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Institute for Faith and Learning
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      • 2022 Art Seeking Understanding
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    • The Christian Reflection Project
      • Acedia
      • Advent Ethics
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Baylor BU Institute for Faith and Learning Media and Resources The Christian Reflection Project Death
  • Faith Animating Online Education
  • Institute for Faith and Learning Video Archive
  • Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture Video Archive
  • Bill and Roberta Bailey Family Lecture in Christian Ethics
  • Recommended Reading
  • External Resources
  • The Christian Reflection Project
    • Acedia
    • Advent Ethics
    • Aging
    • Anger
    • Apocalyptic Vision
    • Attentive Patience
    • The Book of Acts
    • Caring for Creation
    • Catechism
    • Chastity
    • Children
    • Christianity and Islam
    • Christmas and Epiphany
    • Cities and Towns
    • Cloning
    • Consumerism
    • Death
    • Disability
    • Easter
    • Food and Hunger
    • Forgiveness
    • Freedom
    • Friendship
    • Gambling Culture
    • Generosity
    • Global Wealth
    • Health
    • Heaven and Hell
    • Hospitality
    • Immigration
    • Inklings of Glory
    • Lent
    • The Letter of James
    • Marriage
    • Membership
    • Monasticism Old and New
    • Moral Landscape of Creation
    • Mysticism
    • Parables
    • Patterns of Violence
    • Peace and War
    • Pentecost
    • Pornographic Culture
    • Prayer
    • Prison
    • Prophetic Ethics
    • Racism
    • Sabbath
    • Schools in a Pluralist Culture
    • Scripture
    • Sermon on the Mount
    • Singing Our Lives
    • Sports
    • Suffering
    • Traveling Well
    • Virtual Lives
    • Vocation
    • Where Wisdom Is Found
    • Women and the Church
    • Women in the Bible
    • Work

Death

Attending to the process of dying and death from a Christian perspective, our contributors explore how to provide better care for the dying, remember the dead rightly, and prepare for our own deaths--for these, they explain, respond to dimensions of the same problem: our cultural avoidance of death.

Christians begin preparing for their death through baptism, which, Eric Howell suggests, is an augury both of how to live and how to die. Critiquing our "immortalist" culture, Paul Griffiths explores how we can achieve a "Christian equipoise between death-seeking and death-avoidance" in which we do not seek death, but neither are we inordinately disposed to postpone it. Brett McCarty and Allen Verhey recover the virtues for dying well from the Ars Moriendi literature; they write that we would do well to "learn faith, hope, patient love, humility, serenity, and courage as we commend our lives and our deaths into the hands of a living God." Todd Buras and Joel Shuman review recent Christian contributions to an ars moriendi, or art of dying.

Remembering the dead rightly, with love that is undistorted by our passions, is a difficult spiritual discipline, Regina Easley-Young explains. A liturgy for All Saints Day by Eric Mathis with a new hymn by David Music helps us prepare to face our own death, even as it leads us to grieve the dead well.

Though we prolong the dying process, we often isolate dying persons and fail to acknowledge death. Charles Christian writes, "In response to this cultural denial of death, the Church's hope of resurrection and community support for the dying and the grieving can be good news indeed."

The study guides and lesson plans integrate Bible study, prayer, and worship to explore death and the process of dying. The study guides can be used in a series or individually. You may download and reproduce them for personal or group use.

Download the entire Death issue and the set of five Study Guides. Or, download individual pieces by clicking the titles below.

Articles

  • "How the Tomb Becomes a Womb, by Eric Howell
  • "Defending Life by Embracing Death" by Paul J. Griffiths
  • "The Virtues for Dying Well," by Brett McCarty and Allen Verhey
  • "Remembering the Dead Rightly," by Regina Easley-Young

Art

  • "All My Life is Vanity," by Heidi J. Hornik, on David Bailly's Vanitas: Self-Portrait of the Artist, Still Life
  • "The Grim Reaper," by Heidi J. Hornik, on Gustav Klimt's Death and Life

Hymns and Worship Service

  • "When Life Well Lived Is at an End," by David W. Music
  • Worship Service by Eric L. Mathis

Inspirational Pieces

  • "It's Time to Get Up!" by Terry T. Lester
  • "What My Students Teach Me about Death," by Glenn E. Sanders
  • "Other Voices," Quotations on Death and the Process of Dying

