In this episode, we explore the intersection of faith and science with Sarah Moring from God and the Big Bang (GatBB). Sarah encourages us to step into the gap between church teaching and the science curriculum to create a place where children and young people can ask their big questions, blending scientific exploration and faith formation.
The episode touches on creation and evolution, with an openness of perspective. How can we bring God our questions and our wondering, and find faith in our understanding of our world?
Roots has partnered with GatBB to create a STEM-themed Roots Holiday Club exploring:
- Can science support faith in God?
- Can science answer all our questions?
- Can faith be based on evidence?
- Does science make it hard to believe in God?
- Does science solve all our problems?
Through fun science-based activities, children are encouraged to discover more about faith and science. As well as experiments, discussions, crafts and quizzes, each session features a Bible passage to explore together and tells the story of a significant scientist, such as Mary Anning, in a way that helps to unpack the session theme.
Visit www.gatbb.co.uk or contact Sarah at info@gatbb.co.uk to find out how you can book God and the Big Bang to come into a school near you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Space, evolution, and the Big Bang Theory in school science lessons,
it can bring up some big questions about faith.
Does science contradict what I've been taught about God creating the world?
Is there a scientific explanation for miracles? Can I believe in both God and science?
These questions stretch beyond the science curriculum into philosophy and ethics,
(00:22):
meaning schools find them challenging to address.
As a local church, engaging with the big questions about faith and science is
a fantastic way to build or strengthen relationships with schools in your area,
and to help children discover more of God.
Roots have partnered with God in the Big Bang, a Christian organization that
works at the intersection of faith and science, to create a holiday club called
(00:45):
Whiz Bang Wow, available summer 2024.
Today, I'm talking to Sarah Mooring from God in the Big Bang about science,
faith, and how churches can be safe places for big questions.
Thanks for joining us for the Roots for Churches podcast. Here we go.
(01:06):
Hello, Sarah. It's great to have you on the Roots podcast.
You work for God in the Big Bang, and we have been working together to make
a holiday club that's going to be available in in our June, July, August issue.
But I'd love to just find out a bit more about you. Can you tell us about your
story? Where are you from? How did you get involved in science and faith?
(01:28):
Yeah, so I grew up in London in an interesting household, really.
My mum was a vicar, my dad's an engineer.
So the idea of science and faith being a possible conflict was something I never really came across.
I really loved science at school, had some great teachers who really really encouraged me.
And so I went off to do a degree in pharmaceutical science and had big dreams
(01:53):
of discovering all kinds of new cures and medicines, but realized that actually
I quite liked talking about science, didn't really like being in a lab so much.
So I went off to do a master's in science communication, which would let me
talk about science all day long.
And it was only when I got to my first day doing that, my first lecture,
someone else on the course came came out with this very bold statement that was,
(02:17):
religion is used to oppress people and science is used to set them free from that. And I had...
I had a faith myself for a long time at that point. When I'd been doing my first
degree, I really felt like I grew in my faith a lot and kind of developed it for myself.
And no one had ever questioned how I could be a Christian and be doing a science degree.
(02:39):
And so hearing this as I got to this new point of learning was a bit of a surprise
and kind of opened up this world of thinking about science and faith and what
science really is and what it's great for, but what its limitations are.
And just having loads of conversations with people
about how they they saw science as a
potential barrier to faith and yeah
(03:02):
and how they kind of saw faith in a more negative light and
yeah just a really really interesting journey and
led me to do a lot of questioning and
kind of research myself and meant that
I came across this project called God and the Big Bang I had
no idea that there was any work going on in
schools in this area but when I came to the end of that master's thought
(03:23):
it would be a great opportunity to start working
in that area yeah be able to talk about science in the
way that I really wanted to but be able to bring my
faith into that as well and it means I get to have loads of great conversations
with children and young people about the questions that they have and really
encourage them not just in their science but in their faith as well and show
(03:44):
them the yeah the opportunities to bring the two together that's fascinating
so So you've worked for God and the Big Bang for five years?
Almost five years. And how long has God and the Big Bang been around?
It's been around for just over 10 years.
So it came out of a motion that the Diocese of Manchester took to the General
Synod of the Church of England, which said science and faith are compatible.
(04:08):
They passed that with a very overwhelming majority and basically said to the
Diocese of Manchester, well, do something about it then.
So it was decided that actually a project to
try and demonstrate that compatibility to children and
young people in schools would be a great way to do that and
so yeah that began this project originally just with sixth form students and
(04:31):
we now work with key stage one all the way through to key stage five looking
at all of these topics around science and faith particularly those that feature
in the curriculum that might bring up some big and tricky questions and so yeah
we're We're now based at St.
John's College in the University of Durham, but we work all over the country doing that.
Fantastic. That's so interesting. And obviously, science is in the national curriculum.
(04:55):
It's in there from probably reception. They're learning weighing and measuring
and exploring with their eyes and ears all the way, obviously,
until GCSEs and A-levels across, you know, science is taught and it's taught as fact.
And and so children will encounter i
think we were talking about this earlier encounter evolution being taught in
(05:16):
around year six so age 10 and that can be a bit of a faith challenge perhaps
for children where they may have been to church or they may be in a church school
where they've learned about the creation story and then now they're taught in their science lesson.
This is this is the big bang this is evolution this is
how it happened have you had conversations with
(05:38):
children where they've talked about like what do I do
with this how do I hold these these things together how
do I put them together are they both true yeah so we we
really commonly well firstly meet teachers particularly
working in church schools who feel completely ill-equipped you know they want
to stay really true to the kind of Christian ethos of the school but also they
(06:00):
have a curriculum to teach yeah that science curriculum is is set for them um
and so yeah they They don't know how to kind of bring those two things together.
And I think it's a great opportunity really for children to see the same teacher,
most likely we'll be teaching them RE as we'll be teaching them science when
(06:21):
they're in primary school.
So if we can give them the tools to be able to do that really well, then that's great.
But yeah, we then get some great questions like, well, is it God or the Big Bang or...
How can evolution and creation be true at the same time? They struggle to bring
two types of information together.
(06:41):
It feels very one or the other making a choice between the two.
So that's where we're trying to just give them a little bit more to think about
to help them work out how both could be true at the same time.
So keep going because I'm interested.
I'm probably going to have this conversation with my daughter after she learns it.
