Faith at the Frontiers

Barney and Bethany interview Emily on the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum physics. If there are thousands or millions of versions of you and me in other worlds, each living ever-so-slightly different lives, what does that imply for theology? What does it mean about who God is? 

Emily and Barney interview Bethany, who has researched the problem of death and suffering from an evolutionary point of view and how that affects our understanding of creation and fall in the book of Genesis. Did God create death? Is death necessary for life? Does this idea conflict with the biblical picture? Did God guide evolution or did animals have a certain freedom in how they evolved? Join us for this episode to discuss these questions and more! 

Carmody questions whether there is any stable meaning to our definitions of science and religion. Barney & Emily offer various definitions of science and religion, and Carmody knocks them all down!

This episode produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound editing! 

Emily Qureshi-Hurst & Barney interview Professor Alister McGrath on the whole area of science & religion. We discuss questions like:

A fascinating and illuminating episode with one of its greatest practitioners who has made the field what it is today! 

This episode produced in collaboration with The Tablet, generously supported by the Ian Ramsey Centre.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering! 

Introducing a new series on science & religion, hosted by Barney and Emily Qureshi-Hurst.

Science & religion is one of the greatest frontier challenges in today's world. Are they compatible? Do they overlap? What happens when they come into conflict, as with the most famous example of evolution and Genesis 1? What does science reveal about ourselves and our world that Christianity needs to engage with? 

This series will feature interviews with Alister McGrath, Bethany Sollereder, Beth Singler, Carmody Grey, and others. 

This episode produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering! 

Barney interviews Rev Ryan Cook about his experiences transporting refugees from the Ukraine border to south Germany. We discuss questions like:

This episode is produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for the sound engineering!

We (Barney, Carmody, & Bethany) interview Dr Ondrej Dyck (material science PhD) on whether climate change is really happening and, if so, whether we should care. This episode goes to the heart of questions about how far we should trust science in a world saturated with political agendas and hidden motivations. And even if we agree on the facts, what ought we to do in light of them? That, we all recognise, is not a scientific question at all.

Here are links to the two documents we mention in our conversation:

- IPCC Mitigation of Climate Change

- NIPCC Climate Change Reconsidered

Would you like to hear more conversations with Ondrej? Share your views using the Spotify poll, or tweeting us @atthefrontiers, or emailing us.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound editing!

This episode produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

How do we stop living in echo chambers that only repeat what we already agree with? How do we ensure everyone's opinion is taken seriously and represented in positions of power? This is Part 2 of the double episode with Dr Tobias Cremer of Oxford University. After some more discussion of Christianity and right-wing populism, the conversation turns to questions of what we do about populism and the elitist backlash against it. It turns out that religious institutions like churches and mosques have a unique capacity to do something here, for reasons you may not have thought of.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for audio editing!

This episode produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Right-wing populism is growing in the West and its members talk a lot about recovering Christian values. But how Christian are they really, what do they mean by Christian values, and does the media tell the truth about who they are?

This is part one of a double episode with Dr Tobias Cremer of Oxford University. He surprised us all with his insights about ‘cultural evangelicalism’, the tension within the idea of ‘liberal democracy’ and what right-wing populists say when you ask them ‘What is Christianity?’

This episode is produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound editing services!

Is Western culture relativistic? Has it ever been relativistic? We were raised with the answer ‘yes’, but now Carmody, Bethany, and I are doubting this claim. The Ukraine War seems to have evoked a strong reaction from everyone that points in the direction of universal moral principles, whether one agrees with them or not. 

What do you think? Share your views using the Spotify poll, or tweeting us @atthefrontiers, or emailing us.

This episode is produced in collaboration with The Tablet.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound engineering!