All Matters of Life and Death articles – Page 4
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Baby loss 2: Rising abortion numbers, pills by post, ‘the pregnancy remains’, and Schrodinger’s fetus
We spoke last week about the hugely welcome shift in how society talks about miscarriage and cares for women (and men) who have experienced it. And yet at the same time in Britain, we desperately avoid using the same language and narrative established in baby loss services when we are in the abortion zone.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Baby loss 1: Elsie’s story, one in five pregnancies, names missing from the family tree, and the power of ultrasound
We have just finished Baby Loss Awareness Week here in the UK. While the event is not hugely well known, it is indicative of an enormous cultural shift in recent decades around how society talks about miscarriage and stillbirth.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Women and Christianity: Purity culture, beyond complementarianism, baggy t-shirts over swimming costumes, and recovering Tamar’s voice
Christianity is sometimes described as ‘bad news for women’. Clearly we would all disagree with this epithet, but why does it have cultural currency right now for a growing number of particularly younger women?
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Origins of covid: Gain of function research, zoonosis, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and truth over tribe
When the pandemic first spread beyond China there was a straightforward message from scientific elites: the virus came from a wild animal accidentally spilling over into humans, and any suggestion it might have instead been manipulated in a lab and then escaped was a quasi-racist conspiracy theory.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Q&A: Should Christians use homeopathic medicine and why are climate scientists self-censoring in academic journal articles?
A listener has emailed in to ask where we stand on alternative medicine, such as homeopathy or chiropractors. Is it fine for believers to partake in these kinds of complementary treatments and therapies, alongside traditional evidence-based scientific medicine? Why are they so stubbornly popular despite mountains of research suggesting they mostly don’t work?
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Creation: The Brethren’s suspicion of the ‘world’, an explosion of joy, Eric Liddell’s sprinting epiphany, and celebrating beauty
Today we start a new series unpacking the theological foundations of much of what we talk about on Matters of Life and Death.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Q&A: The science of the billions-of-years-old Earth, has God deceived us, and are philosophers so useless after all?
Our latest episode tackling questions from the listeners starts by considering whether we can harmonise a belief in modern science and a literalistic reading of the Genesis account of creation.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Lucy Letby: Murder on the neonatal ward, Munchausen’s by proxy, doctors versus nurses, and the banality of evil
Britain has been gripped by horror by the recent conviction of a neonatal nurse called Lucy Letby, who murdered seven premature babies and attempted to kill six others at the hospital where she worked. In this episode we discuss this horrifying and tragic story and whether Letby could or should have been stopped earlier.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Q&A: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, psychosomatic illness, AI acing exams, and the limitations of true creativity
Delve into another episode of listener questions! We’re addressing feedback on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and exploring the enigma of ‘psychosomatic’ illnesses. Plus, we’re discussing the impact of AI like ChatGPT on academic assessments.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Space: The James Webb Telescope, hobbits of the universe, astrobiology, and 16 billion billion Earth-like planets
This week we have another classic episode of Matters of Life and Death from the archive. We invited theologian Andrew Davison to join us to talk through the spiritual ramifications of cosmology and what light thinking about the wider universe sheds on vital doctrines such as creation and incarnation.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Evolution: The cosmic watchmaker, a 6,000-year-old Earth, the immorality of mutation, and intelligent uncertainty
Evolution versus creationism is the internal Christian argument which doesn’t go away. We recorded an episode last year exploring this knotty problem and how believers might go about trying to debate it respectfully even if they disagree. We look at the age of the Earth, common descent, natural selection, and the historicity of Adam, Eve and the Fall, to try and shed some light on this murky issue.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Abusive leadership: Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Sigmund Freud’s chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships
It’s been almost two years since we recorded an episode about abusive church leadership inspired by the downfall of Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill church. Today we re-examine that conversation in the light of the latest scandal rocking the British evangelical church – allegations against Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Suffering: Mystery and presence, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, rediscovering lament and the Gethsemane prayer
We’re bringing you a classic episode of Matters of Life and Death from the archive today, all about suffering.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Q&A: Karl Barth’s complicated home life, and single Christians considering adoption
In our latest episode tackling some questions from listeners, we begin by thinking about whether it should matter if influential theologians and Christian writers had personal moral failings, and whether we can separate out someone’s theological work from their own sins.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Covid reconsidered 2: Empty Nightingale hospitals, difficult triage decisions, a failure of Christian leadership, and reconsidering lockdown
Our second ‘lessons learned’ episode looking back at the covid pandemic tackles how our healthcare systems coped, or failed to cope, with the unprecedented crisis of coronavirus.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Covid reconsidered 1: Pandemic amnesia, ‘Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives’, lingering Long Covid, and 13.47 billion vaccine doses
This podcast happened to launch a week or two into the first lockdown in spring 2020, and so for the first year almost all we could talk about on the show was coronavirus. But since normality finally returned last year, it feels like nobody wants to talk about the pandemic again.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Dementia: Listening to our bodies, 72 unique behaviours, multi-dimensional personhood, and the sacramental ministry of touch
In this episode we speak with trainee vicar and theologian Jess Wyatt about her research into embodiment, personhood and dementia, and think through different ways to care for and attend to those suffering from this increasingly prevalent disease.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Surrogacy: The intended parents, altruistic versus commercial, ancient Christians saving abandoned babies, and a post-genetic community
In this episode we discuss why surrogacy is gaining in popularity, the pros and cons of the proposed reforms, and whether Christians should endorse surrogacy as a good way to start families.
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ShowsMatter of Life & Life: Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism (Replay)
We are both on holiday this week so we’re bringing you an episode we first recorded in 2021 during the covid pandemic. It explores one of the most significant and potentially long-lasting ways the covid pandemic has affected church life – the shift to digital.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Trans children: Gender dysphoria, diagnostic overshadowing, boy Lego versus girl Lego, and the non-replicated Dutch Protocol
Perhaps the most contentious political, medical and social issue of the day is how to treat and care for young people who are questioning or experiencing distress around their sex and gender.
