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Matters of Life and Death
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
Matters of Life and Death
Matters of Life & Death Friendship 1: The hermeneutic of suspicion, Classical ideals, scandalising middle-class Vienna, and the ‘mysticism of materialism’
Somebody once said that in contemporary society we all want to ‘have sex with our friends, and be friends with our sexual partners’. There is a broad suspicion of intimate but non-sexual friendships, especially those which are intergenerational or cross the sexes. We are all supposed to be too cynical to believe that people might just be friends – surely it’s actually all about sex and power in some way? In this episode we try to unpick where the denigration of friendship came from in the modern Western world, and explore what impact this has on the Christian ideal of friendship.
Matters of Life & Death: Listener questions: Polarised culture wars, the challenge of elder care, and childlike sexbots
To mark one year since Matters of Life and Death joined the Premier Unbelievable network, we have a special one-off episode answering some questions emailed in by listeners.
Matters of Life & Death: Public sector strikes 2: Taking patients hostage, employment as service, slaves and masters, and Christian peacemaking
There are two strong Christian traditions when it comes to robust political or industrial action such as strikes. One argues for enduring oppression and unfair employment in the manner of Jesus and points to Paul’s teaching in the Bible on slaves and masters. But a second position throws its weight behind efforts to challenge injustice and protect the vulnerable, noting Jesus’s clear teaching on care for the widow, orphan and stranger.
Matters of Life & Death: Public sector strikes 1: The Winter of Discontent, austerity-era pay freezes, Christian socialist solidarity, and continuity of patient care
The UK is currently gripped by a wave of strikes from public sector employees – nurses, teachers, postal workers, train drivers, paramedics, and soon junior doctors too. But this raises complex ethical questions. Few Christians would deny it is legitimate for private employees to withhold their labour in order to demand better pay or conditions, but it is not the governmental employers who will suffer in public sector strikes but patients, students and ordinary citizens.
Matters Of Life & Death: Surveillance capitalism 2: QR codes in China, privacy, the manipulation of desire, and a neo-Benedictine Rule of Life
In this episode we think through more of the implications of living in a non-private digital village in the 21st century, but is privacy even a Christian virtue in the first place?
Matters Of Life & Death: Surveillance capitalism 1: Trillions of data points, clickbait, an advertising arms race, and BF Skinner’s pigeons
Every tap, swipe and click we make on our phones, tablets and laptops is being recorded by big tech firms. This is often called surveillance capitalism – a network of products and services we use every day which sucks up large quantities of data about us and then sells it on to advertisers at huge profits.
Matters Of Life & Death: Cryptocurrency 2: Technicism, the Parable of the Talents, get-rich-quick schemes, and the wheat and the weeds
In the second part of our discussion with Chris Goswami, we dive into some of the ethical arguments for and against cryptocurrencies.
Matters Of Life & Death: Cryptocurrency 1: Bitcoin, warehouses of computers solving maths puzzles, the dot.com bubble, and FOMO
Recent news headlines have been full of discussion of the current ‘crypto winter’, a season where the value of cryptocurrencies has plummeted causing financial devastation and destroying what looked like thriving crypto institutions.
Matters Of Life & Death: Medical Assistance in Dying 2: Suicidal ideation, no crystal balls, conscientious objection, and Hippocrates’ successful medical practice
In our second conversation on Canada’s euthanasia regime, we chat with a Canadian doctor about the troubling expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying to those only suffering from mental illness.
Matters Of Life & Death: Medical Assistance in Dying 1: Judicial activism, a ‘reasonably foreseeable’ death, the unacceptability of suffering, and reasons to stay alive
This week we speak with a Christian psychiatrist from Canada who has been involved in both the campaigning against the spread of euthanasia, and also figuring out on the ground how to care well for patients in a system which offers them the chance to take their own lives instead of receiving treatment.
Matters Of Life & Death: Martin Rees 3: Pre-emptive science fiction, the morality-reality gap, adventurers on Mars, and the mind of the Creator
In the third and final installment of John’s discussion with Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, they discuss Martin’s views on the future of space travel and astronauts, and whether some robotic future progeny of humankind will eventually replace us in exploring the universe.
