Matters of Life and Death

Tim is away this week so we’re sharing a classic episode from the MOLAD vault. Since the covid pandemic there has been an alarming rise in people presenting with mental health problems. Today we speak with Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan to better understand why this might be happening, how our mental healthcare systems are coping (or not), and how his faith intersects with his work diagnosing and treating those with psychosis. What can we do to protect ourselves and especially our younger people from this tsunami of anxiety and depression? And has society over-corrected in its desire to eradicate mental health stigma? Is there a place for the church to gently push back on the medicalisation of ordinary emotions and model a greater sense of mental resilience?

Today we pick up a number of stories and updates in the conversation around assisted suicide. Long since legal in a growing number of states in the US, a new report has detailed how things are liberalising further. Some states now permit non-residents to cross state lines solely to die, creating a new market in euthanasia tourism for those living in less liberal parts of America. Meanwhile, there are new attempts by activists to legalise assisted suicide in England, and the new Labour government has pledged to allow a free conscience vote by all MPs on the issue soon. How should believers respond to this, and is there any real prospect of Christian healthcare workers winning the right to not only opt out of assisted dying procedures, but to set up their own independent euthanasia-free clinics, hospitals and hospices?

Find out more about a new book on assisted dying John has contributed a chapter to here: https://www.mheducation.co.uk/the-reality-of-assisted-dying-understanding-the-issues-9780335253173-emea-group#tab-label-product-description-title

• 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

If and when autonomous and intelligent robots come into existence, should they be granted rights, or even personhood? A growing number of technologists argue governments must lay out what status conscious and rational machines would have before they actually have been invented. But how can we decide what is and isn’t a person, and what rights and responsibilities such a thing should have? And how could this philosophical and technical debate affect our Christian beliefs on human uniqueness? We then explore three Christian responses to calls for robot personhood, spanning the spectrum of hostility to optimism about the development. What Biblical truths and doctrines can we turn to as we wrestle with what is a fundamentally brand new dilemma? And how would our theology and practice as believers change should conscious, intelligent, autonomous robots come to live among us?

• 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 covered the case of Lucy Letby – a neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven more – last year. Since then, there has been a growing campaign claiming she is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, as Letby herself appeals the judgement. In this episode we look at why some people have become convinced of her innocence, how well-suited our criminal justice system is at getting to the truth, and how as Christians we can live with the unknown and grey areas implicit in this fallen world.

• The Appeal Court judgement rejecting Letby's appeal: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf

• The New Yorker article which makes the case for Letby's innocence: https://web.archive.org/web/20240702001406/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/lucy-letby-was-found-guilty-of-killing-seven-babies-did-she-do-it

• A Guardian article which also explores some of those who are unconvinced by the prosecution case: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/09/lucy-letby-evidence-experts-question

• 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

‘Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”’ These famous words from the first chapter of Genesis are the touchstone of the theology of the image of God, or Imago Dei. Christians throw this reference out a lot, but we’re often a bit unclear about it really means to say humans are made in the image of God. Is it about certain things we can do that God also does? Is it about what God is calling us towards as humans? Is it about how our relationships? How can we come up with a definition which does not exclude the disabled, children, or the elderly? It’s worth dwelling on, as the image of God and how we define human distinctiveness as believers is critically important in an era when human uniqueness is under attack from many directions. From artificial intelligence to abortion, the question of personhood and recognising and protecting the humanity of others is something we all have to wrestle with, and getting our foundations right on the image of God is a good place to start.

• 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

Thanks to a long overdue public inquiry here in the UK, shocking stories of how NHS doctors recklessly gave patients blood contaminated with viruses including HIV and hepatitis have been emerging in recent years. One of the most painful cases was at a special school for children with haemophilia, where well-meaning but catastrophically misguided doctors wilfully experimented on children without consent using these contaminated blood products, leading to most of the young people’s deaths. In this episode we consider this as the latest in a long history of murky scandals in medical trials, and the profoundly Christian underpinnings of truly ethical medical research. Has healthcare changed today so that such astonishingly reckless and paternalistic care could not happen again? And how as believers can we handle the enormous power given to professionals such as doctors with an appropriate Christlike and cross-shaped humility, knowing as flawed humans we can always be wrong?

• 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

This week we look at developments prompted by the war in Ukraine, which has seen the humble drone take a leading role on the frontline. Both sides, and global powers watching on with interest, are now investing in building battle drones which can fly and attack themselves, leading to the chilling possibility that future wars will see autonomous AI drones deciding who is an enemy to attack or a civilian to defend. Should Christians be joining the chorus of alarmed scientists and activists arguing a machine should never be given the power of taking another life without a human in the loop somewhere?

But first, we look at fresh research which reveals the staggering growth of frozen surplus embryos – created during IVF procedures – being stored in the UK. Each year tens of thousands more embryos are created and frozen indefinitely than are actually thawed out and implanted. Nobody seems to know what their moral status is and what should happen when, eventually, we cannot keep on freezing and storing them. Is embryo adoption the answer?

• 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 landmark court case in the UK recently saw five radical climate activists jailed for up to five years for their role in organising the blocking of a major motorway to protest against fossil fuels. The sentences have been criticised by many, including the UN, as excessive given the peaceful nature of the protest and the cause behind it, but are the result of years of escalation by climate activists which has led the government to pass tougher, harsher laws criminalising disruptive but peaceful protest. But how should Christians approach law-breaking for what is supposedly a good cause? What does Jesus’s famous words about ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’ mean in our 21st century context? Is it ever right for believers to deliberately break the law? And, should we in the church be concerned about ever more draconian and vaguely-worded laws which allow the police to clamp down more harshly on civil disobedience?

• 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 recent Netflix documentary, The Man With A 1000 Kids, has shone a light on the often under-discussed topic of sperm donation. It exposes a Dutch man as a prolific and deceptive sperm donor who compulsively fathers children around the world via donated sperm. While an extreme case, it raises important questions about the ethics of bringing children into the world via sperm (or indeed egg) donation. Do we pay enough heed to the feelings and challenges faced by donor-conceived children in our understandable urge to help infertile couples have their miracle baby? Is donating sperm really any different to any other kind of organ donation, or should Christians oppose this kind of reproductive technology? We also consider new research on the enormous numbers of frozen embryos generated via IVF treatment which we in the UK are stockpiling without any clear idea of who or what we think they are, let alone what we will do with them.

• Who Am I, the book about donor-conceived children https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=2159

• 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 recent weeks we have discussed how to keep modern technology at arms-length (smartphones in the home) and our excitement at how humans may be about to untap God’s blessing in creation through technology (the solar energy revolution). Today we ask the question: can we really hold these positions simultaneously? Can we be neo-Luddites when it comes to smartphones and yet boosters when it comes to solar panels? What should an authentically Christian posture to technology be? Generally positive, cautiously hostile, or is it all just a neutral tool to be used for good or ill depending on who is using it? Is humanity accelerating – thanks to our modern mastery of creation – towards God’s ultimate plan to reconcile all things, or is ‘progress’ little more than a pseudo-Christian comforting myth we tell ourselves?