served always. Much has changed, but some scheme has been modest in numbers but aspects remain the same. Faculty, staff, and strong in quality. student body are much more diverse, but the I have to tell you that I am not so encour- commitment to diversity has been present aged by the prospects today for a theology for a long time. Already in the late ’60s and that is able to effect actual changes in public early ’70s we were committed to the place of policy in the direction of social justice, eco- African Americans and women and to the logical responsibility, and peaceful dialogue. close relationship between Judaism and Powerful interests, political and economic, Christianity in theological education; other are too firmly entrenched to be much shaken When the commitments — such as those articulated in by theologians, pastors, and professors who the Divinity School Catalogue — came later. are more on the margins of society now than In a sense the whole trajectory of the they were half a century ago. The church, School for the past 43 years was set by the insofar as it speaks publicly today, does so Photograph Lawson crisis of 1960 when the Divinity with a reactionary voice on many of the School very nearly went under and when critical issues. Tillich hoped for a new kairos Vanderbilt University began to wake up to in our time. It has not come, but we should new realities. Strong leadership by people not cease to yearn for it. In the meantime we Becomes the Picture such as Lou Silberman, Walter Harrelson, can, as George Eliot observed, work for the Kelly Miller Smith, Sallie McFague, Peter better if not the best. Paris, Jack Forstman, Ed Farley, David ESSAY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY wo weeks have passed since I from 110–120 degrees regularly with cloud- 1 JASON DAVIS FRAZIER, MTS2 returned from Mexico, and I am just less skies and an unrelenting sun. The area is Buttrick, Howard Harrod, Gene TeSelle, Dale Recently I have been going through my files in preparation now picking up the photographs from home to rattlesnakes and coyotes. What Johnson, Frank Gulley, Don Beisswenger, of vacating my office. I am reminded what a labor-intensive T Liston Mills, and Joe Hough—a list of near- work teaching and scholarship is. All the correspondence the camera shop. I discover that one roll of would motivate people to endure willingly relating to this or that project, all the manuscripts, all the During the 2003 summer term, 15 representa- saints (some closer than others to sainthood)— film is ruined—probably from a faulty shutter these conditions while leaving their homes committee documents and meetings, all the conferences on my camera. Somewhat perturbed, I get and families, especially when they are aware helped to get us to where we are today. Our tives from Vanderbilt University Divinity School and professional groups, all the course syllabi and bibliogra- into my car and hurriedly flip through the of the risk of failure and the number of peo- present leaders, James Hudnut-Beumler, phies, all the lecture and reading notes, all the student Alice Hunt, and Douglas Knight are taking files, all the recommendations and grading, all the dis- traveled to the border town of Nogales Sonora in photos. Something is missing. us to new levels of accomplishment. So I am sertations, all stretching back 38 years! I am exhausted The 105 pieces of photo- just to contemplate it. I have not kept a good record of all Mexico for a field education immersion experi- graphic paper in my hands A photograph fails and becomes a picture encouraged about the prospects for Vanderbilt the things I have done, and most of the physical evidence Divinity School and the Graduate Department reveal nothing of the experi- will go to the University Archives where someday an ence in the political and economic circumstances of Religion. Our contribution to the larger industrious researcher can dig it all out — though I can’t ences I had two weeks ago. when the viewer relates only to the properties imagine why anyone would want to do it. As a student of theology, I that contribute to immigrants seeking better lives think that having directly of colors, shapes, and dimensions of the image. experienced the events in the United States. The VDS delegation, in con- depicted in these photos junction with the nonprofit organization Border- now alters my perception of the images and ple who have died alone in the desert mak- restricts their meanings. I am not completely ing this trek? Simple heat exhaustion or a Links, was led by Lloyd Lewis, assistant professor convinced by that thought. I place the photos sprained ankle will cause a person to become back in the envelopes and begin driving. stranded and die. I cannot fathom this reali- of the practice of ministry and assistant dean for I recall memories from the trip for what ty. Having never gone hungry or thirsty, hav- seems the millionth time: a 45-mile stretch of ing never experienced even a possible lack- student life, and included Andrew Barnett, desert from Sasabe, Mexico, to the pick-up ing of food or water, I am, despite having point in Arizona; immigrants, with little or witnessed the circumstances on the border, Nathan Brown, Amy Cates, Brian Costilow, no water, traversing a terrain of cactus and aware of my inability to relate directly. mesquite trees over three days. That’s not What value of border and separation can Mosung Eam, Karlen Evins, Nancy Jenkins, that big a deal, or is it? Temperatures soar be worth these stakes? Life, liberty, and Kara Kleinschmidt, Brian McCre- property? Is the United States so intent on making herself an island, only accepting the anor, Lindsay Meyers, Paul world’s commodities while ignoring the world’s hardships? If so, why? Homeland Noreika, Michaela Rangel, security? Currently I fear my home more than any other land — the land of the William Simmons, and Jason Above: Stylized sculptures made by local artisans Frazier, from whose journal from recycled materials depict the struggles of the Mexican immigrants who try to cross the this essay was compiled. border into the United States. Left: Drums of water placed by relief workers may be found on the American side of the border.

18 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 19 In the United States, has freedom become a four-letter word, a nihilistic fantasy, its meaning always relative to context? Freedom in the United States is ownership.

