From: cprice@treehut.waffle.atl.ga.us (Clyde Price)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Witnessing to the Dying, C. John Miller 2/2
Date: 17 Apr 92 02:29:00 GMT
Organization: Clyde's TreeHut BBS

ABANDONED TO DIE ALONE

        Although Mrs. Smith was still physically alive, she was 
socially dead--abandoned and almost forgotten by her friends and 
family.

        Again, this was a shock.  Earlier the family seemed 
passionately committed to keeping her in the dark as to the fact of 
impending death.  Now that physical death spread its darkening shadow
across her thin face, they couldn't care less.

        Or as one writer bluntly sums up the mood of our century:

*       One must avoid--no longer for the sake of the dying person, 
but for society's sake, for the sake of those close to the dying 
person--the disturbance and the overly strong and unbearable emotion 
caused by the ugliness of dying and by the very presence of death in 
the midst of a happy life, for it is henceforth given that life is 
always happy or should always seem to be so. *
(Philippe Aries in WESTERN ATTITUDES TOWARD DEATH.  Baltimore:  Johns
Hopkins, 1974, p.87.)
 
        An even deeper issue is what lies behind this attempt to 
preserve the collective happiness, undisturbed by death.  People want
to tame death, draw its sting by ignoring it and by handing over the 
dying person to the medical priests who often do their best to 
disguise the reality of death with drugs and other technology.  The 
medical team will often let you die by inches so that you will never 
be confronted by the hard reality that this is it.  You just fade 
away, with little thought or attention given to your eternal destiny.

        It's still hard for me not to get sick at heart as I think of
Mrs. Smith being eased into eternity, lonely and afraid, her mind 
crying out for answers about the nature of life and the meaning of 
death.  Instead of getting a deeper love from her family, she was 
increasingly forgotten.  She took months to die, and they couldn't 
stand it.  So far as I could see, they did everything to hide her, to
forget about her; instead of receiving answers about the purpose of 
life she received heavier doses of drugs.

        The only word for the whole situation is "phoney."
 
THE LEGAL DRUG-PUSHERS?

        Mrs. Smith's dying was a microcosm of the phoney response to 
death that dominates sick rooms and funeral parlors of the western 
world.  I have known some great doctors who were concerned about the 
whole patient, including the issue of his eternal destiny.  But as a 
general rule I see doctors tending to become legal drug-pushers, 
respected leaders thoughtlessly teaching people that the most 
important thing is to live without pain.

        What about ministers?  If anything, they are worse than 
doctors because they should know better.  As a class, ministers are 
on the timid side--overawed by the real authority in the hands of 
medical personnel today.

        But why?  Well, the root problem of pastors appears to be 
their desire to be popular.  Somehow this means that they have an 
unwritten deal with the community at large: "You, dear pastor, be 
nice to us, and we'll be nice to you.  Don't say anything to disturb 
our right to be happy.  Don't blaspheme against the 'happiness god' 
and we'll treat you right."
 
MINISTERS WANT TO BE LIKED

        Now I do not agree with the old minister who always took as 
his funeral text the words, "Repent, lest you likewise perish."  But 
the clergymen not only look phoney but ARE phoney when they try too 
hard to be liked.  As a result, in moments of crisis they can be 
frightfully bland and not infrequently they become downright liars.  
They too serve the gods of carnal peace and carnal comfort.

        At the bedside of the dying, how many ministers are content 
to discharge a social responsibility by mumbling a quick prayer and 
moving on?  At the funeral, how many ministers preach unrepentant 
sinners into heaven, putting forward a "God" who is as bland and 
lifeless as themselves?  What about the clergyman who expounds on the
virtues of the deceased when, in fact, that departed brother never 
took the trouble while alive to discover that he had a rotten set of 
relationships with wife, children, and business associates?
 
THE SOLUTION: DEATH DEFINED

        To begin with, it's high time we all recognized that we have 
a great deal to learn from God.  This is true of us pastors who have 
done so little in our time to set before our congregations the issues 
on death and dying.

        Look, pastor, don't worry whether or not someone calls you 
"an ignorant fundamentalist."  Death is a mighty mystery and we're 
all pretty ignorant of its nature until God introduces us to himself 
as Savior, Teacher, and Victor over death.  But saturate yourself in 
the Scriptures and let their powerful interpretation of life and 
death take over your heart and mind.

