Thanks for joining the Solas team at Broughty Ferry Free Church for our recent Confident Christianity conference. Below you will find all the presentation slides from our speakers, in downloadable PDF format.
Central Baptist Church March 2025
Thanks for coming along to the Confident Christianity sessions with Steve Osmond at Central Baptist Church last month. Below are the downloadable slide presentations for you in PDF format.
Panic-free Evangelism! Andy at the Christian Book Collective
Lydia Houghton interviewed Andy for the second ‘Christian Book Collective’ podcast. Looking at all kinds of practical aspects of evangelism today, the conversation includes some insights from Andy’s books incuding How To Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot, and Have You Ever Wondered?
Solas’s work is totally dependent on gifts which people give us to support our ministry. If you’d like to become one of those people who keeps our work going, click here. If you are able to give as little as £4/month, we’ll send you a copy of How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot, or two copies of Have You Ever Wondered? as a thankyou!
With York St John University Christian Union
I had the privilege of joining the student Christian Union (CU) group from York St John University for their weekend away. They had hired an Anglican Christian retreat centre in beautiful countryside about ten miles from Scarborough – and invited me to join them for the weekend as the speaker. It’s one of the smaller CU’s that we work with, and they managed to get twenty of their students along for the houseparty.
Over the course of the weekend, I led four sessions. We began with my introduction to conversational evangelism, (which I also wrote up as a book) called “How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot”, then we did a session entitled “How to start spiritual conversations with your friends” which was a reworked version of the “engaging the apathetic” session we do at Solas. It draws deeply on the things we cover in the “Have You Ever Wondered?” book. The “Crunchy Christians” talk was next! In that session we focussed not so much on the words that we use in evangelism and the questions we use as tools; but about the character we need to display to make the gospel attractive. We are called to live in such a way that people are struck by the quality of our lives. ‘ Crunchy Christians’ are those who aren’t able to talk about their faith naturally, but make it awkward or weird! Praying, loving people well, saying sorry and serving are ways to de-crunchify ourselves! Of course, when the church is ‘crunchy’ we have a bigger issue – and so we had a look at John Dickson’s book “Bullies and Saints” in which he uses the illustration of the ‘music of Jesus’. If you want to know what a piece of classical music is like, you can listen to it played well or badly; but really to really assess it, you need to hear it as the composer intended. The music of Jesus has often been played badly, but people need to see Christianity as he intended it to be. Then of course when the church has got it wrong, we shouldn’t get defensive – but apologise. Then our final session was entitled, “The uniqueness of Jesus in a world of other faiths” – which ended the weekend thinking deeply together about Christ himself.
The retreat centre is a great location for a student weekend, the meeting room had big sofas set out which made it less formal and great for discussion times too. So we didn’t do long teaching sessions, but a bit of teaching them discussion, them discussion and Q&A – and then loads of great informal conversations with the students over meals, and coffee. There are advantages to smaller groups actually you can do a lot more interactively and get to know people much better.
York St John University CU are a great bunch of students, who are really friendly, very missional and keen to engage in the topics and then go and do outreach. I’d crossed paths with three of these students before, two at Word Alive in Wales, and one at CreationFest in Cornwall – which is how this invitation to speak had come about.
What is Love, If You’re An Atheist?
What is love? If atheism is true, love is arguably nothing more than a trick played on us by our genes in order to persuade us to mate, reproduce, and propagate the species. But that seems light years away from our experiences of love. Why is that — and could our desire to be loved unconditionally be a clue to a bigger story?
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Have You Ever Wondered Why Sport is More Than Just a Game?
“What team do you support?” I get asked this a lot as I grew up in Manchester but live in Newcastle, two great footballing cities. The truth is that I don’t really like football, but I do love sport. I could watch tennis and snooker (I know!) for hours and really enjoy playing racquet sports and pool.
