church leaders use science to explore aspects of the Christian faith and demonstrate that faith and science are complementary. The project aims to provide Messy Churches with 100 safe and simple scientific activities to try in church and to demonstrate that anyone can get involved in science. Videos will be made to promote the work.

http://www.messychurch.org.uk/messy-church-does-science-0

We want to empower students by showing them how scientific ideas are developed through imagination, creativity, discourse and observation within the created order; how a person’s scientific ideas form a more or less compatible subset of their overall belief-system; and therefore that a scientist’s proposals are somehow connected, for better or worse, to their most fundamental beliefs (which may be called ‘religious’).  If our Christian faith is true, then, it could actually help us do better science.

This project wants to empower students by showing them how scientific ideas are developed through imagination, creativity, discourse and observation within the created order; how a person’s scientific ideas form a more or less compatible subset of their overall belief-system; and therefore that a scientist’s proposals are somehow connected, for better or worse, to their most fundamental beliefs (which may be called ‘religious’).

Discussion style evenings based in Baptist churches in Leeds and open to all in which science students and science professionals give talks before taking part in a question and answer sessions. Preparatory training workshops will be held for students and science professionals from congregations across Leeds. The project will be open to participants from across Leeds and beyond.

Four videos from the project are publicly available from the project home page and on the project’s YouTube channel, one other is awaiting approval, and videos of all workshop sessions have been made available to the participants. Additionally, an expansive Prezi presentation has been created (available at http://churchscientific.org.uk/scientists-workshops/) to summarise the overall curriculum from the workshops.

Seven posters were created from a common template by participants, outlining their educational and ecclesiastical journeys and how their Christian faith interacted with their scientific work. The posters were printed at A1 size and made available for their creators to take away after the conference.  They may be viewed at http://churchscientific.org.uk/posters .

Many Christians operate with a dualistic mind-set, drawing a sharp distinction between the “sacred” and the “secular”, or the “spiritual” and the “natural”. This mind-set is often especially prevalent among Christians working in the sciences. Many find it difficult to make the connections between living Christ-centred lives and working within a scientific paradigm. Other Christians drift into the sciences unthinkingly: it’s not that they find it difficult to make these connections; it’s just that they’ve never really tried.

At Grace Church Truro we have enjoyed hearing from members of the congregation about how their Christian faith interfaces with their experience of working in the sciences. We have hired a skilled videographer who has worked with four members of the church in both their homes and places of work. Videos have been completed for a senior church leader and theologian who has a background in the biological sciences, the Head of Biology at a leading independent school in the Southwest and a third year Biology undergraduate studying in Falmouth with Exeter University. A fourth video with a trainee doctor at Cornwall’s largest hospital is nearing completion.

Phase two of the project is now underway as we develop our church website to include a dedicated feature that communicates how faith in Christ connects with every area of life. While progress on this aspect of the project has been slower than expected, we have begun working with a local web designer who has particular expertise in working with churches.

Website: http://gracetruro.org/

Through our science club we hope to make clear that the popular assumption that the Bible is at odds with scientific reason presents a false dichotomy: in fact, in many ways they complement or, even ‘illuminate’ one another.

The benefice of Harwell and Chilton is committed to growing God’s church wider, deeper and closer. Within our benefice lies the Harwell Campus, housing the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, the nuclear licensed site, now being managed and decommissioned by Magnox (formerly ‘Harwell’), Diamond Light Source, the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC UK) and the UK and European Space Agencies along with nearly 200 science orientated companies. Close by is the Milton Science Park, Culham Science Centre, and Oxford University. In the last year in the benefice has seen established a University Technical College (a school for 14-19 year olds that teaches students technical and scientific subjects). Consequently, many in our congregation and wider community have a significant knowledge and background in science.

