All Episodes

Learning from Luther how to remain faithful during pandemics

The Biobank data leak: Privacy, knowledge and the humility of faith over sight

Does Jesus want to stop the boats? The immigration and asylum culture wars, with Krish Kandiah

The hollowed-out state: Can the church reinspire public service?

The Book of Revelation: Make Christianity Weird Again

ADHD: Should Christians enhance their brains with stimulants?

What can the church do for children with additional needs?

Faith under fire: Following Christ in the military, with Maj Gen Tim Cross

Re-enchantment: Why are young people getting back into the weird and the magical?

Are men really coming back to church? with Justin Brierley

Rediscovering evil

Touching grass and witnessing to truth: the church in an era of AI fakery and misinformation

Psychedelics: Shamans, the philosophy of Harry Potter and the neuroscientific turn

The social media addiction trial: Can Christians use the courts to protect the vulnerable?

Q&A: Were we unfair on the House of Lords over its assisted dying scrutiny? And the Church of England prepares to welcome its first nurse-Archbishop

Do the ends justify the means? The dubious campaign by unelected lawmakers to destroy the assisted dying bill

What makes the church vulnerable to abusers?

The big picture: New creation

The big picture: Redemption

The big picture: Fall

The big picture: Creation

Unlocking the menopause, with Dr Rosslyn Perkins

Designer babies: Are children commodities or gifts?

Does God care about nations? Colonialism, culture wars and Christian Nationalism with Nigel Biggar

‘Fearfully and wonderfully made’: What does Psalm 139 really mean?

Can AI make you mad? Chatbots and psychosis, with Dr Daniel Maughan

Autonomy, suffering and dignity: Christianity and assisted dying

Circumcision: Male genital mutilation or vital symbol of religious freedom?

Gender dysphoria and trans children

Making human egg cells out of skin, and other mysteries

Union and communion: The Trinity demystified

The idolatry of Christian Nationalism, with John Heathershaw

Why did a good God create earthquakes and volcanoes? Suffering, creation and natural evil, with Prof Bob White

Elijah or Obadiah: Should our Christian witness be prophetic, incarnational or both?

Don’t be afraid: The promise and the peril of AI in healthcare

Euthanasia for newborn babies, pagan philosophies and Christian witness in a post-Christian age

How we all came to think science and religion were at war

A Womb in Limbo: Life Support, Law, and Medical Ethics

Healed by prayer: Should Christian doctors believe in faith healing?

Conspiracy theories, mRNA, covid and autism: Why do so many struggle to get on board with vaccines?

One in five pregnancies: How we’re talking differently about miscarriage, and what that may mean for abortion

AI scepticism and the end of creativity, with Caleb Woodbridge

The Enhanced Games: Should we all want to become superhumans?

Can Christians work in the arms industry?

The new Pope, Catholic Social Teaching and a second industrial revolution

Abortion decriminalised, part 2

Abortion decriminalised, part 1

Elizabeth Oldfield: Intriguing non-believers and life in intentional community

WhatsApp, social media and smart devices: Persecution of Christians goes digital

Is Christianity bad news for women?

Apocalypse: Why do so many feel like the world is coming to an end?

Sex, dinosaurs, bodies and climate change: Parenting children in our confusing and confused world

Can we treat Parkinson’s disease without destroying embryos?

Shame, honour & the gospel: Recovering what we’ve missed

What is a woman?

Dementia: Listening to bodies and the sacramental ministry of touch

Cultural witness and the purpose of theology, with Graham Tomlin

Antinatalism: Should we all stop having children?

Is this the end? Plummeting birth rates, the future of humanity and the meaning of children

Spiritual, but not religious: What do people actually believe these days?

Arrested for praying in your head? Abortion clinic buffer zones and 21st century thoughtcrime

What is the Trump government doing to medical research and international aid, and why should we care?

What are chatbots doing to us? Personhood in an age of AI

Co-operation with evil

Cryptocurrency: Financial liberation for the masses or pyramid schemes for the gullible?

Should we fear our new social media overlords in the age of Trump?

