Both the Old and New Testaments are quite clear that bad things are not simply the result of bad choices by free human beings. There are also personal, malevolent, demonic forces at work, and our lives as followers of Jesus are caught up in cosmic spiritual battles. And yet while we may pay lip service to this, many Christians live as functional materialists, finding talk of Satan and spiritual warfare all a bit confusing and distasteful. In this episode we explore why it is some streams of Christianity have lost sight of the reality of spiritual evil, and how recovering this theology might help us better live faithfully and wisely in our present age.

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Tim recently spent a few weeks researching AI misinformation in the church context for a newspaper article, and that serves as the jumping off point for today’s conversation. What are Christian AI experts saying about the way our online world is filling up with AI generated nonsense and fake images and videos? Are there useful ways to use this increasingly powerful new technology for the kingdom? Or is the church’s role to stand against a society losing its grasp on objective reality and the difference between the real world outside and the world on the screen?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Tim is away this week, so we’re dipping into the MOLAD archive for a classic episode from 2024. Culture is increasingly interested in psychedelic drugs. Whether it’s Silicon Valley execs micro-dosing LSD to turbocharge their meetings, Americans doing ayahuasca weekends in Mexico, or rafts of studies suggesting ketamine can really help in treating depression, we’re all taking drugs much more seriously than any time since the 1960s counterculture. But what does this all mean? Should we welcome this as simply another frontier in medical science, or is it occultic and anti-Christian? Have believers been wrong all along in their traditional hostility to mind-altering substances? What is at stake with our spiritual lives when we start to fiddle around with chemicals in the brain?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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 landmark trial is beginning in Los Angeles, as a series of people, parents and schools sue major social media giants, accusing them of harming their teenage users through the platforms’ addictive design. While some governments (such as Australia with its ban on under-16s) are taking bold steps to regulate social media, in other places legal action seems the only plausible route. How should we think about these developments as believers? Is trying to shake down tech companies in court a wise way to protect vulnerable teenagers? Can we adopt a ‘harm-minimisation’ strategy or is a blanket ban the only ethical option? What does it look like to be salt and light and prophetically speak for the needy in our secular societies?

The BBC News article referenced at the start of the episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24g8v6qr1mo

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Last week’s episode about the parliamentary wrangling over the UK’s assisted suicide bill prompted a fair amount of disagreement from listeners who felt we were wrongly accusing members of the House of Lords of bad faith. We read out some emails and consider different ways to interpret the logjam in the Lords caused by the 1000+ amendments tabled to the controversial bill. Then we move on to the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, who has just been confirmed in the role. As well as the first woman to lead the Church of England, Mullally also had an earlier career as a nurse, rising to become the most senior nurse in England aged just 37. What difference might this experience make to how she leads the church, and could she help rebuild bridges between the increasingly secular NHS and the churches which were once the foundation of healthcare in Britain’s past?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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

Last year, the democratically-elected MPs of Britain’s House of Commons passed by a margin of 23 votes a bill to introduce assisted suicide for the first time. Before it can come into force, the bill has to also be approved by the UK’s unelected upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords. Here it has started to founder, as opposition grows and the parliamentary procedure is gummed up by a thousand separate amendments. For those of us who think assisted dying will be a disaster, is this kind of political dirty war the right way to go to stop a bad bill becoming law? Or should we admit defeat and allow a bill approved in a free vote by the representatives of the people to pass, rather than tear up democracy in the process? What could be lost as collateral damage in the increasingly ugly battle over assisted suicide? And what are the Christian roots of the tradition of giving our lawmakers the freedom to vote their consciences on ethical issues like this, anyway?

Our last podcast after the assisted dying bill was first approved by the House of Commons: https://www.johnwyatt.com/the-assisted-suicide-bill-has-been-passed-by-parliament-what-comes-next/

John’s briefing on the legislation, circulated to all MPs ahead of the original vote: https://www.johnwyatt.com/leadbeaterbill/

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Abuse has been exposed in every corner of the church in recent times, but the evangelical tradition has been particularly badly hit with a litany of respected leaders revealed to have been prolific abusers. One of the worst was John Smyth, but the official Church of England investigation into him including a fascinating appendix from Elly Hanson, a psychologist who specialises in abuse. Elly unpicked not just the psychology of why Smyth sadistically beat dozens of young men in his garden shed, but also the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the evangelical sub-culture which he exploited: hierarchies, loyalties, patriarchy, alongside assumptions about the nature of sin and repentance. In this episode she joins us to talk through her conclusions, and discuss whether evangelicalism can be purged of its risky communal practices and made safer, without losing its fundamental theological convictions.

You can read Elly’s appendix here, starting on p67: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/john-smyth-review-all-appendices.pdf

Tim’s analysis of the whole Makin report into John Smyth and its implications for the church: https://tswyatt.substack.com/p/sparing-the-rod

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Our four-part series on the deeper narrative of the Bible comes to an end with New Creation. Just as with the beginning of the story, this final chapter is often overlooked in many churches and the Christian narrative is compressed simply to fall and redemption. But losing sight of our future hope and where the story ends is hugely detrimental to our ability to think through ethical issues well. So what do we believe about resurrection, ascension, heaven, the second coming and new creation, and how should that shape our thinking as Christians?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173

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• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Our series on the theological foundations of Christian ethics and the grand narrative of the Bible has reached the third chapter – redemption. How is the story of what Christ accomplished on the cross a uniquely Christian approach to the problem of evil, and what light does it shed on our approach to everything from artificial intelligence to reproductive medicine? In this episode we discuss the mysteries of the cosmic universal story of redemption – with a lamb slain from the foundation of the world alongside a real historical man dying in a real place and time once and for all. And we try to think through why this redemption story seems to be retold time and time again across our secular culture, from Marvel superhero films to Harry Potter, and why it remains so compelling and yet also strangely impossibly optimistic.

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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

Creation. Fall. Redemption. New Creation. This is the grand narrative of scripture and the theological foundation we use to try to probe into the ethical challenges thrown up by advances in science and technology. We looked at creation, and now we’ve come to the Fall. What is the uniquely Christian approach to the nature of evil in our world, and how does it stand in sharp contrast to our secular society’s presumptions? Are people really fundamentally just good or all bad, and what are the shortcomings of that reductionist approach? And how does the Christian story about evil lead us to be both more pessimistic and more optimistic than the world is about humanity?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to [email protected]

• 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