There were three activities in the Crossing the Gap project:

1) A termly Keynote Speaker Evening

2) A monthly Family Science Club

3) A fortnightly Science Discussion Group

The Keynote Speaker Evenings were landmark events in the life of our church. Our first event took place in November, when Professor John Lennox joined us to give his lecture ‘Cosmic Chemistry: Do Science and God Mix?’. This event was extremely popular, filling the 190 seat capacity of the venue, with a short waiting list. John gave an excellent and amusing overview of the issues that often given rise to conflict between science and faith. The lecture was recorded and has been made accessible online. To date the recording has nearly 4500 views online. See below.

Cosmic Chemistry: Do Science and God mix? – Professor John Lennox

John Lennox came to The Pickavance Lecture Theatre at Rutherford Appleton Lab, Harwell Campus to speak about Science & Faith.

Christianity is – or should be – a confident, outward looking enterprise, underpinned by divine grace, that also views the scientific enterprise positively and creatively, as part of humanity’s calling by God our Creator.

Our initial activities were intra-mural to give scientists within the congregation a voice and to enable non-scientists to appreciate their work and to encourage all to appreciate the significance of Biblical theology for science. Meet the Scientists was an introductory mid-week event with six 15-minute presentations + Q/A. We then held a geological field trip to a deep cavern in the Peak District, learning about gradual processes and the age of the earth. The controversial topic of Creation/Evolution was tacked in a debate format, with the goal of understanding that these terms are not mutually exclusive. This was followed by an in depth session on the hermeneutics of Genesis. During 2017, on consecutive weeks, the teenage youth group was addressed by 12 of our scientists speaking about their research and the impact of their faith. One 6^th-former undertook work shadowing in a University laboratory and a group visited Waters Corporation R&D laboratories – to learn about their global leadership in Mass Spectrometry. A substantial group visit to a radio-astronomy centre will take place on 16/9/17.

Our approach to science and scientific discoveries has a real impact on the mission of the church in contemporary culture.

One of the aims of the first, Ely Cathedral Science Festival was to become a ‘Cathedral for Science’.  The Festival aimed to celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine through arts, music, lectures, live experiments and worship. Ely Cathedral Science Festival was an ‘intentionally’ missional project, aiming very specifically, to reach out to new and diverse audiences, particularly families, children, and working age people. It also aimed to respond robustly to those who perceive the church to hold negative views about science and technology and connect with people who wish to explore faith in contemporary culture. There were displays and talks by the Cambridge Science Centre, an ethical discussion and panel debate about DNA technology, and a series of lectures by leading scientists exploring medicine, genetics, astronomy, engineering and climate change with a keynote lecture by Lord Robert Winston.

A major exhibition aimed to highlight key moments in the history of science and included an original copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica as well as dinosaurs, fossils and other items of scientific significance. Over the course of the festival we welcomed over 30 schools, 1700 local School Children, thousands of families, and 14,000 visitors to the cathedral. During our Night at the Cathedral events over 1500 people experienced hands on science with interactive displays and exhibits, and over 50 families enjoyed hunting for mini-beasts in the cathedral grounds and learning to appreciate nature. Our Education department have developed a Science Trail, exploring the wonders of the cathedral, and various other workshops which we will integrate into our regular schools provision. The people who built the Cathedral, itself a marvel of medieval engineering, were questioning and seeking answers about existence and our place in the world.  The very design of the Cathedral was meant to represent life here on earth as well as in the world beyond and has helped people through the years ask the questions: where do we come from? Of what are we made? And Where are we going? Ely Cathedral today continues to be a place which inspires wonder, challenges people and confronts them with new foundations for belief.

http://www.elycathedral.org/ely-cathedral-science-festival

Given the current atmosphere of scientific glasnost, it is timely to consider novel and effective ways of engaging church congregations and church leaders in vibrant and stimulating discussion on issues of science and faith using scientifically trained members of those congregations.

Scientists make hypotheses – when this happens, then that will result – and then test these hypotheses by practical experimentation. In the summer of 2016, we in the Diocese of St Albans came up with a hypothesis. We proposed that if we ran a programme called Take Your Vicar to the Lab then we would be able to link up clergy with laboratories. Vicars would be able to visit labs and would come back inspired by the link between science and faith. Likewise, scientists would visit local churches to help the congregation think through the same issues.