How do you label those types types
of information like what is science information what is faith information
(07:04):
and how how would you talk that through with them yeah so we
talk a lot about evidence so science as
we know is based on evidence it's really commonly
taught as facts that this is 100% what
is true this is what we found out but actually what we
understand about the world through science changes a
lot so the theory of the big bang is almost
(07:26):
100 years old but actually the evidence that has been
added to to that theory over those last hundred years
is huge and is still being added to
so it could be that in a hundred years time our understanding
of the beginnings of the universe are totally different to
what they are now and the same with evolution it's
it's still quite new science that we're still have
(07:47):
loads of questions about and so yes science
is based on evidence kind of those little clues that
we can piece together to try and have a better understanding but faith
is based on evidence as well and so
we try and kind of paint a parallel between
the two of you know we we have our
understanding about God and who God is and and
(08:09):
how God might have created through evidence and we have different types of evidence
to help us sometimes it's helpful to compare it to like a police investigation
where they're trying to figure out what's happened they're going to use lots
of different types of evidence to help them with that. Maybe things like.
Fingerprints or CCTV or interviews. They wouldn't just use one and decide they're 100% sure.
(08:34):
And so we could use what science tells us as some of the evidence,
but actually that's never going to answer all of the questions that we might
have about something like creation.
And so we can then look to the Bible, to scripture, to help us with some of
those other questions as a different type of information.
So particularly the creation story is
(08:56):
written and so poetically to me it's not written like a science textbook it
wasn't designed to be read as a science textbook that therefore would contradict
what science has been able to find out actually if we look at it as a poem it
still has some really deep truth to it then it's a helpful,
extra type of information that sits really nicely alongside the science without
(09:20):
contradicting but but actually being really complementary to each other.
That's really good that science is able to help us with some of the what and
the how questions, but science rarely explains why.
Science doesn't tell us the motive at all and often doesn't tell us the who.
Like, you know, maybe forensic science might give you a fingerprint that should
(09:40):
lead you in the right way.
But often it doesn't tell you, again, sort of the deep understanding of what's
going on in somebody's mind or heart or intentions.
Intentions it doesn't help us understand why we're here
on the earth at all and so again those questions are
different and so you need different sources for different kind of
questions and understanding those things so it's
(10:01):
very it's been really exciting to write a holiday club together
and we explore over five sessions five
different topics the topics are wide
ranging so we explore explore the first one
is can science support faith in god and we
look at the big bang the solar system the whole
(10:21):
idea of the goldilocks zone and the bible story of
god and job and job questioning god and god answering him and there's a scientist
in each of the sessions that we explore and george lametra is a christian who
was the guy who thought up the big bang theory so that's quite interesting that
the very first person who came
up with this was a man of faith who had definitely read the scriptures.
(10:42):
And then session two is, can science answer all of our questions?
I think we've probably given a little spoiler there that it probably can't,
but it does help us. It leaves us with lots of other questions.
It helps us with many things, and we're exploring the universe through science, but it.
Doesn't answer everything. So we look at Isaac Newton and gravity and do some
(11:05):
exciting explosions with apples and fun experiments.
Yeah, that's good. And then session three is, can faith be based on evidence?
We're looking at the scientific method and lots of fun stuff to do with fossils and dinosaurs.
And Mary Anning, another Christian who was passionate about God and about paleontology.
(11:26):
And we look at the bible story of gideon and
gideon testing god how do we test and know what's
true which is a big science thing as well as
a faith thing yeah yeah yeah session four is does science make it hard to believe
in god and we look at dna and our senses looking at the idea of wonder in god's
(11:47):
creation through psalm 19 and we look at the scientist francis collins who was
part of the the Human Genome Project.
And he's quite famous for talking about faith and science and how that they
go together really well for him.
Yeah, he is. He features in the Alpha Course videos. If you've ever used those,
then you'll recognize him from that. Yeah, he's got quite a smiley face.
(12:09):
And session five is, does science solve all our problems?
That science can offer us solutions, but it doesn't actually change the human heart.
And so we look at the story of the Good Samaritan and how, yeah,
how it's God who helps us actually use the medicine to help heal the man on the side of the road.
It's God who helps us engage with issues. We need God to change our hearts and
(12:32):
help us with compassion.
And the science topic we explore is vaccines and viruses and the COVID epidemic and how that works.
And we look at Kizmekia Corbett, who's another Christian who was very much involved
in the COVID-19 vaccine.
So lots of fun and interesting stuff to
impact pack and explore and we've called
the whole holiday club whiz bang
(12:54):
wow because there's quite a lot of experiments things that
bubble and explode and things to to make and do i think the kids will have a
lot of fun yeah things to do in a very easy and accessible way so you're not
to go and buy loads of chemicals or anything like that no yeah no easy to kitchen
science that kind of stuff but it still looks impressive not too much prep but it's quite good fun.
(13:18):
So we've talked a little bit about this idea
of creation and evolution but i
just wanted to come back i mean the big bang is in the name of the organization
and i think one big question people might have is like well if i believe that
you know in a seven day creation is am i gonna be able to use this holiday club
is that are we sort of teaching a particular way of understanding scripture
(13:41):
here what would you say to that,
Yeah, we're definitely open to absolutely anyone, whatever it is that you might believe.
We go into schools, we work with churches as well, where we just really encourage
everyone to consider what their perspective is, what their point of view is,
and maybe think, how might someone else approach this question?
(14:02):
How might someone else answer this?
And see actually by bringing different perspectives and those different types
of knowledge together might help us to have a little bit of a better understanding.
So we're really keen to encourage children
and young people particularly to see that actually not all
Christians think the same thing everyone has their own
understanding of God and of the world and
(14:24):
how it came into being and so yeah there's no right or
wrong answers here at all and it's just exploring some
of those big questions in a really honest way so
yeah if you you feel like you don't have any
of the answers that's okay but yeah coming
with with your perspective with an openness to consider someone
else's is key really I think it's welcoming curiosity
(14:46):
around faith and science like a key quality of a good scientist is curiosity
yeah I think it works for faith as well like we grow when we're curious we grow
in our faith when we're curious and so expressing those questions those doubts
and allowing God to speak to
us and allowing having to learn from other people is really, really key.
When we look in the Gospels, Jesus asked, I think it's 316 questions,
(15:10):
something around that. Wow. Yeah.
Far more questions and answers from Jesus. So it's a good thing to follow.
He's getting lots of questions.
He was very tricky, wasn't he? They'd ask him a really hard question and he'd
turn it around on them and ask them one back.
But it is an incredible tactic because it does sort of get underneath the surface
of these questions and these issues.
It's like, what do you want to know? So why are you asking that question and unpacking that?
(15:34):
I was just reflecting on just that idea of how do we understand Scripture and how.
