Why Peacemaking Needs Objective Moral Truth

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this reflective episode, Dr. John Patrick shares the remarkable arc of his own life, from a working-class Plymouth Brethren upbringing influenced by F.F. Bruce, to studying under the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, to pioneering the treatment of severe childhood malnutrition in Jamaica and Central Africa. He reflects on the providential connections that shaped his career, including his friendship with Professor Brendan Bain and his family's deep ties to the Christian community in Africa and the Caribbean. Dr. John Patrick returns repeatedly to the warning that animates this episode: when a society gets rid of God, it will be necessary to legalize terror, tracing this truth through Lenin's Russia, the erosion of institutional trust in the West, and the groundless ethics of modern universities. Drawing on thinkers such as Robert Fogel and Alan Bloom, he argues that ethics and virtue cannot survive without a transcendent foundation, and he calls on Christians to rebuild trust, community, and moral seriousness in their churches and families. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/-p8RLQaCstM // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this reflective episode, Dr. John Patrick shares lessons from his 60th wedding anniversary celebration, recounting his wife Sally's insight that lasting marriage is built not on romance but on a promise made in the presence of God. He reflects on Acts 2:42 and the apostles' pattern of doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer as the structure for a stable Christian life, contrasting this with the anxiety and rootlessness of a culture stripped of transcendence. Dr. John Patrick also offers a substantial critique of media bias, referencing Rowan Atkinson's public exchange with Joy Behar, and turns to David Stove's book Darwinian Fairytales to argue that evolutionary theory is often overextended into a totalizing worldview it cannot support. The episode closes with reflections on trust, authority-based medicine, cultural inheritance, and George Herbert's poem "Love (III)" as a picture of grace. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/wQuoIV77nJM // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick explores why peacemaking is impossible without an agreed standard of objective moral truth, drawing on Peter Kreeft's A Refutation of Moral Relativism and Arthur Leff's essay on justice to illustrate the dangers of moral relativism in universities, politics, and interfaith relations. He discusses the erosion of academic integrity under DEI policies, the troubling naivety of British politicians and church leaders regarding Islam and Sharia law, and references Douglas Murray's predictions about Islam's future. Dr. John Patrick then reflects on a personal experiment in taking a Sabbath from screens, recounting how revisiting a Martin Lloyd-Jones sermon on "girding up the loins of the mind" renewed his spiritual discipline and deep reading habits. He closes with reflections on family, demographic decline in the West and China, and his practice of reading eight to ten chapters of Scripture daily, encouraging listeners to try a similar screen fast and rediscover sustained, disciplined thought. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/9pfcnAQx2bA // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast Reflecting on his sixtieth wedding anniversary, Dr. John Patrick opens with the Beatitude 'blessed are the pure in heart' and explores Kierkegaard's famous definition of purity of heart as willing one thing. In this deeply reflective episode, Dr. John Patrick weaves together stories from his early years as a young doctor, the moral history of Israel, and the collapse of Rome to explain how Christian conviction shaped Western civilization and modern medicine. He draws on thinkers such as Oliver O'Donovan, Immanuel Kant, John Chrysostom, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Jordan Peterson to address the anxiety and lack of transcendent moral authority afflicting the modern world. Dr. John Patrick also recounts formative encounters with dying and suffering patients early in his career, showing how genuine Christian love, rather than mere behavior or theology, first challenged his scientific reductionism. The episode closes with an appeal to hope, courage, and dependence on grace rather than fear. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/uQtEtDagjVY // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick concludes his reading of Wendell Berry's short story 'Fidelity,' the tale of Burley Coulter, an old countryman taken off life support and secretly carried home by his son Danny to die among the people and land he loved. Dr. John Patrick uses the story, which he has taught to medical students for years, to explore themes of medical ethics, end-of-life decisions, and the meaning of dignity in death within a faithful rural community. He draws attention to Berry's sharp critique of modern medicine and bureaucracy through the character of Henry Catlett, a country lawyer who confronts a state police detective over the true meaning of law, love, and belonging. Listeners are introduced to Berry's fictional Port William membership, a community bound by fidelity to one another and to place, in contrast with the impersonal, profit-driven machinery of modern hospitals. Dr. John Patrick closes by encouraging listeners to read Wendell Berry's full body of work, beginning with 'That Distant Land' or 'Watch With Me.' 