We have now spent twelve months running the scheme and testing our hypothesis. So were we correct? What conclusions have can we draw?

First, we observed that clergy are indeed interested in visiting laboratories. Around two dozen clergy have taken part in six visits and have looked at topics as diverse as genetic engineering, particle physics and the manufacture of everyday pharmaceuticals. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone who has taken part has come back more inspired and better equipped to make connections between science and faith.

Second, members of local congregations have been keen to think through these questions. The two conferences that we have run have attracted, between them, around 70 participants. In addition, two discussion evenings at the Cathedral Study Centre have proved very popular. We are exploring the possibility of producing a mailing list for those who want to keep in touch with future events.

Third, we have garnered considerable publicity having been featured four times on local and national radio, as well as having a report on the project published in the journal Crucible.

While these elements have all been a success, our fourth conclusion is that scientists are far less enthusiastic to talk to vicars than vicars are to talk to scientists. Gaining access to laboratories has been much more difficult than we anticipated – sometimes for reasons of commercial confidentiality – and no scientists have been willing to make reciprocal visits to local churches. It would be interesting to pursue why this might be the case.

Finally, there has been an unexpected positive benefit. The Revd Prof Nick Goulding, who has been co-leading the Take Your Vicar to the Lab project, has been appointed by the Bishop of St Albans as the honorary diocesan adviser in science and faith.

In conclusion, our hypothesis has proved partially correct. Even though scientists don’t always perceive the need to talk to people of faith, practising Christians are positive and enthusiastic about exploring how science and faith relate. For this reason, we shall be continuing the Take Your Vicar to the Lab project for at least another year, and hopefully longer.

Water of Life is focused on the River Holme that runs into the River Colne near Huddersfield. The focus on the river provides many opportunities for people of faith to consider interaction with God’s creation, the world. Recognising that Our Lord is as much a part of the earth as of heaven, it is incumbent on us to ensure that it is looked after. With a changing climate and ever increasing demands for human use, natural water systems are under pressure and in turn can be seen as a threat to human welfare. Shortages of water, flooding and pollution are all potential hazards that we need to be aware of and at the same time plan to manage. Water of Life has taken a twin-track approach to equipping Christians in local congregations with a clearer understanding of the River Holme and how the River may behave in the future and at the same time bringing an understanding of what the Bible tells us about water and life. By bringing these tracks together, starting with a conference at the University of Huddersfield in March 2017, local congregations have begun to see how their place as people of faith within the world is supported by God’s love and that we can be optimistic about the future despite what appear to be threats and challenges ahead. Water of Life has so far explored what the congregations feel and understand about these issues and defined what they need to be stronger in faith and advocates for God’s word in the world. Materials from the various activities are available on the St Mary’s and St George’s website [http://hwbparish.org.uk/], including a sermon series on water and the Bible; a Water of Life hymn and minutes of the various meetings. Prayers and details of a riverside prayer walk will also be available shortly.

The aim of this project is to create a book of songs on the theme of science and faith. There are now nearly 40 songs written. Nine of these have been written in Church of England primary schools in Ely Diocese.

Cathedral Performances of  New Songs

The songs written in schools were performed in Ely Cathedral in May 2017 at the Science Festival ‘From Dinosaurs to DNA’ (also a ‘Scientists in Congregations’ project).  320 children took part. The Ely Diocese Deputy Director of Education and two musicians who are regularly involved with children’s music events at the Cathedral helped to ensure this was a day enjoyed by all participants. The children’s songs were professionally videoed.

Creation of a New Video Channel

The videos of the nine songs have been the first uploads to a newly created “You-Tube’ Channel called ‘Sing of God and Science’. Within the first two months of its existence it accrued more than 2500 views.

For more information on the project please see the video below:

Sing of God and Science’s YouTube channel can be found by clicking here (this has the full range of videos available).

