Matters of Life & Death

Spiritual, but not religious: What do people actually believe these days?

26 Mar 2025
00:50:47

The non-religious are an ever-increasing segment of the population, in the UK, the United States and across the Western world. But what do they actually believe, and indeed not believe, in? In this classic episode from the MOLAD archive we’re joined...

Arrested for praying in your head? Abortion clinic buffer zones and 21st century thoughtcrime

19 Mar 2025
00:49:08

Somewhat unnoticed by many in the British church, in the last few years the UK has imposed draconian new laws which can in some circumstances curtail fundamental religious liberties. In the name of protecting people from intimidating pro-life protest...

What is the Trump government doing to medical research and international aid, and why should we care?

12 Mar 2025
00:49:19

An under-reported story of the tumultuous first months of the second Donald Trump administration is how his team are brutally cutting back long-established federal institutions. The National Institutes of Health and the US Agency for International De...

What are chatbots doing to us? Personhood in an age of AI

5 Mar 2025
01:07:40

AI-driven chatbots are becoming a major industry, with hundreds of millions of people spending hours every day talking to non-human personas. They can be friends, therapists, lovers, work colleagues or fantastical invented characters. Or even an unca...

Co-operation with evil

26 Feb 2025
00:48:06

Can a pro-life Christian anaesthetist take part in surgical abortions, even if they are simply ensuring the mother is safely put under and do not do the actual abortion? What about the nurse checking blood pressure earlier on the ward? Or the porter...

Cryptocurrency: Financial liberation for the masses or pyramid schemes for the gullible?

19 Feb 2025
01:03:55

Due to illness, we weren’t able to record a new episode this week, so instead here’s one from the Matters of Life and Death archive you might enjoy. So-called memecoins – new cryptocurrencies launched solely as tongue-in-cheek speculative online inve...

Should we fear our new social media overlords in the age of Trump?

12 Feb 2025
01:01:22

Elon Musk, the mercurial billionaire who owns Twitter, is increasingly wielding his enormous political power via his social media network, interfering in politics in America and far beyond. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, has tried to...

Knowing our own bodies: Fertility apps and the pill, with Dawn McAvoy

5 Feb 2025
01:01:28

Recent research by the abortion provider BPAS has uncovered a striking increase in the numbers of women who use fertility tracking apps as contraception, rather than the more traditional hormonal pill, coil or implant. And, perhaps most interestingly...

Should we try to save every one? Ethical dilemmas and Christian values when treating very premature babies

29 Jan 2025
01:02:42

A recent Guardian article looked in depth at advances in neonatology – the care of extremely premature babies – and the complex ethical challenges now faced by parents and doctors alike. Modern medicine can now save the lives of babies born at just 2...

Who do children belong to in an era of surrogacy and reproductive technology?

22 Jan 2025
00:46:12

Advances in reproductive medicine in the past half century have meant it is entirely possible for as many as five different adults to be involved in the birth of one child (sperm and egg donors, a surrogate mother who carries the fetus, and the commi...

An anxious generation: Are social media and smartphones ruining children’s mental health?

15 Jan 2025
01:01:03

Since 2010 mental health problems among young people have exploded. At precisely the same time, smartphones and social media have become deeply embedded in the lives of children and teenagers. A growing body of evidence suggests these two things are...

Giving, data and compassion: Should Christians all be ‘effective altruists’?

8 Jan 2025
00:59:49

A movement founded at the University of Oxford in 2009 has now captured the imagination – and the wallets – of some of the brightest and most successful across elite Western academic and business circles. Effective altruism, a 21st-century data-drive...

Surveillance capitalism: Is privacy dead and should we care?

1 Jan 2025
01:02:57

Every tap, swipe and click we make on our phones, tablets and laptops is being recorded by big tech firms. This is often called surveillance capitalism – a network of products and services we use every day which sucks up large quantities of data abou...

The ethics of embryology: ‘Ensoulment’, the 14-day limit and co-operation with evil

25 Dec 2024
01:08:34

While we are away over the Christmas break, here’s a classic episode from the Matters of Life and Death vault. There has been a flood of highly significant if poorly reported developments in embryo research in recent years, all of which raise new and...

The powers of the age: Spiritual warfare, evil and technology in the 21st century

18 Dec 2024
01:02:04

Many evangelical Christians remain uncomfortable about engaging with the Biblical narrative, in both Old and New Testaments, around evil, Satan, spiritual forces and demonic power. And even more so in trying to identify their malign hand behind moder...