Do we expect the Bible to be sort of a science textbook?
And I think I definitely grew up in a church where I think maybe it's just modernism,
but the way the Bible was viewed was sort of a quasi history stroke science
(15:56):
faith textbook and that you sort of read it and it answered everything and it was always all true,
but it was hard to find nuance. It was hard to understand poetry.
I don't think it was taught in a way where you understood, well,
this is meditation literature, this is wisdom literature.
(16:18):
It's not meant to only mean one thing. It's got multi-layers of understanding
and there's metaphor and all sorts of stuff going on.
And so there's more than one way to understand what's going on here.
And it links to all these other passages.
Jesus is often quoting the Old Testament. So there's all sorts of synergy that's
coming together and things.
And I think the way that I was maybe brought up to read scripture didn't have
(16:43):
the richness that I now see is
in scripture by understanding sort of the literary styles that is there.
And I think when we see the Bible as kind of a science textbook.
And there are lots of science terms and science things that happen in the Bible,
but it's not given to us as here's a science textbook, or even here's a sort
(17:05):
of documentary of exactly what what happened historically,
it's told with a purpose, like a true storyteller is highlighting certain things for you to see.
And so, you know, you gloss over some bits and slow down and go into great detail
and other things. And so the way that the Bible is read.
Again, I think helps us understand how to engage with some of these questions
(17:27):
about science and faith.
And so as you were saying, you know, there's actually two creation narratives.
It's told sort of once in really big, broad brushstrokes, this happened,
this happened, this happened.
And then you get a zoom in on the story of Adam and Eve, and it's told again.
And so there's obviously authors sort
of trying to get us to see themes and understand bits
(17:48):
of wisdom from that story their main agenda may
not have been and this is exactly how it happened and the
big bang happened here and the sun was here and the
planet was here and that kind of thing yeah yeah I
think yeah definitely looking at what
what the text really is and so we
look at the bible as a whole it's not one book it's lots
(18:10):
and lots of books all put together into one and so
yeah taking each of those four for what it
is and reading it in that particular way so yeah as you she said I'm not
going to read a great long family tree of someone's lineage
in the same way that I would read a psalm completely different
types of writing and so yeah I think particularly looking at the creation accounts
(18:30):
as you say there's more than one then looking at those as poetry which maybe
contain some metaphor in there and I think with metaphor doesn't mean that that's not true true.
So sometimes a helpful way to try and explain this to children,
their teacher might say to them, you're a star.
Well, they all know what that means. They also all know that they're not literally a star.
(18:55):
And so there are things that we say that have truth kind of hidden within them
without being literally true.
And so we can look at something like the creation account. Well,
that has so much deep truth in it.
And to me, what that story says is that God created
everything thing and God thinks that everything is really
good and it tells us something of what it means to be
(19:16):
part of that creation doesn't have
to tell me literally how that happened because that's
not what I would say the intention of the text
is really the creation story was was written down and kind of explained to get
across the idea of there being one God because it was at a time where there
was all kinds of ideas about how the world came into being and so yeah obviously
(19:39):
at a time where we had no clue about things like the Big Bang or evolution.
We've been able to kind of unravel more of that mystery as time's gone on.
But yeah, I think it's a story that still stands true with lots of that truth
in, but we kind of see between the lines a little bit more through science.
And I mean, I've often said to people like.
(20:00):
In my mind, God's perfectly capable of doing it in seven days.
That's what it means to be God Almighty is, you know, he can do miracles and
he's perfectly capable of doing it in a literal seven days if he wanted to.
He could have done it in one.
Like that is fully within, and nobody's arguing God's power or capacity,
but what are we meant to understand through that?
(20:21):
And, you know, growing up, I remember people arguing about,
you know, creation versus evolution and people would would say oh stop
arguing it's not a salvation issue and it felt
in some ways it was a way of sort of saying yes you're right
we should be united in Christ we have so many other things
that keep us together but there's also an integrity thing of people do need
to wrestle these things through particularly if you are a scientist or you want
(20:44):
to understand these things it's like you need to know what you think about these
things and how it works with your faith and to just park it and go well never
mind but that doesn't you know the integrity inside of us We want to explore these things with God.
And I think it is really important for people to grapple and for children to
be able to understand that there are different kinds of truth and there's different ways of knowing.
(21:04):
But that these things don't mean that because I've accepted the Big Bang that
I need to throw the Bible away or because I've accepted the Bible that I have
to plug my ears and sing la la la when my teacher is talking about evolution.
They're not mutually exclusive, that there is a way for a
person to have both of those in their life
and to understand the gifts that those
(21:25):
those bits of wisdom and knowledge give us yeah
so i wanted
to unpack a bit around we look
at lots of different scientists in the holiday
club different scientists who have been involved in
loads of different parts of science and
(21:45):
some of of them are quite historic some of them
are current and alive and and what is
it about science and christianity like why why
are there so many christians who are involved in science why do you
think that is yeah i think there's such a perception that there must be just
a tiny handful of scientists who have somehow been able to reconcile that with
(22:06):
a christian faith but if we look at people who have won the nobel prize a huge
majority of those people have a faith and And right back,
I mean, we highlight Isaac Newton as an example,
obviously a very, very prominent scientist who also had a faith.
And so I think when we look at what scientists are doing, they're asking questions
(22:28):
about the world, trying to figure out what happened, or even questions about the universe.
Us. And so I think from looking out into space.
To the stars, to the planets, right down to the very tiny intricacies of how
our bodies and our cells work, that inspires some awe and wonder.
(22:49):
And maybe for some people, they just think, wow, that's really cool. And then move on.
But for others, if that happens again and again, that might start to bring up the question of.
Is it all a coincidence or actually does this whole universe that seems to follow
all of these different laws and all be just working perfectly?
(23:10):
Yeah, we talk about the Goldilocks zone. That's the point in our solar system
where it seems to be just right for human life to exist.
If we were ever so slightly further away from the sun or closer to the sun,
or if the moon was a slightly different size, we just couldn't be here.
And so it kind of points towards this idea that it seems pretty reasonable to
(23:30):
think there could be a creator behind all of this.
And that's the position that a surprising number of scientists find themselves in.
I think there's something about the more you engage with science,
the more you look at creation, the more you look at deep dive into what's going
on inside the human body, that wonder and awe,
(23:51):
drives us to worship as well of knowing wow
wow god you know you did all of this and and
so often it can go wrong and we do see you know
disease and illness and viruses and things that do go wrong but actually so
often it goes right yeah and and that to me sometimes seems so much more miraculous
like we're all here and breathing and and connecting and and it's amazing yeah
(24:15):
yeah so So I think science often points us to God rather than away.
