Matters of Life and Death
च्यानल विवरणहरू
Matters of Life and Death
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion...
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Union and communion: The Trinity demystified
Of all orthodox Christian doctrines, the trinity is perhaps the one which most languishes understudied and underappreciated. Many of us see it as a ba...
The idolatry of Christian Nationalism, with John Heathershaw
It has been hard to miss the ways that right-wing political movements have become marked by Christian rhetoric and language in recent years. Clearly,...
Why did a good God create earthquakes and volcanoes? Suffering, creation and natural evil, with Prof Bob White
Natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have caused untold misery, suffering and death over the centuries. Some, like the infamous L...
Elijah or Obadiah: Should our Christian witness be prophetic, incarnational or both?
Christians often find themselves disagreeing about what posture to adopt in our increasingly secular and faith-hostile culture. Should we stand apart...
Don’t be afraid: The promise and the peril of AI in healthcare
Artificial Intelligence is everywhere these days, and the hospital, surgery and clinic are no different. It’s getting into wearable tech, it’s assisti...
Euthanasia for newborn babies, pagan philosophies and Christian witness in a post-Christian age
An influential Canadian doctors’ association has proposed expanding the country’s euthanasia laws so newborn babies suffering from serious disabilitie...
How we all came to think science and religion were at war
We weren’t able to record an episode this week so please enjoy one from the MOLAD archive: This week’s guest is Nick Spencer, senior fellow at the fai...
A Womb in Limbo: Life Support, Law, and Medical Ethics
In today’s Q&A episode, we first explore a question sent in about a troubling story from Georgia, USA, where a braindead pregnant woman was kept on li...
Healed by prayer: Should Christian doctors believe in faith healing?
A doctor listener has written in with a fascinating question about miraculous healing. It was clearly a major part of Jesus’s ministry in the gospels,...
Conspiracy theories, mRNA, covid and autism: Why do so many struggle to get on board with vaccines?
The prominent vaccine sceptic turned US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is hard at work tearing apart America’s vaccine orthodoxy and establishme...
One in five pregnancies: How we’re talking differently about miscarriage, and what that may mean for abortion
As we’re on our summer hols, this week we’re bringing you a classic MOLAD episode from the archive. In October, the UK marks Baby Loss Awareness Week....
AI scepticism and the end of creativity, with Caleb Woodbridge
For a technology that only really hit the public consciousness barely three years ago, AI is everywhere. Clearly it is useful, maybe even addictive, b...
The Enhanced Games: Should we all want to become superhumans?
Today’s discussion begins with a maverick rival to the Olympics – The Enhanced Games – which will allow all its athletes to use whatever drugs or tech...
Can Christians work in the arms industry?
In this Q&A episode we begin with a query from a listener who is agonising over whether to apply for work at a defence research institution. Can belie...
The new Pope, Catholic Social Teaching and a second industrial revolution
In just his second day in the job, the new Pope Leo XIV dropped a fascinating hint as to what his priorities may be in the Vatican. It turns out he ch...
Abortion decriminalised, part 2
Last week we set the historical context of abortion law in the UK and how a sudden imposition of decriminalised abortion in 2019 in Northern Ireland s...
Abortion decriminalised, part 1
Without basically any public debate or meaningful legislative scrutiny, MPs in parliament passed a major reform to Britain’s abortion laws last week....
Elizabeth Oldfield: Intriguing non-believers and life in intentional community
This week we’re joined by the writer and podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield. Her new book Fully Alive is a series of essays trying to introduce riches of th...
WhatsApp, social media and smart devices: Persecution of Christians goes digital
Tim is on holiday, so today we’re bringing you a classic episode from the MOLAD archive.
The persecuted church today lives as it always has un...
Is Christianity bad news for women?
Christianity is sometimes described as ‘bad news for women’. Clearly we would all disagree with this epithet, but why does it have cultural currency r...
Sex, dinosaurs, bodies and climate change: Parenting children in our confusing and confused world
Today we’re sharing an episode of the Faith in Parenting podcast, run by the Faith in Kids team, which we took part in some months ago. We were kindly...
Apocalypse: Why do so many feel like the world is coming to an end?
It’s hard to escape the fact that we live in gloomy, despairing times. Whether it is economic stagnation, pandemics, democracy under attack, unending...
Can we treat Parkinson’s disease without destroying embryos?
In the first part of today’s episode we look at some exciting new research into treatments for the degenerative brain condition Parkinsons’s disease....
Shame, honour & the gospel: Recovering what we’ve missed
Is there an element of the gospel which we’ve forgotten about? That Jesus came not to just to deal with the guilt of our sin and forgive that, but to...
What is a woman?
Two major Supreme Court rulings here in the UK have given us plenty to chew over in this episode. In the first half we explore a judgement about docto...
Dementia: Listening to bodies and the sacramental ministry of touch
‘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 wi...
Cultural witness and the purpose of theology, with Graham Tomlin
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...
Antinatalism: Should we all stop having children?
One fringe explanation for the fall in birthrates we discussed in last week’s episode is the growing popularity of the antinatalist movement. Antinata...
Is this the end? Plummeting birth rates, the future of humanity and the meaning of children
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...
Spiritual, but not religious: What do people actually believe these days?
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 actual...
Arrested for praying in your head? Abortion clinic buffer zones and 21st century thoughtcrime
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...
What is the Trump government doing to medical research and international aid, and why should we care?
An under-reported story of the tumultuous first months of the second Donald Trump administration is how his team are brutally cutting back long-establ...
What are chatbots doing to us? Personhood in an age of AI
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...
Co-operation with evil
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 t...
Cryptocurrency: Financial liberation for the masses or pyramid schemes for the gullible?
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. S...
Should we fear our new social media overlords in the age of Trump?
Elon Musk, the mercurial billionaire who owns Twitter, is increasingly wielding his enormous political power via his social media network, interfering...
Knowing our own bodies: Fertility apps and the pill, with Dawn McAvoy
Recent research by the abortion provider BPAS has uncovered a striking increase in the numbers of women who use fertility tracking apps as contracepti...
Should we try to save every one? Ethical dilemmas and Christian values when treating very premature babies
A recent Guardian article looked in depth at advances in neonatology – the care of extremely premature babies – and the complex ethical challenges now...
Who do children belong to in an era of surrogacy and reproductive technology?
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 t...
An anxious generation: Are social media and smartphones ruining children’s mental health?
Since 2010 mental health problems among young people have exploded. At precisely the same time, smartphones and social media have become deeply embedd...