Matters of Life and Death

Over the Christmas break, we’re going to be returning to a series we did on Matters of Life and Death a few years ago, exploring the theological underpinnings of much of what we discuss on the podcast. Many Christians, going back to church fathers, have understood the grand narrative of scripture through a four-part journey: from Creation, to Fall, to Redemption, to New Creation. This week we are beginning with creation. Why is it that some traditions in the church have developed such hostility and suspicion of everything beyond the church walls? Is it Biblical or godly to hold such fear for what he has made? How can we rediscover the character of God – his truthfulness, goodness and beauty – in his creation? And how can believers faithfully celebrate what he has made? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

A MOLAD listener got in touch with a fascinating question about hormone replacement therapy and the menopause. If some Christians are becoming sceptical about using hormonal contraception, should they be equally sceptical about the widespread use of hormone replacement therapy for women going through the menopause? Are our bodies good exactly as God made them, or is taking additional hormones just a non-controversial medical treatment to help women with their menopause symptoms? And why does the church find it so hard to walk with women through this inevitable part of aging in the first place? We’re joined by Christian GP Rosslyn Perkins to understand all things HRT and menopause, and consider what the Christian tradition has to say to women (and the men in their lives) wrestling with these questions. Some helpful resources Rosslyn recommends: Pause by Sarah Allen - https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/pause?srsltid=AfmBOoqYVGhrb2jJCHaRqwiOlqhfCamQ3r4cfrof42b66SYU6L7uFqT- Identity Theft, edited by Melissa Kruger - https://icmbooks.co.uk/product/29165/identity-theft-reclaiming-the-truth-of-our-identity-in-christ Lost in the Middle by Paul David Tripp - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Middle-MidLife-Grace-God-ebook/dp/B005NJC7RW The British Menopause Society - https://thebms.org.uk/ Rock My Menopause course - https://rockmy.com/course/rockmy-menopause-course-everything-you-need-to-know-about-menopause/ Menopause Matters - https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/ • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

We begin by exploring the remarkable offering of PickYourBaby.com, from a company which claims it can help you select the precise genetic inheritance of your child through IVF, to ensure your offspring are taller, more beautiful, healthier and cleverer. There are plenty of questions around the supposed science of this, and its ethics. But beyond all that, why is this kind of service attractive to would-be parents in the 2020s? What does our culture think children are for, and what might a Christian narrative of parenthood and procreation say in response? We discussed so-called liberal eugenics and efforts to use DBA sequencing and IVF to ‘improve’ the quality of newer generations in an episode last year too: https://www.johnwyatt.com/dna-parenthood-and-selecting-for-iq-the-surprising-return-of-eugenics/ • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Nigel Biggar is one of the most high-profile and controversial Christian thinkers in Britain today. A theologian and priest in the Church of England by background, he has shot to the forefront of the culture war in recent years for his books and articles exploring the morality of Britain’s empire and critiquing what he sees as the self-hating excesses of wokery, becoming a hate figure on the left and lionised by the right (and eventually appointed to the House of Lords). In this conversation we explore why he decided to re-examine the ethics of colonialism and his reflections on getting dragged into the culture war. And, in the wake of growing Christian Nationalism in the UK, we discuss his views on what place the nation should hold in Christian theology and why more and more people on the political right have come to lament Britain’s lurch out of Christendom and towards secularism over the last century. • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Psalm 139 is one of the most famous and most quoted chapters of the whole Bible. Some indeed have even constructed an entire Christian ethic of the unborn child from its famous central verses. But what do we think David is trying to say in this beautiful and mysterious poem? What can it teach us about how we should view fetuses in the womb, and have some gone too far in trying to use this psalm as the lynchpin of the anti-abortion movement? And, as we approach Christmas, does it shed fresh light on the marvel and mystery of the incarnation too? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

There’s been a flurry of news stories and even scientific papers exploring the concept of ‘AI psychosis’ – the idea that people can become psychotic and mentally ill having spent too much time locked in hours of conversation with an AI chatbot such as ChatGPT. There’s also been a handful of cases where the family of someone who has killed themselves has accused the chatbot they were using of encouraging or facilitating the suicide. To try and unpick if any of this is real and what impact our rapidly-advancing AI technology can have on our minds, we are joined again by Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan. Should we be concerned about the way AI can interfere with our brain? Or is this just another round of moral panic and hysteria which has accompanied many previous technological breakthroughs in the past? And how can the church continue to model the value of real life incarnational human-to-human relationships to a society increasingly adrift in the digital space? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Here in the UK, parliament continues to debate a bill to legalise assisted suicide. As we wait to see whether Britain follows the lead of many other Western nations in introducing a form of assisted dying, we thought we would share as this week’s podcast a lecture John gave recently to the Church of Ireland in Belfast. It’s entitled Autonomy, Suffering and Human Dignity: Theological and Medical Responses to Assisted Dying, and in it he reflects on the current moves towards assisted dying and in particular what we as Christians believe about the ethical and spiritual dimensions to suffering. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments, both from autonomy and compassion, used by those in favour of legalising medically-assisted suicide? And what richer, deeper story about human dependence and dignity can Christians tell in response to this? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

