CURRENT RESEARCH
THEME ARCHIVES
Outreach
Today’s Church Looking at Tomorrow’s Technology
Technology is changing the face of our society. Often it happens unseen. It’s hard to stand back and grasp the impact of the car, electricity, telephones, TV, computers, the Internet. They're now part of our life - things we could hardly imagine being without.
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Neurobiology: Free will and moral responsibility
Do we have free will, or are we just puppets, controlled by our brains? Some recent advances in neuroscience, while giving unprecedented access to our brains, are being used to support the idea that our behaviour is determined by our unconscious and that ultimately we don’t make the decisions that we think we do - it’s all down to our brain telling us what to do.
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The Internet: In Whose Image?
The Internet is now an unremarkable part of our lives. It has entered our working spaces, our schools and our living rooms, even our hands in the form of
smartphones, subtly modifying the way we do business, find information, learn, shop and entertain ourselves.
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Synthetic Biology
What is the right relationship between humanity and nature? Does God give us authority to unpick and reconstruct nature in the fundamental way which is at the core of synthetic biology? How far is far enough, and to what extent should our God- given ability to be creative be hemmed in by moral and ethical considerations?
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Human Cloning: Ethical Issues
In 1997 Dolly the cloned sheep caught the world’s imagination and caused a media sensation. Despite hoaxes and speculations, no one has yet
cloned a human being. Aside from the hype, what are the real issues? Why would it be wrong to clone human beings?
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Cloned Embryo Research: Ethical Issues
The creation of the first cloned human embryos was announced by Korean scientists in early 2004- though these claims were later shown to be false. Research using cloned human embryos is formally legal in the UK but remains ethically controversial.
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Embryonic and Adult Stem Cells: Ethical Dilemmas
Dolly the cloned sheep has become an icon for biotechnology, representing both the hopes and the fears about where embryology and genetics might lead. To most people’s relief, fears of cloned humans have not yet materialised, despite a number of attempts.
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End of Life Issues: A Christian Perspective
Much recent UK media coverage has surrounded decisions by individuals to seek assisted death, or to refuse medical treatment when a terminal condition is diagnosed. Making decisions about the end of life has ethical, religious and pastoral implications that affect not just the individual sufferer but carers and family members alike.
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Mental Health Issues
What makes a church a good one to belong to if you are struggling with your mental health? Is it the fact they have a Counsellor on staff or have an annual Depression Awareness Day? Or is it that they are aware enough to care, small enough to notice and moving slowly enough to actually deliver?
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A Credit Union: A common bond for a common good
A credit union is a financial services co-operative. It starts with a collective of like minded people, providing ethical, practical solutions with the objective of sharing wealth among its members and access to low cost affordable credit which might otherwise be unobtainable to some people.
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Money Matters: Christian reflections on consumerism
Life today can often seem very bewildering: the busyness and confusion that happens in daily life, the rapidly changing world of technology, the latest celebrity gossip. None of these things are necessarily bad, however as Christians we are called to be salt and light in the world, to make a difference where we can, and to remember that the focus of our attention should not be on ourselves or this world, but in loving God and treating others as we would wish to be treated.
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Food is a Gift from God
Food is more than just fuel. It is a gift and a blessing upon which we all depend. Yet many of us shop in supermarkets for our food and never give a second thought about where it comes from or how it is produced. What we eat and how it is grown should mean much more to us than this.
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Climate Change
The Church of Scotland is concerned that climate change poses a serious and immediate threat to people everywhere, particularly to the poor of the earth;
and that climate change represents a failure in our stewardship of God’s creation. We accept the need to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases urgently to avoid dangerous and irreversible climate change; and to promote a more equitable and sustainable use of energy.
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