We’re a nation of sports enthusiasts. 19.2m people in the UK are regularly cycling, running, swimming and / or doing team sports (that’s about 28% of the population)[1]. 31% of UK adults reported watching live sport in 2023/4 and this is increasing[2]. Whether we’re joining in our local Park Run or cheering on the Lionesses, there’s something about sport that stirs our emotions and compels us to be part of it.
But have you ever wondered why sport is so important to us? After all, football is essentially a group of people kicking a bag of wind about. Snooker is people spending hours in dimly lit halls hitting balls with a stick. F1 is people going round and round in increasingly technologically advanced cars. Is there any deeper meaning to all this? What does all this tell us about our humanity?
There are many important things that sport teaches us about what it means to be human, but I want to highlight three in particular:
Our need to grow
Sport teaches us important co-operation and social skills, which is why we were all forced to do PE at school. We admire the discipline and skills of the athletes we follow. Sport is more than just getting a ball in a net or winning a race; it’s a means to develop character and perseverance.
Most of us hope not to just perform certain tasks throughout our life, but to become better people. We admire the courage, teamwork, discipline and self-sacrifice that we see on the sports field or track. But that in turns raises the question: why does our character ultimately matter?
The aim in competitive sports is to win a medal, trophy or title that we can rightly be proud of and makes all the hard work worthwhile. But ultimately our abilities fade, the trophies get dusty in the showcase and someone else becomes world champion and breaks our records. Our prize doesn’t last. We grow, we hit our peak and then we fade. The great Novak Djokovic was recently derided as a ‘has-been’ by an Australian tennis commentator who clearly thought his 24 Grand Slam titles no longer count for much![3] In a wider sense, this is analogous to our lives. Unless there is an ultimate purpose: we’re born, we grow and learn, we achieve things and then we die. The question is: is there an ultimate purpose that means all our development won’t go to waste?
Our need to belong
Sport is also about shared purpose and bonding. It brings people together. It’s our tribe verses the opposition. Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff put it like this:
“Humans love teams, team sports, synchronized movements, and anything else that gives us the feeling of “one for all, and all for one.“[4]
We long for belonging – to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We are embodied people who want to touch and be touched and to connect in meaningful ways. In our over-sexualised and individualistic culture, sport might be the only context in which we can give and receive healthy touch as we tackle an opponent or hug a fellow supporter when a goal is scored. We want to matter to other people and we want to be missed when we’re not there. Sport – whether we’re watching or participating – gives us a community to belong to. When the season-ticket holder’s seat is empty; when there’s no one to fill the wing attack position on the netball team; when a match is cancelled because we’re injured, we are missed.
“To be included you just need to be present. To belong you need to be missed.”[5]
Sport does give us an important sense of belonging, but it’s also fragile. There are conditions attached. What if we don’t make the team? What if we get injured or fail the time trial? What if we can’t afford the match tickets or Sky Sports subscription? Is there anywhere we can securely belong no matter what our circumstances?
Our need to worship
Diego Maradona famously said, “Football isn’t a game, nor a sport; it’s a religion”[6] and it’s easy to see why he thought that. Whatever the particular sport, we often hear the language of ‘heroes’ and ‘gods’. We hear people saying that they worship their favourite players and stars.
Sport is a whole-body experience. We jump up in elation when we’re winning and hang our heads in despair when we’re losing. In victory, we pile on our teammates and perform celebration rituals. Communal chanting and singing on the stands on a Sunday morning echoes the hymns and songs being sung in church at the same time. Fans sacrifice huge amount of time and money to support their beloved teams. The billion pound merchandise industry shows that we’re keen to publicly demonstrate our allegiances by wearing the right kit and collecting precious memorabilia. Hard core fans study stats and spend hours discussing tactics.
But so often our sporting heroes let us down. Whether it’s through cheating scandals, poor performances, unwise words or bad behaviour, we’re painfully aware that all human beings are a complex mix of good and bad just like us, whether they’re sporting stars or not. So can our inherent need to worship be directed towards someone who won’t let us down?
Ultimate growth, belonging and worship
There’s no doubt that sport can be really good for us. It shows that we value character development, it helps us build community and places to belong and it calls us to worship someone other than ourselves. But does sport point to something that’s even better?
