Life Issues

How does the sanctity of life sit alongside compassion for the suffering in the Christian message around assisted dying? Dr Susan Marriot, Head of Public Policy for the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Reverend Canon Rosie Harper, Bishop's advisor for women’s ministry for the Church of England’s Oxford Diocese, join Paul Hammond for this Life Issues episode.

Just one in three children in the UK now enjoy reading, so how do we need to redefine the importance of literacy for the next generation in a digital age? An assistant head of a primary school and co-founder of Spy Readers, Andrew Vale-Taylor, and Sarah Grace, a counsellor and psychotherapist and the pioneer of the first dyslexia-friendly Christian publisher in the UK, Sarah Grace Publishing, joined Vicky Gibbens for this Life Issues episode.

How do you lose labels that others put on you, or perhaps even the labels we put on ourselves? Particularly when those labels tell you that you’ll never amount to anything? Rob Parsons OBE looks back on his life’s journey in this week’s Life Issues to share how he overcame discouraging words spoken over him one step at a time.

In the last few years, we’ve seen a real growth in understanding of Neurodiversity. Although for some, function is severely limited, we now seem to recognise not just need but also possibility, contribution and value to society, workplace, communities and churches that comes with a greater openness from the neurotypical to walk alongside rather than disparage, the neurodiverse, to engage rather than distance.
In this week’s Life Issues, Wired Differently: The Strengths of Neurodiversity, Paul is joined by Fiona MacMillan who herself is Neurodivergent and chairs the Church of England’s Neurodiversity working group and Bex Chapman who is Mum to Neurodiverse children and also part of the working group.

You have to feel it, to heal it. We've all experienced it, hurt, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical. What's the prescription Jesus gave to relieve us of the pain? Forgiveness... It can be a hard medication to swallow, but someone once said "unforgiveness and resentment can be like taking poison ourselves expecting the other person to experience the awful effects"... In reality it is us who suffer. Dr Amy Orr Ewing, author of Forgiveness joins Ashley Andrew to delve deeper into the reality of turning the other cheek in this week' s Life Issues - Forgiveness in an Era of Outrage.