The project was initially inspired by the late Dr Colin Tingle of the Lewes & Ouse Valley Economics Group, a community group formed under the umbrella of Transition Town Lewes. The group considers the benefits that the local community and the local economy gets from the local environment. One of the group’s main achievements was to develop Ecosystem Service Walks to highlight the benefits we all receive from the landscape. Following on from this Colin was keen to explore whether science and theology can align within congregations to taking small steps in helping reverse the degradation that human societies are bringing to our natural environment/God’s Creation. His thought was that a series of simple eco-system services walks/walking churches may be able to provide a starting point to inspire congregations to work within their communities on how we value nature, God’s Creation and human society’s only life support system.

Website: https://www.trinitylewes.org/ 

Re:Think Worcester aims to communicate the complimentary nature of science and faith to young people at 6^th form and undergraduate level, equipping them to make their own decisions about what they believe about science and faith, and how they relate to one another.  So far three presentations have been made in city centre locations.  These have dealt with the Science/God debate (“Has science killed God?”), Artificial Intelligence (“Rise of the Intelligent Machines, Future Battleground?”)  and the Predictions of Science Fiction (“Humanity becoming gods?: the dreams and fears of science fiction”).

Website: www.rethinkworcester.co.uk

Facebook: Re:ThinkWorcester

Twitter: @ReThinkWorcs

Ten events have taken place across three streams of activity (Sunday Science Evensongs, Faith in Science Lectures, Science in the Cathedral tours). The Sunday events took the format of a traditional sung Evensong, with scientist-Christians taking the sermon slot to introduce the themes of the project. Invited speakers discussed the themes of the project – including genetics, AI, the big bang and physics – in depth in a lecture-theatre environment. The second lecture was moved from the University to the Cathedral in an attempt to move the audience between venues; this proved successful. Two walking tours led by Derby historians helped to illuminate Derby’s heritage of Christian scientific discovery by telling the story of a number of Enlightenment thinkers including John Whitehurst, John Flamsteed and George Sorocold.

This Poole-based project has provided opportunities to draw upon the experience of healthcare professionals in order to explore contemporary medicine in the context of Christian faith. A behind the scenes tour of Poole Hospital has been a particular highlight and involved over fifty people visiting the pharmacy, neurophysiology, medical physics and radiotherapy departments and to learn about some of the technology involved, not least the LINAC (Linear Accelerator). A ‘Medial Panel’ evening provided further opportunities to engage with the area through quizzing General Practitioners, an IT professional, a Clinical Scientist, an ‘A and E’ nurse, and a hospital chaplain on their work and faith.

Another highlight of the work to date has involved a ‘film clip’ evening exploring dreams and nightmares regarding the future in relation to science, medicine and technology as envisaged in the movies. Future events include an exploration of ‘Human Enhancement’ and the vision of using medicine and technology not simply to heal the sick but to ‘enhance’ humanity. This project is led by Josh Naylor and Justin Tomkins, both of St Mary’s Church, Longfleet, and further details, as well as links to social media, are available through the project website (https://www.sciencefaithandyou.co.uk/ ).

Faith in the Questions is made up of several elements brought together to consider the relationship between faith and science. The event opens with a performance of Counting the Clouds, a newly commissioned one-act play by Nigel Forde. The play Imagines Job as a respected scientist whose work is wrestling with the unpredictable structure of the universe. Is God really in control? When Job’s personal world is shaken to the core, how can he reassemble the pieces of the puzzle, both professionally and spiritually? In conversation with God, Job is invited to look harder

in the natural world, to question further and think more deeply… in effect to take up the position of science.

During a break for coffee, audience members are invited to submit written questions to a moderator who then chairs around 50 minutes of discussion with a penal of four scientists on the subjects raised by the questions. Questions raised on the three nights in June 2017, varied tremendously from evening to evening covering subjects from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering via stem cell research and matters of biblical interpretation. Discussion was lively, relevant and honest about what cannot be known yet and the consequent challenges. Science, faith and art under one roof proved both thought provoking and stimulating. We trust that many went away both hopeful and encouraged.