The Bible often uses sporting metaphors to point us to our true purpose:
For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.[7]
The promise that’s being talked about here is eternal joyous life with God in a remade and healed world. Unlike a medal or trophy, it can be enjoyed forever and God invites our active participation in it! Whoever we are, whatever our skills and talents, we can all be welcomed into God’s community where we can experience belonging without fear of rejection.
And our in-built need to worship is only truly satisfied when it’s directed to our heavenly father whose love is never-ending and has promised to never leave us if we trust him. Unlike a fallible sports personality, he will never let us down.
Sport is great and adds huge value to so many people’s lives. But have you ever wondered if it points to something even greater than itself? We are made to grow and develop, to belong to a family and to worship something bigger than ourselves. Christians believe that these profound needs, while hinted at in sport are truly met in Jesus Christ.
If you recognise a need in yourself to grow as a person, to belong to a loving community and to worship something beyond yourself and your own limitations, I’d encourage you to explore the message, life and person of Jesus for yourself.
Have You Ever Wondered? is also the title of our popular book and a series of articles and videos on this website. With intriguing answers to questions as diverse as ‘Have You Ever Wondered’ why we are drawn to beauty, respect altruism, value the environment, preserve the past, chase money, love music and defend human rights?; the book has a wide range of authors who’s wonderings have drawn them to spiritual and Christian answers to their investigations. With free copies available for people who sign-up to support Solas for as little as £4/month, and big discounts for bulk orders – Have You Ever Wondered? is an effective and affordable way to engage in helpful spiritual discussions.
[1] Sport England, Nov 21 – Nov 22. Sport England, Active Lives Adult Survey November 2021-22 Report, 2023
[2] UK Government, Main report for the Participation Survey (May 2023 to March 2024)
[3] https://news.sky.com/story/australian-broadcaster-apologises-to-novak-djokovic-after-has-been-comments-13292913
[4] Haidt, J and Lukianoff, G, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, Penguin (2019) p.153
[5] John Swinton, From Inclusion to Belonging: A Practical Theology of Community, Disability and Humanness, (2012) p. 184
[6] https://www.thechase.co.uk/projects/football-is-a-religion/
[7] 1 Tim 4:8
In Pursuit of Greatness: Solas at Maddiston
We really value our fellowship and friendship with Maddiston Community Church. It’s a church which I have spoken at many times, over many years, where we’ve done Solas evangelism-training evenings – and which contains quite a few Solas supporters. So it was a real joy to go back there on Sunday to preach at their morning service where they are working their way through the gospel of Mark. Mark’s gospel brings us face to face with Jesus – and this week in chapter 9 to the question of ‘true greatness’ – in fact what is life really all about! It’s a question we get asked a lot in Solas, because our speakers are often working outside the church, and in our culture today the search for the purpose of life is very much a live question.
In the sermon (which you can watch in full below) I attempted to do five things:
1) Show that the disciples had a distorted view of what greatness is, which largely matches our culture today
2) Explain how Jesus confronted them and us, with a radical, revolutionary idea that sacrificial service for others is in fact the nature of true greatness
3) Demonstrate that only Jesus has ever fully lived up to his lofty ethical teaching
4) Show how Christ shares his righteousness with us, by grace so when we turn to him we are forgiven
5) Show how Christ changes us so that we can live increasingly great lives (as Christ defines greatness)
You can judge how well (or otherwise!) I succeded in that by watching the sermon here:
PEP Talk with Jake Carlson
Down through the ages, the Christian message has been shared via new technology, from Gutenberg’s Bible to TikTok. But with recent advancements in AI, what would it look like to share the gospel using a chatbot? Today on PEP Talk, Andy and Gavin find out about one project to explore the possibilities and challenges.
Try it out now at apologist.ai or try bots focussing on Islamic or scientific backgrounds.