trapped, the home of the afraid. I’m only comfortable on the outside. My breath realized as if it is the last. I stand here Food is often priced as high, or higher, than the photograph of which we are members. Looking through the barrio in commodities are a reflection of my “well- as a participant in this being. Even if just for in the United States. American and other for- The immersion experience places a per- Nogales Sonora, Mexico, precon- being.” Oh well, I’ve got it better than most, the second of this thought, I am not “the eign-owned factories have taken advantage son in an immediate relationship, as a mem- ceived images run through my I really shouldn’t complain. No. I feel like an other” observing this place called Mexico; I of lower labor costs, unenforced environ- ber of the situation, without the degree of head. I want to see more houses animal domesticated by its fears, no longer am Mexico—not culturally, not economical- mental regulations, and less-organized labor separation that exists when looking at a pho- made of scrap pieces of plywood, willing or able to live by its natural free- ly, not in terms of material prosperity, but in rights groups. Jobs are few, so people leave tograph. My realization of this failure has used cardboard, and rusted metal doms. In the United States, has freedom humanity. The separation I had expected to their homes and families to seek work in become the theme from this immersion expe- sheets. There are supposed to be become a four-letter word, a nihilistic fanta- feel between Mexico and myself is only other parts of Mexico or the United States. rience. I went to Mexico with the mindset fewer cars and more violence. sy, its meaning always relative to context? material, not spiritual. The divide between The lack of creature comforts in Mexico is that I would find some strategy to help change There should be children shirtless Freedom in the United States is ownership. my world and this has never seemed more lamentable to most U.S. citizens; however, the situation — perhaps a new economic, and hungry with dried grains of In the morning, a mid-sized pickup truck futile than at this moment. There is no room this lack cannot be used to judge the condi- political, or philosophical theory using mod- rice sticking to unsmiling mouths with a bed full of five-gallon water bottles for the self-seeking individual here. tions of Mexico. To do so would be to ignore ern technology and reason. Through this on expressionless faces. I want to drives slowly up the road. Attached to its Now, it is early evening and people are the existence of a vibrant Mexican culture. experience, however, I have come to realize see these conditions; I want experi- hood is a horn speaker blaring an enthusiastic returning from a day of work. Both children Yes, Mexico needs improvements, but not that we, the citizens of the U.S., do not need ences that will make me feel sorry message of which I understand only the and adults are outside visiting with neigh- nearly as much as the United States. to look any farther than ourselves if we want and guilty for the plight of the word “agua.” The passengers stop every few bors and friends. A house a few hundred Photography uses the medium of light “to change the world.” It has become quite Mexicans; I want to see a situation houses, get out, and carry a bottle of water to yards away on a hill has its doors and win- and reflection to invite a relationship evident to me that our judgments concerning for which I can blame the door and trade for the empty bottle and dows wide open blasting a curious mix of between a viewer and an image. A photo- other cultures are based on the material con- myself; I need motiva- payment before returning to the truck. ‘American’ and Mexican pop songs. A shirt- graph is the material expression of the pho- ditions in relation to our own while guided tion for taking action The sky is cloudless, the air dry and warm. less round man stands in the doorway, his tographer’s non-material experience and by the ethnocentric nationalism that con- because that’s what The reddish brown hills sparsely covered arms stretched above his head as he leans on enables the viewer to experience a transla- structed the border. I’m supposed to do. with trees and bushes surround the valley the doorframe. Surprisingly the loud music tion of the photographer’s non-material My comfort is proof where the center of the city sits in a cloud of from his home is not a disturbance to the experience. However, a photograph fails The essayist was graduated in 2002 from the that justice does exist, dust stirred by the early morning traffic. colonia. It’s as if he were appointed to share when its only value is as a picture, a ‘cap- University of West Florida in Pensacola where he but what can I do to Until traveling to Nogales, I hadn’t seen a his music with the community that evening. tured’ image of the material expression of earned a baccalaureate in philosophy and reli- ensure for those less Ford Pinto in years. I imagine the dust parti- Eventually the music fades, and families the physical world. A photograph fails and gious studies. fortunate the type of cles are electrified bits of energy ascending gather in their homes to pass time until becomes a picture when the viewer relates Above: Soles of boots emerging from a life that I have been from the city like a soul from a body. It is going to sleep. The dust has descended back only to the properties of colors, shapes, and Below: Three crosses commemorate the lives of mound of rocks suggest a gravesite and blessed or lucky then that I realize we are in Mexico. This set- to the ground while the air turns pitch and dimensions of the image. Honestly, I feel that immigrants who died in their struggles to cross serve as a warning to illegal immi- enough to have? But if ting is different than the U.S. of my genera- silent. Another day has ended in Mexico, and U.S. culture embodies this failure. We citizens the borders at Arizona, Texas, and California. grants who attempt to cross the border I could give this type of tion. The air is alive. The whole place inhales soon enough another will begin. of the United States view the world as the at Sasabe. Right: A wooden cross wired life, would I want to? and exhales like one massive being, each In Mexico the tap water is undrinkable. picture at which we are looking instead of as to a concrete column at the border in Altar, Mexico, serves as a memorial to an immigrant. Below: An improvised foundation of rubber tires supports a tenement dwelling constructed from plywood and rusted sheets of metal.

…I am Mexico—not culturally, not economically, not in terms of material prosperity, but in humanity. At the

Bedside Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling Perspectives on the Good Death ne of the contributions that a Christian perspective on a good death offers is that we are prevented from too easily romanticizing death as easily accepted. The conception of a good death has been trivialized and neutralized somewhat by the secular culture In the 19th-century novel The Death of Iván O of psychology, and we have come to think of the good death as a mere acceptance of death and as a natural part of life, but the Christian tradition rejects that simplistic rendition of a Il´ych, Russian writer Leo Tolstoi creates a portrait good death by not accepting a concise formula of stages for approaching death. of a 45-year-old complacent, vain civil servant A good death is a much more complex idea in the Christian tradition because of the com- plicated relationship between sin and death; it is not enough to contend that death is a part of who has never contemplated the inevitability of God’s creation or a consequence of sin in the Fall; one may also argue that death is an offense to God’s good Creation and goes against God’s gift of life in the good Creation. The Christian his mortal nature. The narrator describes the life tradition also allows us to consider that although one may be fallible, one is also unique; con- sequently, each individual will experience death differently, not formulaically. of the protagonist in a sentence which the 20th- In the literature on death and dying, certainly popularized by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her Death in the Sickroom 1969 book On Death and Dying, one who is dying is often encouraged “to take care of unfin- century American poet and Vanderbilt University 1895 Edward Munch ished business.” One’s life, however, is always short of the potential of the gifts one has been Norwegian painter given by God, and because one is indeed fal- alumnus Randall Jarrell, BA’35, acknowledges as (1863–1944) lible, one cannot but help to have regrets; we one of the most frightening statements in litera- should not be captivated by five categories Larry R. Churchill that offer us the definitive way to address The Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics and Professor of Religion ture: “Iván Il´ych’s life had been most simple and unfinished business for becoming reconciled with death. In the Christian tradition, we ealing with terminal illness, with dying people, and with patients’ families are among most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” have two other words, hope and forgiveness, the most stressful experiences that students of medicine and theology will encounter. which are far more complex principles than DHow do you talk to the terminally ill when you cannot cure them or give them an taking care of unfinished business and an immediate technological or theological solution? Before one can address the social, cultural, Tolstoi’s stark demonstration of the futility of acceptance of death. and spiritual dimensions of dying as they emerge in a clinical or religious context, one has to One of the characteristics of a good death reflect on one’s own mortality; one has to have a perspective towards one’s mortal nature and a life governed by superficiality continues to that I think is no longer identified with the how one envisions one’s own good death; otherwise death remains an abstraction. challenge readers to ask, “When an unreflective Christian tradition involves the dying per- I contend that one can experience a good death if a “social death” does not precede one’s son being attended at the death bed by the biological death, if pain and suffering are minimized, and if one dies aware that a community person such as Iván Il´ych experiences the survivors; in the practices of early Christianity to which one has had a relationship affirms the significance of one’s life. We need to guard through the medieval era, there were more against allowing death to become announcement of Death in the form of a terminal rituals related to orchestrating the passage The premise of a good death is also related too “medicalized” by insisting that from life — persons participated in a com- there is always another strategy illness, how may one adapt to the realization of munity around the death bed. Particularly to fundamental human questions, not the medicine can offer