Knowing our own bodies: Fertility apps and the pill, with Dawn McAvoy

Should we try to save every one? Ethical dilemmas and Christian values when treating very premature babies

Who do children belong to in an era of surrogacy and reproductive technology?

An anxious generation: Are social media and smartphones ruining children’s mental health?

Giving, data and compassion: Should Christians all be ‘effective altruists’?

Surveillance capitalism: Is privacy dead and should we care?

The ethics of embryology: ‘Ensoulment’, the 14-day limit and co-operation with evil

The powers of the age: Spiritual warfare, evil and technology in the 21st century

The future of gender medicine and transgender children, with Dr Julie Maxwell

The assisted suicide bill has been passed by parliament. What comes next?

Should Christians abandon contraception?

Earthquakes and cancer: Why is God’s good world so full of suffering? with Sharon Dirckx

Vaccine conspiracies, mistrust and catastrophism: How the church lost its way, with Dr Francis Collins

DNA, parenthood and selecting for IQ: The surprising return of eugenics

Near death experiences

Prenatal screening: Is all knowledge a good thing?

Same-sex attraction and friendship in church, with Ed Shaw

Yoga, mindfulness and truly Christian meditation

Remembrance and forgetting: Why is nobody talking about covid any more?

Will anti-obesity wonder drugs save our broken NHS?

Stigma, anti-depressants and emotional resilience: Rethinking mental health and the church

Assisted suicide: Euthanasia tourism takes off in the US amid fresh push to change law in Britain

Should robots be given human rights?

Lucy Letby reconsidered: Innocence and guilt, partial evidence, and living with unknowns

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?

The infected blood scandal

Autonomous killer drones and the future of warfare

Should Christians break the law? Civil disobedience, climate protest and heavy-handed policing

The unintended consequences of sperm donation

Neo-Luddism and the ‘myth’ of progress: Should Christians be pro or anti technology?

Energy abundance: Is the coming solar power revolution a blessing from God?

Julian Assange, whistleblowers, and the Christian case for journalism

Physics and the gospel: Richard Cheetham on how churches can embrace science once more

Dependence: Should Christians embrace ‘being a burden’ on others as we get old?

Are smartphones damaging our children? with Andy Crouch

How much is too much to genetically screen your children?

Elections, the church and threats to democracy

Autism: Disability or superpower?

Two is the loneliest number: Can AI friends stop us feeling alone?

‘Playing God’: Science and religion in the 21st century

Assisted dying in Scotland: A bad law but also an inevitable one?

Abusive relationships and coercive control in church

Q&A: Did ending Roe v Wade actually save unborn children’s lives?

ADHD, over-diagnosis and should Christians try to enhance our brains with stimulants?

Tim Farron, toxic social media, and how to navigate the ‘mucky business’ of politics

New obesity drugs, the morality of food, and has neuroscience killed off free will?

Tech hype: Should Christians resist or lean into AI?

Q&A: Why have anti-abortion activists accidentally banned fertility treatment in Alabama?

How can Christian doctors approach medical-assisted dying (euthanasia)?

Psychedelics, spirits and the philosophy of Harry Potter

Q&A: Should single Christians use dating apps if they strike out at church?

New Creation: Reading the Bible backwards, the ‘opiate of the masses’, Physics 2.0, and the resurrected yet scarred body

Egg freezing revisited: What about the ‘surplus’ eggs, and is better contraception part of the solution?

Gender gap in church: Onward Christian Soldiers, the only man in a room full of women, Bonhoeffer’s ‘cheap grace’ and Christian dating apps

Q&A: The contradictions which underpin anti-suicide efforts in an era of euthanasia, and are there any honest and unbiased journalists left these days?

Egg freezing: The ticking biological clock, prosecco and cheese evenings, the culture war over maternal age, and living with wisdom and contentment

Genetics: Libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, Gattaca, and Big Data Towers of Babel

Pregnancy crisis: A constructive Christian response, heads versus hearts, paternalistic gynaecologists, and ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic

Climate anxiety: ’Delay means death’, Extinction Rebellion, throwing pebbles into God’s river, and rediscovering lament

Q&A: Should we welcome the coming wave of anti-obesity drugs, and what’s at stake in the argument over the 14-day limit on embryo research?