With Jake Carlson – PEP Talk
Our Guest
Jake Carlson is the founder of The Apologist Project, a nonprofit that develops conversational AIs for Christian apologetics and evangelism. Jake grew up as a missionary kid in China, where he first became interested in apologetics and Christian worldview study. He has over 25 years experience in software product development, leading product and engineering teams in both small startups and Big Tech companies. Jake founded The Apologist Project two years ago to develop digital products to further the Kingdom. The Apologist Project recently won 1st place at the Indigitous #HACK event — as well as 2nd place in challenge at the Gloo AI & the Church hackathon — for its work developing a Muslim-serving chatbot.
About PEP Talk
The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, our hosts chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.
When Heaven Seems Silent: Unanswered Prayer
Most of the toughest questions about the Christian faith are not abstract or philosophical but are deeply personal. Whether it’s the problem of suffering and evil, or doubts about whether God could love somebody like us, or the questions and doubts that arise when we feel our prayers go unanswered.
You don’t need to have been a Christian for very long to run into the challenge of prayers feeling as if they are bouncing off the ceiling. So if you’re wrestling with this question, you’re not alone. The famous Christian writer C. S. Lewis said that unanswered prayer, especially as he prayed for his sick and dying mother as a boy, was one reason he abandoned faith for thirty years. Lewis wrote:
if you’re wrestling with this question, you’re not alone.
“The trouble with God is that he is like a person who never acknowledges one’s letters and so, in time, one comes to the conclusion either that he does not exist or that you have got the address wrong.” (1)
At this point it’s easy for atheists to scoff and say “I told you so!” but the challenge is there’s no solace in secularism. If atheism is true there is no God to be silent but worse than that, the universe is utterly impassive and entirely doesn’t care. And when suffering comes, or you see injustice, or when life feels unfair, well suck it up: if atheism is true, we live in a world where evil prospers, the strong flourish at the expense of the weak, and one day everything ends in the frozen heat death of the universe.
If prayer isn’t real, if God doesn’t exist, that wouldn’t be some kind of triumphal win for atheism, but rather the bleak and depressing recognition that humans are, as atheist cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss put it, ‘a 1% bit of pollution in the universe’. (2) Maybe the very fact that we recoil at that suggestion is itself a clue that we are more than just cosmic debris; and that the spiritual instinct most humans find within themselves is a clue to a bigger story.
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For Christians, that bigger story is centred around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the Bible repeatedly proclaiming that if you want to know what God is like, then look at Jesus. And in the one and only prayer that he taught his followers to pray, the words we know today as The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasised that God is relational. “Want to know how to pray?” said Jesus, “well, start like this this: ‘Our Father, in heaven’”. No other religion on the planet makes the bold claim that you can pray to the very Lord and Creator of the universe using relational language like that.
“Want to know how to pray?” said Jesus, “well, start like this this: ‘Our Father, in heaven’”
But it’s that deeply relational quality to Christian prayer that can make it feel very tough if it seems that our prayers are going unanswered. If God were simply a distant, remote PO box number to whom we sent our missives with no expectation of any response, we might be able to shrug our shoulders and say “Well, what did you expect?” But that’s not the God of the Christian faith, the God who revealed himself in Jesus, and thus we can feel abandoned, or forgotten, or just plain baffled when we think our prayers have been ignored.
But if that’s the place you find ourself in, there are some questions that it can be helpful to ask. The first is this: “if God feels distant, who has moved?” Whilst it is not always the case, the reality is that sometimes it is we who have walked away, we who have allowed our relationship with God to grow distant and cold. Perhaps we’ve allowed other priorities to take the place of God in our lives in which case maybe the place to begin is with seeking a reset in our relationship.
In Luke 15 Jesus tells a famous story of a son who through his own stupidity had become alienated from his father. When the son finally hits rock bottom he trudges sorrowfully back home, with a carefully prepared speech begging to be taken in as a servant. But his father sees him on the road, runs to embrace him, and welcomes him back as a son. God is like that, Jesus said, ever ready to welcome us back into his household, always ready to forgive. Perhaps if we’ve allowed ourselves to become distant from God, the place to start is by asking for forgiveness and experiencing the mercy and reconciliation of our heavenly Father.
