Matters of Life & Death

Dementia: Listening to bodies and the sacramental ministry of touch

23 Apr 2025
00:44:49

‘Granny’s body remains, but she is gone’. The public narrative around dementia often presumes that as our ability to talk, move and think gradually withers away, so does our personhood and sense of self. But if we believe as Christians that our human...

Cultural witness and the purpose of theology, with Graham Tomlin

16 Apr 2025
00:56:52

Graham Tomlin has been a vicar, a theologian, a college principal, a bishop and now spearheads a project dedicated to trying to re-enchant the UK with Christian faith. In this episode we reflect with him about his ministry, the current state and stat...

Antinatalism: Should we all stop having children?

9 Apr 2025
00:52:41

One fringe explanation for the fall in birthrates we discussed in last week’s episode is the growing popularity of the antinatalist movement. Antinatalists argue not just that people should be free to not have children if they want to, but that havin...

Is this the end? Plummeting birth rates, the future of humanity and the meaning of children

2 Apr 2025
01:06:52

With unerring regularity, birth rates are dropping in almost every country on Earth. What was once assumed to be a rich world problem is now a reality in places as diverse as Chile, Russia, Thailand and the Caribbean. Almost everywhere people are hav...

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...

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