Redemption: Always Plan A, sharing in Christ’s sufferings, a Disney fairy story, and the offensive incarnation

Palliative care: Dogs and Guinness on the wards, complicated grief, DNAR discussions, and resisting assisted dying

Q&A: Why are we ignoring rising death rates among poorer ethnic minority children, and will the flesh-and-blood girlfriend become a thing of the past?

Science and religion: The myth of conflict, Charles Darwin’s beetle research, epistemic humility, and English country churchyard or Californian fridge?

Q&A: The ‘myths’ leading women to choose abortion, and is digital slavery underpinning breakthroughs in AI?

Friendship 3: Ruth and Naomi, ‘chesed’, trips to the theatre with John Stott, and an unorthodox rabbi

The Fall: Bad actor theory, a malevolent voice in the Garden, Total Depravity and Original Sin, and the ‘Christian heresy’ of liberal humanism

Baby loss 2: Rising abortion numbers, pills by post, ‘the pregnancy remains’, and Schrodinger’s fetus

Baby loss 1: Elsie’s story, one in five pregnancies, names missing from the family tree, and the power of ultrasound

Women and Christianity: Purity culture, beyond complementarianism, baggy t-shirts over swimming costumes, and recovering Tamar’s voice

Origins of covid: Gain of function research, zoonosis, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and truth over tribe

Q&A: Should Christians use homeopathic medicine and why are climate scientists self-censoring in academic journal articles?

Creation: The Brethren’s suspicion of the ‘world’, an explosion of joy, Eric Liddell’s sprinting epiphany, and celebrating beauty

Q&A: The science of the billions-of-years-old Earth, has God deceived us, and are philosophers so useless after all?

Lucy Letby: Murder on the neonatal ward, Munchausen’s by proxy, doctors versus nurses, and the banality of evil

Q&A: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, psychosomatic disorders, AI acing exams, and the limitations of true creativity

Space: The James Webb Telescope, hobbits of the universe, astrobiology, and 16 billion billion Earth-like planets

Evolution: The cosmic watchmaker, a 6,000-year-old Earth, the immorality of mutation, and intelligent uncertainty

Abusive leadership: Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Sigmund Freud's chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships

Suffering: Mystery and presence, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, rediscovering lament and the Gethsemane prayer

Q&A: Karl Barth’s complicated home life, and single Christians considering adoption

Covid reconsidered 2: Empty Nightingale hospitals, difficult triage decisions, a failure of Christian leadership, and reconsidering lockdown

Covid reconsidered 1: Pandemic amnesia, ‘Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives’, lingering Long Covid, and 13.47 billion vaccine doses

Dementia: Listening to our bodies, 72 unique behaviours, multi-dimensional personhood, and the sacramental ministry of touch

Surrogacy: The intended parents, altruistic versus commercial, ancient Christians saving abandoned babies, and a post-genetic community

Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism (Replay)

Trans children: Gender dysphoria, diagnostic overshadowing, boy Lego versus girl Lego, and the non-replicated Dutch Protocol

Q&A: Christian pacifism in times of war and the Tower of Babel reconsidered

Digital persecution: Deadly rumours on WhatsApp, a ‘Panopticon’ of censorship, the corrosion of trust, and China’s spreading surveillance state

Q&A: Helping unmarried couples have children and court-ordered blood transfusions

Generative AI: Second Contact, avoiding the fate of Nokia, hacking the human operating system, and the resilience of Western democracy

Q&A: Introverts versus extroverts, faith in the consultation room, and a moratorium on AI research

Contemporary spiritualities: Nominal atheism, New Age prayers for £25, moving on from Empty Tomb evangelism, and the church of social justice

Effective altruism 2: Tithing, second-hand stuffed toys in Turkey, the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and one-hundredth of a guide dog

Effective altruism 1: QALYs, longtermism, Jeremy Bentham’s embalmed corpse, and ethical elitism

Webinar 2: Totalitarian regimes, the tobacco regulation lag, eternal life for materialists, and ‘Don’t be afraid’

Webinar 1: Redefining human-ness, testing for consciousness, hoodwinked by ChatGPT, and a black box

