Matters of Life and Death

Following on from our recent episode about making IVF more ‘ethical’, we zoom out a bit in this conversation to think about other questions presented by the huge advances made by reproductive science and medicine in the last 50 years. Has the way IVF breaks down procreation to its respective elements created in our culture a “Lego kit” approach to our humanity, believing it is endlessly remixable through dozens of permutations? How has access to this technology also affected our social understanding parenthood and required the law to change? What is lost when we move reproduction away from the intimacy of sex between husband and wife and into the lab? And how on earth are Christian couples struggling to conceive to navigate all this theological and ethical complexity?

• 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

Tim is away this week, so here’s an episode from the MOLAD archive. Society has been on a long and slow journey in recent decades into a richer and more sympathetic understanding of how abuse and coercion work within relationships. We are much better at both identifying and prosecuting this kind of abuse, and at being more attuned to the needs of victims and understanding why they find it difficult to just walk away. But domestic violence and controlling behaviour are also prevalent, sadly, within the church context too. How are we doing at identifying and confronting these toxic relationships, and looking after those traumatised by them? This week we interview Natalie Collins, an author, activist and expert in gender violence and church to find out more.

• 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

For couples experiencing infertility IVF is often the first port of call, and today millions of children have been brought into the world through this powerful reproductive technology. But many Christians are concerned about how IVF is normally practised, with dozens of fertilised embryos created but not actually re-implanted, lingering on in frozen limbo, destroyed or donated for scientific research. Some Christian fertility doctors have set up their own clinics to pursue ‘ethical’ IVF, sharply limiting how many spare embryos are created and tweaking the process to make it more amenable to conservative and pro-life believers. Today we explore one story of an IVF doctor whose conscience drove him to do just this, and the ethical questions which surround trying to do IVF differently.

Read the AP article which inspired today’s episode: https://apnews.com/article/christian-ivf-doctor-moral-dilemma-tennessee-043ca82cf706233380cf516abada9aa8

Listen to some of our previous episodes on IVF:

• Infertility and IVF: Hidden wounds, premature quintuplets, embryo donation and the procreative-unitive bond https://www.johnwyatt.com/infertility-and-ivf-hidden-wounds-premature-quintuplets-embryo-donation-and-the-procreative-unitive-bond/
• Why have anti-abortion activists accidentally banned fertility treatment in Alabama? https://www.johnwyatt.com/qa-13/

• 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

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 [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

Our discussion today begins with the concerning news that a world-leading database of medical records, the UK’s Biobank, has suffered an embarrassing leak after hundreds of thousands of confidential records were put up for sale on a Chinese website. Biobank is a pioneering collection of data from half a million Brits, who altruistically donated their records, blood, DNA and more for medical research. But how can we balance the competing demands of strict medical confidentiality with the growing need for big data for both cutting-edge research and thrusting commercial development? Is privacy a particularly Christian idea anyway? Should we be celebrating these altruistic souls for their service despite the personal risks of leaks? And what does the Biblical narrative and the limitations God places on his image-bearers have to say about our modern grasping for all-encompassing knowledge?

• 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