Our History

We began as Bible and Science Worcester, in 2008, and since then, up to the arrival of the pandemic, had a programme of talks each year, three in the autumn and three in the spring. The evenings involved a presentation followed by time for questions and discussion, fronted by leading scientists and thinkers, on significant scientific, bioethical and technological issues.

In 2016, we were successful in receiving a grant from Scientists in Congregations and the Templeton Foundation, to encourage and support scientists in congregations to communicate about the compatibility of their faith in their scientific environments. We had a vision to engage more with younger people, and set up a youth section of Bible and Science, which was called Re:Think. We had a number of different events, including topics such as “Has science killed God?”, “Humanity becoming gods? The dreams and fears of science fiction”, “Gender Agenda: the truth about trans”, “The rise of intelligent machines: friend or foe?”, “Faith in the Questions” (a drama presentation from Riding Lights Theatre Company), and “Big Data: Big Deal?” While they were aimed more at youth, they were also very popular with our older members, as well as drawing in other people who previously hadn’t attended our events.

Since 2020, we have run several events on Zoom, as well as an in-person talk in the autumn of 2021, when regulations allowed this.

Over the past couple of years, we have had time to reconsider our original vision for Bible and Science, to take into consideration the views and questions that have been put to us by younger people attending Re:Think, and also people from all age-groups who attend our talks. It would seem that now, the key issues are less how faith and science can exist together, which is now more widely accepted, and rather, explore how faith informs the ethical and moral development of science and technologies.

In the light of this, we felt it would be good to bring Bible and Science and Re:Think back together, and to expand our focus to more proactively seek the mutual exploration of the ethics and morality of living in a scientific age. We have renamed ourselves Science and Faith Worcester, to reflect this change.