We imagine that as people do this holiday club, that some tricky questions will come up.
We're going to hope tricky questions will come up because that's the whole point, isn't it?
To create space for questions, curiosity, grappling, discussing science of faith
(24:37):
and the intersection there.
What would you say to somebody who's running a holiday club who's like,
I'm not a scientist and I'm a little bit worried of the amazing questions that
these children and young people will ask?
Yeah, I think even by the session titles, it might feel like you're opening
Pandora's box a little bit, being thrown all kinds of questions.
But yeah, I think that's part of the joy of talking about this topic that,
(25:01):
yeah, the children and young people coming to the holiday club will have questions already, probably.
They definitely will by the end of the sessions. and it's completely
normal to feel a little bit apprehensive about even knowing
where to start with tackling them and so I guess just
to encourage and perhaps give a few tips on how
to start approaching those I guess first
(25:23):
thing will be to always affirm the
question can feel quite scary to ask a question perhaps if it feels a little
bit controversial or like they're saying the wrong thing just to say that is
a really great question thank you for asking it and then maybe considering where
that question is coming from so sometimes some of these questions might be.
(25:45):
Have something maybe at home for their whole
life and this session suddenly is bringing that
all into question and a different point of view and that can feel quite confusing
or it might be a really specific question about a situation in their life you
might know about it you might not and so just considering what might be beneath
this question is there something a little bit deeper going on and if you think you might have,
(26:09):
a little bit of a clue on how to answer it, great. If you don't,
that's completely fine.
Just saying, actually, I'm not sure about that. Let's have a think together.
Maybe wherever you find yourself during the holiday club, you might be able
to say, we're going to come back to that.
And you might be able to do a little bit of research and we can recommend some
resources to help you do that.
(26:30):
But actually, I think that the kind of humility, vulnerability of just saying,
I don't know all the answers is a really
valuable thing to model as a leader so yeah not
being afraid of the questions but also not feeling like you have
to make up an answer out of nowhere that's okay
I think it's you know not having all the answers as part of being a scientist
that's what makes you keep pursuing it I think that's true in faith as well
(26:53):
we don't have all the answers that's why we go back to God and we pursue more
and more and so teaching children that that questions are and curiosity are
key for both science and faith. I think it's really, really important.
Okay. One of the things that you do is you go into schools as God in the Big Bang.
And I'm thinking some of these churches, these individuals who are running the
(27:16):
holiday club might be like, this was really great.
These kids really engaged, but wouldn't it be great if our local primary school
or secondary school could engage with some of this?
How could they get involved in getting God in
the big bang into a school near them yeah help with that so part of what we're
really keen to do is to help churches with the links that they have with their
(27:37):
school so whether you have a fantastic relationship with your local schools
or whether you can't work out how to get through the door we want to help you
do that and so we offer workshops that can be,
bespoke to your school to what they want to engage with so for primary schools
we offer We offer sessions on evolution, on the Big Bang, on climate change,
(28:00):
on curiosity, all kinds of topics.
But we also have sessions that we call Creation Sings, which are specifically
designed to work with churches and schools together.
And so those days don't just have science and faith, they have science, faith and music as well.
So we've got some songs that have been written for us that have an opportunity
(28:21):
for worship, really. really.
So those themes of awe and wonder will come out through the morning in the sessions that we deliver.
And then the afternoon is learning some songs and getting families involved
as well to celebrate science and science and faith together.
And our hope is that that just starts the conversation. So when those children
go back to school, go back home, they carry on thinking and questioning and talking about it.
(28:46):
For secondary school students, we explore evidence and imagination within science,
as well as the Big Bang and ethics, some of those really big questions for them as well.
So yeah, we work with any year group. We can be really flexible to what the
kind of requirements of your school might be.
(29:06):
And we work all over the country as well.
So yeah, we'd really like to work with you and your schools as well. well.
Workshops are delivered by scientists who are Christians themselves.
And we always have to be careful not to say Christian scientists because that's something different.
But yeah, they're the kind of living and breathing examples of bringing science and faith together.
(29:26):
So yeah, children have an opportunity to encounter them, to ask them questions
and hear their stories as well.
So yeah, if you would be interested, we'd love to hear from you.
And you can get in touch with us at at contact at gatbb.co.uk or our website
is www.gatbb.co.uk and there's loads of information on there as well.
(29:50):
Fantastic. So let me understand how it works.
So if a church invites you and they want to do the creation things,
does that take place in the school or even in the church? I've seen pictures of it in a cathedral.
How does it work? So the church and the school are doing it together?
Yeah so depending on locations really
(30:10):
often we'll go to the school in the morning and
do the kind of normal God and the Big Bang workshops in
there using their classrooms and then over lunchtime
they're making their way to the church and they learn the
songs there and then their families are invited to come there
just before the end of the school day and to have yeah
celebration service it's what we call it so yeah if
(30:32):
it works to have the whole day in church great if it
doesn't work to use church at all that's totally fine um yeah which
kind of depends where we are it's a great way to build links between church
and school and also to say to parents and children that church is really engaging
and that science and and faith are not at odds and this is a place where you
can ask questions and you can learn and have a lot of fun that always helps
(30:54):
too we were going to give people some.
Resources some ideas where can they find
out more you get asked a tricky question where you
know besides just asking google which is you know helpful but
not always what what websites would you recommend what books
would you recommend to help people gen up on their science and faith stuff yeah
(31:14):
so great news is there's loads of resources well you mentioned francis collins
earlier he has set up an organization called biologos and their website has
loads and loads of really accessible articles on really commonly asked questions.
There's also Christians in Science, one of our partner organizations who have
lots of resources as well.
(31:35):
They've got leaflets which you can access for free if that's of interest.
There's lots of books as well I'd recommend. John Lennox has written a few that
are just really short, really accessible,
simple explanations on starting to think
about science and faith which will be helpful for some
of those big questions as well and um
petra who works with god in
(31:57):
the big bank petra crofton helped to write quite
a lot of the content that's in the holiday club did yeah and
she's written some books for children she has yeah so if you've
got children that are particularly interested or
maybe you want prizes to give away during the holiday club
then yeah petra's written two books science geek
sam and science geek christy so you can
(32:18):
get those online as well so yeah that would
be really good well it's been a complete privilege to
talk to you sarah and i hope people um are excited about the holiday club but
also about just thinking more deeply about the intersectionality between science
and faith um and we hope that it's been sparking your curiosity um to to dig
(32:39):
deeper to to explore and see what God shows you. Yeah, great. Thank you.
