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The problem is not in wanting to stay healthy, says John Dunlop, who practices internal medicine and geriatrics and teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, but in "values [that] are so youth-oriented that we are really disparaging the elderly." And along with them, the very thought of death. Dunlop complains that churches rarely sing about heaven, once a staple of Sunday morning worship.

We disparage the elderly when we let our media focus nearly exclusively on the young, when visitation of nursing homes is replaced with more exciting mercy activities, when we fuss over young visitors with children but offer only polite handshakes to elderly couples, when we avoid the sick and dying. If the church learned to care for those on their final journey (rather than leaving it to the clergy), it would do much to reshape our attitudes toward the use of technology at the end of life.

How long has it been since a church has had the courage to build a cemetery in or around the sanctuary? Zoning laws prohibit most church properties from hosting physical cemeteries. But in our preaching, teaching, and practice, churches can live as if they believed in the communion of the saints. Preach on death's inevitability, God's providence in its timing, and its defeat in Christ. Offer classes on the art of visiting the dying and learn to comfortably converse with those grieving their loss. Post pictures of deceased church members in the church hall.

When we show in our weekly life that we follow the Way that transcends death, the larger culture will begin to see that its obsession with youth is not a celebration of life, but a rejection of the inevitable. Science and medicine, for all the good gifts they provide, will never be sure paths to human happiness.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christianity Today's special section on life ethics is available online.

Other Christianity Today articles on mortality and death include:

Define 'Better' | One person's improvement is another person's degeneration. An interview with bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell (January 1, 2004)

The Techno Sapiens Are Coming | When God fashioned man and woman, he called his creation very good. Transhumanists say that, by manipulating our bodies with microscopic tools, we can do better. Are we ready for the great debate? (January 1, 2004)

The Dick Staub Interview: A Gerontologist Gets Older | "David Petty, author of Aging Gracefully, has long taught about the process of aging. Now, he is personally learning that one of the most important aspects is the spiritual side" (July 1, 2003)

How Immortality Almost Killed Me | My quest for immortality and lasting significance reflects the fact that God has put eternity in the human heart. (March 3, 1997)

Immortal Beloved (re:generation quarterly, July 1, 1995)

Wise Christians Clip Obituaries (October 3, 1994)

Deathbed Questions: Discerning the Unspoken | Nursing the soul of a dying person demands a heart sensitive to the tide of needs. (Leadership, January 1, 1986)

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January 2007, Vol. 51, No. 1