Friendship 2: Walks in the Garden of Eden, David and Jonathan, covenantal clarity, and red flags

Friendship 1: The hermeneutic of suspicion, Classical ideals, scandalising middle-class Vienna, and the ‘mysticism of materialism’

Listener questions: Polarised culture wars, the challenge of elder care, and childlike sexbots

Public sector strikes 2: Taking patients hostage, employment as service, slaves and masters, and Christian peacemaking

Public sector strikes 1: The Winter of Discontent, austerity-era pay freezes, Christian socialist solidarity, and continuity of patient care

Surveillance capitalism 2: QR codes in China, privacy, the manipulation of desire, and a neo-Benedictine Rule of Life

Surveillance capitalism 1: Trillions of data points, clickbait, an advertising arms race, and BF Skinner’s pigeons

Cryptocurrency 2: Technicism, the Parable of the Talents, get-rich-quick schemes, and the wheat and the weeds

Cryptocurrency 1: Bitcoin, warehouses of computers solving maths puzzles, the dot.com bubble, and FOMO

Medical Assistance in Dying 2: Suicidal ideation, no crystal balls, conscientious objection, and Hippocrates’ successful medical practice

Medical Assistance in Dying 1: Judicial activism, a ‘reasonably foreseeable’ death, the unacceptability of suffering, and reasons to stay alive

Martin Rees 3: Pre-emptive science fiction, the morality-reality gap, adventurers on Mars, and the mind of the Creator

Martin Rees 2: Blurred humanity, re-dignifying care work, algorithms reading lung X-rays, and the risks of virtual life

Martin Rees 1: Advances in artificial intelligence, the Eliza effect, passing the Turing Test, and the problem of other minds

Social media and politics 2: A mucky business, the ultimate conspiracy theory, ‘showbiz for ugly people’, and and atomised individuals

Social media and politics 1: The judgemental society, 3,000 offensive tweets a day, freedom from vs freedom to, and Elon Musk’s Twitter

Mental health 2: Emotional resilience, the bio-psycho-social model, the power of story, and depression in the Psalms

Mental health 1: Power dynamics, the psychiatrist as brick wall, casualties of social media, and over-pathologising distress

Dependence 2: The Panopticon at home, evangelising to retirees, existential angst in the House of Lords, and rejecting self-sufficiency

Dependence 1: Isolated elderly people, altruistic suicide, a second childhood, and a crucified hero

Protestant Social Teaching 2: The ars moriendi, open casket funerals in Derry Girls, the end of Christendom and ethical quietism

Protestant Social Teaching 1: Overlap with Catholicism, chronological snobbery, rejecting one-size-fits-all ethics, and ‘worldly’ versus ‘spiritual’ matters

AI sentience 2: I-Thou relationships, talking to stuffed animals, thanking Alexa, and Turing red flag laws

AI sentience 1: Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, trillions of words, mute idols, and the God who speaks

Matters of Life and Death: The book reconsidered, the Moscow State University reading list, audiobooks, and the decline of the reading Christian

Embryology 2: Psalm 139, reconsidering ‘ensoulment’, the language of right and wrong, and co-operation with evil

Embryology 1: A stem cell ‘Mini Me’, CRISPR, Brave New World, and extending the 14-day limit

Evolution 2: Tracking coronavirus variants, the immorality of mutation, roughly one thousand hominids, and intelligent uncertainty

The Queen: Monarchy as service, astonishing the President of Ireland, the changing Christmas Speech, and a testimonial faith

Evolution 1: Finding common ground, the cosmic watchmaker, interpreting Genesis, and a 6,000-year-old Earth?