The first Saddleworth Science Faith Festival will take place in the week beginning Sunday 15^th September. The project will deliver Science Faith Communicators into lessons and Assemblies across Primary Schools and hopefully at least one Secondary School. There will also be a Family Science Faith Night. In addition, we hope to deliver science faith liturgies across the nine congregation congregations in the Saddleworth Anglican team churches. We will encourage a Messy Science Church session and find and encourage the Scientists in our congregations to talk about the interaction between science and faith.

We are hoping one thousand children and some of their parents will be impacted by Science Faith Communicators, and that through the Parent Assemblies there will be impact on children’s, parent’s and adult’s perceptions of a typical scientist. We are planning (and hoping) for an impact on children’s attitudes to asking questions that bridge science and faith and their personal accounts of how science and religion relate on Origins and Evolution.

Science is a gift, blessing and resource for the Church. CSI: Canterbury seeks to widen and deepen the engagement of science and technology within the church by running a series of talks that give an overview of contemporary science in relation to Christian faith. CSI will facilitate congregations’ engagement with contemporary science and enhance their discipleship and worship of God by understanding His creation more clearly and acting as good stewards toward it. It seeks to enable Christians of all ages, to see STEM related occupations as a positive vocation and calling.

CSI: Canterbury is organised by Perry Enever (who tutors in general science and biology as an Associate Lecturer with the Open University) and Rev Andrew Fitzgerald, the pastor of Canterbury Baptist Church).

Our parish includes Granta Park, one of the leading life-science parks in the Cambridge cluster.  We are planning a series of lunchtime talks by high profile scientists on big science-faith related questions. Our hope is that will attract interest from those who work at Granta –  some major companies on the campus employ over 3,000 employees.

Our plan is for the talks – to be held at the prestigious Granta Centre- to stimulate discussion and debate about the role, relevance and inter-relationship of the Christian faith with the scientific world.  We aim to challenge the myth that science and faith are incompatible.

For the first talk, Dr Denis Alexander will respond to this big question: ‘Has science buried God?’  Denis Alexander is Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge and Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Future speakers include Professor Russell Cowburn FRS and Professor Keith Fox. Residents of the parish will also be invited.

We hope too that this project will be of significance to the Ely diocese as a model for ministry to the many science parks that are in the diocese.

Lichfield Cathedral will mark the 50^th anniversary of the moon landing by transforming the Cathedral’s vast nave floor into a huge visual reproduction of the moon’s surface. ‘One Small Step’ will examine the human instinct to travel, explore and discover, enabling us to reflect on one of the most significant journeys that humanity has ever undertaken. The installation – which will run from July to September– invites visitors to examine the intersection of science and faith in the context of space exploration.

Visitors and worshippers will effectively ‘walk on the moon’ when they come into the Cathedral. This extraordinary visual effect will be available free to the Cathedral’s daily visitors during the school holidays, and while the installation is in place the Cathedral’s services will take place ‘on the moon’ enabling exploration of faith and science through liturgy. The installation will also provide the setting for a series of lectures, events and activities aiming to engage congregation, schools, families and the public with questions around faith and the science of space travel and exploration.

https://www.lichfield-cathedral.org/

Revd Andrew Thomas writes: “In my opinion a deeper engagement between science and faith serves to strengthen the life and mission of Christians and their local congregations. It should serve to deepen their personal and corporate faith in several ways; instilling a sense of confidence in the credibility of their faith…This doesn’t mean they have all the answers and go and tell everyone, but rather that they are more knowledgeable on the subject and therefore better prepared for dialogue with people who are not believers. This knowledge combined with humility and courage could be an excellent springboard for revitalised churches and communities.

We plan to create a series of short videos on subjects exploring different elements of the relationship between science and the Christian faith in order to educate, provoke discussion, and inspire further engagement with the topic. The target audience is primarily Christians and guests who attend our Sunday Café Church. We are planning a series compiled of 4 videos, accompanied with discussion materials so that the videos can be watched on the big screen and then discussed in small groups.”

https://www.cafechurch.org.uk/?fbclid=IwAR1FEwsx3x8ZNI6VkuGuNUSrTUA8-vSPiBRyWgR2Z6gf-jttqYfD9Swcm7E

Following a successful series of lectures on ‘Science and Faith’ in 2018, we are now planning an event at the Cathedral which will make use of liturgy and choral music to shed fresh light on the Book of Genesis and a scientific view of creation.

