Matters of Life & Death

In the third and final installment of John’s discussion with Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, they discuss Martin’s views on the future of space travel and astronauts, and whether some robotic future progeny of humankind will eventually replac...

Happy New Year! Today’s episode continues the Big Conversation between John and Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. In this part, they respond to robotics experts who welcome the arrival of non-human machines which could take over care work, healthcar...

Today’s episode is a little different from normal as we’re going to begin a short series sharing a recent conversation John had with Lord Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. As well as a highly distinguished cosmologist and astrophysicist, Martin is.....

In the second half of our conversation with Tim Farron, we discuss his conviction that Christians should get stuck into politics despite its compromises and challenges. Why did his own term as leader of the Liberal Democrats come unstuck so badly, an...

This week we’re joined by the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron to discuss social media and politics. Research suggests UK members of parliament like Tim get sent thousands of offensive tweets every single day. Why have social network...

In the second half of our discussion with Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan, we work through some ways in which the church might play in role in supporting those struggling with their mental health back to fullness of life. But is there also a pl...

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 better understand why this might be happening, how our mental healthcare systems a...

In the second part of our conversation on ageing and dependence, we think about how secular society has tried to ameliorate the crisis of isolated older people with technological solutions. Can the smart home or robotics really save us from having to...

We’ve discussed in previous episodes the looming ‘demographic timebomb’ – a growing mass of elderly and increasingly chronically ill people in many developed nations, expected to place huge strain on public resources. The policy debates around this i...

Resuming our conversation with Rhys Laverty from the Davenant Institute, we look at John’s contribution to the Protestant Social Teaching book – a chapter exploring post-Reformation tradition around death and dying. What might medieval and early mode...

Over 150 years the Catholic Church has built up a body of ethical doctrine commonly known as Catholic Social Teaching, which applies Catholic theology to wider social concerns, covering everything from labour relations to contraception. In this episo...

Building on last week’s discussion of AI chatbots, we consider the theology and sociology of why interacting with other human beings is so central to our personhood. But would it matter if we did enter into a counselling or caring relationship with a...

Earlier this year, a Google engineer went public with his concerns an artificial intelligence chatbot program he had been testing had become sentient. Although his fears were dismissed by Google’s bosses, parts of his conversations with the softwar.....

Twenty-four years ago, John published the book which gave this podcast its name: Matters of Life and Death. His first foray into Christian writing and teaching on ethics, it’s now available as an audiobook for the first time which we’re using as an e...

Building on last week’s whistlestop tour through the latest ground-breaking embryo research, in this episode we consider what we should do as Christians about all this. Do we continue to hold onto the position that every embryo is a distinct and prec...