Culture Friday: The art of dying

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, January 9th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I'm Lindsay Mast. It’s Culture Friday! Joining us is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Morning, John!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

BROWN: Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, says he is dying.

Adams, who is 68, recently announced he has terminal prostate cancer. And in a recent podcast episode, he spoke directly to the Christians in his life—friends who have urged him to consider faith in Christ while he still has time.

Adams says he plans to convert to Christianity—but not yet.

Here is part of what he told those Christians.

ADAMS: Any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up at heaven. I do believe that the dominant Christian theory is that I was I would wake up in heaven if I have a good life. Yeah, I don't necessarily have to state something in advance.

And so to my Christian friends, yes, it's coming. So you don't need to talk me into it. I am now convinced that the risk reward is completely smart if it turns out that there's nothing there, I've lost nothing, but I've respected your wishes. And I like doing that.

If it turns out there is something there and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win. So with your permission, I promise you that I will, I will convert, but I probably won't spend much time in that phase, so don't expect it to happen today, okay, but argument made, argument accepted.

John, Adams is being very honest here. But what do you think the core problem is with the way he’s framing salvation?

STONESTREET: Well, I mean that it can be done that way, as if salvation is a form of fire insurance. I think all of this has to be couched in light of something else, a bigger reality, because whenever Christians talk about anything that is happening in a particular moment in time, in a particular cultural time and place, we have to see that in light of the overarching story of what God is doing to reclaim this world that he created for His own glory through the death, resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ throughout all eternity.

In other words, if Adams does make it to God’s presence when he dies, and let’s pray that he does, it’s going to be because of the work of God in his life. It’s going to be because of Christ, and that’s the overarching thing.

And I, you know, there was a particular progressive liberal thinker that I had some disagreements with throughout the years, and who once said, you know, I think people are going to be more surprised by who is in heaven with them than who is not. And I think that there’s a lot of truth to that.

And the reason is because what we know about God is who God has revealed himself to be over and over and over in Scripture, in his work with both unbelieving individuals and unbelieving tribes, people, nations and languages. And that is that he is gracious.

It’s true that his grace takes a very particular expression in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but that’s what we should count on, and that’s what we should pray for. It’s going to have a lot less to do with this kind of bet that Adams thinks he’s making.

BROWN: I can’t help but think about another well-known person who is also facing terminal cancer, former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse. We talked about this on the program the day the news came out. In his announcement on X last month, Sasse wrote, “A well-lived life demands more reality – stiffer stuff. That’s why while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope”

Similar circumstances, but totally different worldview. Is this just the difference between a mature, intellectually serious Christian faith, and a still-developing one?

STONESTREET: There is obviously a big, big difference in world view. I’m not sure it’s a difference in intellectual seriousness. I mean, I think it’s interesting, right? I mean, both of these guys are known for their intellectual seriousness.

Adams is, he does it in the form of snark and humor. And then Ben Sasse is, and a lot of people have commenting on his political career, said he was just too serious about standing for what he believed to make a good politician. And I think that’s probably is what it turned out to be in his life and career.

So you have an intellectual seriousness, I think on both sides. The difference is one of world view. It’s a difference of materialism and non materialism, because materialism really reduces life down to these days that we have.

And so you can see in Adam’s own calculation, an attempt to get around it. In Sasse, you see the reflection of someone who has taken to heart that death has lost its sting, that the grave doesn’t have victory anymore, that this isn’t a calculation of how to push back or figure out some sort of last minute work around.

This is a completely different viewpoint, because it begins with a different understanding of gain and a different understanding of loss. That’s why we see in so many different cases that a follower of Christ’s most amazing testimony can be in a moment of death or at a time of dying.

And this is why some of the earliest theological works that the church had to offer the world, one is called the art of dying. How do we die? Well, and may God give Senator Sasse this strength and grace to be this kind of voice for us right now.

I tell you, I’ve thought about this a lot. You’ve heard me quote Stanley Hauerwas a lot about if Christians are known in 100 years as those who didn’t kill their young and elderly, we will have done well.

But I also think far more than that, Christians have a remarkable gift to give to the world in what it means to die well, because you’re not getting that from any other corner of the planet. You’re getting governments trying to off their citizens too early. You’re getting people pursuing the premature death by by suicide, either “legalized” or not.

And Christians have a a real, valuable gift to give to the world with this fundamentally different understanding of life and death.

MAST: John, I want to follow up:

Is our broader culture actually equipped to talk honestly about death at all?

STONESTREET: It’s not and because it is a limited view of what it means to be human, not just in terms of who we are, you know, whether there’s an immaterial part of us or an immaterial aspect of us, although it’s certainly confused about that.

But also in terms of what makes life worth living, where do we find meaning? And if you don’t have sources of depth? And instead, the dominant, and I mean here, culturally speaking, understanding of life is one of just perpetual distraction until you die, we’re not going to be equipped to talk about that, and you can see that reflected across the board in our inability to just think about it.

