Russell Stannard is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University. He is also a licensed lay minister in the Church of England. He has written prolifically for children as well as adults on topics to do with science and religion. For many years he was a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day programme. Among his various awards he was made an OBE. Read what happened when he met founder of the Open University Christian Union, Dan Golding.
DG: What is/has been your involvement with The Open University?
RS: I was one of the first academics to join. This was way back in 1969 when the OU was completely contained within a house in Belgrave Square London. I headed the OU's Physics Department for 21 years, and for a time was a Pro Vice Chancellor. I am now officially retired though I continue to go into Walton Hall for seminars in order to keep up to date.
DG: When and how did you become a Christian?
RS: There was no blinding conversion experience, if that's what you are wondering. It was a gradual process, probably starting when I was around 18 years old.
DG: How have people responded to your faith in academic and scientific circles?
RS: Many people think of science and religion as locked in conflict with each other. They find it difficult to understand how I can have a foot in both camps. They wonder whether I am a scientist Monday to Friday, wearing a white lab coat, then I become a Christian on Sundays, wearing a whilte surplice for preaching - with presumably Saturday off in between to make the switch! The confusion largely arises over taking the Genesis account of creation literally and opposing it to the scientific accounts of evolution and the Big Bang. But this was never the intention of those early writings; they were always concerned with other types of truth - which was manifestly clear to the early church leaders such as Augustine, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, et al. It has always seemed only natural to me that a scientific interest in the world should lead to bigger questions as to why there is a world in the first place.
DG: How did you get into writing and broadcasting about science and religion - in particular your books for children based on the character of Uncle Albert, which, I understand, have been translated into 20 languages, with one of them becoming for a time the UK Number 1 best-selling paperback?
RS: I owe it all to the OU. In those early days, we academics were put through a pretty rigorous training scheme by educational technologists to show us how to explain science effectively to people with little assumed background knowledge of the subject. It was a natural extension of this that made me take up the challenge of explaining Albert Einstein's relativity and quantum theory to eleven year olds through the Uncle Albert trilogy (before they could be brainwashed into thinking that it must all be too difficult for them to understand). It was then John Hull, the religious education professor at Birmingham University, who remarked to me 'You know what you should do next, Russ. You should do for God what you've done for Einstein.' He meant that I should use the same techniques to explain difficult religious ideas to children while they were still open-minded about such matters. Hence came the books about religion. Then there was all the training we OU academics got from BBC producers as to how to use the radio and TV media. This stood me in good stead for doing general service radio broadcasting and making the video series that are up on YouTube, such as Boundaries of the Knowable and Science and Belief: The Big Issues.
DG: Do you have any practical tips for Open University students who want to persevere in faith whilst involved in academic study?
RS: I always used to enjoy meeting up with OU students at summer schools. Their enthusiasm for their studies was so refreshing after having spent many years teaching at a conventional university to typical 18 year olds. This burning desire among mature OU students to learn and improve themselves was quite wonderful to encounter. I just hope that such enthusiasm will also be brought to bear on taking their studies of religion seriously. I trust they will not be unduly swayed by misleading and superficial attitudes purveyed by the so-called new atheists such as Richard Dawkins. The media love to give such people a ready platform for stoking up controversy, all in the cause of increasing circulation and viewing figures. Rather, I would expect that, as with their normal academic studies, OU students, before making up their minds, will want to read books by people who are well-informed in such matters.
DG: Are there any particular resources you would recommend for members of the Open University Christian Union?
RS: I have already mentioned the video series put up on YouTube this year: Science and Belief: The Big Issues. It has been distributed as a DVD to 40 % of all UK secondary schools and to 7000 churches. The book of the same title is published by Lion Hudson. Other books I have written on science and religion are available, for example, by looking me up on Amazon.
DG: Which Biblical character do you most relate to and why?
RS: What a question! Laying aside Jesus himself, my first reaction was to say St Paul. He was the great missionary, and I suppose much of my writing and broadcasting has had to do with mission, so I do admire St Paul. But on more mature reflection, I have thought otherwise. I regularly worship at St Barnabas Church Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, Beds. We do not know a great deal about St Barnabas, but we do know that he was referred to as 'a good man'. Not many characters in the Bible are referred to like that. Laying aside all the writing and broadcasting and being a professor and so on, what surely matters most is that people should be able to look back on one's life and be able to say 'He was a good man'.
DG: Any closing comments or thoughts for members of the Open University Christian Union?
RS: Good luck with your studies. But never, never lose sight of the really big questions of life.
