Podcast
Along with my son Tim Wyatt, a religion and social affairs journalist, I run a podcast called Matters of Life and Death, which is part of the Premier network. Each episode is a conversation between the two of us discussing how Christians can engage with a particular issue around healthcare, ethics, technology, science or faith. You can subscribe to the podcast on all major podcast apps, including Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts, or you can listen to our latest episodes below.
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.
In the United States, a surprising coalition of MAGA Republicans and progressive Democrats have united in their shared opposition to animal testing in medical research, and are pushing to shut it down for good. But what should Christians think about using animals in research to find new drugs or treatments for humans? John spent years conducting just this kind of research himself as a doctor, and so we discuss how he came to believe this was morally appropriate and his own run-ins with Britain’s animal rights activists. We also think through the theological foundations of human exceptionalism, and how the idea we are different (and indeed more valuable) than everything else God has made is coming under fresh challenge today.
The original Economist article we cite at the start: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/08/05/how-a-bipartisan-coalition-is-taking-aim-at-animal-research
• 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
To find a full list of our entire back catalogue of episodes, click here.
If you have enjoyed listening to Matters of Life and Death, please share it with your friends and family and leave a review in your podcast app. We are also very interested in hearing questions or comments from listeners, so if you have any thoughts or would like to suggest a topic for us to cover, please email molad@premier.org.uk.
