God and Nature 2025 #4
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By Sy Garte and Anikó Albert
In our final issue for 2025, we are blessed to have mostly new contributors, including students. We start with biology teacher Dr. Lori Christerson’s inspiring essay on how her understanding of the nature of DNA helped her through a crisis of faith. Our veteran contributor Douglas Phillippy gives us another fascinating look into how mathematics can be a model for theological understanding. Writer Kaitlyn Ramos presents a beautifully written piece on gardening and trees as metaphors for the care shown to us by our Creator. This is followed by an essay by undergraduate student Lilyan Robbinette, who paints an intriguing and creative view of the balance of science and faith in understanding creation.
Andrew Sweet’s essay on parasites makes us think about the “worst” of God’s creations and ponders how even such—to us—distasteful creatures demonstrate the marvels of all biological organisms that contribute to God’s beneficent design. Kent Ratajeski presents a thorough and thoughtful review of Christian museums of natural history, including discussions of their purpose, impressive variety (he provides a thorough list), and the various issues they face.
All our columnists are back with outstanding contributions, as usual. Cheryl Grey Bostrom moves from birds to ocean waves in her column “On Camera: Scripture in Creation" and explores the beauty of creation through breathtaking images of water meeting air. Mike Clifford’s “Across the Pond “presents an in-depth look at teamwork in education and in some other areas, and Kristine Johnson devotes her “Food for the Soul” column to everyone’s favorite food category—bread.
We are also blessed to have three poems; two by newcomers Madeline Ann Merriman and Megan Behrmann, as well as another contribution from sonnet writer Andrew Budek-Schmeisser.
We have a number of books by contributors to this magazine to recommend in this issue—as well as another book. Both Editor-in-Chief Sy Garte and columnist Cheryl Grey Bostrom had books published this past August by Tyndale House publishers. Cheryl’s novel What the River Keeps has just been selected by Christianity Today for the highly prestigious Award of Merit as one of the best books of the year. You can see blurbs of both these books in the “Letter from the Editors” column in the 2025 #2 issue of God and Nature. You can order Sy’s Beyond Evolution: How New Discoveries in the Science of Life Point to God (non-fiction) here, and Cheryl’s What the River Keeps here.
Kaitlyn Ramos, a new contributor to this magazine, recently published A Dream Fulfilled Life. This book is a reflective memoir-in-essays tracing one woman’s journey of spiritual formation throughout her life. You can purchase A Dream Fulfilled Life here.
We would also like to recommend God, the Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution by Olivier Bonnassies and Michel-Yves Bolloré, published in October by Palomar. This is the English translation of a popular book first published in French that documents the way the “pendulum of science” has swung away from the materialism that had been the dominant world view toward showing strong evidence for a divine creator. While the authors are not connected to God and Nature or the ASA, we decided to make an exception and highlight this new book because of its strong emphasis on the compatibility of science and faith. It is available for purchase here.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and please consider sending us your essays, stories, poetry, and art. (Note that the submission page is working, and your submissions are being delivered, even though you might not get an immediate response.) Blessings to all!
Sy Garte, Ph.D. Biochemistry, is Editor-in-Chief of God and Nature, and the author of “The Works of His Hands: A Scientist's Journey from Atheism to Faith”, (Kregel), “Science and Faith in Harmony: Contemplations on a Distilled Doxology" (Kregel) and "Beyond Evolution: How New Discoveries in the Science of Life Point to God" (Tyndale). He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at three universities and was an Associate Director at the Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. He blogs at "Sy's Substack", and his website is sygarte.com. Sy is Vice President of the Washington DC ASA Chapter, and a fellow of the ASA.
Anikó Albert grew up in Budapest, Hungary, and is a graduate of Eötvös Loránd University. A serial migrant, she taught English as a Foreign Language in her hometown, high-school Spanish in Kingston, Jamaica, and English and various subjects in Alameda, California. She is currently the Managing Editor of God and Nature, and Chair of Rockville Help, an emergency assistance charitable organization in Rockville, Maryland.
