Conservative Christians, Atheists and Fear of Death

“Why are evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics over-represented among those who experience higher levels of guilt, regret and uncertainty in the face of impending death?”

That’s a question a friend who works as a spiritual health care provider asked recently.

His question was prompted by being at the deathbeds of some very religious people who were deeply afraid of what would happen after they died.

He mentioned an older woman who had lived a full, productive and largely joyful Christian life.

“She was a very good person to whom God was mightily important,” he said. Yet, as death approached, she was worried that she wasn’t good enough to be accepted into heaven.

Or, as my friend put it, “the ‘blessed assurance’ of which she'd sung so confidently for decades had evaporated into question marks.”

Another devout Christian, who had also lived a full life of service for others, also worried about his worthiness as his life neared its end—he worried about the things in the Bible he had failed to do.

My friend wondered: Why was he now worried mostly about the things he should have done instead of being content with the many good things he had accomplished?

My friend realized not every devout believer felt that way. “Yet it seems to be generally true that the most devout of conservative Christians have a tougher time . . . at the end of life,” he said.

“They respond with guilt and self-loathing to a greater extent than those of more liberal practice, or, indeed, those with no declared religious affiliation.”

His comments made me curious. Was it true?

A comprehensive review of 100 studies by researchers at the University of Oxford, found mixed results.

Eighteen percent of the studies indeed did find that some religious people struggle with death.

According to one of those studies, these tend to be people who have been taught to believe in a demanding and vindictive God, and who may have received a lifelong dose of sermons about the Hellfire and punishment awaiting those who don’t measure up.

Some of the studies accounted for this by distinguishing between what they called intrinsic religiosity—where belief motivates behaviour—and extrinsic religiosity—where behavior bolsters beliefs.

Those who had intrinsic faith tended to be more at peace about dying, compared to extrinsic believers who worried they weren’t doing enough to please God.

The review also found another group of people who approach death with a sense of peace: Atheists.

This isn’t surprising; if you don’t believe in an afterlife, whether that’s a belief in a heaven or in Hell, then there’s nothing to worry about either way.

As Hemant Mehta, host of the podcast The Friendly Atheist put it:

“It actually makes a lot of sense. When you realize death is just a natural part of life, and you’re confident about what will happen after you die, and you’re focused on making the most of the life you have, it’s not surprising that atheists don’t fear death.”

But back to my friend; what does he think about those people who were very religious, yet fearful of death?

For him, “guilt is the common denominator. And fear.”

This may be because their “spiritual formation likely included more of an emphasis on Hell than in many other traditions, and a sense that ‘I have to get it right’ in order to avoid damnation and experience paradise.”

For him, legalism and moralism “produce unhealthy guilt, leaving many dying people to wonder if they actually got it right. They seem to be projecting onto God the rigidity of their practice.”

When that happens, it’s hard for people “to truly relax in the arms of grace when you've spent much of your religious life emphasizing holy living.”

At the bedsides of people who feel this way, his goal is to “remind them that the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever . . . I suggest that God honours the direction of their heart's desire, and that a desire to please God matters more than the finer points of their doctrine. God can be trusted.”

From the Nov. 18 Winnipeg Free Press.

Mennonite Central Committee's Cry for Home Campaign: Some Jewish Views

At least nobody threatened to beat me up.

That’s what happened the last time  I wrote about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

 

The man who left the threatening message on my phone was angry because he felt I was attacking Israel.

I assume he was a Christian, since he also “cursed me in the name of Jesus.”

Over the years, I’ve learned that no issue I write about riles people up more than Israel-Palestine. I can count on getting angry e-mails each time I do it.

After writing last month about Mennonite Central Committee’s new Cry for Home campaign, however, the responses were reasonable and reasoned—although one person questioned my faith and another accused me of inciting “Jew hatred.”

At the end of that column, I indicated I was interested in sharing perspectives from members of the local Jewish community. I got a number of responses, on both sides of the issue.

“For decades, polls show most Israelis seek peace and are willing to make major compromises to achieve it,” wrote Adam Levene on behalf of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg.

But “tragically, the Palestinian leadership walked away from these offers without even putting forward a counter-proposal.”

Also disturbing for him is that Hamas “rejects all peace efforts and Israel’s very existence.” This, he said, “destroys hopes for a positive Palestinian future.”

The Federation, he added, shares MCC’s hope for “a peace in which Israeli and Palestinian children alike will only know security, mutual acceptance, and reconciliation.”

But this would require “acknowledging the real barrier to peace posed by the Palestinian leadership.”

Belle Jarniewski, Chair of the Freeman Foundation Holocaust Education Centre, said she opposes “the occupation, as do many Israelis,” but finds MCC’s campaign “frustrating” since it is “singling out Israel again.”

She agrees there are many injustices, but said not all “are Israel’s fault.”

A large segment of Israel’s population would “happily get out of the territories tomorrow if a safe and peaceful agreement were possible,” she added, but “for that to happen, Israel needs a partner in peace.”

Israelis “remember what happened with the unilateral pullout from Gaza, which led to missile attacks and incursions that no one wanted.”