Archie Battersbee 2: Doubts over the brain scans, the end of ‘doctor knows best’, sucked into the culture wars and protective power of attorney

Archie Battersbee 1: The invention of ‘brain death’, a breakdown in trust, the child’s best interests, and how to turn off life support

Genetics 2: Whole genome sequencing, Gattaca, de-identification versus anonymity, and Big Data Towers of Babel

Genetics 1: Rare diseases, libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, and precision medicine

Suffering 2: Rediscovering lament, reciting psalms in bomb shelters, the Gethsemane prayer, and the realism of Christian hope

Suffering 1: ’Adamah’, mystery and presence, the ever-smiling Buddha, and the lamb slain from the creation of the world

Space 2: Astrobiology, 16 billion billion Earth-like planets, LUCA and the non-competitive Imago Dei

Space 1: The James Webb telescope, extra-terrestrial life, hobbits of the universe and the doctrine of creation

Simulation 2: Zoom’s face-smoothing, chatbot therapists, Trinitarianism, and evil as counterfeit

Simulation 1: Deep fakes, David Beckham speaking Mandarin, Jean Baudrillard’s four phases, and image as sacrament

Prenatal screening 2: The prohibition on soothsaying, transcending genetic determinism, a client-technician relationship and Heidi Crowter’s joyful self-advocacy

Prenatal screening 1: Peering into the unknown, less than 1/150, blood tests over the internet, and disability doublethink

Old people 2: Aging congregations, transcendence at the Arsenal, understanding life backwards, and honouring prayer warriors

Old people 1: The demographic transition, Reverend Thomas Malthus, Hasidic Jewish outliers, and the grey vote

Robot rights 2: Rejecting self-definition, the citadel of human uniqueness, rehashing ‘God of the gaps’, and evangelising at androids

Robot rights 1: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws, fauxbots, whimpering miniature dinosaurs, and inherent or conferred personhood

Pregnancy crisis 2: Paternalistic gynaecologists, holding truth with grace, ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic, and refusing the culture war

Pregnancy crisis 1: A constructive Christian response, heads versus hearts, feeling like a ‘bad feminist’, and the three options

John Stott 2: Christians in the public square, an untried ideal, talking and living like Jesus, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography

John Stott 1: Double listening, a conservative radical, redefining ‘the ministry’ and salt as preservative

Palliative care 2: Resisting assisted dying, the ‘superskill’ of listening, DNAR discussions, and euthanasia-free-zones

Palliative care 1: Dogs and Guinness on the wards, ‘living until you die’, deathbed prayers, and complicated grief

Climate anxiety 2: Listening to the Global South, alienation from creation, throwing pebbles into God’s river, and rediscovering lament

Climate anxiety 1: ’Delay means death’, media apathy, Extinction Rebellion, and fatalism among the young

Human enhancement 2: Techno-optimism returns, the yuck factor, cultivating our bodies, and the divinisation of humanity

Human enhancement 1: Calico, the dragon tyrant, transhumanism, and monkeys playing Pong

Relaunch: How we started, baby boomers and millennials, the pandemic as catalyst, and the signal to noise ratio

Coronavirus: The Omicron variant, mandatory vaccination, pandemic solidarity, and memories of authoritarianism

Reproductive technologies: the ’Google baby’, Oliver O’Donovan, 14-day-old embryos, and techno-optimism

Infertility and IVF: Hidden wounds, premature quintuplets, embryo donation and the procreative-unitive bond

Assisted dying: The Meacher Bill, radicals in the Lords, Canada’s slippery slope and fragile conscience protections

Abusive leadership: Mark Driscoll, the hermeneutic of suspicion, Sigmund Freud’s chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships

The Robot Will See You Now: Human uniqueness, AI musicians, surveillance capitalism and ditching Google

Coronavirus: Miscounting deaths, the Sun’s front page, key workers with long covid and vaccine generosity

John Stott: Double listening, salt as preservative, incarnational mission, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography

Simulation: Deep fakes, image as sacrament, David Beckham in Mandarin and therapy chatbots

Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism

Social media and free speech: Fake news, Facebook’s ’Supreme Court’, the Capitol riot and YouTube algorithms

Coronavirus: Misinformation

Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 3

Coronavirus: The second lockdown

Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 2

Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 1

Coronavirus: Mental health, anxiety and hope

Coronavirus: Technology - part 2

Coronavirus: Technology - part 1

Coronavirus: Death and spirituality during a pandemic

Coronavirus: Life in the NHS

Coronavirus: The ethics of triage

Coronavirus: Thinking as a Christian during Covid-19

Coronavirus: How this pandemic is unlike anything before

Coronavirus: Christians in times of plague