Matters Of Life & Death: Martin Rees 2: Blurred humanity, re-dignifying care work, algorithms reading lung X-rays and the risks of virtual life
Happy New Year! Today’s episode continues the Big Conversation between John and Martin Rees, the astronomer royal.
Matters Of Life & Death: Martin Rees 1: Advances in artificial intelligence, the Eliza effect, passing the Turing Test, and the problem of other minds
Today’s episode is a little different from normal as we’re going to begin a short series sharing a recent conversation John had with Lord Martin Rees, the astronomer royal.
Matters Of Life & Death: Social media and politics 2: A mucky business, the ultimate conspiracy theory, ‘showbiz for ugly people’, and and atomised individuals
In the second half of our conversation with Tim Farron, we discuss his conviction that Christians should get stuck into politics despite its compromises and challenges. Why did his own term as leader of the Liberal Democrats come unstuck so badly, and does he believe there actually is a ceiling on ambition for Christian politicians who wish to hold onto their integrity? What impact is social media and our accelerating, atomised society having on our politics, and how can we as believers resist being dragged along with this?
Matters Of Life & Death: Social media and politics 1: The judgemental society, 3,000 offensive tweets a day, freedom from vs freedom to, and Elon Musk’s Twitter
This week we’re joined by the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron to discuss social media and politics. Research suggests UK members of parliament like Tim get sent thousands of offensive tweets every single day.
Matters Of Life & Death: Mental health 2: Emotional resilience, the bio-psycho-social model, the power of story and depression in the Psalms
In the second half of our discussion with Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan, we work through some ways in which the church might play in role in supporting those struggling with their mental health back to fullness of life.
Matters Of Life & Death: Mental health 1: Power dynamics, the psychiatrist as brick wall, casualties of social media and over-pathologising distress
Since the covid pandemic there has been an alarming rise in people presenting with mental health problems.
Matters Of Life & Death: Dependence 2: The Panopticon at home, evangelising to retirees, existential angst in the House of Lords, and rejecting self-sufficiency
In the second part of our conversation on ageing and dependence, we think about how secular society has tried to ameliorate the crisis of isolated older people with technological solutions.
Matters Of Life & Death: Dependence 1: Isolated elderly people, altruistic suicide, a second childhood, and a crucified hero
We’ve discussed in previous episodes the looming ‘demographic timebomb’ – a growing mass of elderly and increasingly chronically ill people in many developed nations, expected to place huge strain on public resources.
Matters Of Life & Death: Protestant Social Teaching 2: The ars moriendi, open casket funerals in Derry Girls, the end of Christendom and ethical quietism
Resuming our conversation with Rhys Laverty from the Davenant Institute, we look at John’s contribution to the Protestant Social Teaching book – a chapter exploring post-Reformation tradition around death and dying.
Matters Of Life & Death: Protestant Social Teaching 1: Overlap with Catholicism, chronological snobbery, rejecting one-size-fits-all ethics, and ‘worldly’ versus ‘spiritual’ matters
Over 150 years the Catholic Church has built up a body of ethical doctrine commonly known as Catholic Social Teaching, which applies Catholic theology to wider social concerns, covering everything from labour relations to contraception.
Matters Of Life & Death: AI sentience 2: I-Thou relationships, talking to stuffed animals, thanking Alexa, and Turing red flag laws
Building on last week’s discussion of AI chatbots, we consider the theology and sociology of why interacting with other human beings is so central to our personhood.
Matters of Life & Death: AI sentience 1: Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, trillions of words, mute idols, and the God who speaks
Earlier this year, a Google engineer went public with his concerns an artificial intelligence chatbot program he had been testing had become sentient.
Matters of Life & Death: The book reconsidered, the Moscow State University reading list, audiobooks, and the decline of the reading Christian
Twenty-four years ago, John published the book which gave this podcast its name: Matters of Life and Death.