the dying and in the Protestant tradition, there is less that we must keep trying to pre- the unthinkable and prepare for a good death?” emphasis on this practice whereas the technical questions alone. serve the life until the very end. Iván’s anagnorisis occurs when he becomes aware Catholic and Jewish traditions have pre- This approach results in death served those rituals. The experience of fac- becoming a medical event instead of a personal, spiritual, and family event, and I have seri- that he cannot take refuge from the truth by ing impending death forces an individual to ous reservations about a fundamentally human experience, such as death, becoming appro- reassess one’s life in wholly unfamiliar priated into technical categories. retreating into a decorous, inauthentic realm of moral and spiritual ways for which one is When I was involved recently in making a film about family members who became the death the virtues of charity, ineffable goodness, and the subject of palliative care, we asked nine unprepared and inexperienced. Without decision makers for relatives who were no longer able to participate in their health care, I dis- social courtesies. By accepting that his existence religious support, one may face death and covered through my interviews with families who had experienced the death of a loved one and altruism. Iván experiences not a tragic members of the University community to God with a confusion and dread for which within six months that the more difficult questions surrounding the end of life which they had has been molded by artificiality and has been void one no longer has words to name or to com- to address were not questions about how aggressive to be in medical treatment—whether or demise, but a good death. exchange in this issue of The Spire their perspec- prehend. I believe that by attending the not to keep one on a ventilator or to readmit one to the intensive care unit. The questions of any profound involvement with other people, tives on the circumstances contributing to a good dying we can help an individual experience which they asked were: “Is dad really right with God; is he ready, in a fundamental spiritual he is able to relinquish his grip on mortality, to During the 2003 spring semester, the department a good death by helping one arrive at the sense, to die? Has he made his peace with his estranged daughter?” The families discussed death and the ways in which survivors can help to ultimate reconciliation that this unique life the essential human dynamics of building or rebuilding communities of support at the end of defeat the pain of abdominal cancer, to respond of pastoral care at Vanderbilt University Medical that has been lived—with all its mistakes life, not medical ethics decisions. The premise of a good death is also related to fundamental create those conditions at the penultimate moment. and all its rich benefits—is recognized by a human questions, not the technical questions alone. Questions about the use of particular life- favorably to the therapeutic touch of his son’s Center conducted a colloquium on the question, community, and the members comprising sustaining devices should be framed as questions of a person’s basic humanity and the meaning that community bless the life for its short- of one’s life and death, and from that context, particular answers about questions of respirators hand, and to recognize in those who attend him at “What is a good death?” Inspired by this theme falls and its greatness.

22 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 23 Death and the Miser ca. 1485–90 Hieronymus Bosch Dutch painter (ca. 1450–ca.1516)

and antibiotics will emerge. Although we live in hope and faith instead of certainty, there are meas- Evon Olive Flesberg, PhD’96 ures that survivors may take to ensure a good death for those we love. We Lecturer in Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling must remember the networks of support that all of us need just to live our daily lives and that those who are dying need community much more efore enrolling in a Lutheran seminary, I was taught by the example of my grandmother, intensely at the end of life than at other times. We also need to talk with Olive Ledbetter, how not to be afraid of being with someone when one died. She had our family, friends, physician, and pastor so people really understand Bbeen with her uncles and her loved ones when they died, and she described to me how what we want, as opposed to what they want, or what they think we want. natural it was and how death could be peaceful. By her calm attitude in the way she recounted An advantage of a living will is that the document provides an orientation placing pennies on the eyes of the deceased, I learned that attending to the dying would not that reflects one’s values, and survivors can avoid strained conversations be frightful or morbid, and as one could be present for the birth of a child, one can also be and recriminations if they know the extent to which their influences may present and help one to make a good transition into the ultimate reality. be exercised. Houses of worship are an appropriate setting for encourag- As a pastoral counselor, I cannot ing families to discuss end of life care, and religious leaders can model and give a concise formula for ensuring It is unfortunate that people die without articulate a point of view that advanced planning in anticipation of one’s a good death, but from my experi- death is a selfless gesture for the benefit of our survivors. ences in parishes and in private having a chance to say out loud how practice, I argue that it is important for the survivors to communicate to they feel honestly about dying. the dying person how that individ- James C. Pace, MDiv’88 ual will be missed, that one’s life—regardless of the duration—had meaning and purpose, Professor of Nursing that one loved well, and that as survivors, we will be guardians of one’s memory. For the survivors who have the opportunity to prepare for death and the time to reflect on the o answer the question “What constitutes a good death?” one must preciousness of life during a death vigil, there is a special blessing in telling someone that consider the four recurring themes in the current literature on end one’s life will always be appreciated. of life and palliative care. Research based on discussions with peo- It is unfortunate that people die without having a chance to say out loud how they feel T honestly about dying; there is this notion that if we talk about dying, that somehow we are ple who have contemplated the inevitability of death reveals they do not want to be a burden on their families; they do not want to die in pain; they betraying that person. I encourage students preparing for vocations in pastoral care not to hope to die at home, not in a hospital; and they are most afraid of a pro- reserve the conversations about death for a minister or a rabbi but to be active listeners. I have longed illness to which a tortuous course is attached. What would be envi- two close friends, each of whom experienced the death of a spouse, but neither one talked sioned as a good death, therefore, is that one is able to die at home with with the spouse about the inevitability of dying. This absence of communication about the family and loved ones and where everyone communicates about what the undeniable does not allow one to love completely, or to love well, another person to the end. loved one wants and that the loved one knows that the family members In our committed relationships, we promise to love each other under all circumstances, not are trying to do all within their abilities to advance the wishes of the dying. just the circumstances of living. It is important not to protect the dying from what you need From my perspectives as a health care provider and as an Episcopal to say, even if the message is difficult, because in expressions of anger or resentment, there are priest, it is profoundly regretful that people are dying in pain or are dying possibilities for reconciliation and forgiveness when different perspectives are exchanged and in hospitals against their wishes, surrounded not by family but by “life- we no longer feel we have to “protect” the dying from the truth. saving technology” that really isn’t helping them toward a good death. But these unfortunate circumstances may occur simply because one was not able to communicate adequately one’s wishes or there was no one to Trudy Hawkins Stringer, MDiv’88 whom the sick could articulate their unstated fears about death. Associate Director of Field Education and Instead of trying to create new life in the intensive care units, we really Lecturer In Church and Ministries should be concentrating on the life well lived while making sure one’s symptoms are managed and that one is not in pain. here is a profound difference between a good death, and a “right” death, and I think In contemporary American society, there is seemingly an unspoken upper-middle class culture seeks to die the right way, which is a way of saying we guideline that we are supposed to live forever and we can fix mortal situ- want to control death. An inherent danger in this attitude is that medical science can ations, and if we cannot repair them, then we are failures. So to ask the T become elevated to an idol. The premise for a good death, however, is an understanding that questions “How do you define the terms whereby your death will be there is no way to control death and that death is the ultimate expression of our humanity. good?” or “What can we do to ensure that your death will be according to A good death is consonant with the radical, personal integrity of each life, so no two deaths your wishes?” is rather momentous in this society, but asking the ques- can be alike; the good death is unique to the particularity of one’s life and is graced with the tions alone cannot ensure that communication occurs. One has to be will- recognition of human finitude and celebrates the exquisite, fragile wonder of life. If we have ing to listen and not presume that one holds the definitive answers. the privilege of being a member of a community who attends to one who is dying, we attend As one who has had the privilege of helping individuals prepare for a the bedside not as someone whose identity is qualified as clergy or laity but as members of good death and to make the transition from this realm, I have found what Luther described as the priesthood of all believers. To be present and accompany one on myself standing on the holiest of grounds. Our students in the Nursing the journey toward dying is not to hold membership in a hierarchal community but to par- School attend women at childbirth and experience that moment of great ticipate instead in a radical, relational community in a sacred space where one remains ever joy for new life, but for those of us with vocations in health care and in reli- mindful of one’s mortality. gious life, we, too, are attendants at the bedside — midwives who help birth a new life that also is filled with grace.