Second, if we are wrestling with unanswered prayer, it’s worth pausing and asking ourselves whether we’ve unconsciously begun treating prayer as a kind of a magical slot machine. Yet whilst there’s nothing wrong with asking God for our needs it’s important to remember that God is our heavenly Father and his primary desire for us is that we would grow to love and trust him and see our character refined so it’s more like Christ.
This is why prayer is good for us, even when we don’t receive the answer we would like. Those times remind us that God is not a cosmic Santa Claus but our Father, whose desire is not to grant our wishes but to draw us into deeper communion with Him. When we pray, we should be not simply chasing outcomes but seeking God Himself. The deeper we come to know God, the more we will find peace in his presence, regardless of whether we receive the answers we wanted.
prayer is good for us, even when we don’t receive the answer we would like.
Third, because God is primarily concerned with our hearts and our character, that sometimes requires learning tough lessons and so it could be that the reason we haven’t seen an answer to a particular prayer is that God wants us to learn persistence. In Luke 18, Jesus told a story about a widow who needed a judge help her obtain justice. He kept rebuffing her, so she repeatedly asked until finally the judge gave in and met her request. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that we need to pester God enough so he’ll grant our wish to get some peace, but rather Jesus was saying if an unjust judge acts like this, how much more can we expect from the truly just Judge of the universe. So don’t give up: ask, seek, knock, and be patient.
Fourth, it can be helpful to ask whether are leaning too much on your feelings. The wonder and joy of the Christian faith is that I don’t get to decide how much God loves me based on whether a particular prayer has been answered, or whether I’m feeling happy or sad, but the Bible explains that if we have any doubt what God thinks of us, then look at Jesus:
God demonstrates his love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Speaking of Jesus, it’s helpful to remember that Jesus himself, God’s own son, experienced the silence of heaven when on the cross he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In Jesus, we have one who understands our pain when heaven feels silent. But the silence of heaven in the case of Jesus was for a reason—in his case, bearing the sins of the world, mine and yours, so we could enjoy God’s friendship.
We live in a broken world and are broken ourselves; and in that context prayer can sometimes feel tough. But God’s love is our unshakeable foundation and when the deep, personal questions about faith come, make sure that you’re standing on the rock of God’s love for you shown in Jesus; because that way, the storms may still batter, but you can stand firm.
don’t give up: ask, seek, knock, and be patient.
Finally, if you’re wrestling with unanswered prayer, some practical wisdom: don’t wrestle alone. Find Christian friends to pray with, who can carry you and comfort you when the valley seems dark. One friend of mine, after her husband’s untimely death, struggled with prayer for a year; but she said what made all the difference was friends who came, sat with her, and prayed with her.
Speaking of dark valleys, that language comes from a famous chapter in the Bible, Psalm 23. If you’re struggling with prayer because heaven seems silent right now, try taking words like that psalm and using them as your own prayer; praying with the words of the Bible can be very powerful.
Ultimately we may never know why a particular prayer goes unanswered; I’ve offered some thoughts above, but everybody’s story is different. There will be times when we simply need to acknowledge that we don’t know why God doesn’t intervene: we know that he is good (Jesus and the cross proves this), we know that we live in a fallen world and we can also know with certainty that one day everything that is sad and bad will become untrue when Jesus returns. Sometimes we need to hold onto that hope and trust God with our questions.
But in all of this, remember: God loves you. No matter what you’ve done, what you’re going through, what you’re wrestling with, nobody is too far from God to be encompassed by his love and offered his forgiveness in Jesus. As Deuteronomy 33:27 puts it: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”. Our sense of God’s presence may ebb and flow as our emotions ebb and flow, as life’s circumstances toss and batter us; but God’s love and care for us is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
First published on Christianity.org.uk, republished here with kind permission.
(1) Cited in Walter Hooper, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Family Letter 1905-1931, Vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 2004) 555.