Matters Of Life & Death: Embryology 2: Psalm 139, reconsidering ‘ensoulment’, the language of right and wrong, and co-operation with evil
Building on last week’s whistlestop tour through the latest ground-breaking embryo research, in this episode we consider what we should do as Christians about all this.
Matters Of Life & Death: Embryology 1: A stem cell ‘Mini Me’, CRISPR, Brave New World, and extending the 14-day limit
There has been a flood of highly significant if poorly reported developments in embryo research in recent years, all of which raise new and confusing questions for Christians and non-Christians alike.
Matters Of Life & Death: Evolution 2: Tracking coronavirus variants, the immorality of mutation, roughly one thousand hominids, and intelligent uncertainty
Our second episode on the evolution debate considers three more bones of contention: where do different species come from? Are we all commonly descended from a single source, or does God intervene?
Matters Of Life & Death: The Queen: Monarchy as service, astonishing the President of Ireland, the changing Christmas Speech, and a testimonial faith
In this special one-off episode, Tim speaks with Mark Greene from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity about Queen Elizabeth II, her faith and decades of service.
Matters Of Life & Death: Evolution 1: Finding common ground, the cosmic watchmaker, interpreting Genesis, and a 6,000-year-old Earth?
Evolution vs creationism. It’s been one of the most divisive and contentious debates within Christianity. But is there a way to tackle these questions without falling into rancour and accusation?
Matters Of Life & Death: 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’s case underlines the growing crisis over the lack of trust many ordinary people have in medical professionals.
Matters Of Life & Death: Archie Battersbee 1: The invention of ‘brain death’, a breakdown in trust, the child’s best interests, and how to turn off life support
Twelve-year-old Archie Battersbee died on 7 August, after months of legal wrangling between doctors who believed he was brain dead and wished to end life support, and his family who resisted this.
Matters Of Life & Death: Genetics 2: Whole genome sequencing, Gattaca, de-identification versus anonymity, and Big Data Towers of Babel
In this episode we pick up our conversation with clinical geneticist Melody Redman to talk about a new NHS programme in England which is piloting whole genome sequencing of newborn babies.
Matters Of Life & Death: Genetics 1: Rare diseases, libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, and precision medicine
Each of us carries around in our cells about 20,000 different genes – a unique set of biological code which shapes how our bodies develop.
Matters Of Life & Death: Suffering 2: Rediscovering lament, reciting psalms in bomb shelters, the Gethsemane prayer, and the realism of Christian hope
Resuming our conversation about suffering, we think through some faithful Christian responses to evil and loss.
Matters Of Life & Death: Suffering 1: ’Adamah’, mystery and presence, the ever-smiling Buddha, and the lamb slain from the creation of the world
The problem of suffering has been one of the most intractable and painful theological debates for centuries.
Matters Of Life & Death: Space 2: Astrobiology, 16 billion billion Earth-like planets, LUCA and the non-competitive Imago Dei
In the second half of our conversation with theologian Andrew Davison, we ask what the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would mean for Christian faith and teaching.
Matters Of Life & Death: Space 1: The James Webb telescope, extra-terrestrial life, hobbits of the universe and the doctrine of creation
In the week the first images from the new James Webb Space Telescope were beamed back to Earth, we are joined by theologian Andrew Davison to consider the spiritual value of cosmology and astrophysics.
Matters Of Life & Death: Simulation 2: Zoom’s face-smoothing, chatbot therapists, Trinitarianism, and evil as counterfeit
Today we’re going back to our conversation about simulation for part two of this re-broadcast.
Matters Of Life & Death: Simulation 1: Deep fakes, David Beckham speaking Mandarin, Jean Baudrillard’s four phases, and image as sacrament
For the next two weeks we’re dipping back into the Matters of Life and Death archive to bring you an episode we first broadcast last year. It’s all about simulation.
Matters Of Life & Death: Prenatal screening 2: The prohibition on soothsaying, transcending genetic determinism, a client-technician relationship and Heidi Crowter’s joyful self-advocacy
Could it be that some knowledge – including whether your unborn child has a serious genetic condition – is actually not helpful, and even harmful to us?