Book Reviews

  • "Dying Well,"by Joel Shuman
    • Rob Moll, The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come
    • Richard Payne and John Swinton, eds., Living Well and Dying Faithfully: Christian Practices for End-of-Life Care
    • Allen Verhey, The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus
    • Christopher Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well
  • "Loving Our Last Enemy," by Todd Buras
    • Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections
    • Henri Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring
    • C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
    • Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
  • "Restoring the Christian Funeral," by Charles W. Christian
    • Fred Craddock, Dale Goldsmith, and Joy V. Goldsmith, Speaking of Dying: Recovering the Church's Voice in the Face of Death
    • Thomas G. Long, Accompany Them with Singing: The Christian Funeral

Study Guides and Lesson Plans(Download the set of five Study Guides)

  • "How the Tomb Becomes a Womb"
  • "Defending Life by Embracing Death"
  • "The Virtues for Dying Well"
  • "Loving Our Last Enemy"
  • "Remembering the Dead Rightly"

Further Reading:

  • "Power Made Perfect in Weakness," by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung (Suffering)
  • "Dying Well," by Abigail Rian Evans (Health)
  • "When Suffering Continues," by Robert V. Rakestraw (Aging)
  • "Declining with Grace," by Robert C. Roberts and Elizabeth V. Roberts (Aging)
Baylor BU Institute for Faith and Learning Media and Resources The Christian Reflection Project Death
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        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2014 Faith and Film
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        • Video Archive
      • 2013 Kierkegaard: A Christian Thinker for Our Time?
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2012 Technology and Human Flourishing
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2011 Educating for Wisdom in the 21st Century University
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2010 Human Dignity and the Future of Health Care
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2009 Secularization and Revival
        Back
        • Video Archive
      • 2008 Bottom-Up Approaches to Global Poverty
      • 2007 Friendship
    • Bill and Roberta Bailey Family Lecture in Christian Ethics
      Back
      • Bailey Lecture Video Archive
    • Other Conferences and Events
      Back
      • IFL@25
        Back
        • Select Pictures from IFL@25
      • 2019 LFP National Conference
        Back
        • Presenters
      • Art & Soul
      • Pruit Memorial Symposium
        Back
        • 2001 Celebrating Augustine's Confessions
        • 2002 Christianity and Economics
        • 2003 The Schooled Heart
        • 2004 Slavery, Oppression, and Prejudice
        • 2005 Global Christianity
      • Baylor University Medical Ethics Seminar
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        • 2016 Medical Ethics Seminar
        • 2017 Medical Ethics Seminar
        • 2018 Medical Ethics Seminar
      • One-Time Conferences
  • Programs
    Back
    • Communio: A Retreat for Baylor Educators
    • William Carey Crane Scholars Program
      Back
      • Additional Information
    • Missio
    • Forming Character in the Classroom
      Back
      • About the Program: Called to Character
      • Past Workshops
    • Reading Groups and Guest Speakers
    • Soundings Project
  • Media and Resources
    Back
    • Faith Animating Online Education
      Back
      • Starting Points
      • A Christian Imagination about Online Education?
      • Cultivating Character and Online Learning
      • Additional Resources
    • Institute for Faith and Learning Video Archive
    • Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture Video Archive
    • Bill and Roberta Bailey Family Lecture in Christian Ethics
    • Recommended Reading
    • External Resources
    • The Christian Reflection Project
      Back
      • Acedia
      • Advent Ethics
      • Aging
      • Anger
      • Apocalyptic Vision
      • Attentive Patience
      • The Book of Acts
      • Caring for Creation
      • Catechism
      • Chastity
      • Children
      • Christianity and Islam
      • Christmas and Epiphany
      • Cities and Towns
      • Cloning
      • Consumerism
      • Death
      • Disability
      • Easter
      • Food and Hunger
      • Forgiveness
      • Freedom
      • Friendship
      • Gambling Culture
      • Generosity
      • Global Wealth
      • Health
      • Heaven and Hell
      • Hospitality
      • Immigration
      • Inklings of Glory
      • Lent
      • The Letter of James
      • Marriage
      • Membership
      • Monasticism Old and New
      • Moral Landscape of Creation
      • Mysticism
      • Parables
      • Patterns of Violence
      • Peace and War
      • Pentecost
      • Pornographic Culture
      • Prayer
      • Prison
      • Prophetic Ethics
      • Racism
      • Sabbath
      • Schools in a Pluralist Culture
      • Scripture
      • Sermon on the Mount
      • Singing Our Lives
      • Sports
      • Suffering
      • Traveling Well
      • Virtual Lives
      • Vocation
      • Where Wisdom Is Found
      • Women and the Church
      • Women in the Bible
      • Work
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