Michael Reiss, FRS, prominent bioethicist, educator, journalist and Anglican priest will speak on ‘Science and Religion’. He is Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education, University College, London.   Philip Moore has been commissioned to compose music to form a setting for the words of “Genesis for the 21^stcentury”. This was written by renowned scientist-theologian, Revd Canon Dr Arthur Peacocke, winner of the Templeton Prize in 2001.

We will ask for feedback from those who attend and specifically find out how it affected their understanding of Creation, Science and Religion.

MES-AI Church aims to stimulate a dialogue on increasingly important areas of robotics and artificial intelligence in the life of local churches and their communities.  Developing from a previous “Scientists in Congregations” project – The Bible Readings Fellowship “Messy Church Does Science” – it will enable children and adults to explore the creativity of science and technology, alongside exploring what robotics and artificial intelligence might say about humanities relationship with God.

MES-AI Church is a pilot project run at Croxley Green Baptist Church led by Messy Churches Does Science’s, “Dr Dave” and members of the church involved in the IT industry.  Based around Lego MINDSTORM, a programmable form of the popular Lego Technic often used school STEM activities, in afternoon workshops shaped by Messy Church’s ethos of hospitality, creativity and celebration, families with children aged 10-13 with an interest in AI will build robots that can respond to a series of challenges. Alongside developing skills in programming and experience of the principles and potential of AI, the project will engage with theological and ethical questions that AI raises and provide a vehicle for people of all ages to explore their own faith, spirituality and engagement with God.  Material for the workshops will be published on the Bible Reading Fellowship in early 2020.

https://www.croxleybaptist.co.uk/

Messy Church is part of The Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF). We offer families, many of whom have never set foot in a church before, an experience of church that is suited to their needs and embraces Christ-centeredness, hospitality, creativity celebration and all-age. There are around 3,500 Messy Churches worldwide and they reach a staggering half a million people each month.

In 2017 Scientists in Congregations very kindly funded Messy Church Does Science, a project aiming to demonstrate that science and faith are complementary. It’s been a huge success with Messy Churches everywhere, so now we want to bring the concept to new audiences.

This year we’re developing Messy Church Does Science in Schools, an afterschool club for the whole family. Through it we hope to expand peoples’ horizons, encourage more families to explore science, and help build faith and scientific understanding. We’ll be working with five different schools and churches across the country, so we may be coming to an area near you soon!

https://www.messychurch.org.uk/messy-church-does-science

What do our attitudes to these human-made technologies teach us about God, ourselves and relationship? Dr Scott Midson will be presenting findings from his work on love and robots in Manchester Cathedral in November and will introduce a series of films that explore what robots are, and what love is, in order to think about whether the two go together.

As rapid advances in robotics and artificial intelligence take shape, people are starting to ask about the attachments that can develop between human beings and these machines. This idea has attracted a lot of media attention particularly in recent years, for example with reports in Japan of people even marrying their virtual assistant.  From robotic assistants to robotic animals – robotic seals, for instance, are already in use in nursing homes around the world – how are we to evaluate these developments? We need to think carefully and critically about both what robots are and what love is in order to develop accurate critiques, which is the focus of this event that connects religious and philosophical ideas with technological and scientific applications.

Daniel Pereira, one of the project leaders, writes: “Our Scientists in Congregations project has both a challenge and a stimulus: we are going to present science to a congregation, assuming the only knowledge they have about it is the GCSE content – or less. Also, we serve a multicultural congregation with loads of Portuguese speakers. So, we are preparing content which will show God in science and nature. Both in the English language and Portuguese.

Our aim is to help Christians to view the Creator as a Creator indeed, by answering questions that our modern society presents and hopefully empower them to have a solid Christian view in a scientific society.”

