All Matters of Life and Death articles – Page 5
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Shows
Matters 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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Matters 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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Matters 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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Matters 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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Matters 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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Matters 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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Matter 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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Matters 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.
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Matters of Life & Death: Q&A: Christian pacifism in times of war and the Tower of Babel reconsidered
In this episode we tackle two questions from listeners.
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Matters of Life & Death: Digital persecution: Deadly rumours on WhatsApp, a ‘Panopticon’ of censorship, the corrosion of trust, and China’s spreading surveillance state
The persecuted church today lives as it always has under the threat of arrest, imprisonment, physical attack, verbal threats and harassment, and even death. But today these traditional methods are supplemented by the technological revolution.
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Matters of Life & Death: Q&A: Helping unmarried couples have children and court-ordered blood transfusions
Today’s episode was recorded as part of the New Zealand Christian Medical Fellowship’s annual conference. Doctors there sent over two bioethical conundrums for us to chew over as part of a special episode of Matters of Life and Death.
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Matters of Life & Death: Generative AI: Second Contact, avoiding the fate of Nokia, hacking the human operating system, and the resilience of Western democracy
New artificial intelligence software has swept through the internet over the last year. Many are thrilled by the potential and power of AI which can generate brand new text, images, sound and video. But others are sounding the alarm.
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Matters of Life & Death: Q&A: Introverts versus extroverts, faith in the consultation room, and a moratorium on AI research
More quickfire initial thoughts in response to questions from listeners. This week we discuss whether introverts are marginalised in the church, or actually disproportionately likely in the pulpit?
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Matters of Life & Death: Contemporary spiritualities: Nominal atheism, New Age prayers for £25, moving on from Empty Tomb evangelism, and the church of social justice
The non-religious are an ever-increasing segment of the population, in the UK, the United States and across the Western world
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Matters of Life & Death: Effective altruism 2: Tithing, second-hand stuffed toys in Turkey, the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and one-hundredth of a guide dog
In this second part of our effective altruism conversation, we explore the Christian sub-community within EA and ask whether the movement’s fundamental ideas are compatible with Christian tradition on giving.
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Shows
Matters of Life & Death: Effective altruism 1: QALYs, longtermism, Jeremy Bentham’s embalmed corpse, and ethical elitism
Explore effective altruism, a data-driven utilitarian approach to philanthropy. Discover its rapid growth, potential deviations from original intentions, and the challenges of turning ethics into an algorithm.
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Matters of Life & Death: Webinar 2: Totalitarian regimes, the tobacco regulation lag, eternal life for materialists, and ‘Don’t be afraid’
In the second part of John’s webinar with Premier Unbelievable, he takes questions from listeners on everything from whether AI tech is inching us towards the end times to how families can stave off the destructive influence of smartphone addiction.
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Matters of Life & Death: Webinar 1: Redefining human-ness, testing for consciousness, hoodwinked by ChatGPT, and a black box
Part one of John’s ‘How to live faithfully in a technologically confusing world’ webinar explores the staggering sophistication of the latest generation of AI chatbots and what ethical questions these might throw up for Christians.
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Matters of Life & Death: Friendship 2: Walks in the Garden of Eden, David and Jonathan, covenantal clarity, and red flags
In this episode we take a lightning-quick tour through the Bible to consider what we can learn about friendship there – with God, between God’s people, and fundamentally lived out in the life of Jesus.
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Shows
Matters Of Life & Death Friendship 1: The hermeneutic of suspicion, Classical ideals, scandalising middle-class Vienna, and the ‘mysticism of materialism’
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 cross the sexes.