If I'm going to speak about faith and science I really should start by giving my qualifications, so here goes:
Faith: I grew up Catholic. My Dad was Catholic and my Mum's Methodist. My brother's a Catholic priest and my Granddad was a Methodist lay-preacher. My Uncle served a term as President of Gideon's UK. As for me, I've been a communion minister, prayer leader, home-group leader, worship leader, and Sunday school teacher, plus I served three years as an ordained elder on session in a Presbyterian Church. There are reasons I call myself a Mongrel Christian!
Science: I have a Bachelors and Masters from Cambridge University England, where I studied mathematics and specialized in mathematical astronomy and cosmology in my final graduate year. I attended lectures from such luminaries as Stephen Hawking, Martin Reese and John Polkinghorne, among many others. And I was Fisher House rep to the Newnham branch of CICCU, which means I represented the Catholic chaplaincy in the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. (If you think that's a mouthful, try OICCU, which is what we called the rival Christian union at Oxford.)
Being in Cambridge and in CICCU meant I could hear the most amazing world-renowned Christian speakers on Saturday evenings. Having a hopeless memory means I can't remember their names, but I do remember one of them explaining that faith is not the sole domain or crutch of the spiritually minded, but rather it's something everybody lives by all the time. More about that next...
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