The Wow Whiz Bang Holiday Club is available with Roots Children and Youth subscription,
and it's in issue July, August 2024.
Or you can find it online from June 2024 on rootsforchurches.com.
(33:00):
If you'd like to find out more about having God and the Big Bang connect with a school near you,
you can go to their website www.gatbb.co.uk or email them at contact at gatbb.co.uk.
Music.
Space, evolution, and the Big Bang Theory in school science lessons,
it can bring up some big questions about faith.
Does science contradict what I've been taught about God creating the world?
Is there a scientific explanation for miracles? Can I believe in both God and science?
These questions stretch beyond the science curriculum into philosophy and ethics,
(00:22):
meaning schools find them challenging to address.
As a local church, engaging with the big questions about faith and science is
a fantastic way to build or strengthen relationships with schools in your area,
and to help children discover more of God.
Roots have partnered with God in the Big Bang, a Christian organization that
works at the intersection of faith and science, to create a holiday club called
(00:45):
Whiz Bang Wow, available summer 2024.
Today, I'm talking to Sarah Mooring from God in the Big Bang about science,
faith, and how churches can be safe places for big questions.
Thanks for joining us for the Roots for Churches podcast. Here we go.
(01:06):
Hello, Sarah. It's great to have you on the Roots podcast.
You work for God in the Big Bang, and we have been working together to make
a holiday club that's going to be available in in our June, July, August issue.
But I'd love to just find out a bit more about you. Can you tell us about your
story? Where are you from? How did you get involved in science and faith?
(01:28):
Yeah, so I grew up in London in an interesting household, really.
My mum was a vicar, my dad's an engineer.
So the idea of science and faith being a possible conflict was something I never really came across.
I really loved science at school, had some great teachers who really really encouraged me.
And so I went off to do a degree in pharmaceutical science and had big dreams
(01:53):
of discovering all kinds of new cures and medicines, but realized that actually
I quite liked talking about science, didn't really like being in a lab so much.
So I went off to do a master's in science communication, which would let me
talk about science all day long.
And it was only when I got to my first day doing that, my first lecture,
someone else on the course came came out with this very bold statement that was,
(02:17):
religion is used to oppress people and science is used to set them free from that. And I had...
I had a faith myself for a long time at that point. When I'd been doing my first
degree, I really felt like I grew in my faith a lot and kind of developed it for myself.
And no one had ever questioned how I could be a Christian and be doing a science degree.
(02:39):
And so hearing this as I got to this new point of learning was a bit of a surprise
and kind of opened up this world of thinking about science and faith and what
science really is and what it's great for, but what its limitations are.
And just having loads of conversations with people
about how they they saw science as a
potential barrier to faith and yeah
(03:02):
and how they kind of saw faith in a more negative light and
yeah just a really really interesting journey and
led me to do a lot of questioning and
kind of research myself and meant that
I came across this project called God and the Big Bang I had
no idea that there was any work going on in
schools in this area but when I came to the end of that master's thought
(03:23):
it would be a great opportunity to start working
in that area yeah be able to talk about science in the
way that I really wanted to but be able to bring my
faith into that as well and it means I get to have loads of great conversations
with children and young people about the questions that they have and really
encourage them not just in their science but in their faith as well and show
(03:44):
them the yeah the opportunities to bring the two together that's fascinating
so So you've worked for God and the Big Bang for five years?
Almost five years. And how long has God and the Big Bang been around?
It's been around for just over 10 years.
So it came out of a motion that the Diocese of Manchester took to the General
Synod of the Church of England, which said science and faith are compatible.
(04:08):
They passed that with a very overwhelming majority and basically said to the
Diocese of Manchester, well, do something about it then.
So it was decided that actually a project to
try and demonstrate that compatibility to children and
young people in schools would be a great way to do that and
so yeah that began this project originally just with sixth form students and
(04:31):
we now work with key stage one all the way through to key stage five looking
at all of these topics around science and faith particularly those that feature
in the curriculum that might bring up some big and tricky questions and so yeah
we're We're now based at St.
John's College in the University of Durham, but we work all over the country doing that.
Fantastic. That's so interesting. And obviously, science is in the national curriculum.
(04:55):
It's in there from probably reception. They're learning weighing and measuring
and exploring with their eyes and ears all the way, obviously,
until GCSEs and A-levels across, you know, science is taught and it's taught as fact.
And and so children will encounter i
think we were talking about this earlier encounter evolution being taught in
(05:16):
around year six so age 10 and that can be a bit of a faith challenge perhaps
for children where they may have been to church or they may be in a church school
where they've learned about the creation story and then now they're taught in their science lesson.
This is this is the big bang this is evolution this is
how it happened have you had conversations with
(05:38):
children where they've talked about like what do I do
with this how do I hold these these things together how
do I put them together are they both true yeah so we we
really commonly well firstly meet teachers particularly
working in church schools who feel completely ill-equipped you know they want
to stay really true to the kind of Christian ethos of the school but also they
(06:00):
have a curriculum to teach yeah that science curriculum is is set for them um
and so yeah they They don't know how to kind of bring those two things together.
And I think it's a great opportunity really for children to see the same teacher,
most likely we'll be teaching them RE as we'll be teaching them science when
(06:21):
they're in primary school.
So if we can give them the tools to be able to do that really well, then that's great.
But yeah, we then get some great questions like, well, is it God or the Big Bang or...
How can evolution and creation be true at the same time? They struggle to bring
two types of information together.
(06:41):
It feels very one or the other making a choice between the two.
So that's where we're trying to just give them a little bit more to think about
to help them work out how both could be true at the same time.
So keep going because I'm interested.
I'm probably going to have this conversation with my daughter after she learns it.
How do you label those types types
of information like what is science information what is faith information
(07:04):
and how how would you talk that through with them yeah so we
talk a lot about evidence so science as
we know is based on evidence it's really commonly
taught as facts that this is 100% what
is true this is what we found out but actually what we
understand about the world through science changes a
lot so the theory of the big bang is almost
(07:26):
100 years old but actually the evidence that has been
added to to that theory over those last hundred years
is huge and is still being added to
so it could be that in a hundred years time our understanding
of the beginnings of the universe are totally different to
what they are now and the same with evolution it's
it's still quite new science that we're still have
(07:47):
loads of questions about and so yes science
is based on evidence kind of those little clues that
we can piece together to try and have a better understanding but faith
is based on evidence as well and so
we try and kind of paint a parallel between
the two of you know we we have our
understanding about God and who God is and and
(08:09):
how God might have created through evidence and we have different types of evidence
to help us sometimes it's helpful to compare it to like a police investigation
where they're trying to figure out what's happened they're going to use lots
of different types of evidence to help them with that. Maybe things like.