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/Dmex2FIx0n8 // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick pays tribute to the late Wendell Berry, the American novelist, poet, and farmer who died at 92, reflecting on why mainstream obituaries failed to capture the man's true significance. Dr. John Patrick shares how Berry's essay line, 'a professional is a person without place,' reshaped his own choices as a physician and father, leading him to prioritize local community over career convenience during his family's years in Jamaica and Africa. He then reads much of Berry's short story 'Fidelity' from the collection of the same name, part of Berry's fictional Port William community, which portrays a family's anguish over a dying elder trapped in impersonal hospital care. Dr. John Patrick draws out the story's critique of modern medicine's loss of human fidelity and community, urging medical students in particular to read Berry's work. The episode closes mid-story, with Dr. John Patrick promising to continue the reading in a future episode. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/DBOZ7opYGzo // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick reflects on a First Things article by Peter Thiel titled 'The Pope and the Antichrist,' which reveals that Pope Benedict XVI took seriously the theological concept of the Antichrist and the end times. Dr. John Patrick connects this to Oliver O'Donovan's 'The Disappearance of Ethics,' arguing that ethics depends on theology rather than philosophy, and traces how Western culture has drifted from its Judeo-Christian foundations. He also discusses Peter Thiel's views on education and entrepreneurship, the erosion of trust and free speech, and shares a detour into World War II history involving Air Marshal Hugh Dowding and the Battle of Britain. The episode closes with a call to recover deep reading and moral formation, especially through children's literature, as an antidote to cultural drift. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/1hNScdwffzQ // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick examines the growing number of women publicly criticizing the outcomes of modern feminism, drawing on the work of Helen Andrews, Kate Willett, and Roni Falk. He traces how feminism, wokeness, and critical theory have combined to produce what he calls the loneliest generation on record, and revisits the 1850s philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose utilitarian defense of traditional male-female roles Kate Willett has recently popularized. Dr. John Patrick discusses observed differences between boys and girls, the decline of statistical literacy in the social sciences, and the collapse of trust and honor codes in relationships since the sexual revolution. He also connects these themes to broader cultural failures, including the Cambridge academic scandal and the handling of the George Floyd case, arguing that without God, objective moral truth disappears and society is left with power struggles and cancel culture. The episode opens, as always, with a brief reflection on the Sermon on the Mount and meekness. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/2cFp3QrJtYg // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick reflects on Augustine's Confessions and the discipline of ordering our priorities around truth rather than distraction. He introduces nine foundational questions that thoughtful people throughout history, Christian and non-Christian alike, have asked about origin, meaning, destiny, morality, and justice, and argues that the church has largely stopped teaching people how to wrestle with them seriously. Drawing on Nehemiah 8, Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Jordan Peterson, Mary Harrington, and Oliver O'Donovan's The Disappearance of Ethics, Dr. John Patrick contends that a culture severed from transcendence collapses into raw power and moral confusion. He closes with the parable of the wise and foolish builders, urging listeners to root their lives on the rock of Christ's words rather than the shifting sand of secular assumptions. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/PrcoFbwhbOQ // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick

Join our monthly book club and keep thinking deeply about faith, culture, and truth: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/bookclubpod Considering college? Explore Augustine College, a one-year classical Christian program in Ottawa that prepares students to think and live faithfully in a secular age: 🔗 https://pxllnk.co/augustinepodcast In this episode, Dr. John Patrick returns to the Beatitude 'blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,' arguing that true ethics cannot be taught through philosophy but only through a theological encounter with God. He draws on O'Donovan's claim that ethics lectures produce ethicists, not ethical people, and critiques a recent Canadian military directive removing references to God from enlistment procedures. Dr. John Patrick traces the failure of secular philosophy's 'physics envy' and reflects on figures such as James Clerk Maxwell, Malcolm Muggeridge, Thomas Sowell, Annie Dillard, and legal philosopher Leff to show why justice and morality require transcendence. He also shares personal reflections from his medical career, including his early support for abortion, to illustrate how empathy divorced from truth leads societies astray. The episode closes with a call to recognize that repentance, not mere sentiment, is the path to the righteousness Christ both demands and provides. 🎬 Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/V4Gy3yH4ar4 // LINKS // Website: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ Podcast: https://doctorjohnpatrick.podbean.com/ Biblical Literacy Quiz: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/meaning-metaphor-and-allusion/ Recommended Reading list: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/book-list/ Ask Doctor John: https://www.johnpatrick.ca/ask/ LINKS: https://beacons.ai/doctorjohnpatrick