Connect Methodist Church website http://cntchurch.co.uk/

The four town centre churches in Sidmouth will host open lectures on “Caring for the Ocean”, “Caring for the Atmosphere”, “Caring for the Land” and “Caring for the World” on the four Sunday evenings of October 2019. Each will be followed up in weekday discussion groups in the churches. The aim is to raise awareness of the scientific evidence of how we are changing our world, in relation to our moral choices as individuals and as church communities.

The lectures form part of the Sidmouth Science Festival, which takes place from October 5th – 13th. Further details are advertised at https://www.sidvalley.org.uk/events.html and https://www.sidmouthsciencefestival.org/festival.”

 Science and the language of prayer is a programme of five seminars hosted at Bramhall Methodist Church in the autumn of 2019. Our aim is to explore how a modern understanding of science might influence how we think about God and, more particularly, the language we use to express our prayers. We’ve got an exciting programme of key-note speakers each prominent in a different are of science and each talking about a different aspect of prayer. After each talk we will hold workshops developing materials with which to populate our website. We hope through doing this that we will provide resources for individuals or small groups who may want to explore the themes that we have been looking at. For further details please visit our web-site at:  https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/.

With the national and international range of the Met Office based in Exeter, we are in a unique position as a church to create a new and beneficial relationship with that scientific community.  Our challenge at St Thomas’s – a traditional Anglican parish – is how to relate the world and thinking of the parish (theological, liturgical, cultural) with that of the scientific community around it.  How can we cultivate a richer and deeper engagement between science and faith?

One way forward is to explore the relationship between science and sacrament.  Can we can develop some congruence between scientific thinking and the parish’s own philosophy/theology? What are points of tension and challenge between these two concepts?  Here we will build on connections provided by a parish lay leader who works at the Met Office.

This is stage one. We will use this process as a springboard for work with two other scientific locations in the university and health service.

On Friday 29^th September 2017, a bilingual event, Duw a’r Glec Fawr – God and the Big Bang, was delivered at a Welsh-language medium school in South Wales, Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg, Llangynwyd. Through a series of presentations and workshops this event helped senior school students explore the relationship between faith and science.

During the event we recorded video interviews with participating scientists, addressing some of the key questions which regularly arise about science and faith. These videos will be used later at a science and faith evening at Salem Baptist Church, Tonteg which will be open to people from other local churches.

Over subsequent weeks the videos will be discussed by members of a local church youth group and uploaded in weekly instalments onto a smartphone app designed for church-based young people in the Pontypridd area.

For more information contact: Revd Dr Peter Stevenson pks@swbc.org.uk

Faith in the Questions brings art and science together to grapple with the challenges surrounding belief and scientific enquiry. For many people today this has become a mistrustful and sharply adversarial conversation. Which side is God on? Or is this the wrong question to ask?

Counting The Clouds, a new one-act play by Nigel Forde, casts the biblical figure of Job as a modern day scientist. Job wrestles with the unpredictable structure of the universe, asking if God could possibly be in control?  When Job’s personal world is shaken to the core, how can he reassemble the pieces of the puzzle, both professionally and personally? 

Counting The Clouds is the opening gambit in Faith in the Questions, raising contemporary questions both personal and scientific to inform an evening of lively debate and discussion. Following the play, audience members address their own questions to a panel of leading scientists drawn from a wide spectrum of scientific expertise.

Paul Burbridge, Artistic Director of Riding Lights Theatre Company, said: ‘This is an excellent way to get everyone talking and thinking – high-quality theatre provoking wide-ranging conversation with eminent scientists about questions of christian faith and scientific enquiry.  The theatre gives a lively human context to the debate and you don’t have to be either a student of science or someone of faith to enjoy engaging with these crucial issues.’

Faith in the Questions will tour university towns including London, Manchester and Sheffield from January.