Matters Of Life & Death: Prenatal screening 1: Peering into the unknown, less than 1/150, blood tests over the internet, and disability doublethink
Pregnant women today are offered a battery of tests and screening for their unborn child, looking for an ever-increasing range of conditions and risks.
Matters Of Life & Death: Old people 2: Aging congregations, transcendence at the Arsenal, understanding life backwards, and honouring prayer warriors
Demographic trends reveal clearly the next century will be one increasingly dominated by older people. If God is giving us a lot more folk in their later years, what are they for in church life?
Matters Of Life & Death: Old people 1: The demographic transition, Reverend Thomas Malthus, Hasidic Jewish outliers, and the grey vote
The world’s population is rapidly becoming older and older, with many developed nations seeing unprecedented proportions of their citizens in retirement age.
Matters Of Life & Death: Robot rights 2: Rejecting self-definition, the citadel of human uniqueness, rehashing ‘God of the gaps’, and evangelising at androids
In the second part of our conversation on robot rights, we explore three Christian responses to calls for robot personhood, spanning the spectrum of hostility to optimism about the development.
Matters Of Life & Death: Robot rights 1: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws, fauxbots, whimpering miniature dinosaurs, and inherent or conferred personhood
If and when autonomous and intelligent robots come into existence, should they be granted rights, or even personhood?
Matters Of Life & Death: Pregnancy crisis 2: Paternalistic gynaecologists, holding truth with grace, ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic, and refusing the culture war
Abortion is a flashpoint issue in both the church and wider culture, with the very language you choose used as a cudgel for either side.
Matters Of Life & Death: John Stott 2: Christians in the public square, an untried ideal, talking and living like Jesus, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography
This is part two of our re-broadcast of last year’s John Stott episode, to mark what would have been his centenary.
Matters Of Life & Death: John Stott 1: Double listening, a conservative radical, redefining ‘the ministry’ and salt as preservative
This month marks 101 years since the late John Stott was born, and his centenary last year prompted a flurry of events to mark the centenary of this highly influential vicar, Bible teacher and evangelical leader.
Matters Of Life & Death: Palliative care 2: Resisting assisted dying, the ‘superskill’ of listening, DNAR discussions, and euthanasia-free-zones
In Britain as in many countries there is a growing campaign to legalise assisted suicide and to make doctors prescribe on request lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.
Matters Of Life & Death: Palliative care 1: Dogs and Guinness on the wards, ‘living until you die’, deathbed prayers, and complicated grief
Over the past 60 years a new field of medicine has emerged – palliative care.
Matters Of Life & Death: Climate anxiety 2: Listening to the Global South, alienation from creation, throwing pebbles into God’s river, and rediscovering lament
Following on from our discussion last week on the rise of climate fatalism, we discuss what an authentically Christian response to our environmental crisis would look like.
Matters Of Life & Death: Climate anxiety 1: ’Delay means death’, media apathy, Extinction Rebellion, and fatalism among the young
The latest report from the UN’s climate scientists was both incredibly downbeat about climate change and almost entirely ignored by a media fixated on Ukraine.
Matters Of Life & Death: Human enhancement 2: Techno-optimism returns, the yuck factor, cultivating our bodies, and the divinisation of humanity
In this episode we pick up our conversation from last week about transhumanism and how technology might redefine what it means to be human.
Matters Of Life & Death: Human enhancement 1: Calico, the dragon tyrant, transhumanism, and monkeys playing Pong
Billions of dollars are currently being spent by a suite of private firms, mostly in Silicon Valley, pursuing radical research to enhance human capacities.
Matters Of Life & Death: Relaunch: How we started, baby boomers and millennials, the pandemic as catalyst, and the signal to noise ratio
To mark our arrival on the Premier network, we recap how Matters of Life and Death began and what we hope our intergenerational conversations might achieve.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: The Omicron variant, mandatory vaccination, pandemic solidarity, and memories of authoritarianism
The Omicron variant has in a few short weeks almost taken over the pandemic.
Matters Of Life & Death: Reproductive technologies: the ’Google baby’, Oliver O’Donovan, 14-day-old embryos, and techno-optimism
This week we are resuming our conversation about infertility which begun in our previous episode.
