Matters of Life & Death

Christians normally explain away human-caused suffering by pointing to God giving us free will, and our sinful natures using that to harm ourselves and each other. But what about all the things entirely out of our control which cause so much sadness,...

Francis Collins is one of the leading scientists of his generation, a world-renowned geneticist who led the international project to map the human genome. Later he served under three presidents as the director of the National Institute of Health, whi...

A couple of inter-connected news stories set us off this week. First, the prominent DNA ancestry company 23andMe is teetering on the brink of collapse and considering selling off its database of 15m people’s genomes. Can someone else own your DNA, an...

Once dismissed as quackery or New Age woo, near death experiences are seeing something of a modern revival. A slew of serious scientists and doctors have begun studying the phenomenon, even constructing clinical trials to try and see what, if anythin...

Pregnant women today are offered a battery of tests and screening for their unborn child, looking for an ever-increasing range of conditions and risks. But is the onward march of technology in this sphere always an unmitigated good thing? With aborti...

This week we speak with church pastor and author Ed Shaw about John’s book on friendship, and in particular how it intersects with those who are same-sex attracted like him. How has the church unintentionally colluded with the sexual revolution in pr...

Yoga and mindfulness are everywhere in popular Western culture: in school PE lessons, in company retreats, prescribed by doctors, and even sometimes endorsed by churches. Are these harmless or even quasi-Christian practices we can all enjoy, or pagan...

Harrowing testimony from healthcare staff at the UK’s national covid inquiry has reminded us of the horrendous sacrifices made by doctors and nurses during the pandemic, just a few years ago. And yet the inquiry has drawn hardly any media attention,...

The new British government has been crystal clear that in their view, the National Health Service – a state-run socialised system which is quasi-worshipped by most Britons – is in long-term crisis. Services from family doctors to cancer treatment to...

Tim is away this week so we’re sharing a classic episode from the MOLAD vault. Since the covid pandemic there has been an alarming rise in people presenting with mental health problems. Today we speak with Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan to bet...

Today we pick up a number of stories and updates in the conversation around assisted suicide. Long since legal in a growing number of states in the US, a new report has detailed how things are liberalising further. Some states now permit non-resident...

If and when autonomous and intelligent robots come into existence, should they be granted rights, or even personhood? A growing number of technologists argue governments must lay out what status conscious and rational machines would have before they...

We covered the case of Lucy Letby – a neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven more – last year. Since then, there has been a growing campaign claiming she is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, as Letby her...

‘Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”’ These famous words from the first chapter of Genesis are the touchstone of the theology of the image of God, or Imago Dei. Christians throw this reference out a lot, but we’re ofte...

Thanks to a long overdue public inquiry here in the UK, shocking stories of how NHS doctors recklessly gave patients blood contaminated with viruses including HIV and hepatitis have been emerging in recent years. One of the most painful cases was at...