In our final issue for 2025, we are blessed to have mostly new contributors, including students. We start with biology teacher Dr. Lori Christerson’s inspiring essay on how her understanding of the nature of DNA helped her through a crisis of faith. Our veteran contributor Douglas Phillippy gives us another fascinating look into how mathematics can be a model for theological understanding. Writer Kaitlyn Ramos presents a beautifully written piece on gardening and trees as metaphors for the care shown to us by our Creator. This is followed by an essay by undergraduate student Lilyan Robbinette, who paints an intriguing and creative view of the balance of science and faith in understanding creation.
Andrew Sweet’s essay on parasites makes us think about the “worst” of God’s creations and ponders how even such—to us—distasteful creatures demonstrate the marvels of all biological organisms that contribute to God’s beneficent design. Kent Ratajeski presents a thorough and thoughtful review of Christian museums of natural history, including discussions of their purpose, impressive variety (he provides a thorough list), and the various issues they face.
All our columnists are back with outstanding contributions, as usual. Cheryl Grey Bostrom moves from birds to ocean waves in her column “On Camera: Scripture in Creation" and explores the beauty of creation through breathtaking images of water meeting air. Mike Clifford’s “Across the Pond “presents an in-depth look at teamwork in education and in some other areas, and Kristine Johnson devotes her “Food for the Soul” column to everyone’s favorite food category—bread.
We are also blessed to have three poems; two by newcomers Madeline Ann Merriman and Megan Behrmann, as well as another contribution from sonnet writer Andrew Budek-Schmeisser.
We have a number of books by contributors to this magazine to recommend in this issue—as well as another book. Both Editor-in-Chief Sy Garte and columnist Cheryl Grey Bostrom had books published this past August by Tyndale House publishers. Cheryl’s novel What the River Keeps has just been selected by Christianity Today for the highly prestigious Award of Merit as one of the best books of the year. You can see blurbs of both these books in the “Letter from the Editors” column in the 2025 #2 issue of God and Nature. You can order Sy’s Beyond Evolution: How New Discoveries in the Science of Life Point to God (non-fiction) here, and Cheryl’s What the River Keeps here.
Kaitlyn Ramos, a new contributor to this magazine, recently published A Dream Fulfilled Life. This book is a reflective memoir-in-essays tracing one woman’s journey of spiritual formation throughout her life. You can purchase A Dream Fulfilled Life here.
We would also like to recommend God, the Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution by Olivier Bonnassies and Michel-Yves Bolloré, published in October by Palomar. This is the English translation of a popular book first published in French that documents the way the “pendulum of science” has swung away from the materialism that had been the dominant world view toward showing strong evidence for a divine creator. While the authors are not connected to God and Nature or the ASA, we decided to make an exception and highlight this new book because of its strong emphasis on the compatibility of science and faith. It is available for purchase here.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and please consider sending us your essays, stories, poetry, and art. (Note that the submission page is working, and your submissions are being delivered, even though you might not get an immediate response.) Blessings to all!
Sy Garte, Ph.D. Biochemistry, is Editor-in-Chief of God and Nature, and the author of “The Works of His Hands: A Scientist's Journey from Atheism to Faith”, (Kregel), “Science and Faith in Harmony: Contemplations on a Distilled Doxology" (Kregel) and "Beyond Evolution: How New Discoveries in the Science of Life Point to God" (Tyndale). He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at three universities and was an Associate Director at the Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. He blogs at "Sy's Substack", and his website is sygarte.com. Sy is Vice President of the Washington DC ASA Chapter, and a fellow of the ASA.
Anikó Albert grew up in Budapest, Hungary, and is a graduate of Eötvös Loránd University. A serial migrant, she taught English as a Foreign Language in her hometown, high-school Spanish in Kingston, Jamaica, and English and various subjects in Alameda, California. She is currently the Managing Editor of God and Nature, and Chair of Rockville Help, an emergency assistance charitable organization in Rockville, Maryland.