Fingerprints or CCTV or interviews. They wouldn't just use one and decide they're 100% sure.
(08:34):
And so we could use what science tells us as some of the evidence,
but actually that's never going to answer all of the questions that we might
have about something like creation.
And so we can then look to the Bible, to scripture, to help us with some of
those other questions as a different type of information.
So particularly the creation story is
(08:56):
written and so poetically to me it's not written like a science textbook it
wasn't designed to be read as a science textbook that therefore would contradict
what science has been able to find out actually if we look at it as a poem it
still has some really deep truth to it then it's a helpful,
extra type of information that sits really nicely alongside the science without
(09:20):
contradicting but but actually being really complementary to each other.
That's really good that science is able to help us with some of the what and
the how questions, but science rarely explains why.
Science doesn't tell us the motive at all and often doesn't tell us the who.
Like, you know, maybe forensic science might give you a fingerprint that should
(09:40):
lead you in the right way.
But often it doesn't tell you, again, sort of the deep understanding of what's
going on in somebody's mind or heart or intentions.
Intentions it doesn't help us understand why we're here
on the earth at all and so again those questions are
different and so you need different sources for different kind of
questions and understanding those things so it's
(10:01):
very it's been really exciting to write a holiday club together
and we explore over five sessions five
different topics the topics are wide
ranging so we explore explore the first one
is can science support faith in god and we
look at the big bang the solar system the whole
(10:21):
idea of the goldilocks zone and the bible story of
god and job and job questioning god and god answering him and there's a scientist
in each of the sessions that we explore and george lametra is a christian who
was the guy who thought up the big bang theory so that's quite interesting that
the very first person who came
up with this was a man of faith who had definitely read the scriptures.
(10:42):
And then session two is, can science answer all of our questions?
I think we've probably given a little spoiler there that it probably can't,
but it does help us. It leaves us with lots of other questions.
It helps us with many things, and we're exploring the universe through science, but it.
Doesn't answer everything. So we look at Isaac Newton and gravity and do some
(11:05):
exciting explosions with apples and fun experiments.
Yeah, that's good. And then session three is, can faith be based on evidence?
We're looking at the scientific method and lots of fun stuff to do with fossils and dinosaurs.
And Mary Anning, another Christian who was passionate about God and about paleontology.
(11:26):
And we look at the bible story of gideon and
gideon testing god how do we test and know what's
true which is a big science thing as well as
a faith thing yeah yeah yeah session four is does science make it hard to believe
in god and we look at dna and our senses looking at the idea of wonder in god's
(11:47):
creation through psalm 19 and we look at the scientist francis collins who was
part of the the Human Genome Project.
And he's quite famous for talking about faith and science and how that they
go together really well for him.
Yeah, he is. He features in the Alpha Course videos. If you've ever used those,
then you'll recognize him from that. Yeah, he's got quite a smiley face.
(12:09):
And session five is, does science solve all our problems?
That science can offer us solutions, but it doesn't actually change the human heart.
And so we look at the story of the Good Samaritan and how, yeah,
how it's God who helps us actually use the medicine to help heal the man on the side of the road.
It's God who helps us engage with issues. We need God to change our hearts and
(12:32):
help us with compassion.
And the science topic we explore is vaccines and viruses and the COVID epidemic and how that works.
And we look at Kizmekia Corbett, who's another Christian who was very much involved
in the COVID-19 vaccine.
So lots of fun and interesting stuff to
impact pack and explore and we've called
the whole holiday club whiz bang
(12:54):
wow because there's quite a lot of experiments things that
bubble and explode and things to to make and do i think the kids will have a
lot of fun yeah things to do in a very easy and accessible way so you're not
to go and buy loads of chemicals or anything like that no yeah no easy to kitchen
science that kind of stuff but it still looks impressive not too much prep but it's quite good fun.
(13:18):
So we've talked a little bit about this idea
of creation and evolution but i
just wanted to come back i mean the big bang is in the name of the organization
and i think one big question people might have is like well if i believe that
you know in a seven day creation is am i gonna be able to use this holiday club
is that are we sort of teaching a particular way of understanding scripture
(13:41):
here what would you say to that,
Yeah, we're definitely open to absolutely anyone, whatever it is that you might believe.
We go into schools, we work with churches as well, where we just really encourage
everyone to consider what their perspective is, what their point of view is,
and maybe think, how might someone else approach this question?
(14:02):
How might someone else answer this?
And see actually by bringing different perspectives and those different types
of knowledge together might help us to have a little bit of a better understanding.
So we're really keen to encourage children
and young people particularly to see that actually not all
Christians think the same thing everyone has their own
understanding of God and of the world and
(14:24):
how it came into being and so yeah there's no right or
wrong answers here at all and it's just exploring some
of those big questions in a really honest way so
yeah if you you feel like you don't have any
of the answers that's okay but yeah coming
with with your perspective with an openness to consider someone
else's is key really I think it's welcoming curiosity
(14:46):
around faith and science like a key quality of a good scientist is curiosity
yeah I think it works for faith as well like we grow when we're curious we grow
in our faith when we're curious and so expressing those questions those doubts
and allowing God to speak to
us and allowing having to learn from other people is really, really key.
When we look in the Gospels, Jesus asked, I think it's 316 questions,
(15:10):
something around that. Wow. Yeah.
Far more questions and answers from Jesus. So it's a good thing to follow.
He's getting lots of questions.
He was very tricky, wasn't he? They'd ask him a really hard question and he'd
turn it around on them and ask them one back.
But it is an incredible tactic because it does sort of get underneath the surface
of these questions and these issues.
It's like, what do you want to know? So why are you asking that question and unpacking that?
(15:34):
I was just reflecting on just that idea of how do we understand Scripture and how.
Do we expect the Bible to be sort of a science textbook?
And I think I definitely grew up in a church where I think maybe it's just modernism,
but the way the Bible was viewed was sort of a quasi history stroke science
(15:56):
faith textbook and that you sort of read it and it answered everything and it was always all true,
but it was hard to find nuance. It was hard to understand poetry.
I don't think it was taught in a way where you understood, well,
this is meditation literature, this is wisdom literature.
(16:18):
It's not meant to only mean one thing. It's got multi-layers of understanding
and there's metaphor and all sorts of stuff going on.