Matters Of Life & Death: Infertility and IVF: Hidden wounds, premature quintuplets, embryo donation and the procreative-unitive bond
Today we are delving into a complex and sensitive topic – infertility and IVF.
Matters Of Life & Death: Assisted dying: The Meacher Bill, radicals in the Lords, Canada’s slippery slope and fragile conscience protections
This week we’re digging into assisted dying. A bill to legalise it in England has been introduced to parliament – what does it propose and how likely is it to actually become law?
Matters Of Life & Death: Abusive leadership
Mark Driscoll, the hermeneutic of suspicion, Sigmund Freud’s chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships
Matters Of Life & Death: The Robot Will See You Now
This episode was inspired by John’s new book – The Robot Will See You Now
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Miscounting deaths, the Sun’s front page, key workers with long covid and vaccine generosity
It’s been almost six months since we last dedicated an episode to covid, and since then a lot has happened.
Matters Of Life & Death: John Stott: Double listening, salt as preservative, incarnational mission, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography
Last week marked 100 years since the late John Stott was born and there has been a flurry of events to mark the centenary of this highly influential vicar, Bible teacher and evangelical leader.
Matters Of Life & Death: Simulation: Deep fakes, image as sacrament, David Beckham in Mandarin and therapy chatbots
Today’s topic is simulation. We live in an era when digital technology is making it increasingly easy and cheap to create fake but compelling images or videos of people, or even entirely artificial human-like personalities.
Matters Of Life & Death: Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism
This episode explores one of the most significant and potentially long-lasting ways the covid pandemic has affected church life – the shift to digital.
Matters Of Life & Death: Social media and free speech: Fake news, Facebook’s ’Supreme Court’, the Capitol riot and YouTube algorithms
In today’s episode we’re taking a sideways step from the covid pandemic and instead are discussing social media and free speech.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Misinformation
Microchips. Bill Gates. The mark of the beast. 5G cell towers. False positive rates. Big pharma. DNA alteration. It’s been hard to avoid the swirling morass of misinformation and conspiracy theories around the pandemic.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 3
Can Christians be given the vaccine without compromising on their religious convictions?
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: The second lockdown
Is this crude, blunt instrument really the best way to tackle the second wave of the covid pandemic?
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 2
We received a fascinating question from a listener after our last episode on vaccines, picking up on the competing and perhaps contradictory philosophies behind the anti-vax movement.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 1
There are about 40 different potential covid vaccines already being tested on humans, with almost a hundred more at earlier stages of development in the lab.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Mental health, anxiety and hope
We’re back after a slightly longer than expected summer break with a new episode, all about our fears, anxieties and hopes amid the pandemic.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Technology - part 2
In the second part of our conversation on technology during the coronavirus pandemic, we look into our crystal balls and try to imagine what the world of tech will look like in the future, thanks to Covid-19.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Technology - part 1
One of the perhaps unexpected results of the coronavirus pandemic is how it has thrown up some fascinating debates about technology.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Death and spirituality during a pandemic
For many years death has been described as perhaps the final taboo in British society. Rarely it is deemed polite to mention the uncomfortable fact that one day we all will die, let alone try to bring faith or spirituality into that conversation. But in the midst of a pandemic which has already claimed over 50,000 British lives in various ways, is that changing?
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Life in the NHS
In this episode we examine what life in the NHS has been like during the Covid-19 crisis.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: The ethics of triage
First come, first served? Or key workers and politicians before everyone else? How can doctors decide who to treat in a healthcare emergency when there are not enough beds or ventilators to go around?
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Thinking as a Christian during Covid-19
Our third episode on coronavirus zooms in to focus on how Christians should be thinking and acting during the pandemic.
Coronavirus: How this pandemic is unlike anything before
In this second episode in our series on coronavirus, we explore how Covid-19 is different to plagues in the past.
Matters Of Life & Death: Coronavirus: Christians in times of plague
Our first ever episode of Matters of Life and Death kicks off a short series on coronavirus.
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