What Alan Green, Senior Rabbi at Shaarey Zedek, finds difficult about the MCC campaign is that it “misapprehends the true intent of the Palestinian leadership, which is to destroy the state of Israel.”

Green also believes “the vast majority of Israelis” would be happy with a true two state Solution, “where Palestinians and Israelis both respect the right of the other to a land and home of their own.”

But this, he said, “is not, nor has it ever been, the Palestinian program.”

Sidney Halpern noted that Israel has no recourse but to defend itself when attacked.

“If Israel would put down its arms there would be no Israel,” he said. “If Palestinians would put down their arms, there would be a Palestinian state.”

Other members of the Jewish community indicated their support for MCC’s campaign.

Rubin Kantorovich, a son of a holocaust survivor who describes himself as neither a Zionist or religious, sees the campaign as “positive.”

“The rights of the Palestinian people are being trampled upon by the Israeli state and its backers,” he wrote. “This state of affairs must change and I support the MCC for their stand which all people should support.”

Mark Golden said he opposes the “ongoing Israeli campaign against Palestinian human rights.”

He feels this way, he said, “because I am a Jew,” and because he feels the “need to prevent and end the prejudice and suffering which characterizes so much of Jewish history everywhere . . . only in this way can Jews too be safe and secure.”

Harold Shuster is the Manitoba representative to the national Steering Committee of Independent Jewish Voices. He said he “applaud[s] the courageous stance” taken by groups like MCC in calling for “justice and peace in the Middle East.”

My conclusion? There are valid points to be made on both sides. But what might be more important than making one point or another would be for people with differing perspectives to meet and talk about this issue

Conversations like that won’t bring peace to the Middle East, but maybe they could create a little bit of peace and understanding right here in Winnipeg.

From the Nov. 10 Winnipeg Free Press.

Death of a Friend Prompts a Question: How Do We Make Sense of Huntingdon's Disease?

Huntingdon’s is a cruel disease.

The progressive brain disorder, which has no cure, usually appears when people are in their 30s and 40s.

Early symptoms can include poor decision-making, change in personality, irritability, and anger. It ends with loss of mobility and cognition, then death.  

Why am I writing about this? 

Because three weeks ago I attended the funeral of my old high school and university friend Jeff Fast (pictured top, in the late 1970s), who died October 9 from the disease.

At over six feet tall and close to 200 pounds, as a young man Jeff was a boisterous, friendly and easy-going person.

After graduation from university in the early 1980s, he married Janice and became a teacher in Ontario. His first eight years were great—he was remembered warmly as a colleague and good educator.

But things began to change in the 1990s.

Nobody knew it, but Jeff had Huntingdon’s. It caused his personality to change. He had run-ins with the school administration. He grew short-tempered with students.

Soon, he lost his job. In 2001, he was asked to leave the home.

Then, in 2002, he got the diagnosis. The discovery came after his mother was found to have Huntingdon’s.

While glad to know what was causing his problems, it was still “a terrible thing for all of us,” Janice says from her home in Ontario.

“He had lost everything. And we had all lost so much, too.”

The years following the diagnosis were a pivotal time for her.

“My heart changed,” she says. “While those difficult years before the diagnosis could never be undone, God gave me a strong sense of what I was supposed to do—to care for him.”

As Jeff became progressively weaker and more confused, losing speech and the ability to walk, she visited him regularly in the hospital, taking care of his various needs.

She did it for him, but also for her children. The terrible thing about Huntingdon’s is that if one of your parents has it, there’s a 50 percent chance you will, too.

“I wanted them to know that, no matter what, they won’t be abandoned if they develop it.”

The night before he died, the family was with Jeff, telling him they loved him, that it wasn’t his fault.

Together, they remembered who he was before the disease stole him away.

Thinking about Jeff, it’s hard not to wonder how such a terrible disease could exist. Why would a loving God permit Huntingdon’s?

That question was also on the mind of Arthur Boers, an Anglican priest and long-time friend of Jeff’s who preached at his funeral.

“How do we make sense of a man dying at age 60, after enduring the wasting disease that also afflicted his mother?” he asked.

“How do we make sense of Janice being a young widow and young adult children losing their father? How do we make sense of things that went wrong in Jeff’s life, pains and sorrows, when he was so gifted and passionate and exuberant and larger-than-life?”

Our only response, he said, is not to try to figure it out, but to give testimony “to what we know and experience of God” through suffering.

This testimony does not explain suffering, he said, and “certainly does not solve the problem of suffering.”

But it does “hearten us, sustain us, help us carry on and move forward, testifying to who God is for us, to how we experience God’s accompaniment, and, yes, also to how we at times feel let down by God.”

As for Janice, she has no grand theological understandings about what happened. All she knows is that she needed to “lean on God again and again” to make it through each day.

“I don’t know why this came into our family, and I don’t spend time asking why,” she says. “In a way, it doesn’t matter. There is no clear answer.”

But the experience taught her that “no matter how big the challenge is, I don’t have to do it by myself. People from our church helped out in so many ways. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Huntingdon’s, she says, “took so much away from Jeff, and from us as a family. But I no longer debate with God about it. I just lean on him for support.”

From the November 4, 2017 Winnipeg Free Press