And so there's more than one way to understand what's going on here.
And it links to all these other passages.
Jesus is often quoting the Old Testament. So there's all sorts of synergy that's
coming together and things.
And I think the way that I was maybe brought up to read scripture didn't have
(16:43):
the richness that I now see is
in scripture by understanding sort of the literary styles that is there.
And I think when we see the Bible as kind of a science textbook.
And there are lots of science terms and science things that happen in the Bible,
but it's not given to us as here's a science textbook, or even here's a sort
(17:05):
of documentary of exactly what what happened historically,
it's told with a purpose, like a true storyteller is highlighting certain things for you to see.
And so, you know, you gloss over some bits and slow down and go into great detail
and other things. And so the way that the Bible is read.
Again, I think helps us understand how to engage with some of these questions
(17:27):
about science and faith.
And so as you were saying, you know, there's actually two creation narratives.
It's told sort of once in really big, broad brushstrokes, this happened,
this happened, this happened.
And then you get a zoom in on the story of Adam and Eve, and it's told again.
And so there's obviously authors sort
of trying to get us to see themes and understand bits
(17:48):
of wisdom from that story their main agenda may
not have been and this is exactly how it happened and the
big bang happened here and the sun was here and the
planet was here and that kind of thing yeah yeah I
think yeah definitely looking at what
what the text really is and so we
look at the bible as a whole it's not one book it's lots
(18:10):
and lots of books all put together into one and so
yeah taking each of those four for what it
is and reading it in that particular way so yeah as you she said I'm not
going to read a great long family tree of someone's lineage
in the same way that I would read a psalm completely different
types of writing and so yeah I think particularly looking at the creation accounts
(18:30):
as you say there's more than one then looking at those as poetry which maybe
contain some metaphor in there and I think with metaphor doesn't mean that that's not true true.
So sometimes a helpful way to try and explain this to children,
their teacher might say to them, you're a star.
Well, they all know what that means. They also all know that they're not literally a star.
(18:55):
And so there are things that we say that have truth kind of hidden within them
without being literally true.
And so we can look at something like the creation account. Well,
that has so much deep truth in it.
And to me, what that story says is that God created
everything thing and God thinks that everything is really
good and it tells us something of what it means to be
(19:16):
part of that creation doesn't have
to tell me literally how that happened because that's
not what I would say the intention of the text
is really the creation story was was written down and kind of explained to get
across the idea of there being one God because it was at a time where there
was all kinds of ideas about how the world came into being and so yeah obviously
(19:39):
at a time where we had no clue about things like the Big Bang or evolution.
We've been able to kind of unravel more of that mystery as time's gone on.
But yeah, I think it's a story that still stands true with lots of that truth
in, but we kind of see between the lines a little bit more through science.
And I mean, I've often said to people like.
(20:00):
In my mind, God's perfectly capable of doing it in seven days.
That's what it means to be God Almighty is, you know, he can do miracles and
he's perfectly capable of doing it in a literal seven days if he wanted to.
He could have done it in one.
Like that is fully within, and nobody's arguing God's power or capacity,
but what are we meant to understand through that?
(20:21):
And, you know, growing up, I remember people arguing about,
you know, creation versus evolution and people would would say oh stop
arguing it's not a salvation issue and it felt
in some ways it was a way of sort of saying yes you're right
we should be united in Christ we have so many other things
that keep us together but there's also an integrity thing of people do need
to wrestle these things through particularly if you are a scientist or you want
(20:44):
to understand these things it's like you need to know what you think about these
things and how it works with your faith and to just park it and go well never
mind but that doesn't you know the integrity inside of us We want to explore these things with God.
And I think it is really important for people to grapple and for children to
be able to understand that there are different kinds of truth and there's different ways of knowing.
(21:04):
But that these things don't mean that because I've accepted the Big Bang that
I need to throw the Bible away or because I've accepted the Bible that I have
to plug my ears and sing la la la when my teacher is talking about evolution.
They're not mutually exclusive, that there is a way for a
person to have both of those in their life
and to understand the gifts that those
(21:25):
those bits of wisdom and knowledge give us yeah
so i wanted
to unpack a bit around we look
at lots of different scientists in the holiday
club different scientists who have been involved in
loads of different parts of science and
(21:45):
some of of them are quite historic some of them
are current and alive and and what is
it about science and christianity like why why
are there so many christians who are involved in science why do you
think that is yeah i think there's such a perception that there must be just
a tiny handful of scientists who have somehow been able to reconcile that with
(22:06):
a christian faith but if we look at people who have won the nobel prize a huge
majority of those people have a faith and And right back,
I mean, we highlight Isaac Newton as an example,
obviously a very, very prominent scientist who also had a faith.
And so I think when we look at what scientists are doing, they're asking questions
(22:28):
about the world, trying to figure out what happened, or even questions about the universe.
Us. And so I think from looking out into space.
To the stars, to the planets, right down to the very tiny intricacies of how
our bodies and our cells work, that inspires some awe and wonder.
(22:49):
And maybe for some people, they just think, wow, that's really cool. And then move on.
But for others, if that happens again and again, that might start to bring up the question of.
Is it all a coincidence or actually does this whole universe that seems to follow
all of these different laws and all be just working perfectly?
(23:10):
Yeah, we talk about the Goldilocks zone. That's the point in our solar system
where it seems to be just right for human life to exist.
If we were ever so slightly further away from the sun or closer to the sun,
or if the moon was a slightly different size, we just couldn't be here.
And so it kind of points towards this idea that it seems pretty reasonable to
(23:30):
think there could be a creator behind all of this.
And that's the position that a surprising number of scientists find themselves in.
I think there's something about the more you engage with science,
the more you look at creation, the more you look at deep dive into what's going
on inside the human body, that wonder and awe,
(23:51):
drives us to worship as well of knowing wow
wow god you know you did all of this and and
so often it can go wrong and we do see you know
disease and illness and viruses and things that do go wrong but actually so
often it goes right yeah and and that to me sometimes seems so much more miraculous
like we're all here and breathing and and connecting and and it's amazing yeah
(24:15):
yeah so So I think science often points us to God rather than away.
We imagine that as people do this holiday club, that some tricky questions will come up.
We're going to hope tricky questions will come up because that's the whole point, isn't it?
To create space for questions, curiosity, grappling, discussing science of faith
(24:37):
and the intersection there.
What would you say to somebody who's running a holiday club who's like,
I'm not a scientist and I'm a little bit worried of the amazing questions that
these children and young people will ask?