(2) Cited in Amanda Lohrey, ‘The Big Nothing: Lawrence Krauss and Arse-Kicking Physics’, The Monthly, October 2012 hppts://bit.ly/krauss-big-nothing (accessed 22 November 2024).
Free Church of Scotland Youth Conference
Thanks for coming along to Gavin Matthew’s sessions at the Free Church of Scotland Youth Conference this year. Below you can find Gavin’s presentation slides and two worksheets.
Worksheets
Kirkliston: The Big Breakfast!
Kirkliston Community Church is a thriving fellowship on the east side of Edinburgh, very close to the airport. If you have ever flown into Edinburgh you will have got a birds eye view of the town as you have come into land! The church was planted our from one of the large city centre churches many years ago, and as grown, as has the town. Clive Parnell is the Teaching and Development Pastor there, and someone who has been a recent guest on our PEPtalk podcast.
Kirkliston Community Church is a really active, and highly engaged church which is looking to bring the gospel relevently, ccreatively and faithfully to the people of their town. They regularly hold breakfast events on Saturday mornings, when they get together to eat, share fellowship and to think together about their mission. Folks from outside the church often join them too.
I had the privilege of joining them for their “Big Breakfast” event recently. One of the sessions I do at Solas events is called “Jesus and the Questions of the Age” which looks at the changing nature of the questions we get asked in mission, some research into our culture – and some biblical answers to those questions. In fact, we land on the way that the gospel itself has compelling and beautiful answers to ‘the questions of our age’.
I have done this session in a variety of contexts – often in a very shortened form. KCC gave me a whole hour – which meant we could dig more deeply into the subject and have some discussion and Q&A time – and actually give the subject the time it deserved. The whole morning was filmed and it avalable to watch (below), and as you can see there were some really thoughtful questions in the Q&A at the end too.
If these kinds of training events might be useful for your church, please do contact us, we work with churches of all kinds, all sizes and right across the UK – and would be delighted to come to your fellowship too.
Chipping Sodbury Baptist Church
Thanks for inviting Andy to speak at Chipping Sodbury Baptist Church. Here you will find his presentation slides in PDF format for download.
Is Atheism Irrational?
Many atheists love to describe themselves as rationalists or free thinkers. But if atheism is true, what exactly is *thinking*? Isn’t it just the fizzing of the chemicals between our ears, driven by the blind forces of physics and chemistry? Which would make atheism… well, irrational, right? So could it be that Christianity offers a far more compelling basis for thinking and a far better reason to trust our own minds?
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Lab Notes From the Faithful: Emily Wainwright MSc
Steve: Emily, thanks for agreeing to chat with me. So, you are a scientist and you are also a Christian. Tell me a bit about your background and the science work that you’re involved in?
Emily: Sure. When I was in high school, I developed a strong interest in science. At first I thought it was more to mathematics and physics, but once I started my undergrad degree, I did a cell biology course that really opened my eyes to the beauty of the molecular world of DNA and proteins and things like that, which really grabbed me.
I did a biotechnology diploma program at Holland College in Prince Edward Island that also incorporated practical laboratory skills from different areas of science, including chemistry, biology, proteins, biochemistry, and that gave me a lot of bench skills for working in the lab doing different kinds of research. After that I worked in an analytical chemistry lab for a while.
Steve: Sounds like lots of hands-on bench work in the lab?
Emily: Yeah, a lot bench work. We did soil and feed testing for samples that farmers brought in from their fields. Basically to tell them they need to fertilize more and give advice. So it was a good job, but I felt that there was something lacking, because it was sort of repetitive, and I wanted to learn and discover more.
At that time I was also reading some books that really opened my eyes to see that science and scientific evidence make a case for the existence of a designer of all of it. So after a few years I ended up going to the University of Prince Edward Island to do a Bachelor of Science in biotechnology. From there I transitioned into a master’s program.
Steve: What area is your masters work in?
