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The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus (Paperback) - Common
A renowned ethicist who himself faced death during a recent life-threatening illness, Allen Verhey in The Christian Art of Dying sets out to recapture dying from the medical world. Seeking to counter the medicalization of death that is so prevalent today, Verhey revisits the fifteenth-century Ars Moriendi, an illustrated spiritual self-help manual on "the art of dying." Finding much wisdom in that little book but rejecting its Stoic and Platonic worldview, Verhey uncovers in the biblical accounts of Jesus' death a truly helpful paradigm for dying well and faithfully.
416 pages, Paperback
First published November 23, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 20, 2016
One of the best books I've read in recent years. The late Prof Verhey's book is thorough, substantial, biblical and theologically faithful. What makes this exceptional is the beauty of the Prof's pastoral and personal insight. It is a book with (an extremely readable) academic rigour that I found often arresting, sometimes because at times the text comes across with a warm smile, sometimes with tears, sometimes with both.
The starting point of this book is the observation deck in the west dying has been just about completely medicalised, which means people go from patient to corpse, with no transitional phase called "dying". Verhey unearths "Ars Mariendi", an illustrated self-help book from the 15th century to draw us into the consideration of what temptations, virtues and responsibilities might be part of a Christian dying well. Having critiqued "Ars Mariendi" Verhey moves to a consideration of Jesus' death, examining what in it might be paradigmatic for believers (and what might not be.)
Christian teaching is full of references to death, but I've never read a book or heard a sermon about dying. (Moving from conceptual and theological to actual. My Dad died last year and this book had the smell and sense of his bedside and the months leading up to it. I wish I'd read it before he died. I'm glad I read it before I did.)
One thing I found exhilarating about this unique book is that dying well is about living well. (And part of living well for Christ involves anticipating death as a community and caring for the dying - who, as AV reminds us, are embodied, communal and spiritual.)
The section on Jesus' words from the cross is superb and I highlighted just about all of the section dealing with the virtues of dying well. His words on lament are gold. If you are a pastor or a carer (or a rank-and-file believer like me) you will appreciate just how practical this book becomes. Having laid the foundation, the Prof addresses matters like what do I pray by the bedside, what provisions should be made as death approaches, is the removal of care the same as causing a death, should Christians pray for a miracle?
There are a number of terms that I have found myself injecting into life as a result of reading this book. Possibly the most frequent is the idea of "Gods good future." The incarnation of Jesus is presented as the foundation of hope for all believers, a hope that is not a disembodied, harp-in-the-clouds exercise, but a physical resurrection into a physical world, just like Jesus.
At about this stage, I suggest you ditch my review - even I am getting a bit tired of it - and grab the book. Perhaps I close with a couple more of the late - but living - Prof Verhey's golden catchphrases...
"The good future of God" "the doomed rule of death and sin" "God always gets the last word" "we mourn, but not as those who have no hope" "looking heavenward"
The starting point of this book is the observation deck in the west dying has been just about completely medicalised, which means people go from patient to corpse, with no transitional phase called "dying". Verhey unearths "Ars Mariendi", an illustrated self-help book from the 15th century to draw us into the consideration of what temptations, virtues and responsibilities might be part of a Christian dying well. Having critiqued "Ars Mariendi" Verhey moves to a consideration of Jesus' death, examining what in it might be paradigmatic for believers (and what might not be.)
Christian teaching is full of references to death, but I've never read a book or heard a sermon about dying. (Moving from conceptual and theological to actual. My Dad died last year and this book had the smell and sense of his bedside and the months leading up to it. I wish I'd read it before he died. I'm glad I read it before I did.)
One thing I found exhilarating about this unique book is that dying well is about living well. (And part of living well for Christ involves anticipating death as a community and caring for the dying - who, as AV reminds us, are embodied, communal and spiritual.)
The section on Jesus' words from the cross is superb and I highlighted just about all of the section dealing with the virtues of dying well. His words on lament are gold. If you are a pastor or a carer (or a rank-and-file believer like me) you will appreciate just how practical this book becomes. Having laid the foundation, the Prof addresses matters like what do I pray by the bedside, what provisions should be made as death approaches, is the removal of care the same as causing a death, should Christians pray for a miracle?
There are a number of terms that I have found myself injecting into life as a result of reading this book. Possibly the most frequent is the idea of "Gods good future." The incarnation of Jesus is presented as the foundation of hope for all believers, a hope that is not a disembodied, harp-in-the-clouds exercise, but a physical resurrection into a physical world, just like Jesus.
At about this stage, I suggest you ditch my review - even I am getting a bit tired of it - and grab the book. Perhaps I close with a couple more of the late - but living - Prof Verhey's golden catchphrases...