Yeah, I think even by the session titles, it might feel like you're opening
Pandora's box a little bit, being thrown all kinds of questions.
But yeah, I think that's part of the joy of talking about this topic that,
(25:01):
yeah, the children and young people coming to the holiday club will have questions already, probably.
They definitely will by the end of the sessions. and it's completely
normal to feel a little bit apprehensive about even knowing
where to start with tackling them and so I guess just
to encourage and perhaps give a few tips on how
to start approaching those I guess first
(25:23):
thing will be to always affirm the
question can feel quite scary to ask a question perhaps if it feels a little
bit controversial or like they're saying the wrong thing just to say that is
a really great question thank you for asking it and then maybe considering where
that question is coming from so sometimes some of these questions might be.
(25:45):
Have something maybe at home for their whole
life and this session suddenly is bringing that
all into question and a different point of view and that can feel quite confusing
or it might be a really specific question about a situation in their life you
might know about it you might not and so just considering what might be beneath
this question is there something a little bit deeper going on and if you think you might have,
(26:09):
a little bit of a clue on how to answer it, great. If you don't,
that's completely fine.
Just saying, actually, I'm not sure about that. Let's have a think together.
Maybe wherever you find yourself during the holiday club, you might be able
to say, we're going to come back to that.
And you might be able to do a little bit of research and we can recommend some
resources to help you do that.
(26:30):
But actually, I think that the kind of humility, vulnerability of just saying,
I don't know all the answers is a really
valuable thing to model as a leader so yeah not
being afraid of the questions but also not feeling like you have
to make up an answer out of nowhere that's okay
I think it's you know not having all the answers as part of being a scientist
that's what makes you keep pursuing it I think that's true in faith as well
(26:53):
we don't have all the answers that's why we go back to God and we pursue more
and more and so teaching children that that questions are and curiosity are
key for both science and faith. I think it's really, really important.
Okay. One of the things that you do is you go into schools as God in the Big Bang.
And I'm thinking some of these churches, these individuals who are running the
(27:16):
holiday club might be like, this was really great.
These kids really engaged, but wouldn't it be great if our local primary school
or secondary school could engage with some of this?
How could they get involved in getting God in
the big bang into a school near them yeah help with that so part of what we're
really keen to do is to help churches with the links that they have with their
(27:37):
school so whether you have a fantastic relationship with your local schools
or whether you can't work out how to get through the door we want to help you
do that and so we offer workshops that can be,
bespoke to your school to what they want to engage with so for primary schools
we offer We offer sessions on evolution, on the Big Bang, on climate change,
(28:00):
on curiosity, all kinds of topics.
But we also have sessions that we call Creation Sings, which are specifically
designed to work with churches and schools together.
And so those days don't just have science and faith, they have science, faith and music as well.
So we've got some songs that have been written for us that have an opportunity
(28:21):
for worship, really. really.
So those themes of awe and wonder will come out through the morning in the sessions that we deliver.
And then the afternoon is learning some songs and getting families involved
as well to celebrate science and science and faith together.
And our hope is that that just starts the conversation. So when those children
go back to school, go back home, they carry on thinking and questioning and talking about it.
(28:46):
For secondary school students, we explore evidence and imagination within science,
as well as the Big Bang and ethics, some of those really big questions for them as well.
So yeah, we work with any year group. We can be really flexible to what the
kind of requirements of your school might be.
(29:06):
And we work all over the country as well.
So yeah, we'd really like to work with you and your schools as well. well.
Workshops are delivered by scientists who are Christians themselves.
And we always have to be careful not to say Christian scientists because that's something different.
But yeah, they're the kind of living and breathing examples of bringing science and faith together.
(29:26):
So yeah, children have an opportunity to encounter them, to ask them questions
and hear their stories as well.
So yeah, if you would be interested, we'd love to hear from you.
And you can get in touch with us at at contact at gatbb.co.uk or our website
is www.gatbb.co.uk and there's loads of information on there as well.
(29:50):
Fantastic. So let me understand how it works.
So if a church invites you and they want to do the creation things,
does that take place in the school or even in the church? I've seen pictures of it in a cathedral.
How does it work? So the church and the school are doing it together?
Yeah so depending on locations really
(30:10):
often we'll go to the school in the morning and
do the kind of normal God and the Big Bang workshops in
there using their classrooms and then over lunchtime
they're making their way to the church and they learn the
songs there and then their families are invited to come there
just before the end of the school day and to have yeah
celebration service it's what we call it so yeah if
(30:32):
it works to have the whole day in church great if it
doesn't work to use church at all that's totally fine um yeah which
kind of depends where we are it's a great way to build links between church
and school and also to say to parents and children that church is really engaging
and that science and and faith are not at odds and this is a place where you
can ask questions and you can learn and have a lot of fun that always helps
(30:54):
too we were going to give people some.
Resources some ideas where can they find
out more you get asked a tricky question where you
know besides just asking google which is you know helpful but
not always what what websites would you recommend what books
would you recommend to help people gen up on their science and faith stuff yeah
(31:14):
so great news is there's loads of resources well you mentioned francis collins
earlier he has set up an organization called biologos and their website has
loads and loads of really accessible articles on really commonly asked questions.
There's also Christians in Science, one of our partner organizations who have
lots of resources as well.
(31:35):
They've got leaflets which you can access for free if that's of interest.
There's lots of books as well I'd recommend. John Lennox has written a few that
are just really short, really accessible,
simple explanations on starting to think
about science and faith which will be helpful for some
of those big questions as well and um
petra who works with god in
(31:57):
the big bank petra crofton helped to write quite
a lot of the content that's in the holiday club did yeah and
she's written some books for children she has yeah so if you've
got children that are particularly interested or
maybe you want prizes to give away during the holiday club
then yeah petra's written two books science geek
sam and science geek christy so you can
(32:18):
get those online as well so yeah that would
be really good well it's been a complete privilege to
talk to you sarah and i hope people um are excited about the holiday club but
also about just thinking more deeply about the intersectionality between science
and faith um and we hope that it's been sparking your curiosity um to to dig
(32:39):
deeper to to explore and see what God shows you. Yeah, great. Thank you.
The Wow Whiz Bang Holiday Club is available with Roots Children and Youth subscription,
and it's in issue July, August 2024.
Or you can find it online from June 2024 on rootsforchurches.com.
(33:00):
If you'd like to find out more about having God and the Big Bang connect with a school near you,
you can go to their website www.gatbb.co.uk or email them at contact at gatbb.co.uk.
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