I host a podcast called Matters of Life and Death. Each episode I sit down with my dad, the doctor and writer John Wyatt, to discuss the ethics of emerging issues in science, technology, society and the church, and to think about how Christians can respond thoughtfully and faithfully to our fast-changing world. It’s part of the Premier network and you can listen to the most recent episodes below.
Psychedelics: Shamans, the philosophy of Harry Potter and the neuroscientific turn – Matters of Life and Death
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 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
- Psychedelics: Shamans, the philosophy of Harry Potter and the neuroscientific turn
- The social media addiction trial: Can Christians use the courts to protect the vulnerable?
- Q&A: Were we unfair on the House of Lords over its assisted dying scrutiny? And the Church of England prepares to welcome its first nurse-Archbishop
- Do the ends justify the means? The dubious campaign by unelected lawmakers to destroy the assisted dying bill
- What makes the church vulnerable to abusers?
I previously had a second show on the Premier network, called Premier Christian Newscast. It was a weekly podcast unpacking and explaining one big story from the Christian world, going behind the immediate headlines to try to understand why things are happening in the church and beyond. You can listen to episodes below.
Sexuality, persecution, abortion and mission: Has Christian journalism got it right? – Premier Christian Newscast
Sadly, today’s episode will be the last episode of the Premier Christian Newscast. To wrap the show up, we looked back over the last two years at what stories and topics have come up the most. What has been making waves in church news? What issues are we unable to move on from? And what might this tell us about what is going to be hitting the headlines in the years to come? Has the Christian media got too distracted by culture war political nonsense, and missed the more important stories right under our nose? How do we faithfully go about trying to decide what to cover and what to ignore?
We’ll be joined by Sam Hailes and Emma Fowle from Premier Christianity magazine to look back at what the Newscast feed tells us about the state of the church, and to consider what stories we expect to be keeping us busy throughout the rest of 2024 and into the future.
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