24 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 25 John Lachs Mark Manassee The Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Senior Chaplain, Department of Pastoral Care Fellow in the Institute for Public Policy Studies Vanderbilt University Medical Center

believe there is a natural life cycle for nderstanding the personal and discontinue life-saving measures are surely human beings; this is not an odd or an social context of the patient is crucial the most painful choices that any family Iunusual idea to believe although we tend Uin answering the question, “What is member can make. It can be an almost to forget about the natural cycle, and we tend a good death?”; however, there are some impossible task for a family member to dis- to forget about it especially when we take general perspectives of what often makes a cern the wishes of the patient, the medical seriously any claim of the prognosticators good death possible. Of course, this whole options, and one’s personal and family wishes who predict that at the end of this century discussion assumes one’s death does not while a patient’s life hangs in the balance. people will have life spans of over 150 years. come rapidly through a traumatic event, For a patient’s wishes to be known clearly I think it would be terrible for us to forget which is, unfortunately, often the case. regarding the extent of medical care desired our finitude, and that finitude, to me, means The saddest situation one encounters in is an important element of a good death. A that here is a natural life span, however long, the hospital setting is the patient who is living will, advanced directive, and organ not too long, where you are born, you grow dying alone without the presence of family donation card can be immensely helpful in and you are reared, you reach your zenith, or friends. I can’t imagine anything being this regard. and then you decline, and at the end you die. lonelier than to face one’s final days and Finally, the opportunity for a person to And part of the good death is that death not hours without the presence of family, friends, reflect upon one’s spiritual journey is a cru- Christ Among the Doctors happen too soon. It is terrible when a young and those from one’s faith community. cial element of a good death. As one faces 1506 person of 20 dies, or a middle aged person of Unfortunately, hospitals and other institu- one’s own death, questions of eternity, faith, Albrecht Dürer German painter 40 dies. I think that it is better — much, much tions can isolate patients from communities and God become more poignant. A good (1471–1528) better — for one to die at the appropriate of care and separate people from those they death surely is one where a person can look time, which is late in life. most need. This is one reason why hospice back and find a life lived well. If that has not But why is it appropriate then? Because I can be such an important part of a good death. been the case, questions of repentance, for- view life as having a teleology, a purpose. giveness, and recon- Leonard M. Hummel There are certain goals we want to accom- For all the modern talk about death being a natural ciliation may come to Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling plish — rearing children, writing books, creat- the forefront. For all inga business —yet there is that purpose that part of life and something to be welcomed, it is still the modern talk rimarily, a good death would be an the medical measures that can be taken to We must be careful not to heap the burden needs time to be accomplished, and the energy about death being a occasion when one does not worry too prolong one’s life, almost to the point of on people, in life or death, of becoming that is us needs to be displayed, so the good for many an event feared and our final enemy. natural part of life Pmuch about whether one is dying a denying the inevitability of death. Certainly models or exemplars of good ways to die or to death is one that is not only late in life and something to be good death; I suggest this perspective there should be some form of pain manage- suggest that they have to engage in a practice because you have lived long enough, but Corresponding to this, a good death is welcomed, it is still for many an event feared because I think a death is good when one is ment, but the dying process should not be that is more arduous or heroic than to which also because by then you have accomplished one where people are able to be reconciled or and our final enemy. not so much concerned about whether or not extended too long, and one is hopeful that they are accustomed. And for whose benefit? your purpose and the energy has been at least make attempts at reconciliation with There are many helpful acts the commu- one is dying well but whether one is assured the experience is not prolonged more than Their benefit or our benefit? exhausted. There is no more desire to accom- those from whom they are alienated. Maybe nity of faith, friends, and family can to do to that one is well in one’s relationship with desired. It may be desirable, but not always There is a need for us to be cautious that plish more, and you can shut your eyes and the patient is estranged from a family mem- help facilitate another’s impending death. God. The antithesis of a good death would feasible, for family members to be together to we do not outweigh an ideal of what it say without any regrets, “I’ve had a good ber or hurt feelings have existed over time. The most important may be simply to be involve worrying too much that one is not experience the approaching of death. The means to die well and regard others as dying life, and can have a good death, too.” Or maybe the reconciliation is between fam- present without giving advice or judging dying a good death. Perhaps a more realistic survivors may believe it is important to try less than well. I find the conception of a good There are, nonetheless, two other condi- ily members other than the patient. Either where a person is emotionally. Often, it is too approach would be to hope for a “good to resolve conflicts, although such resolution death slightly misleading because of my con- tions which we must endeavor to create for way, the patient’s impending death becomes painful for people to be in the presence of enough death;” I am reminded of how is not always possible, and again, may not cern that it suggests to some that only deaths ensuring a person’s good death. We must not the occasion of reconciliation and healing. someone ill so they withdraw. Unfortunately, psychologists argue that the goal of being a always be desirable. Sharing our perspec- where one is in some sense nurturing one’s allow people to die alone or to die without What is a very sad occasion becomes simul- this can isolate the patient further from what parent should be to strive to be a good tives on faith with the dying may prove to be soul and waiting for the inevitable are good hope; for the dying to have a sense of hope taneously a transforming event. one most needs. enough parent and to remain cognizant that a source of great comfort for family and deaths. I am aware historically there have and community is essential, and we must Modern medical technology has brought Additionally, people often want to offer perfection is not only impossible but should friends, but the survivors must discern when been people who have lived in dread they encourage the dying to understand that the rich advances in health care. Individuals are helpful comments but fall into platitudes not be desired. As imperfect mortals, we such a discussion is appropriate. may die suddenly and they will not have energy within the family or community of able to overcome disease and traumatic that may have the opposite effect when often must remember that our efforts at living and I am reminded of the story of a pastor time to engage in acts of soul preparation; for friends will continue. Secondly, we must injury where death would have formerly there are no words that can heal at that dying may at best be adequate. who was talking to other ministers with whom me, as a Lutheran pastor and as a pastoral convert our grief into celebration so that we been certain. Patients also are able to live moment. What may be most appropriate is The current literature in pastoral counseling he was very friendly and who knew he had a counselor, the more serious concern is that do not grieve over a person who