A listener in the United States has written in pondering the, ahem, sensitive issue of circumcision. In America it’s been commonplace as a medical procedure for newborn boys for generations, while in the rest of the world it’s almost exclusively a Jewish or Muslim religious rite of initiation. Does circumcision actually offer any real medical benefits? Following the growing pressure to stamp out female genital mutilation, once known as female circumcision and largely tolerated across North Africa and the Middle East, some are now looking at male circumcision with fresh eyes. Should we be much more sceptical about religious minorities performing this ritualised and irreversible procedure on non-consenting babies by non-medically trained community leaders? Or is defending the rights of Jews and Muslims on circumcision one plank in a broader effort to protect our religious liberty to continue with practices and teachings wider society now reviles? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Perhaps the most contentious political, medical and social issue of the day is how to treat and care for young people who are questioning or experiencing distress around their sex and gender. We are both away for half-term this week, so we’re bringing you an episode from 2023 when we spoke with Christian community paediatrician Julie Maxwell about the rise in children reporting gender dysphoria, the evidence base behind controversial treatments such as puberty-blockers, and how we as followers of Jesus can speak compassionately and faithfully into the maelstrom of invective and opinion on this important topic. • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

In the first part of this episode we talk through a startling new scientific breakthrough: researchers claim they can insert genetic material from an ordinary skin cell into a human egg cell, and then use that to fertilise and grow an embryo. This means an infertile couple or a same-sex couple could theoretically have a child who was genetically related to both parents for the first time. But just because we can, should we be doing this? Then we respond to a listener’s question on our recent episode about miraculous faith healing. What did Jesus mean when he told his disciples they would do even greater things than his amazing works? Does this not mean we should expect to surpass Christ’s own miraculous healing ministry? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Of all orthodox Christian doctrines, the trinity is perhaps the one which most languishes understudied and underappreciated. Many of us see it as a baffling paradox, a riddle without an answer. Only of interest to egg-headed nerds and without any practical application to day-to-day Christian life. But have we been getting this wrong all along? Could reflecting on what it means to say we believe in one God in three persons actually unlock a whole raft of insight and appreciation for not just who our God – Father, Son and Spirit – but also lots of other elements of Christian belief and practice? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

It has been hard to miss the ways that right-wing political movements have become marked by Christian rhetoric and language in recent years. Clearly, something about the unstable and fractious era we live in has seen people yearning to turn Western nations back to an imagined Christian past. But is this a mirage, or even an idolatrous worship of the nation state? How should Christians engage in politics in democracies? Is it helpful to think about trying to make a country ‘more Christian’? And what might the gospel have to say beyond our shores to a world where the liberal international rules-based order is collapsing and might makes right once more? This week we discuss all this and more with John Heathershaw, a Christian professor of international relations and former aid worker. Find more of John’s writing and his latest book Security After Christendom on his Substack blog: https://johnheathershaw.substack.com • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have caused untold misery, suffering and death over the centuries. Some, like the infamous Lisbon earthquake and tsunami in 1755, have even been held up as prompting turns away from belief in God entirely. How can believers account for the apparent brokenness and destructiveness of the earth, and yet continue to believe it was made by a good God who declared his creation to be good? Are these deep geological forces actually as bad as many have thought? What about cancer, or other genetic diseases which cause deep suffering and have no human cause? Are they still, mysteriously, somehow caused by human sinfulness? Is it right to think of anything in creation as inherently ‘evil’ at all? Helping us think through these big questions this week is Prof Bob White, a world-renowned geo-physicist who has spent his career trying to better understand place tectonics which cause volcanoes and earthquakes. He’s also emeritus director of the Faraday Institute, a Cambridge-based think tank aiming to bolster the interface between science and Christian faith. Find out more about the Faraday Institute, including their long list of resources - https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/ • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Christians often find themselves disagreeing about what posture to adopt in our increasingly secular and faith-hostile culture. Should we stand apart from society, keeping ourselves unsullied by its godlessness, so we can prophetically call out evil and witness to Christ? Or should we seek to engage deeply in our context, seeing our calling as to shape creation in a kingdom direction, acting incarnationally and incrementally for good? Are we most faithful to the way of Jesus by remaining prophetic outsiders or incarnational insiders? In this episode we discuss this tension and what we might learn from an often overlooked Old Testament passage where two of Yahweh’s followers – each espousing a very different mode of witness – bump into each other unexpectedly in the Judaean desert. • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.u • kSubscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Artificial Intelligence is everywhere these days, and the hospital, surgery and clinic are no different. It’s getting into wearable tech, it’s assisting in making diagnoses, and much more. There’s a lot of promise, but is there also some peril? What compromises around human connection and compassionate care might we make in our rush to integrate AI into healthcare? How can Christian doctors, nurses and others continue to embody Christlike presence in a world which, more and more, is being shaped by machines, software and computers? • You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

