Dr. John Patrick lectures throughout the world helping audiences, regardless of their beliefs, to understand the pivotal role played in all societies by faith and religion.

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Dr. John Patrick has a rigorous speaking schedule and presents as many as 400 lectures a year. His talks can be grouped under four headings:

  • Group 1: The Necessity of Belief
  • Group 2: Medical Ethics
  • Group 3: The Big Questions
  • Group 4: Education

Group 1: The Necessity of Belief

Christians can re-enter the forum of public policy debate without apology for their religious beliefs. The starting point is an introduction to what happened at the end of the Middle Ages when we slowly privatized our personal beliefs, without noticing that we had, thereby allowing secular beliefs to dominate. We all believe that government and public policy ought to be about making society better but we rarely discuss what the ideas of “ought” or “better” mean and where they come from.

  • Can We be Good Without God?
  • Why is No-one able to Say they are Good?
  • Is Multiculturalism Viable and True?
  • Tolerance is Good but We don’t Tolerate Everything: The Role of Legitimate Intolerance
  • Irreducible Complexity
  • The Myth of Moral Neutrality
  • The Myth of Multiculturism
  • The Culture of Death
  • Secularism is a Belief, Too
  • Why Development Does Not Work

Group 2: Medical Ethics

The fundamental questions are not new but their current incarnations are. The old approach to medical ethics assumed everyone was primarily concerned for their patients and shared common ideas of good and evil, and that, therefore, it was not necessary to discuss ethics. With the explosion of technical skills and the growth of cultural diversity this no longer suffices. We are now being told how to behave by an elite secular group of bio-ethicists whose beliefs are not shared by most of our patients. Despite this, we continue to talk about patient-centred ethics!

  • Much More than a Baby Dies in Abortion: the Logical Consequences of Abortion Legislation
  • The Domino Effect of Legalising Abortion
  • A Good Death: Physician Assisted Suicide and End of Life Decisions
  • Manipulating Human Society: the New Eugenic Consequences of Molecular Biology
  • Autonomy, Justice, Beneficence and Non-Maleficence: What to do When They Clash
  • Every Patient Inhabits a Story: Narrative Ethics and Medicine
  • Christian Thought in the Development of Western Scientific Medicine
  • Ramifications of the Supposed Right to Choose
  • The Sanctity of Life
  • Meaning and Purpose in Medicine
  • Moral Imperatives in Medical Care
  • Faith, Medicine and Health Care
  • Why Ethics Courses do not make us Ethical and What does
  • What Hippocrates Knew and We have Forgotten
  • The Secret of Caring for your Patient is in the Caring
  • Limited Resources in Medicine
  • The Disabled and Human Dignity
  • The Unborn and Human Dignity
  • Narrative Ethics
  • Conscience Laws and the Christian Doctor
  • Technology and the Depersonalization of the Patient

Group 3: The Big Questions

The nine Questions: In the beginning what? Why am I here? Where am I going? How do I come to terms with death, particularly my own? How do I make sense of suffering? How can I believe in justice? What can I know? What must I believe? What ought I therefore to do, particularly in raising virtuous children?

  • The Nine Questions We All have to Answer
  • Character and its Formation According to Jesus
  • The Sermon on the Mount
  • Why are there no Hittites on the Streets of New York?
  • Knowing God – Much More than Conversion
  • Why most Physicians Hate Church
  • The Four Levels of Happiness
  • Mere Christian or Believer?
  • Conversion and Virtue: Are they the same?
  • The Dangers of Subjective Faith
  • The Formation of Family and Society: Deut 4-6
  • Culture and Development
  • Beauty and Education
  • From Ockham to Dawkins: Changing Tacit Assumptions

Group 4: Education

These talks focus on our educational institutions as well as general discussions about wisdom, knowledge and information.

  • Loving Children and Loving Books: The Pillars of Education
  • How Did We Get Here?
  • Changes in the Meanings of Words after the Enlightenment, especially “Fact” and “Explanation”
  • Enlightenment Paradigms
  • The Strange Story of the Word ‘Fact’
  • Recognizing Reductionism in our world, even in our church
  • Reductionism and Moral Relativism
  • The 5 Issues that will Destroy your Faith in University
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