The concept of ‘rights’ tends to provoke a strong response from people today: some hold them in quasi–religious esteem, while others consider them responsible for selfish individualism and social fragmentation.

Nick Spencer talks to Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, about his new book 'What’s wrong with rights?', which takes a critical look at the language, logic and implementation of rights today.

Levels of inequality, particularly in the West, have been growing steadily over the last 50 years, and they seem likely to accelerate in the wake of Covid–19. Why is this? Why was the 20th century so good as equalising wealth and income, why is the 21st century different, and what should we do about it?

Nick Spencer talks to the economist, Thomas Piketty – whose books Capital in the 21st century and Capital and Ideology have changed the debate on the subject – about inequality, solidarity, and the dangers of treating property as if it were sacred.

Approximately 850,000 people in the UK today are living with dementia – and that number is just set to grow. But what actually is dementia? What does it do to us? And what does it say about us, and in particular about our humanity?

In the third episode of Reading Our Times, Nick Spencer talks to novelist and journalist Nicci Gerrard about her experience of her father’s dementia and the moving and poignant book she wrote about it, 'What Dementia Teaches Us About Love'.

We live in “a secular age”, but what does that actually mean? How does secularism relate to religion? And how should it?

Nick Spencer talks to the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, about his famous book 'A Secular Age', which has done more to bring sophistication and nuance to the debates about secularism than any other published in a generation.

In the first episode of Reading Our Times, Nick Spencer talks to leading political philosopher Michael Sandel about the pitfalls of meritocracy.

Nick Spencer introduces new podcast from Theos Think Tank 'Reading Our Times'