Matters of Life and Death

We are taking a few weeks off over Easter but to give you something to chew on until normal service resumes, we’re uploading in two parts a webinar John took part in for Premier Unbelievable. Called ‘How to live faithfully in a technologically confusing world’, part one explores the staggering sophistication of the latest generation of AI chatbots and what ethical questions these might throw up for Christians. Support Premier Unbelievable? and receive your 130 page e-book of John Wyatt & Lord Martin Rees' Big Conversation on Robotics, Transhumanism & AI: https://premierunbelievable.com/wyatt For the AI article referenced on the show: https://www.premierunbelievable.com/articles/should-christians-be-concerned-about-the-rapid-advancements-in-artificial-intelligence/14631.article 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  

God’s understanding of friendship is very different to the sexualised and suspicious framework society now inhabits. In this episode we take a lightning-quick tour through the Bible to consider what we can learn about friendship there – with God, between God’s people, and fundamentally lived out in the life of Jesus. What are the key themes which define a contemporary gospel-spared friendship today? Is it realistic to try to reimagine friendship in this way in the 21st-century? And what are the signs we should be looking out for which suggest a relationship may not be in line with this scriptural vision? 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

Somebody once said that in contemporary society we all want to ‘have sex with our friends, and be friends with our sexual partners’. There is a broad suspicion of intimate but non-sexual friendships, especially those which are intergenerational or cross the sexes. We are all supposed to be too cynical to believe that people might just be friends – surely it’s actually all about sex and power in some way? In this episode we try to unpick where the denigration of friendship came from in the modern Western world, and explore what impact this has on the Christian ideal of friendship. 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

To mark one year since Matters of Life and Death joined the Premier Unbelievable network, we have a special one-off episode answering some questions emailed in by listeners. We discuss everything from whether Christians should lean into the culture wars to resist growing social liberalism, to how far we might go in suffering to care for elderly family members, and even whether it would be ethical to create lifelike child-sized sex robots to give to paedophiles in an effort to deter actual child abuse. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions, we’re sorry we couldn’t answer them all! 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

There are two strong Christian traditions when it comes to robust political or industrial action such as strikes. One argues for enduring oppression and unfair employment in the manner of Jesus and points to Paul’s teaching in the Bible on slaves and masters. But a second position throws its weight behind efforts to challenge injustice and protect the vulnerable, noting Jesus’s clear teaching on care for the widow, orphan and stranger. In this episode we consider these two strands of Christian thinking and how they end up being applied, sometimes poorly, to the question of public servants going on strike. And is there a third response to the paralysis and conflict which has erupted in British society – the distinctively Christian virtue of reconciliation? The Christian Medical Fellowship blogs by junior doctors on whether to strike can be found here: - Should Christian doctors strike? No https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=26387 - Should Christian doctors strike? Yes https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=26386 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

The UK is currently gripped by a wave of strikes from public sector employees – nurses, teachers, postal workers, train drivers, paramedics, and soon junior doctors too. But this raises complex ethical questions. Few Christians would deny it is legitimate for private employees to withhold their labour in order to demand better pay or conditions, but it is not the governmental employers who will suffer in public sector strikes but patients, students and ordinary citizens. In this first part of our conversation we discuss the origin of striking as a tactic, the history of how British law does or does not permit certain professions to go on strike, and the complexities of healthcare workers in particular walking off the ward, while maintaining (or not) their legal duty of caring for vulnerable patients. 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 surveillance capitalism permeates all of modern society, how on earth can we step back to think critically about what it may be doing to us? In this episode we think through more of the implications of living in a non-private digital village in the 21st century, but is privacy even a Christian virtue in the first place? We also ponder the implications of the more deceptive and destructive aspects of addictive digital technologies and think through some initial efforts believers have made to carve out space for family time and spirituality in our disembodied always-on world. Some extra reading: Surveillance capitalism: the hidden costs of the digital revolution, Jonathan Ebsworth, Samuel Johns, Michael Dodson, Cambridge Papers June 2021 The Question of Surveillance Capitalism, Nathan Mladin and Stephen Williams, in The Robot will see you Now: Artificial Intelligence and the Christian Faith, ed John Wyatt and Stephen Williams, SPCK, 2021 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff, Profile Books, 2019 Atlas of AI: Power politics and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence, Kate Crawford, Yale University Press, 2021 Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked, Adam Alter, Penguin, 2017 Hooked: how to build habit forming products, Nir Eyal, Penguin, 2019 Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil, Penguin, 2017 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

Every tap, swipe and click we make on our phones, tablets and laptops is being recorded by big tech firms. This is often called surveillance capitalism – a network of products and services we use every day which sucks up large quantities of data about us and then sells it on to advertisers at huge profits. It’s garnering increasing concern from citizens and regulators around the world, but should we care as Christians? What impact is this system having on once flourishing industries such as journalism or bookselling, let alone on us as human beings? And why have tech companies made their products so addictively hard to put down and stop tapping, swiping and clicking? Some extra reading... Surveillance capitalism: the hidden costs of the digital revolution, Jonathan Ebsworth, Samuel Johns, Michael Dodson, Cambridge Papers June 2021 The Question of Surveillance Capitalism, Nathan Mladin and Stephen Williams, in The Robot will see you Now: Artificial Intelligence and the Christian Faith, ed John Wyatt and Stephen Williams, SPCK, 2021 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff, Profile Books, 2019 Atlas of AI: Power politics and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence, Kate Crawford, Yale University Press, 2021 Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked, Adam Alter, Penguin, 2017 Hooked: how to build habit forming products, Nir Eyal, Penguin, 2019 Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil, Penguin, 2017 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 the second part of our discussion with Chris Goswami, we dive into some of the ethical arguments for and against cryptocurrencies. Are they providing financial liberation for some of the poor and excluded communities in the developing world, or simply luring vulnerable under-educated people into shady scams? What does properly Christian investment look like and could putting our money into crypto be an example of this? And how can we grow in wisdom and discernment as believers so that we can pick our way through this wildly accelerating field of technological advancement, avoiding what is harmful while pursuing the good? Find more of Chris’s writing on tech and faith at his website – www.7minutes.net 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

Recent news headlines have been full of discussion of the current ‘crypto winter’, a season where the value of cryptocurrencies has plummeted causing financial devastation and destroying what looked like thriving crypto institutions. This week we’re joined by Christian tech writer and Baptist minister Chris Goswami to try to unpick how we should feel as believers about cryptocurrencies and their dramatic fall in recent months. What is bitcoin, and is it any different to previous internet-based tech industries we could invest in which have boomed and gone bust over the years? Is crypto just a Ponzi scheme, a 21st century version of Tulipmania, or is there something useful and transformative being built on the blockchain? Find more of Chris’s writing on tech and faith at his website – www.7minutes.net 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