is ready to with chronic conditions with reduction of to ask the person if there are particular phys- expresses concerns about the ways in which terminal illness. One colleague remarked to there is more emphasis on our “soul mak- die. We celebrate one’s life, and that celebra- pain and increased mobility often adding ical needs that they can help with or to pray Americans, in particular, upper-middle class the pastor, “In the past you have taught us how ing” or our religious disposition than in the tion is really wonderful for the dying person months or years to their lives. However, with the person. Faith communities often white Americans are dying, and the implica- to live; now, you will teach us how do die.” grace of God, no matter how one dies. because one then understands, “You appreci- modern medical technology also has put want those ill to have a heroic faith that is a tions are not constructive or indicative of a Whereas the minister may have been theo- ated my life,” and for the dying, that must be patients and families in harrowing situations testimony to others and, therefore, do not good death, especially when one considers logically astute, he was pastorally incompetent. a wonderful feeling. where agonizing decisions must be made. make room for faithful expressions of doubt, The decisions to withdraw life support or anger, lament, or grief. To the extent that

26 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 27 IMAGES OF those in the faith community are able to cre- Reading through the Theology of Jonathan Edwards ate safe spaces for those kinds of expressions, but without demanding them, they, too, pro- vide helpful pastoral care. HELL There has been in the last few decades an emphasis on stages of dying. People have often looked on this in a hierarchical way in which acceptance was the final and desired BY JAMES P. BYRD JR., PHD’99 stage. Caregivers were often seen as people to help others move along the stages. Thanatol- ogists (people who study the death process) Some of the more vivid portrayals of Hell and view the grief of one’s own impending death Viki B. Matson damnation in the English language come from in a more cyclical fashion that comes in Director of Field Education waves rather than in linear stages. Perhaps Assistant Professor of the Practice of Ministry John Milton and Jonathan Edwards. In the mid- the most helpful gesture a caregiver can offer is to respect the wishes of patients, offer a s I contemplate the question “What is a good death?”, I am reminded of what Dr. Ira seventeenth century, John Milton described Hell compassionate presence wherever the person Byock, a former president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medi- is emotionally, and not to forget the needs of cine, writes in his book, Dying Well: The Prospect for Growth at the End of Life. A good in epic proportions, focusing on the rebellion of people in close relationship to the patient. A death may occur when we have completed the emotional work of setting our relationships right: asking forgiveness where need be, granting forgiveness where need be, saying “I love Satan and the fall of humanity in Paradise Lost. you” to those significant people in our lives, and saying good bye. At the end of one’s life, we In the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards may find ourselves in the posture of having to make difficult, but honest statements, but I believe it is important for one to die with a sense that the emotional work is finished—that preached the terrors of Hell in various sermons, condition, which can be simple but ever so complicated, can result in a good death for the individual and for the survivors. including Sinners in the Hands of an Angry If one makes the claim that the completion of emotional work is what makes a good death, then what about a sudden death in which there was not time? Does this result in less than a God, a bestseller that remains a consistent selection good death? A sudden death might not be the ideal death, especially if there were broken rela- tionships that could have been set right had there been time, but I think the antithesis of a in student anthologies of American literature. good death would be a situation in which there was time, but a person could not have an openness of heart or spirit and became bitter, out of fear — out of a fear that prevents one from ilton and Edwards are surprising taking risks in conversation. Perhaps for that person there never has been a history of talking in that, despite their Puritan theolo- in this way, so we are ultimately asking for a behavior from one that is out of character. gies, their descriptions of Hell and There are, however, concrete actions that those of us who are the loved ones of a dying M Satan are more renowned than their descrip- person can do in the hope of initiating a conversation. For example, we can ask, “What is in tions of Heaven and Christ. The Hell of Par- your heart?”, “How is this experience for you?”, or “What do you need for us to do?” The adise Lost is a place of drama and angst that loved ones can initiate the possibility for conversation. The dying person may be hanging on features the “heroics” of Milton’s Satan, one and hanging on, afraid of the grief that the loved ones will experience, so it is important some- of the classic figures of Western literature. times for those at the bedside to grant permission for the person to die. But what we must Similarly, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God always remember is that the bedside is not the place to stage forced reconciliations. was Edwards’s best selling sermon in his Family members, friends, and leaders from faith communities need to be discerning time and remains his most famous work enough to know when a dying person needs to have a coming to terms with God or a human. because his description of Hell is captivating One of the most powerful events in my ministry occurred when I attended the death bed and elicits affective responses from readers. of a young man during my chaplaincy at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville. He had been Milton and Edwards, therefore, depict born into a privileged life as the son of wealthy, religiously fundamentalist parents and had damnation in vivid images that continue to lived in New York during his young adult years. When he developed AIDS, he returned fascinate readers. Why did Satan and Hell home, to Nashville, to die, but his family insisted on his illness being kept a secret from their warrant such descriptions? I argue that Milton friends. and Edwards believed that sensible descrip- As a chaplain, I discerned that he needed more than the fundamentalist God of his parents’ tions of damnation were necessary in order

Dipylon Amphora religious sensibility; he needed to die not feeling as if he were being punished or that he was to defend the justice of God and to awaken with scene of an embarrassment to God and to his family — that he was not an aberration of God’s good sinners to their plight. To defend God’s justice mourning for deceased laid creation. I took a risk in conversation with him and was able to encourage him to think about out on bier (central panel) God in less restrictive ways. As a provider of pastoral care, I offered him an alternative way Satan Going Forth from the Presence of the Lord ca. 750 B.C.E. c. 1821 Athens: Dipylon Cemetery of thinking about God, life, and death, and I am convinced he experienced a peace that he by William Blake terra cotta never before imagined. He had a good death. English poet, painter, engraver, 61” in height printer, mystic, and social critic National Archaeological Museum, Athens —compiled by Victor Judge (1757–1827) ink and color washes Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum

