God’s understanding of friendship is very different to the sexualised and suspicious framework society now inhabits. In this episode we take a lightning-quick tour through the Bible to consider what we can learn about friendship there – with God, bet...
Somebody once said that in contemporary society we all want to ‘have sex with our friends, and be friends with our sexual partners’. There is a broad suspicion of intimate but non-sexual friendships, especially those which are intergenerational or cr...
To mark one year since Matters of Life and Death joined the Premier Unbelievable network, we have a special one-off episode answering some questions emailed in by listeners. We discuss everything from whether Christians should lean into the culture w...
There are two strong Christian traditions when it comes to robust political or industrial action such as strikes. One argues for enduring oppression and unfair employment in the manner of Jesus and points to Paul’s teaching in the Bible on slaves and...
The UK is currently gripped by a wave of strikes from public sector employees – nurses, teachers, postal workers, train drivers, paramedics, and soon junior doctors too. But this raises complex ethical questions. Few Christians would deny it is legit...
If surveillance capitalism permeates all of modern society, how on earth can we step back to think critically about what it may be doing to us? In this episode we think through more of the implications of living in a non-private digital village in th...
Every tap, swipe and click we make on our phones, tablets and laptops is being recorded by big tech firms. This is often called surveillance capitalism – a network of products and services we use every day which sucks up large quantities of data abou...
In the second part of our discussion with Chris Goswami, we dive into some of the ethical arguments for and against cryptocurrencies. Are they providing financial liberation for some of the poor and excluded communities in the developing world, or si...
Recent news headlines have been full of discussion of the current ‘crypto winter’, a season where the value of cryptocurrencies has plummeted causing financial devastation and destroying what looked like thriving crypto institutions. This week we’re...
In our second conversation on Canada’s euthanasia regime, we chat with a Canadian doctor about the troubling expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying to those only suffering from mental illness. Can the families of mentally struggling patients be con...
Since 2016, Canada has offered assisted suicide through its public healthcare system. And the criteria for Medical Assistance in Dying has steadily expanded year on year, and will soon include not just those suffering from terminal conditions, but al...
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...