This youth-led project led by young people from St Andrew’s Church Bishopthorpe in York, helped by staff from the Archbishop of York Youth Trust, put on a day conference called ‘OMG Science! Unlocking the wonder of our world…’ for students from secondary schools across York back in March 2017. We were lucky enough to have some leading Physicists and Biologists with us for the day, as well as a team of young postgrads and lecturers from York and Leeds and Sheffield Universities. These experts really gave the young people confidence to engage in issues touching on both faith and science. The event lived up to its name, giving students the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. Seminar titles included: ‘the nanoworld – small is different’, ‘evolution – is there really a clash of science and faith?’ ‘natural disasters or evil?’ and ‘life, the sea, and other mysteries.’ We had use of a giant cosmodome for the day, which opened up questions about the origins, the vastness, and the meaning of the universe.

Due to the generosity of those who gave their time to speak at or take part in this event, we have funds left for a second conference, which we intend to run along similar lines next year, probably in nearby Leeds. There is also material to prepare to develop a scientific module for the Archbishop of York Young Leaders Award – a key part of our programme.

During May–July five talks have been given by leading scientists from Newcastle and Cambridge Universities in different locations in the Tyne valley, providing Christian viewpoints on topics including climate change, evolution, and the credibility of miracles; the events have been hosted by various local churches in church, school and public hall venues and have attracted audiences of 50–100 from a range of backgrounds and experience.  The talks have been followed by lively discussion.

Four further talks have been arranged for September–November 2017 with speakers from across the country addressing topics including natural disasters and artificial intelligence.  We expect the project will lead to a continuing engagement of local churches with the science-faith relationship, in which there is clearly much interest.

The aims of the ‘On Common Ground’ project by Exeter Cathedral:

1. Can there be a mutually enhancing relationship between science and faith?
2. Do the findings of science challenge our faith in any way?
3. Can God feature in scientific discourse?
4. Is faith relevant in our contemporary ‘scientific world’?
5. Are scientists playing God? Can we use Christian ethics to evaluate the applications of science?

Project activities

The main activities were four events, described as a brief Lent Course, with the first timed to coincide with the start of National Science Week.

The first event was a talk entitled ‘The Continuing Dance between Theology and Science’ by Professor Tom McLeish in Exeter Cathedral, followed, after a break for refreshments, by questions and discussion. This was chaired by Prof John Bryant

The second was a panel debate on ‘Are Scientists Playing God? – Science and Christian Ethics’, in the style of Question Time, held at the University of Exeter. The discussion was chaired by Dame Suzi Leather who had prepared ‘starter questions’ on several topics which in turn stimulated questions from the audience

The third was a conversation on the topic of ‘Beauty, Awe and Wonder in Science – but what about God?’ between a Christian biologist, Dr Ruth Bancewicz and an atheist Earth Scientist/Climate Change Expert, Professor Tim Lenton. The conversation was facilitated by Professor John Bryant and followed with questions from the audience.

The final event was a panel discussion, entitled ‘My Science, My Faith’, with five scientist-Christians, representing a range of disciplines. The chair for the discussion was Dr Cherryl Hunt who holds PhDs in both Cell Biology and Theology. Questions before the refreshment break had been complied by Professor Bryant and Dr Hunt and included questions that had been submitted on-line.  After the break, questions came from the audience.

www.oncommonground.net

Twitter: @ocgconversation

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ocgconversation/

The aim of our project is to give local church leader and RE and science teachers added confidence in addressing issues in the relationship between science and the Christian faith and to provide access to helpful resources, including speakers, literature and other media. We plan to achieve this aim by running two one-day events.

The first event, scheduled for 23rd November 2017, will consist of separate afternoon sessions, for church leaders and then for teachers, to demonstrate the resources available and provide some training for delegates in their use. We are also pleased to have Professor Sir Colin Humpherys as a contributor to these sessions. Sir Colin is Professor and Director of Research, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge. In the evening, Sir Colin will give a public lecture entitled ‘Can a scientist believe in miracles?’

The second event, scheduled for 24th February 2018, will be a full day public conference on the relationship between science and the Christian faith, with prestigious speakers discussing the issues from a variety of scientific disciplines. It will be hosted by St. Andrew’s Church, Plymouth and is designed as an example of a church-led event on the topic. The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion will be assisting in the organisation of this event.

Project website: www.cissouthwest.co.uk