28 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 29 in a world of evil and to justify God’s right- traditional Augustinian fashion, Milton’s particularly his support for the beheading of meet with him or even have dinner with him? and his angelic accomplices are cast into from the narrator, reminding us that Satan is eousness in the creation of Hell, Milton and response to the problem of evil rests on an King Charles. Similarly, the Romantics Probably not. Yet we admire his character Hell, and in the first scene, Satan, Beelzebub, not what he seems: Edwards not only strove to teach their readers interpretation of Genesis 1–3, the story of admired Milton’s Satan, the ultimate rebel despite his evil deeds, and this is the distinc- and the other fallen angels are lying on a lake and hearers, they worked to change them, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, their against the ultimate authority— the King of tion Lewis makes. Milton did not join the of fire, still unconscious from the fall. When So spake th’ Apostate Angel, though in pain, impress upon them images of Satan and Hell disobedience in response to the temptations Heaven.4 Shelley argued that “nothing can “devil’s party,” despite the fact that he created they awake, Satan is defiant and unrepen- that engage the intellect and move the soul. of Satan in the form of a serpent, and God’s exceed the energy and magnificence of the an admirable Satan. But the question tant, asserting that: Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep punishment for their sin: expulsion from character of Satan.”5 To the Romantics, Mil- remains: Why would a Puritan poet create an despair (I.125–6). The Poet’s Theodicy Eden and the introduction of sin, death, and ton’s Satan was a modern rebel-hero against admirable Satan? All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, Milton developed as a poet and as a Puritan suffering in the world. This narrative, as Mil- tyranny. Satan believed that God’s rule was Literary critic Stanley Fish offers a solution, And study of revenge, immortal hate, Thus, despite Satan’s rhetoric of defiance in turbulent times.1 Educated at Cambridge, ton’s readers understood, puts the blame for unjust, so he acted on his principles, arguing that Milton’s attractive presentation and continued war with Heaven, the narrator Milton took a baccalaureate in 1629 and a suffering and evil squarely on the shoulders rebelling against God, even though Satan of Satan is essential to Milton’s purpose of And courage never to submit or yield: reminds us that this mighty being has fallen master of arts degree in knew that the price of his rebellion was the justifying God to humanity. The key to reading And what is else not to be overcome? miserably and is currently lying on a lake of loss of Heaven.6 In contrast, Romantics Paradise Lost, according to Fish, is to examine 1632. During these years, That Glory never shall [God’s] wrath or might fire. As Fish observes, “there is a disparity Cambridge was a center of therefore, thought that Milton’s God was uninteresting. “the experience” the poem provokes in the between our response to the speech and the Puritan influence, and while Evil entered the world, Romantics concluded, therefore, that, reader. He argues that “Paradise Lost is a Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace [narrator’s] evaluation of it”; specifically, Milton was busy earning his not through God’s absolute decree but through despite his Puritan sensibilities, Milton poem about how its readers came to be the With suppliant knee, and deify his power,…. “the comment of the [narrator] unsettles the M.A., the Puritan migration unconsciously preferred Satan to God. As way they are; its method, ‘not so much a reader, who sees in it at least a partial challenge We may with more successful hope resolve to New England was under- Blake remarked, Milton “wrote in teaching as an intangling,’ [sic] is to provoke to his [or her] own assessment of the speech.”14 way. The Massachusetts Bay humanity’s free choice to disobey God’s commands. fetters...when he wrote of Angels and God” in its readers wayward, fallen responses To wage by force or guile eternal War Even while suffering on a fiery lake, Satan Company, populated by a and wrote “at liberty when” describing which are then corrected by one of several Irreconcilable, to our grand Foe, argues, convincingly, that Hell is a new king- group of Puritans, many “Devils and Hell … because he was … of the authoritative voices,” including “the narrator, dom to be conquered, not a place of infinite 7 11 Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy with Cambridge educations, migrated to the of humanity. God, though infinitely good Devil’s party without knowing it.” God,” and angels in the poem. Milton pro- suffering. While the fallen angels have New World to escape the anti-Puritan poli- and infinitely powerful, gave Adam and Eve This interpretation faces opposition from duced an admirable Satan in hopes that the Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav’n. exchanged heavenly “celestial light” for a cies of King Charles I and Bishop William the freedom to obey or disobey. As Milton’s interpreters who argue that Satan cannot be reader would appreciate Satan’s point of (I.106–124) Hellish “mournful gloom,” the advantage is Laud, who persecuted Puritans for their God says, the hero of Paradise Lost since the “moral” of view and identify with his plight. Milton’s that the ruler of Hell can dictate justice, unwillingness to comply with the orders and the epic is that “disobedience of God is the purpose requires that the reader experience Thus, despite humiliation and defeat, decreeing right and wrong apart from God’s ceremonies of the Church of England. While I made [Adam] just and right, source of all evil and the content of all error” the temptation that Adam and Eve experi- Satan vows that he was wronged, that his designs: Milton did not travel to America with the while “obedience to God brings happiness enced, which means that the reader needs to cause was just, that he rebelled against the Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall and the righteous life.”8 One of the propo- understand the attractiveness of the disobedi- Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, he shared “Tyranny of Heaven.” Satan asserts that he farthest from [God] is best their criticism of the Church and their oppo- (III.99)3 nents of this view, C. S. Lewis, agreed that ence that brought sin into the world. Christian will never submit himself to God’s rule sition to Charles and Bishop Laud. Satan is “a magnificent character.” But readers of Milton’s poem do not expect an again. To the contrary, Satan’s strategy Whom reason hath equaled, force hath made Milton’s Puritan convictions had radical How else, asks Milton’s God, would he Satan’s magnificence does not imply that attractive and persuasive Satan. But only this remains that of war, though perhaps he will supreme political implications, which he revealed in know if his creatures were sincere in their Milton admired Satan’s cause. Instead, Lewis kind of character can demonstrate the potency not attack heaven as much “by force” as by Above his equals. Farewell happy Fields pamphlets that attacked the episcopacy and obedience? If they were not created free, observed that “the imitation in art of of temptation and the power of evil. While “guile,” since overt confrontation was disas- defended freedom of religion and freedom of Adam and Eve would have “served necessity” unpleasing objects may be a pleasing imita- admiring Satan, the reader is abruptly trous in the first attempt. Either way, Satan’s Where Joy forever dwells: Hail horrors, hail the press. Beginning in 1642, the English civil rather than God (III.110). Evil entered the tion.” While we may admire evil characters reminded that this admirable character, this war against Heaven is “eternal.” Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell war raged, pitting Parliament, controlled by world, therefore, not through God’s absolute for aspects of their personalities–their com- Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings Puritans, against the forces of Charles I. The decree but through humanity’s free choice to plexity, intelligence, or courage, for instance– remarkable culmination came with the disobey God’s commands. our admiration does not imply that we identify While admiring Satan, the reader is abruptly reminded that A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time. imprisonment of Charles in 1647 and his Before the decisive fall of Adam and Eve with their cause or that, if they were real people, The mind is its own place, and in it self beheading in 1649, along with Archbishop brought evil to earth, rebellious angels had we would like to know them personally.9 We this admirable character, this sublime Satan, Laud. Such regicide did not go unheralded fallen from heaven through a similar exercise can find an illustration of this idea by con- Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of by Milton; he defended the execution of the of free will. The chief of these fallen angels, sidering one of the most admired villains in is also the personification of evil. Heav’n (I.247–55). king in his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates Satan, assumes a pivotal role in Paradise Lost, contemporary popular culture, Dr. Hannibal (1649), arguing that a free people were obli- and his place in the epic has generated con- Lecter, the psychiatrist turned cannibalistic Hell, like Heaven, is a state of mind, Satan gated to subdue tyranny. In the midst of troversy for centuries afterward. The problem serial killer in the novels of Thomas Harris sublime Satan, is also the personification of Satan, therefore, enters the stage with a asserts. And he has a new challenge and a these activities, Milton began to lose his sight issues from the attractiveness of Satan in the and recent films, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, evil. Through this constant back-and-forth courageous speech. He fumes against God’s new kingdom to rule, unencumbered by and became completely blind by 1651; six- poem. Milton’s Satan is one of the most mag- and Red Dragon. Prominent film critic Roger between admiring Satan and being repulsed injustice and tyranny, and defends the justice God’s tyrannical interference. Satan claims teen years later he published the first edition nificent literary figures in the English lan- Ebert says that “Hannibal Lecter is one of the by him, the reader experiences the temptation of his cause against the almighty oppressor. equality with God, arguing that God defeated of Paradise Lost. guage. But the puzzling question remains: most wicked villains in movie history, and and fall and appreciates the justice of God in Our first impression of Satan is, as one critic him because of superior power, not superior The epic has an appropriately grand pur- Why would a Puritan poet describe Satan in one of the most beloved.” We admire Dr. condemning evil. This process, according to describes, the picture of “fortitude in adversity, intellect or character. And Satan believes pose — to defend the justice and goodness of such an attractive way? Lecter not only because he frequently assists Fish, brings readers “to a better understanding enormous endurance, a certain splendid that, aided by his mighty intellect and gover- God, despite the existence of evil in the One explanation came from writers in the the FBI in tracking down other serial killers, of [their] sinful nature and” encourages them recklessness, remarkable powers of rising to nance, he can make a new Heaven out of world. The philosophical term for this task is Romantic period, especially William Blake but also because “he is droll and literate, “to participate in [their] own reformation.”12 an occasion, extraordinary qualities of lead- Hell. Rather than a place of damnation, “theodicy,” which, as Milton expresses in and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Romantics—rebels dryly humorous, [and] elegantly mannered.”10 Readers meet Satan at the beginning of ership.”13 But this powerful, courageous therefore, Hell is a place of freedom — Book I of Paradise Lost, is the attempt “to jus- against authority that they were — admired Does this mean that we would like to know Paradise Lost; he is the first character to speak. speech, which gives us an attractive impres- autonomy from God’s tyrannical interference: tify the ways of God to [humanity]” (I.26).2 In Milton’s rebellious stance against tyranny, Dr. Lecter in real life, that we would like to After leading a rebellion against God, Satan sion of Satan, leads to an abrupt challenge

30 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 31 Warring Angels (a Miltonic subject interpreted as Michael with a sword attacking Satan) c. 1796 William Blake British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings

Here at least that Satan could no nothing — could not of God and their eternal state, but never We shall be free; ... even raise his head — without “the will/ And believing they had the full picture in view. high permission of all-ruling Heaven” (I.211– Consequently, Milton’s epic proves an essen- Here we may reign secure, and in my choice 12). God rules all—even Hell—despite the tial lesson to its readers “by first ‘intangling’ To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: devils’ delusion that they govern themselves. [sic] us in the folds of Satan’s rhetoric, and Readers of Paradise Lost, therefore, must then ‘informing us better’ in ‘due season.’” Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n be on guard, constantly aware that Satan’s In so doing, “Milton forces us to acknowl- (I.258–63). fantastic appearance and marvelous speeches edge the personal relevance of the Arch-Fiend’s are deceitful. The stakes are high for readers, existence; and, in the process, he validates So Satan asserts freedom and autonomy because, as Fish observes, “if the [readers dramatically” the readers’ inability to per- in Hell and vows that his kingdom will not lose themselves] in the workings of [Satan’s] ceive reality apart from God’s revealing take on the tyrannical policies of God’s rule speech even for a moment, [they place] vision. As Fish argues, “the wariness these in Heaven. Instead, Satan consults his fallen themselves in a compromising position.” encounters with demonic attraction make us colleagues in governing his kingdom, calling The attraction of Satan is a distraction, causing feel is part of a larger pattern in which we are a meeting at “Pandemonium,” a term that readers to lose sight of “the glory of God, taught the hardest of all lessons, distrust of Milton coined to describe “the high Capital/Of and the state of” their souls. Readers are “at our own abilities and perceptions.”19 Milton Satan and his Peers” (I.756). Contrary to the least in danger” because “sin is a matter of tempts readers with an attractive Satan, but connotation of “confusion” that Pandemonium degrees. To think ‘how fine this all sounds, this is a “good temptation,” which proves to acquires later in the poem and retains today, even though it is Satan’s’ is to be but a few readers that they are vulnerable, that their this first meeting of devils is quite organized. steps from thinking ‘how fine this all senses are imperfect, and that they should And, given Milton’s Puritan loathing of sounds’— and no conscious qualification.” not have confidence in their own efforts, abil- Catholicism, we should not be surprised that Accordingly, “from a disinterested apprecia- ities, and perceptions. “The temptation is his description of Pandemonium closely tion of technique one moves easily to a good because by means of it the secret cor- resembles the Vatican.15 Pandemonium grudging admiration for the technician and ruption within is exposed, and consequently becomes the scene of an active debate of then to a guarded sympathy and finally, we are better able to resist the blandishments possible responses to God, including a suicidal perhaps, to assent.”17 of less benevolent tempters.”20 outright attack against heaven offered by a Milton’s purpose in presenting an attractive The theodicy of Milton, therefore, required devil named Moloch, a passive “do-nothing” Satan, therefore, was to seduce readers into that his readers experience the attractive policy of self-protection offered by Belial, believing Satan’s lies — much as Adam and temptation to evil—the same attractive temp- and an accommodating suggestion that Eve did — and then to reveal the deception, tation that caused the fall. Christian readers they satisfy themselves with Hell and knew well the fall narrative of Genesis, forget Heaven, the idea introduced by and they understood the Augustinian Mammon.16 Yet Satan’s strategy is the Hell was not only a necessary doctrine that explanation for evil’s entrance into the Edwards think of him as a preacher of Hell- intellectual landscape, for his thought and readers because of the vivid way in preferred one — an “easier enterprise” world through the fall. But intellectual fire sermons. This impression of Edwards spanned a full range of theological, ethical, which God’s damnation is illustrated and (II.345) whereby they could gain revenge his congregants needed to understand; it knowledge alone was insufficient. In frustrates scholars who have studied him scientific, psychological, and aesthetic topics.23 justified. Both Milton and Edwards use on God, not by suicidal attack on heaven, Paradise