Emily: It’s a Master of Science specializing in bacteriology. It’s very cool! My project focuses on antibiotic resistance in bacteria found in poultry farms. I liked this area of research because antibiotic resistance is a major problem in the world, and there’s evidence to show that antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria can be shared and spread from animals to humans, potentially through the food chain. My research is looking at resistance in poultry farms in Atlantic Canada, and also testing for resistant genes in these bacteria that are present on chicken meat that you just buy at the store.
Steve: That’s great, such practical application that we can all benefit from. I love that about science.
Emily: Exactly. I’m trying to give us more detailed information about the kinds of resistance genes that are in these environments, possibilities of transmission between animals and humans, which is a really big problem, and just looking at the different mechanisms that can be used for transmission of resistance genes. There are a lot of different molecular mechanisms that bacteria use to share genetic information, including resistance genes.
Steve: So that’s a bit on the science side. Another aspects to your life is your Christian faith. Tell me a bit about that: how did you become a Christian?
Emily: I grew up in a Christian home, going to church, and so I don’t have a specific memory of the exact day I decided for myself, but my parents always encouraged us to not just believe these things about God just because that’s what they believe. They taught us to pursue our relationship with God for ourselves, and think about it for ourselves too.
Steve: So it sounds like they were open to questions and investigation?
Emily: Yeah, even something like simply reading the Bible for ourselves, instead of just listening in church. My dad would read the Bible to us, and I remember my dad had a tradition that as soon as we learned how to read well enough, he would give us our first ‘real’ Bible, after having one of those kids ones. I remember getting my first Bible – I was so excited and so pumped to read it!
As I grew up, that kept going, I worked on my own relationship with God, and so basically I feel that I’ve been a Christian my whole life in a way. But it was as I got older my relationship with God grew and grew and now it’s stronger, along with the fact that I’ve been a scientist for a long time.
Steve: It really stands out to me that it’s your own faith, not something forced on you, as is often the accusation from sceptics. It sounds like it’s meaningful to you and you’re committed to it…and you’re also a scientist.
Emily: Absolutely!
Steve: You’ve been a Christian in the sciences for several years. Have you ever experienced any sort of antagonism because of that?
Emily: Nothing very intense like I’ve heard others have had. I think that’s maybe just something to do with where I’m based.
I’m always ready and willing to talk to anybody about my faith, however, I always find that God has sort of just presented me with opportunities for good conversations that come up naturally. Because I’m open about my faith I think it attracts some curiosity, and that starts conversations.
There was an experience at one of my jobs where I had asked for a reference from a superior for my masters application, and he gave it to me. But later he found out I was a Christian and told one of my coworkers that he wished he had known that before, because he if he had known that he might not have given me a reference as he didn’t want to be associated with a Christian. He was a very committed atheist. It didn’t really bother me though.
On another occasion I had a coworker ask me about my faith. She said: “So you are a Christian, but you’re also a scientist. So like, how do you reconcile those two things?”
Steve: That was going to be one of my next questions, because that’s really where the rubber hits the road isn’t it?
Emily: Exactly! I started talking to her about how when you look into scientific evidence for various things, I actually find that science provides stronger evidence for the theistic worldview than it does for an atheistic or materialistic worldview. Especially in the world of DNA which is something I can talk to colleagues about. No materialistic process has been shown to be able to generate the information carrying capacity that we find in DNA and the information content within DNA.
The only explanation that sufficiently explains it, that we know of, is intelligence. And so I laid out a little bit of that argument as an example for her, and it sparked a great conversation. And another, and another. We ended up having lots of conversations about God and she started going to church and reading the Bible and trying to pray. It’s really cool.
Steve: That’s great. What started of as a question led to a relationship and you were able to direct her to God.
Emily: Yeah. I always think that it starts with a relationship, a friendship, and you build that trust with somebody, and they see that you are a Christian you don’t hide that, and you just live your faith, and they can see that there is something different in your life.
Steve: Just one last question. What would you say to someone younger who is looking to go into the sciences. What would you encourage them with?
