Podcast

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.

Learning from Luther how to remain faithful during pandemics – Matters of Life and Death

Although we mostly try not to think about those dark days any more, the covid pandemic threw up a dizzying array of complex ethical and moral dilemmas for Christians. Should we carry on meeting in person for Sunday worship despite the risk of infection (and government rules which forbade it)? How do you love your neighbour well when either you or they might unknowingly carry a deadly virus? Should we get the vaccine? Should we wear masks? Theologian Brian Brock has been looking back at another pandemic half a millennium ago, when a plague ripped through Germany just as the Reformation was getting underway in the early 16th century. Martin Luther wrote a series of essays exploring how Christians should respond to the challenges of pandemics at the time, and in this episode we talk with Brian about what the reformer concluded and to what extent the modern church could learn from him and the covid experience to better handle the inevitable next pandemic. • 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
  1. Learning from Luther how to remain faithful during pandemics
  2. The Biobank data leak: Privacy, knowledge and the humility of faith over sight
  3. Does Jesus want to stop the boats? The immigration and asylum culture wars, with Krish Kandiah
  4. The hollowed-out state: Can the church reinspire public service?
  5. The Book of Revelation: Make Christianity Weird Again

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.
  1. Sexuality, persecution, abortion and mission: Has Christian journalism got it right?
  2. The General Election
  3. Asylum seekers, baptism and the church
  4. Schism among the Methodists
  5. The future of children's ministry