Evangelicalism, even more than other strands of the Christian faith, will find its future tightly bound to the future of American culture. Over the past thirty years, evangelicals have risen up and splintered apart with the Baby Boomers. Led by this cohort, we have warred over worship styles. We have fled the denominations, beginning with… [Read more…]
July 27, 2010
What we do with death, how we think about it, and how (or if) we prepare ourselves for it’s inevitability–all these actions spell out what we believe about life. If we do nothing at the death of someone we claim to have loved, it says more about the character of that love than any words… [Read more…]
July 21, 2010
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. The accompanying graph shows one way that they are different. The spend a ton more money at the end of life. Not that it gets them anywhere. The New York Times reports on a paper than… [Read more…]
July 19, 2010
For the first time ever, or at least since statisticians have been keeping track, there are more people in the job market who are older than 65 than those between 16 and 19. The numbers represented in the nearby graph show 12-month averages, so this is not a short-term accounting blip. The New York Times… [Read more…]
July 8, 2010
“There’s a difference between aging and dying,” someone told me today. “Do you have another book about aging?” My first reaction was that preparing to die is a part of aging. But my new friend (who has also just bought The Art of Dying) convinced me otherwise. “My parents,” he said, “have not aged well.”… [Read more…]
June 23, 2010
I first met Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove when I was reporting on the New Monastic movement for Christianity Today. At the time, he was just finishing up his first book while also participating in an intentional community, completing his divinity degree, and doing lots to organize the new monastics. Since then he’s written a number of books… [Read more…]
June 11, 2010
I’ve been asked a number of times since The Art of Dying was released how I could have ended up writing it. I look too young, people have said. Well, there are a number of quick responses to that. As a hospice volunteer, I’ve been around dying people a considerable amount, and I’ve learned a… [Read more…]
May 25, 2010
Yes, Christ defeated death on the Cross, but there’s plenty of people who hope to do better and not die at all. A couple news pieces recently about people who hope to end death: Arakawa, Whose Art Tried to Halt Aging, Dies at 73 Arakawa, a Japanese-born conceptual artist and designer, who with his wife,… [Read more…]
August 16, 2010
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