Emily: Firstly, there is no conflict between God and science – that’s the main thing. In the book of Romans, in chapter one, Paul says that God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature, are clearly perceived by the things that he has made. That verse is one of my favourite verses because I think all of us, even if we’re not Christian, even people who are atheists, do perceive the beauty of the world around us. They can see the complexity, the intricacy, and the design. What differs is how we interpret it. Do we try to explain it away? Or do we look at that and say, this looks so beautifully designed – I can make the hypothesis that there was a Designer.
Johannes Kepler is credited with saying that the study of science, how the universe works and all that, is a way of ‘thinking God’s thoughts after Him’. And if that’s the case, then studying this creation is going to be studying how the God of the universe designed it, and He created us in His image, meaning that our minds are capable of understanding His creation. He made the creation intelligible for us.
And so if you have an interest in science, I think that is a God given gift, and that you should pursue that and see where God takes you with it, no matter what happens.
Steve: Thank you so much for that encouragement – I can’t agree more! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat to me.
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Emily Wainwright is currently a full-time graduate student in the MSc in Veterinary Medicine program at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island, Canada. During her undergraduate studies, she obtained a BSc in Biotechnology and is now specializing in Bacteriology. Her research focuses on antibiotic resistance in the Canadian poultry industry. When not studying, she enjoys reading books on far ranging topics from many areas of science and philosophy. When not doing science, she enjoys training in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
School Days with SU Scotland
One of our ministry partners at Solas is Scripture Union Scotland. We’ve done many events, conferences, holidays, and staff-training courses over the years; as have many friends in and around the organisation and really appreciate their commitment to delivering high quality youth and children’s work all over the country.
In a new development for me at least – I was asked to go and speak at an SU Group in one of the large secondary schools in Perth. They’ve had a thriving SU group in the school for many years, which meets on a Thursday lunchtime. A Christian teacher allows the group to use his room, while a retired teacher comes into the school to lead the meetings.
The format is probably pretty similar to what many school SU groups do. They have lunch together with drinks and snacks and all the pupils catch up with each other. Then they have some kind of message or informal Bible study together. This is obviously really encouraging for the pupils who come, and it draws people from across a wide variety of churches, and one or two who have no church background (or even have significant objections to aspects of the Christian faith), who are very welcome too.
The reason I was invited into the school to speak at the SU group was because this term they have been using our Have You Ever Wondered? book as the basis for their discussions. Interestingly, as well as looking at several chapters in the book within the SU group, they have been trying out using the questions as ways of stirring up spiritual and value-based conversations with friends in the school – and reporting back each week how they got on.
I was asked to give them a quick guide to my chapter: Have You Ever Wondered Why We Love Happy Endings? which is an enjoyable chapter to look at together because it has parallels with the grand narrative of scripture as well as many aspects of popular culture. The group was divided 60/40 against the appreciation of Rom-Coms, but yet they all appreciated the way in which these films have a common narrative arc, from hope through despair and on to resolution in a happy ending!
We looked at our yearning for a happy ending and thought about the way in which the world is yearning for “closure”. Injustice, pain, illness, wickedness, war and disappointments all leave us yearning for resolution. In the meantime, the deepest need we have is hope. That means that in Christ we can offer people hope -that there will be a happy ending (a New Heaven and a New Earth), and that we can invite them to come to Christ and into the happy ending that God offers us all. My colleague Steve is going to the same group in a few weeks, so I’ll be interested to hear how they got on with their conversations!
The SU group in this school is quite strong, they often get up to 19 people along from across the school (it was slightly less the week I was there). We were amazed when we heard the story of a girl who tried to start a group like this in her school, but no one came. She is in fact the only Christian she knows in here school. Rather than giving up however, she has set up a book group and the are looking at Have You Ever Wondered? together, as she thinks it will interest her friends and lead to great conversations; bridging from what matters most to her friends to what matters most!
So, I was delighted to tell this big SU school Su group about that girl on her own in that secondary school in England – and they promised to pray for her and her book group!
