Conspiracy theories, mRNA, covid and autism: Why do so many struggle to get on board with vaccines?
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
-------- Â
1:08:29
--------
1:08:29
One in five pregnancies: How we’re talking differently about miscarriage, and what that may mean for abortion
As we’re on our summer hols, this week we’re bringing you a classic MOLAD episode from the archive. In October, the UK marks Baby Loss Awareness Week. There’s been an enormous cultural shift in recent decades around how society talks about miscarriage and stillbirth. Today, the messaging is much more compassionate and empathetic, acknowledging the reality of the baby who has died and the grief their parents will be feeling. In this episode we explore what prompted this sea change in thinking, what we know about how losing a child affects both parents, and how Christians can bring this welcome shift into the church context as well. We go on to think through the cognitive dissonance in how we still talk about abortion, avoiding the deep empathy we’ve learned about unborn children through miscarriage. How have these two mutually contradictory stories about the unborn child developed side by side? And would it be wrong for pro-life Christians to highlight the incoherent narratives around baby loss in advocacy and campaigning?
• 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
-------- Â
1:23:15
--------
1:23:15
AI scepticism and the end of creativity, with Caleb Woodbridge
For a technology that only really hit the public consciousness barely three years ago, AI is everywhere. Clearly it is useful, maybe even addictive, but can it also be harmful? Should we be concerned, as Christians, as creatives, as human beings even, at what AI is doing to crafts such as artistry, writing and more? No-one is arguing for a total firewall against AI, but is it possible to integrate it thoughtfully into our daily lives and work – welcoming the shortcuts it offers – without it gradually degrading our own intrinsic human God-given spark of creativity? In this episode we talk through these ideas with Caleb Woodbridge, an editor and writer, who recently published an intriguing manifesto about how to hold onto our humanity in the age of AI.
Caleb’s Substack article - https://www.biggerinside.co.uk/p/remaining-human-in-the-age-of-ai
His personal website - https://calebwoodbridge.com/
• 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
-------- Â
58:45
--------
58:45
The Enhanced Games: Should we all want to become superhumans?
Today’s discussion begins with a maverick rival to the Olympics – The Enhanced Games – which will allow all its athletes to use whatever drugs or technology they want to try and boost their performance. It’s garnered a lot of support and investment from both Donald Trump-adjacent right-wing political forces, and techno-optimistic libertarian folk in Silicon Valley. The games themselves will act as a testbed for various kinds of biohacking which wealthy elites hope may one day help them live forever. Human enhancement is close to moving from science fiction to reality, but should we worried? Would you take a pill which could make you run faster, work harder or think smarter? Is there really any difference between using science and tech to make us healthier, and using similar science and tech to make us better than healthy? How might our Christian convictions around the Creator’s intentions or the incarnation of Jesus address these ethical dilemmas?
The Bloomberg article on the Enhanced Games which partly inspired our discussion – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-06-27/the-enhanced-games-aims-to-be-an-olympics-where-doping-is-the-point
• 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
-------- Â
45:22
--------
45:22
Can Christians work in the arms industry?
In this Q&A episode we begin with a query from a listener who is agonising over whether to apply for work at a defence research institution. Can believers, even those who hold to just war theory, spend their careers helping create better ways for soldiers to kill? How can we know what God’s will for our lives are in general?
Then we move to a second question about a concerning story: a family using at-home DNA tests accidentally discovered their late father was not biologically related to them, and instead had been swapped for another family’s baby when a newborn in an NHS maternity ward 80 years ago. Should we be wary of taking these kind of DNA tests, afraid of what unintended consequences may flow? How should Christians approach our society’s increasingly DNA-obsessed thinking about family and kinship?
We always joked dad looked nothing like his parents - then we found out why https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gexw7l7rwo
[Correction: Around 6 minutes in, Tim says that the Church of England does not exclude from its investments arms manufacturers, but this is actually wrong. Their ethical rules do prohibit investing in companies if they sell arms unless it’s only a very small proportion of their overall business: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/defence-advice.pdf]
• 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 each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
Listen to Matters of Life and Death, In The Beginning: A Bible Story for the Girlies and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
UK