        What you will learn there is that death is ABNORMAL.  Man was
made to live in fellowship with a covenant God and not to die.  Yet, 
because of sin, death becomes the penalty executed upon fallen man by
a holy God (Genesis 2,3).  You further learn that death is man's 
enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), man's greatest fear (Hebrews 2:15), and 
Satan's weapon for destroying man (Hebrews 2:14,15).

        Satan's strategy is simple.  As the prince of a kingdom of 
darkness, he has certain rights.  He is master over a realm of sin 
and has a right to accuse all sinners living in this realm, demanding
that God execute a just penalty against them (Luke 22:31,32).  This 
penalty is death--physical, spiritual, eternal.  Its leading 
principle is separation--separation of man from fellowship with God, 
of soul from body, of man from his surviving friends, and eternal 
separation in hell from God and all that is good.
 
CONSIDER THE AGONY, O MAN

        Scripture does not tell us all we'd like to know about death 
in relationship to sin and Satan's rule.  It opens the door a crack, 
just enough to let us know that there are hostile powers at work far 
beyond man's understanding.

        True, science may attempt to explain death apart from sin and
Satan, but then the dilemmas mount.  If the scientist says that death
is merely natural and physical, how then does he explain the dying 
man's deep sense of struggle with a terrible enemy?

        Consider the agony of blasphemous Peter De Vries as he
struggles with his child's death in the semi-autobiographical novel, 
BLOOD OF THE LAMB.  If death is purely natural, why De Vries' mighty 
anger against it?  And why do doctors and nurses war so splendidly 
against death and feel so frustrated when they lose?

        Good questions.  They fall into place once you accept the 
biblical tie-in of the triad: sin, death; and Satan.

        But keep reading the Bible and you find that there is much 
more.  Take up the Gospels and you encounter a Man who overcame sin, 
death, and Satan.  Death is the Great Separator, but Jesus is the 
Great Reconciler.  He has become the Prince of life, the author of a 
new hope founded upon his perfectly righteous life and his own death 
in man's behalf.
 
SURRENDERED TO THE LIE

        Let's now apply this to Mrs. Smith.  Once her disease 
worsened with a pattern of slow, steady decline, she lost all her 
human rights and her dignity as well.  The family finally had her 
moved to a nursing home where she was so heavily sedated that she 
became a near zombie.  All decision making was out of her hands.  She 
was not permitted to express any feelings about her approaching 
death.

        Regrettably, as the end neared she embraced the charade of 
the professional staff and her family.  She deepened her pretense 
that she only had a "back problem."

        But within this framework of deception, I could tell her 
about a sympathetic God-man who had honestly looked death in the face
at Calvary, had seen its horror, and had overcome it.  I also could 
tell her that all who are united to Christ by faith immediately pass 
into his presence at death (Acts 7:59).  Their souls find a paradise 
of peace in the presence of the Father and the Lamb (Luke 23:43).  
And at the general resurrection of the just and the unjust, they will
inherit glorified bodies resembling the transformed body of Jesus (
Philippians 3:21).  As a pledge and guarantee of this reality, Jesus 
dwells by faith in our hearts even now.  Heaven awaits; but heaven 
already has begun to possess our hearts (1 Corinthians 2:9).

        I'm very, very sorry.  Before this experience with the Smith 
family I had not taken seriously the idea that death has become the 
new American obscenity, the unmentionable word.  Americans no longer 
"die"; they "pass away."
 
A CHRISTIAN BEDSIDE MANNER

        From all of this I also learned that bitter anger is often 
just beneath the surface whenever a family member appears to be 
dying.  The terminally ill patient can get fiercely angry at the 
doctors for not informing him as to the seriousness of his medical 
treatment, of major surgery or chemotherapy.  Without any good reason
nurses can catch it from the patient and the family.

        And, in a word, the pastor should also expect to encounter 
bitterness against himself.  But knowing this possibility ahead of 
time, he should use the attack as AN OPPORTUNITY to show Christ's 
love.  No matter what happens,  God wants you to practice the 
forgiveness commanded in the Sermon on the Mount.  And the next time 
you visit, the patient may well apologize for last week's outburst.

        When he does, you have a beautiful opening to explain the 
gospel.  But do not seek to force the gospel on someone who does not 
wish to listen.  Remember that in some sense a sick person is a 
captive audience, and you must guard against taking advantage of his 
helplessness to preach to him contrary to his expressed desire.

        Let's put it all together now.  Here are some steps to take 
when you are called to minister as a Christian to a dying non-
Christian:
 
        1. Recruit all the believers you can to pray for the 
terminally ill person, his family, and for you.  Remember, this is a 
battle over a man's eternal destiny and the devil will not give up 
easily.

        2. Watch to see if fears and frustrations are making it 
impossible for the patient to listen to you.  If so, find out what 
they are and do what you can to relieve them.  Remember, he has a 
physical life as well as a soul, a social life as well as a spiritual
life; and if he is upset by something trivial like diet, see what you
can do to get the matter straightened out.

        3. Present the gospel in the framework of realistic hope, 
setting forth the grace and power to be found in Christ.  Lift up 
Christ and keep lifting him up as the great Victor-Redeemer who 
supplies the answer to man's deepest need.  Then at an appropriate 
point, ask the person if he knows the Lord Jesus and invite him to 
trust in this Savior.

        4. Pray with and for the person with strong and loving 
convictions about the realities of divine things.  This may be the 
most important part of your ministry.  For this is how the patient 
comes to realize that you know God as your own Father and to expect 
that he too can share in God's gift of eternal life through Jesus 
Christ.

        For myself, I also pray for healing of the patient unless God
has made it abundantly clear that his will is to take the person from
this life.  In keeping with the prayer for healing, it seems to me 
that it is not ordinarily the minister's duty to inform the sick 
person of the approach of death.  I believe this responsibility lies 
with the family, not with the physician or minister.

        Under special circumstances, however, the minister or doctor 
may do this at the request of the family.  But even here a word of 
caution is in order, just because in some instances the dying person 
recovers or at least lives much longer than the doctors think 
possible.

        5. Make your visits BRIEF AND REGULAR, especially if the 
illness is protracted.  The patient will begin to expect you at a 
certain time.  So try not to disappoint him by coming several times 
in one week and then staying away for ten days.

        6. Keep your eyes open to see how you can support the family,
both during the final illness and afterwards.  Cooked food for the 
family supplied by the congregation during the final hours and in the
days afterward often is much appreciated.  Spiritual food is, of 
course, even more important.  So, whenever possible, use the 
opportunity to teach the whole family about the person and work of 
Jesus Christ within the context of deeds of kindness performed by the
Christian community.
 
***
 
        For any Christian who wishes to minister to the aged and the 
terminally ill, I would recommend some background reading to help you
understand the attitudes of psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, patients,
and the general public toward death and dying.  Standard works on the
subject are: Herman Feifel, ed., THE MEANING OF DEATH (McGraw-Hill, 
1959); and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, ON DEATH AND DYING (Macmillan, 
1970).

        For a recent work that provides a bibliography (340 entries),
see: O.G.Brim, et al., THE DYING PATIENT (New York: Russell Sage, 
1970).  One of the most helpful works on the practical level is THE 
PSYCHODYNAMICS OF PATIENT CARE (Prentice-Hall, 1972), by Lawrence H. 
and Jane L. Schwartz.

        For the Christian nurse I would also recommend an article in 
the January 1975 issue of the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF NURSING.  Written 
by Helen H. Whitman and Selby J. Lukes, its title, "Behavior 
Modification in Terminally Ill Patients", reveals its Skinnerian 
orientation; yet it supplies some common-sense solutions to the 
behavior problems created by bad-tempered people who are dying.
 
 (Keyed into electronic media by Clyde C. Price, Jr.)



Clyde C. Price, Jr.  CIS# 76616,3452   CLYDE'S TREEHUT BBS 404/767-1632
P.O.Box 667, Red Oak, GA 30272 USA voc:404/761-2327 /I'm a "whosoever"!
Atl.Christian Tech Society (3rd Tues)/ cprice@treehut.waffle.atl.ga.us