"The good future of God" "the doomed rule of death and sin" "God always gets the last word" "we mourn, but not as those who have no hope" "looking heavenward"
June 9, 2025
Spectacular read. Verhey critiques the modern, medicalized approach to death—shaped by the Baconian project—in which the powers of science and medicine are marshaled to conquer death the enemy. Verhey traces how this technological mentality transformed dying from a communal, moral, and spiritual event into an individualized, sterilized, clinical failure.
To answer this backdrop, he retrieves the Ars Moriendi, not without also critiquing the medieval tradition (ex. commendation of death). Reinterpreting its wisdom through the lens of Jesus’ death and the practices of Christian community, Verhey argues for a contemporary ars moriendi- the art of living and dying well, shaped by virtues, practices, and communal care, even to the end.
The only spot I’m still lost on is how to apply this in the setting of a non-Christian death. What is the art, wisdom, and ethics of how one’s faith interacts with another’s dying?
Strange, but heartwarming, to read my professor’s professor’s work. And wholeheartedly agree with, as well as humbly desire to join, the call to the Church to reclaim death as a moment of witness and hope, where the dying are still disciples, still living and still participating in the story of God. The intellectual rigor, theological depth, pastoral tenderness, and honest, not pollyannish, investigation of death are what makes this work masterful.
—
“Thinking about death has almost inevitably accompanied reflection about the human condition. Who are we? And where are we going? Is there a life after death? And if there is, how shall we prepare for it? Or, if death is the end forever, how should we live knowing that we shall die?”
“To its great credit, medicine resists death. But unless there is some other (nonmedical) response to this threat of death… we are finally abandoned to death and all its threats are made good. The miracle we need is advent, ‘the Infinite become a finite fact,’ God sharing human flesh and its vulnerability to death, and God winning a victory over death.”
“Ivan Ilych’s line, ‘It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible,’ still echoes… And the hole in a life left by the death of one loved is not filled by the ‘larger whole’ of nature. That loved person is not replaceable.”
“Not everything that can be done must be done. Everything that needs to be done to win the victory over death has been done; the victory over death is a divine victory, not a technological one. Medical technology is a good gift of God, but there comes a time when it makes Christian sense to seek not to live longer but to live well while one is dying.”
“Our question is not whether prayer is medically useful; our question is whether the practice of prayer can guide and govern our dying and our care for the dying—whether we can set medicine in the practice of prayer, not prayer in the practice of medicine.”
“There is a gift here to medicine and to medical ethics in the simple and joyful acknowledgment that the sick and dying are still living, that they may not be reduced to the passivity of their sick role…The sick and dying have tasks and opportunities that must be considered both by themselves and by their caregivers.”
“Another reason compassion sometimes withers is this: suffering is always individual; it differentiates — and it alienates. Compassion, on the other hand, is always communal; it shares and it unites.”
“A practice of care with reverence will not be satisfied either with that technical expert who reduces the sick to manipulable nature or with that moral expert who reduces the patient to capacities for choice. The practice of care with reverence will be attentive to the suffering of patients. Patients suffer, after all, neither as ghostly minds nor as biological organisms but as whole persons.”
To answer this backdrop, he retrieves the Ars Moriendi, not without also critiquing the medieval tradition (ex. commendation of death). Reinterpreting its wisdom through the lens of Jesus’ death and the practices of Christian community, Verhey argues for a contemporary ars moriendi- the art of living and dying well, shaped by virtues, practices, and communal care, even to the end.
The only spot I’m still lost on is how to apply this in the setting of a non-Christian death. What is the art, wisdom, and ethics of how one’s faith interacts with another’s dying?
Strange, but heartwarming, to read my professor’s professor’s work. And wholeheartedly agree with, as well as humbly desire to join, the call to the Church to reclaim death as a moment of witness and hope, where the dying are still disciples, still living and still participating in the story of God. The intellectual rigor, theological depth, pastoral tenderness, and honest, not pollyannish, investigation of death are what makes this work masterful.
—
“Thinking about death has almost inevitably accompanied reflection about the human condition. Who are we? And where are we going? Is there a life after death? And if there is, how shall we prepare for it? Or, if death is the end forever, how should we live knowing that we shall die?”
“To its great credit, medicine resists death. But unless there is some other (nonmedical) response to this threat of death… we are finally abandoned to death and all its threats are made good. The miracle we need is advent, ‘the Infinite become a finite fact,’ God sharing human flesh and its vulnerability to death, and God winning a victory over death.”
“Ivan Ilych’s line, ‘It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible,’ still echoes… And the hole in a life left by the death of one loved is not filled by the ‘larger whole’ of nature. That loved person is not replaceable.”
