Bryan Johnson isn’t the first person to fantasize about living forever, and he won’t be the last. The tech guru turned wellness “expert” has made headlines over the past two years for reportedly spending $2 million annually on his health. More specifically, he is trying not to die.
In the appropriately named documentary Don’t Die, which Netflix released earlier this month, Johnson chronicles his obsession with anti-aging data. Each day, he measures his body weight, fat percentage, muscle mass, and hydration levels. He claims to carefully source and test his food and tracks every calorie he consumes. His regimen, written by an algorithm, includes taking 50 pills a day and eating all his meals before noon.
Johnson described his project—not only a personal lifestyle but also a marketable collection of capsules and powders—to journalist Bari Weiss as a provocative experiment: “Can I slow down my speed of aging to the greatest extent of any human on the planet? And can I then eliminate all the sources of death? Can I become the most Don’t-Die person in human history?”
While he has a devoted following at a time when alternative medicine and the longevity movement have become more mainstream, Johnson is still an outlier. He allegedly broke up with his fiancée after she was diagnosed with cancer, and he siphoned blood plasma from his minor son in order to fight the aging process. (Spoiler: It didn’t work.)
Fundamentally, Johnson is an entrepreneur. He found his next profitable social experiment and uses his immense wealth and privilege to spend 24/7 on an existence that makes the rest of us roll our eyes. But even if most don’t buy what he’s selling, Johnson seems to be a true believer. He makes sure he’s in bed at 8:30 p.m. nightly. He evangelizes to others: You, too, can prolong your life—or at least improve it. You can be in control of your future.
“We all know what it feels like after a phenomenal night’s sleep, after exercising really well,” he told Weiss. “Like you just feel lucid and clear and energetic and all the amazing things about consciousness.”
I don’t blame Johnson for some of his healthy habits. My husband and I have attempted to track our biodata—from macronutrients and sleep quality to stress and menstrual cycles—over the past few years by using wristbands similar to the ones Johnson uses. We also take some of the same supplements: magnesium (for sleep and recovery), collagen (for hair and skin health), and L-theanine (sleep and mood). We’ve stopped short of a plant-based diet and red-light therapy.
I find that physical stewardship of our bodies is a spiritual discipline. A good night’s sleep, when possible, can help us be better employees, parents, and church members. Exercise and nutrition can help us serve the Lord into our old age, if he wills. Both our souls and our bodies are under the lordship of Christ and should be oriented toward serving him.
The apostle Paul gets at this when he writes in both a metaphorical and a literal sense about the Christian life: “Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown. … I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:25, 27, CSB).
Paul reminds us that while our physicality should not be rejected in a gnostic sense, it must also at times be disciplined. Bodies, though created in God’s image, don’t always know what is best for us. We crave sugar and chemicals and choose laziness over fitness. Rather than letting our cravings or sloth or frenetic energy master us (1 Cor. 6:12), we can understand our bodies as temples and gifts, given to us to steward for our benefit and for the service of others.
But while stewardship is one thing, complete control is another. Johnson’s experiment is the pinnacle—or maybe the Frankenstein’s monster—of a society obsessed with autonomy and personal agency. (Not to mention physical beauty: Johnson has increasingly taken measures to look younger as much as become younger in his organ functions.)
The Don’t Die project is nothing new; dreams of immortality are as old as Genesis 3. The possibility of living forever, godlike, makes the Serpent’s temptation successful (Gen. 3:4–5). In Greek and Roman mythology, eternal life was both a gift and a curse, depending on its form. Tithonus was granted immortality but aged indefinitely. Heracles died, but his soul lived forever with the gods.
“‘Don’t die’ is the most fundamental of all human desires,” as Johnson said to Weiss, adding later: “I think the irony is that we told stories of God creating us, and I think the reality is that we are creating God.”
We’re not just playing God by trying to prolong life. In dark irony, Blueprint (Johnson’s organization) and the longevity movement coexist alongside a crusade to make dying not impossible but easier. Assisted dying bills in Western countries are becoming increasingly common. (The right to die has been legalized in Canada and potentially will be in the United Kingdom.)
Why Christians Oppose Euthanasia
Though one movement encourages life at all costs, another death on demand, both have an underlying logic of control. If we decide to die, we want the option to do so on our terms. But when we don’t want to die—when the diagnosis leaves us not resigned but indignant—we want more years at any cost.
“Some of the most agonizing and tragic deaths I’ve faced as a doctor are those of patients who adamantly refuse to acknowledge their mortality,” Columbia University ethicist and doctor L. S. Dugdale writes. “They desperately latch onto every bit of available technology to delay the inevitable, regardless of whether it causes more harm than good.”
Anyone with a chronic or terminal illness, a disability, or a diagnosis of infertility knows deep down that we are not in control of our bodies. Even Johnson has minor health problems.
Our bodies are temples that deserve respect but not machines to be optimized. We can honor God with our bodies rather than using and abusing them (1 Cor. 6:19–20), but the balance takes wisdom: seeking nourishment while resisting vanity, practicing both healthy habits and contentment while living in circumstances outside our control, offering ourselves as living sacrifices to our families and churches while caring for our bodies as holy dwellings for the Spirit.
The longevity movement has one thing right: Our bodies are hurtling toward death, unmistakably a cruel result of the Fall. The great gospel hope we are promised is that Christ will return to defeat it. In the meantime, we will not escape. (Sorry, Bryan.) But nor should we nihilistically embrace it. We can become good stewards of our created bodies and know that we look forward to a resurrection where our physical shortcomings will be healed.
Kara Bettis Carvalho is ideas editor at Christianity Today.