I saw a piece this week that put an example of this in such stark contrast. You are more likely as a Canadian to die of medical assistance in dying than an American is to die of gun violence.

So isn’t that a fascinating statistic, if it weren’t so important and significant and grave? And I mean kind of net possibility out of 100,000 it’s actually significantly more likely to die of MAID in Canada than of gun violence in the United States.

But then what do you hear about? What all civilized people are most concerned about? You know, it just kind of points to the blinders that a worldview either helps you understand the world or it actually blinds you from understanding the world.

But here’s what we know. Death is coming for all of us. We cannot escape that. And so how we think about it, how we live in the face of it, what we say, what we believe, how we stand, what we care about, what we love, how we love, all of that is going to be a profound witness to what all of this is all about.

And I think it’s going to be an incredible opportunity for Christians. And it has been, certainly.

I think a lot about what President Clinton said about Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast when she made such a courageous stand at that event for the unborn, and what President Clinton, who of course had advanced pro abortion policies pretty aggressively, said.

It’s hard to argue with a life so well lived. And I think that that has always been true. And I think also it’s going to be true that it’s going to be hard to argue with a death that’s been done well, because it’s going to be in such stark contrast to a culture that just doesn’t have the categories.

MAST: John, here’s another worldview on display on the public stage. This is from New Year’s Day, an exciting, grinning, optimistic-seeming young man becomes mayor of America’s largest city. Here’s the part of his speech that was re-played again and again.

MAMDANI: For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty. Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order, but in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future. And if for too long, these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

I know that “rugged individualism” gets a bad rap in Christian circles, John, because you can see how it might reek of works-righteousness. But then here, and this is the clip that’s been on repeat all week, the contrast is with “the warmth of collectivism.”

Mayor Mamdani has a guest in the city who brought the warmth of collectivism to Venezuela, and now that he’s in jail in New York Venezuelans are dancing in the streets.

Still, “warmth” and “collective good” are resonating with Americans right now, why do you think that’s so when the testimony of history is so clear?

STONESTREET: Well, history only helps you if you know it. We don’t know history. So that’s the easiest answer to the American civic question, is we are just civically unenlightened.

I’ll give you an example here. The conversation since Mamdani’s speech has been about individualism versus collectivism, and that’s completely misleading.

First of all, the warmth of collectivism, what a bunch of Hallmark kind of sappy nonsense. But beyond that, we’re not talking about communitarianism, and that’s the lie of socialism.

Christianity rejects rugged individualism. Let’s just be really clear, and it’s not just because it works righteousness. It’s because we believe that humans are made in the image of God, and that the God we’re in the image of is a relationship, a trinity.

And so we can’t understand our life outside of our relational requirements, our relational bonds, the relationships that God created us to be a part of.

First of all, our relationship with Him. Secondly, our relationship and awareness with ourselves. Third, our relationship with others, both personal and social. And then fourth, the relationship with the rest of creation. We have a unique understanding of that relationship as Christians as well.

The lie of this word collectivism, and this is kind of classic liberal progressive, let’s use a word that doesn’t mean what we say it means, is to basically insinuate that he’s basically saying we’re responsible for each other.

Collectivism, when it’s played out in the way that he’s advocating for, it never happens because people want to give and love and care for their neighbors. It’s state enforcement. It’s forced charity, which makes it not charity at all.

And somebody else is doing all the thinking and all the application. And those people, according to a biblical worldview, are infected by the fall.

And so this is what always happens. It’s like, let’s everyone have their fair share. And suddenly, the Mamdanis and the Nicolas Maduros, they suddenly get more than everybody else, right? They got more than their fair share.

Their fair share suddenly is a level of comfort that nobody else has afforded, because it’s basically a forced collectivism, a state enforced collectivism that really ends up not being charity.

It’s not being communitarian. It’s not being loving or caring or so on. And the citizens themselves become the victims.

And of course, some of us had a memory of this because we grew up in the Cold War. But we’re talking about a group of people that didn’t. And we’re talking about a school system that doesn’t teach cultural memory.

And so collectivism is this really nice sounding word. And by the way, he used it intentionally because it is the misleading word that democratic socialist and communist always use.

But it doesn’t refer to what it says it refers to. It doesn’t refer to a group of people happily loving and hugging each other. What it is, is a state enforced inequality.

And that’s why the Christian view, which puts us first and foremost in a relationship with God, and from that relationship with God we now know what love is, and we can love our neighbors as ourselves, that that actually can become a frame not just for personal morality, although it is, but also for the way that the state should operate to allow people to be those kinds of neighbors.

And when we see communities at their best, it’s when they’re taking care of their own problems, and they’re taking care of their own in a way that demonstrates that sort of charity, love, and respect for human dignity.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Thank you John!

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

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