“Not everything that can be done must be done. Everything that needs to be done to win the victory over death has been done; the victory over death is a divine victory, not a technological one. Medical technology is a good gift of God, but there comes a time when it makes Christian sense to seek not to live longer but to live well while one is dying.”
“Our question is not whether prayer is medically useful; our question is whether the practice of prayer can guide and govern our dying and our care for the dying—whether we can set medicine in the practice of prayer, not prayer in the practice of medicine.”
“There is a gift here to medicine and to medical ethics in the simple and joyful acknowledgment that the sick and dying are still living, that they may not be reduced to the passivity of their sick role…The sick and dying have tasks and opportunities that must be considered both by themselves and by their caregivers.”
“Another reason compassion sometimes withers is this: suffering is always individual; it differentiates — and it alienates. Compassion, on the other hand, is always communal; it shares and it unites.”
“A practice of care with reverence will not be satisfied either with that technical expert who reduces the sick to manipulable nature or with that moral expert who reduces the patient to capacities for choice. The practice of care with reverence will be attentive to the suffering of patients. Patients suffer, after all, neither as ghostly minds nor as biological organisms but as whole persons.”
April 25, 2021
It was a tad bit too repetitive, and I didn't agree with everything in the book, but Allen Verhey has written a fantastic book about death and dying. He articulates well both the medicalization of death and some elements of a modern Christian art of dying. This is a needed first step in the church relearning how to die well.
April 8, 2025
Read selections for class, not the whole thing – and 5 stars does not indicate that it is perfect. That said, Verhey has some interesting discussion of virtue and vice as related to death, as well as some really beautiful accounts of loss, grief, and hope. Very helpful in thinking through those things in general, not just in the context of death as such
March 12, 2022
A wonderful read on Religious-based Medical Ethics. This helps young persons and caregivers a book to help them understand the caregivers learn their unique role in end of life/ close to death care.
May 13, 2024
Historically perceptive and relevant, biblically faithful, and theologically sound, this book provides a thorough examination of death in the context of the Christian West, as well as a vision for dying that is faithful to who Christians are as people who follow a crucified Lord. A wonderful book, especially for pastors and other ministry leaders in local church contexts.
June 11, 2014
Thought provoking book by Allen Verhey , a medical ethicist and theologian. The first part of the book is about Ars Moriem - a 15th century book on death and dying and the second part of the book is a call to revise and modernize this ancient book for our time. A different perspective of dying was evident in the Ars Moriem and I had never looked at some of the aspects of dying as a distraction from Christianity and its tenets. He is disturbed by the prevalence of the denial of death, the glossing over of death and cutting straight to the Resurrection which I have observed lately in funerals. I found this book to be especially meaningful as Verhey is facing his own death and mortality while writing this treatise. I applaud his treatment of grief as a longer stage than the Church and the general populace practice as grief is to be swept under the carpet and hidden under a superficial blanket of " all is well with my soul" .
September 12, 2016
3.5
If the book would only contain the first part, I would have given 5 stars.
An astounding analysis of the history of the medicalization of death, the "Baconian project" as the author calls the process.
This change from a stance of "death is inevitable" to "everything possible must be done to prevent death", would explain the ruts and dead-ends we are in today in contemporary healthcare.
Very convincing.
But when the author attempt to articulate a contemporary "art of dying", it's not that it is not good... but it could have hold in half the amount of words... Unbelievebly too much repetition...
And I fear that even if he attempts to overcome it - and this is very commendable - the author, in my opinion, fails to really order medicine under the primacy of the religious, which runs the risk to make religion a mere therapeutic device.
If the book would only contain the first part, I would have given 5 stars.
An astounding analysis of the history of the medicalization of death, the "Baconian project" as the author calls the process.
This change from a stance of "death is inevitable" to "everything possible must be done to prevent death", would explain the ruts and dead-ends we are in today in contemporary healthcare.
Very convincing.
But when the author attempt to articulate a contemporary "art of dying", it's not that it is not good... but it could have hold in half the amount of words... Unbelievebly too much repetition...
And I fear that even if he attempts to overcome it - and this is very commendable - the author, in my opinion, fails to really order medicine under the primacy of the religious, which runs the risk to make religion a mere therapeutic device.
July 19, 2015
A very good book. Classic Verhey. Draws very well on scripture to offer a critique of medieval ars moriendi. Develops his own ars moriendi for today that is attentive to virtue and practice. There is no mention of Erasmus or later (better ars moriendi) which is a shortcoming of the book. But his attentiveness to scripture and thorough discussion of the meaning of hope etc. make up for it.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews