Scientist and Hollywood Producer Reveals Personal Revelation About the Big Bang and Creation After Working on Morgan Freeman's 'Story of God

Lori McCreary, executive producer of the new National Geographic Channel series “The Story of God With Morgan Freeman,” recently told TheBlaze about a key theological debate that "settled" for her after completing the faith-focused TV project.

McCreary, who joined James Younger and Morgan Freeman in executive producing the project, explained that, as a lifelong Christian and a scientist, she was able to remedy the two descriptors that many assume are mutually exclusive.

"I think something in me settled in this interesting way," she told The Church Boys podcast. "I grew up Christian. I've been at the same church in Los Angeles for 30 years. I'm a worship leader ... but I'm also a computer scientist."

Listen to McCreary, who is also executive producer of the CBS show "Madam Secretary," explain the balance between science and religion at the 50:00-mark below:

McCreary said that she has often had people look strangely at her after finding out that she's both a Christian and a scientist, asking, "How can you be [both]?" It was during filming for "The Story of God," though, that she said she had an encounter while visiting the Vatican's science academy that profoundly helped her in explaining how she remedies the two paradigms.

"We were at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which was a big, 'aha' for me that the Catholic Church had an academy of science that has been around for some 400 years," she explained. "And Monsignor Sánchez Sorondo, was teaching and talking to us about the big bang and creation."

McCreary said that she has always noticed that many people divide into two camps on those issues: people who embrace the Genesis account orfcreation and those who, instead, opt for the scientific explanation, but she said that Sorondo helped to put it all into perspective.

"We asked him about the big bang and creation ... and he very clearly articulated something for me that I have always felt, but didn't really know how to express in words, which is: the big bang is the scientific explanation of creation and the creation story from Genesis is the theological explanation of creation, and the two do not contradict each other," she said. "I came away feeling just a little more centered in my own beliefs, and also the fact that I'm a scientist — and the two can coexist inside me."

"The Story of God" premieres on the National Geographic Channel on April 3.

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