How Should We Die as Christians | Matthew Levering
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 06/07/2016

Lecture Title - How We Die: From Sherwin Nuland to the Early Christians and Back Again

In his well-known book How We Die, the late medical doctor Sherwin Nuland influentially argued that death in our day has become dehumanized and depersonalized. As a consequence, he suggested, the dying process now involves unnecessary suffering as doctors try everything to save us from death. Worst of all, death has become consumed by the doctor-patient relationship, and often by a clinging to impossible hopes about the extension of our earthly life, rather than being a time to focus on our other relationships and on bringing our earthly lives to a close. In this light, Levering will ask what difference Christ makes. By examining stories about the deaths of early Christians (not including martydoms), he will consider how we die in Christ and how this should be combined with our legitimate desire for top-notch medical care.

Matthew Levering (PhD Boston College) is James N. Jr. and Mary D. Perry Chair of Theology at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake. He is  author and co-author of over thirty books and is currently at work on a nine-volume dogmatics, whose first three volumes have appeared, most recently Engaging the Doctrine of the Creation: Cosmos, Creatures, and the Wise and Good Creator (Baker Academic, 2017).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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