Ghosts of Christian Past

“I’m a little afraid of dying, because it’s the ultimate unknown,” she said. “We don’t really know what’s next—or is there nothing? That’s the scary part.”

The above quote is from today's essay at the Free Press. I cannot recommend it- it is brutally painful to read. Those of us who track such things have been concerned with a startling uptick in assisted suicide, or what is called “medical aid in dying”. Canada, especially, has provided startling examples of this practice. One of the things that Canada’s legalization of euthanasia has revealed is something ethicists have long feared- when a social practice becomes normative, it also becomes more common. The Free Press notes that there has been a 125% increase in people applying to die by assisted suicide from 2018-2021.¹

I think the essay I have linked is painful for yet another reason. In many of the conversations about assisted suicide, including the one I have quoted, the individuals who seek to die seem to do so with a belief that their lives will be improved by death. It is not difficult to imagine wanting freedom from pain. The harder thing to grapple with is the thing that is often missed- that such freedom comes with the extinction of life itself.

That there is a conscious “I”- a self who exists through death and beyond it- is a core Christian claim, but it seems to be a belief that many people hold. Though Christians do not hold an exclusive claim to belief in the afterlife- Jews have some belief in the afterlife, though nascent, as do Muslims- the idea of a soul that survives death as itself- the person that exists after death being the same as the one who existed before it- is a chief source of Christian hope.

It also is one example of how a cultural-linguistic religious framework “works”. George Lindbeck writes that religion “is an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments” (33). People who live in a culture where a religious framework is, or has been operative experience themselves in a particular way due to this framework. And most notably, “A religion…may continue to exercise immense influence on the way people experience themselves and their world even when it is no longer explicitly adhered to” (33). The religion can “make meaning” for people even when they have rejected its demands. A person can have a Christian set of instincts and beliefs even if they have rejected the Christian tradition.

Though I do not encourage you to do so, one thing that will stand out to you if you read numerous accounts of medical aid in dying is the belief people retain in life after death. Dying for many is both about a desire to be free from pain, but it is paired with a desire for a conscious experience of an afterlife. The hope that there might be something more peeks through the edges of many accounts of these medicalized deaths, and though we should not say that medical aid in dying is Christian-not by any means- this hope for an afterlife certainly is.

Why does any of this matter? I think this is one occasion where Lindbeck’s criteria can help us “diagnose” our cultural location. Where ever you fall on the “post-Christian” taxonomy, it is certainly the case that there are less practicing Christians in the West than there once were. However, though religious practice has declined, I think Lindbeck is right that Christianity still “makes meaning”for people. Most Americans will tell you that it is good to show mercy for the suffering, to feed the hungry, and to seek to do justice. Many, I suspect, also hold to a vague belief in an afterlife.

But an increasing number of Americans hold these beliefs while rejecting both Christian teaching and Christian communities. These communities are the only means whereby the “religious idiom” can make sense. Beliefs in justice, mercy, and eternal life, abstracted from such communities, are ripe for abuse. The chief possibility for such abuse in our day is the way we persistently outsource our communities of discernment to our technologies.

And there’s the rub. When a lingering Christian imagination meets technological optimism, we find ourselves in situations previously impossible. If eliminating suffering is good, then it is hard to see a problem with selective abortion. If pursuing justice is a Christian imperative (and it is!), society-level surveillance seems a small price to pay. And if acts of mercy are combined with a vague belief in the afterlife, then euthanasia becomes a no-brainer.

If you think I am exaggerating, I have heard well-intentioned Christians argue for all of these positions. Not surprisingly, they are often the same Christians who are “taking a break” from the church.

The point of all this is to note for you the danger that can occur when the ghost of a pre-Christian past haunts the technological present.

Christian concern for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger are thick throughout the Bible, beginning with the Hebrew Bible all throughout the New Testament teachings of Paul. But they were deeply communal and local practices, and also personally costly ones. The idea was not to support justice through slogans and elections- rather it was to live the sort of lives where you were committed to these sorts of demands in ways that cost you something. You were pro-justice because the shape of your whole life was about caring for the widow and the orphan, not because you posted something on Instagram. It is the very same Christian imagination that, when operating in a community of discernment, gives us works of mercy. In a post-Christian context, it can lead to euthanasia for suffering people who think they are bound for a better life.

On this Easter Monday, here is what you should know about resurrection. The Christian promise of resurrection is not like a factory reset, where God toggles things off in order to turn them on again. Rather resurrection is the limit case for God doing what God is always doing- making life where there was none. Death for the Christian for this reason is the test of our imaginations- can we trust God to do, one more time, what we have been told God has been doing since the beginning? Can God work once more to make life where there was none?

It is hard to believe, and at the same time it is not. For the God of Israel does just this kind of thing. He works on matter as if he made it- causing it to do sudden and surprising things, because it is his.

Absent these more robust Christian claims, a lingering ghost of Christian past can lead us to places we could hardly imagine- places that are sadly materializing before our eyes.

1. ‘I’m 28. And I’m Scheduled to Die in May.’