An influential Canadian doctors’ association has proposed expanding the country’s euthanasia laws so newborn babies suffering from serious disabilities could be given lethal drugs for the first time. In light of this, we discuss the often conflicting philosophies that lie behind our medical thinking on the unborn child versus newborn babies. What was so shocking and distinctive about how the early church treated babies so casually discarded by pagan Greco-Roman society? Are we losing this legacy of Christendom as both abortion and euthanasia are pushed ever further forwards? What will it look like in the coming decades for Christians to bear witness to their counter-cultural convictions about the full humanity and dignity of babies? Our previous episode on Canada’s euthanasia programme, Medical Assistance in Dying: https://www.johnwyatt.com/how-can-christian-doctors-approach-medically-assisted-dying/ John’s essay on better options for caring for newborn babies with life-limiting or even lethal abnormalities: https://www.johnwyatt.com/essay-palliative-care-for-babies-following-a-diagnosis-of-lethal-fetal-abnormality/ An article exploring further the radical approach early Christians took to newborn children compared to classical culture: https://www.johnwyatt.com/article-neonatal-ethics/ • You can send in your own questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

We weren’t able to record an episode this week so please enjoy one from the MOLAD archive: This week’s guest is Nick Spencer, senior fellow at the faith thinktank Theos, and recent author of Magisteria: The entangled histories of science and religion. Nick joins us to discuss the complicated backstory to how we all came to believe science and faith were inevitably at odds with each other. Where did this myth come from, and what is a more nuanced and truthful account of how religion reacted to the emergence of contemporary science in the last 300 years? Should Christians actually welcome a bright dividing line between our world of faith and spirituality, and the hard-nosed world of science, focused solely on a measurable reality of atoms and molecules? And what might we learn from the surprisingly interesting personal religious lives of some of history’s greatest scientists? Find out more about Nick’s book and how to order it here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Magisteria/Nicholas-Spencer/9780861544615 • You can send in your own questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

In today’s Q&A episode, we first explore a question sent in about a troubling story from Georgia, USA, where a braindead pregnant woman was kept on life-support for months (against the wishes of her family) in order that once her unborn child had developed sufficiently he could be born alive. The hospital reportedly believed it was compelled to do so thanks to Georgia’s strict anti-abortion laws which they feared would make doctors liable if they’d allowed the mother to fully die, and her then 9-week old fetus with her. Then we return to the issue of vaccines, prompted by another listener’s question. He has many family members not only sceptical of vaccines but convinced they have themselves been seriously harmed by taking covid jabs. What does a loving pastoral response look like here? Beyond battering people over the head with endless statistics and studies, how can we sensitively yet truthfully support those who truly believe they have suffered from vaccines we know are almost entirely safe? • You can send in your own questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk. • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

A doctor listener has written in with a fascinating question about miraculous healing. It was clearly a major part of Jesus’s ministry in the gospels, and yet she has doubts despite prayer for healing becoming a larger and larger part of her church’s life. Why is it that Jesus healed profound lifelong disabilities immediately and unambiguously, whereas so many healings today seem to be partial, gradual, and mostly concerned with invisible internal maladies which often get better by themselves? The New Testament seems clear we should ask God to heal, and yet many people’s experiences are of unanswered prayers, sometimes stretching over a lifetime. But can it be healthy for Christians to turn their medical brains off at church on a Sunday, only to then switch their faith off when back at work on Monday morning? • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

The prominent vaccine sceptic turned US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is hard at work tearing apart America’s vaccine orthodoxy and establishment. For decades now questions have been raised about a supposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism. And the pandemic turbocharged vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vax movement. So what is the evidence that vaccination protects us from disease without causing us harm? Are the side effects actually so rare? Were corners cut by Big Pharma and the medical establishment in the rush to roll out covid jabs? And why do so many, including Christians, find it hard to trust the mountains of scientific evidence which points to the safety and efficacy of vaccination? Is the church especially fertile soil for conspiracy theories and mistrust of science to grow – and if so, should we be worried about this? RFK Jr cancels $500m in funding for mRNA vaccines - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74dzdddvmjo RFK Jr sacks entire US vaccine committee - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyge27y2g9o John’s previous writing and podcasts about vaccines from the covid pandemic - https://www.johnwyatt.com/?s=vaccines • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com