Death comes to us all. This is all that we know for certain. I, nor anyone else, can say what, if anything, happens when we die. Death is the ultimate unknown. Anxiety is clinically defined as fear of the unknown. Therefore, death is that of which we humans are anxiously fearful, and history is replete with accounts of how anxiety-ridden humans that are afraid behave. It’s not an especially pretty picture.
Jack Verheyden, the professor at Claremont School of Theology that instructed our class in the basics of theology defined it as the discussion of ultimate issues. There is no issue more ultimate to human consciousness than death, and so theology becomes, whether we know it or not, the realm within which we deal with our fear and anxiety. Fundamentalist theology does this by constructing concrete suppositions about the nature and “personality” of God which generalize into fabricated images of an afterlife in heaven or hell, etc. What constitute more, in my opinion, progressive theologies have the disadvantage of the abstractness and ambiguity that result from a greater degree of honesty and objectivity—admirable traits, but short on relieving anxious fear.
As western Christianity approaches Holy Week, I hope to examine more closely what Jesus as the Christ informs us about death. It is not by coincidence, I think, that the common thread holding all of his teachings together is this: be not afraid!
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