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.

Mental health 2: Emotional resilience, the bio-psycho-social model, the power of story, and depression in the Psalms – Matters of Life and Death

In the second half of our discussion with Christian psychiatrist Daniel Maughan, we work through some ways in which the church might play in role in supporting those struggling with their mental health back to fullness of life. But is there also a place for the church in gently pushing back on the medicalisation of ordinary emotions and modelling a greater sense of mental resilience? And what kind of narratives within the Christian faith and scriptural tradition might help us move away from damaging or judgemental stereotypes about mental health? Some useful resources recommended by Daniel: The Mind and Soul Foundation Tackling mental illness together, by Alan Thomas Christianity and Depression, by Tasia Scrutton 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
  1. Mental health 2: Emotional resilience, the bio-psycho-social model, the power of story, and depression in the Psalms
  2. Mental health 1: Power dynamics, the psychiatrist as brick wall, casualties of social media, and over-pathologising distress
  3. Dependence 2: The Panopticon at home, evangelising to retirees, existential angst in the House of Lords, and rejecting self-sufficiency
  4. Dependence 1: Isolated elderly people, altruistic suicide, a second childhood, and a crucified hero
  5. Protestant Social Teaching 2: The ars moriendi, open casket funerals in Derry Girls, the end of Christendom and ethical quietism
  6. Protestant Social Teaching 1: Overlap with Catholicism, chronological snobbery, rejecting one-size-fits-all ethics, and ‘worldly’ versus ‘spiritual’ matters
  7. AI sentience 2: I-Thou relationships, talking to stuffed animals, thanking Alexa, and Turing red flag laws
  8. AI sentience 1: Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, trillions of words, mute idols, and the God who speaks
  9. Matters of Life and Death: The book reconsidered, the Moscow State University reading list, audiobooks, and the decline of the reading Christian
  10. Embryology 2: Psalm 139, reconsidering ‘ensoulment’, the language of right and wrong, and co-operation with evil

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.