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 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.
The numbers of couples choosing to have children via surrogate mothers has been steadily rising in recent years. Now, the UK authorities are considering plans for a radical overhaul of the laws around surrogacy, making it more heavily regulated but a...
The persecuted church today lives as it always has under the threat of arrest, imprisonment, physical attack, verbal threats and harassment, and even death. But today these traditional methods are supplemented by the technological revolution. Increas...
Today’s episode was recorded as part of the New Zealand Christian Medical Fellowship’s annual conference. Doctors there sent over two bioethical conundrums for us to chew over as part of a special episode of Matters of Life and Death. The first explo...
A new kind of artificial intelligence software has swept through the internet over the last year. Many are thrilled by the potential and power of AI which can generate by itself impressively creative text, images, sound and video. But others are soun...
More quickfire initial thoughts in response to questions from listeners. This week we discuss whether introverts are marginalised in the church, or actually disproportionately likely in the pulpit? We also consider how spirituality might play a role...
The non-religious are an ever-increasing segment of the population, in the UK, the United States and across the Western world. But what do they actually believe, and indeed not believe, in? In this episode we’re joined by evangelist and author Glen S...
In this second part of our effective altruism conversation, we explore the Christian sub-community within EA and ask whether the movement’s fundamental ideas are compatible with Christian tradition on giving. Is Christian EA a welcome challenge to ou...
A movement founded at the University of Oxford in 2009 has now captured the imagination – and the wallets – of some of the brightest and most successful across elite Western academic and business circles. Effective altruism, a 21st-century data-dri.....
In the second part of John’s webinar with Premier Unbelievable, he takes questions from listeners on everything from whether AI tech is inching us towards the end times to how families can stave off the destructive influence of smartphone addiction....
We are taking a few weeks off over Easter but to give you something to chew on until normal service resumes, we’re uploading in two parts a webinar John took part in for Premier Unbelievable. Called ‘How to live faithfully in a technologically confus...
God’s understanding of friendship is very different to the sexualised and suspicious framework society now inhabits. In this episode we take a lightning-quick tour through the Bible to consider what we can learn about friendship there – with God, bet...
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 cr...
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. We discuss everything from whether Christians should lean into the culture w...
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...
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 legit...