Lost, Milton seduced readers to more closely. In his influential biography of Edwards, a Yale-educated minister and heir images of damnation to justify God’s ways to but by causing the downfall of God’s experience the fall personally, to inter- Edwards, Perry Miller claims that Edwards’s of the Puritan theological tradition, secured humanity. And the task for both Milton and fondest new creation, humanity. The was a reality they needed act with Satan’s wiles, to engage in an thought bridged two world views—the pre- his reputation as a preacher, theologian, and Edwards required the use of graphic devils decide to pursue Adam and Eve, experiential understanding of evil’s modern, theological perspective of the defender of the Great Awakening revivals imagery that provoked the experience of the “puny habitants” of Eden, and the to feel and taste, a vital threat persuasive powers. This move from an Reformed tradition as represented by New during his twenty-one years as pastor of the their intended audiences because more than plan is to: intellectual apprehension of Satan’s evil to England Puritans and the perspective of an Congregationalist Church in Northampton, an intellectual reaction was essential to the of which they needed to be aware. a sensible experience of it was essential to enlightened age, which dawned during his Massachusetts. After leaving his Northampton purposes of both Milton’s Paradise Lost and Seduce them to our Party, that their God Milton’s purpose of communicating lifetime. Miller says that while Edwards pulpit under unhappy circumstances in Edwards’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’s justice to the reader. Through “speaks from a primitive religious concep- 1750, Edwards worked as a missionary to God. Like Milton’s depiction of Satan, May prove their foe, and with repenting hand chastising readers for joining Adam and Eve Satan, Milton demonstrates to readers the tion … yet at the same time he speaks from Native Americans in Stockbridge, Massachu- Edwards believed that his preaching of Hell Abolish his own works. This would surpass in succumbing to temptation. When Satan “evidence of [their] corruption,” their own an insight into science and psychology so setts, while composing the influential theo- needed to rouse experiences in his readers. speaks, readers “fail to read Satan’s speech sin, and prompts them to seek personal much ahead of his time that our own can logical treaties Freedom of the Will (1754) and Hell was not only a necessary doctrine that Common revenge, and interrupt his joy with the critical acumen it demands.”18 And, reform. The task that Milton undertook was hardly be said to have caught up with him.”22 Original Sin (1758). Edwards also wrote his congregants needed to understand; it (II.368–71). as Milton and every Puritan knew, a sense of “to educate [readers] to an awareness of Edwards’s theology of Hell represents the important works in theological ethics, was a reality they needed to feel and taste, a security in one’s perceptions or in one’s per- [their] position and responsibilities as ...fall- former, primitive side of his thought, in including The End for Which God Created the vital threat of which they needed to be The devils adopt this plan by vote. Even sonal righteousness was dangerous. Instead, en” creatures. In order to do this, Milton Miller’s view. Particularly egregious to World and The Nature of True Virtue (1765). aware. The proper response to the doctrine in their devilish plans, therefore, we gain the Puritans believed they should recognize that strove “to recreate in the mind of the reader Edwards scholars is the fact that his Hellfire Despite the breadth of Edwards’s intellect, of Hell was not only understanding, but ter- impression that Hell’s government is superior they were fallen and that they could not ...the drama of the Fall, to make him [or her] sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Sinners was his most popular work, in his ror, and Edwards strove to stimulate this to that of Heaven because Hell is ruled by depend on their own intellect alone to reveal fall again exactly as Adam did.”21 remains the most printed and most recog- own time as in ours.24 Why? I argue that this experience through his sermons. representative judgment of a council, not by the truth to them. Also Puritans recognized nized of Edwards’s works. sermon’s popularity is similar to the continued Edwards’s defense of Hell is all the more tyrannical decree. Yet once again the narrator that they should retain some anxiety about An Experiential Sense of Damnation Scholars of Edwards complain Sinners admiration for Milton’s Satan. Like Milton’s fervent because the doctrine of damnation corrects Satan’s claims, pointing out earlier their salvation, always striving to learn more Most people who have heard of Jonathan represents only a small area of Edwards’s Satan, Edwards’s Hell resonates with listeners was under attack from leading “enlight-

32 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 33 Satan with a Sword “Going to & fro in the Earth & walking up & down in it” c. 1823 William Blake Sir Geoffrey Keynes Collection ened” thinkers in the eighteenth century. depends on the sense of the heart… .the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God pro- their prey, and expect to have it, .... If God fered to awake again in this world, after These representatives of the Age of Reason perceiving of spiritual beauty and excellency vokes images through which Edwards should withdraw his hand, by which they you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is believed that Hell was an undesirable remnant endeavored to bring his hearers to such a from an arcane theological age, an idea that no more belongs to reason, than it belongs sensible encounter with Hell. Edwards’s text are restrained, they would in one moment no other reason to be given, why you have reasonable people could never accept. Who to the sense of feeling to perceive colors, or for the sermon is Deuteronomy 32:35: “Their fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is not dropped into Hell since you arose in the could believe, these thinkers asked, that a foot shall slide in due time,” and he focuses the power of seeing to perceive the sweetness gaping for them; Hell opens its mouth wide to morning, but that God’s hand has held you just and benevolent God would condemn upon the “slippery” effect, emphasizing that souls to Hellfire for eternity? These thinkers of food… . Reason’s work is to perceive sinners tread on slippery ground and that receive them; and if God should permit it, up. There is no other reason to be given offered alternative, more reasonable and truth and not excellency… . [I]t is no more they are precariously close to falling into they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.31 why you have not gone to Hell, since you humane visions of the afterlife such as the Hell at any moment. Edwards warns sinners reason that immediately perceives it, than it have sat here in the house of God, provoking idea that God eventually saved everyone “that the reason why they are not fallen The major errors of sinners concerning (John Tillotson) and the concept of annihila- is reason that perceives the sweetness of already, and do not fall now, is only that their impending damnation are procrastina- his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner tion, which taught that damned souls were honey: it depends on the sense of the heart.27 God’s appointed time is not come.” Further, tion and unfounded security. Edwards of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there obliterated, not dammed to suffer eternally “[t]here is nothing that keeps wicked men at attempts to remove any vestiges of security 25 is nothing else that is to be given as a reason (John Locke). In Edwards’s view, spiritual or saving any one moment out of Hell, but the mere in his congregation by warning them that Edwards argued that “freethinkers’” knowledge of divine truths was not mere pleasure of God. By the mere pleasure of life’s span is uncertain; Hell is not a future why you do not this very moment drop doubts of Hell resulted from an unwillingness intellectual assent. Christians not only needed God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbi- reality in the distance, it is a present threat, 35 29 down into Hell. to take seriously humanity’s sin against God. to understand God’s love and truth intellec- trary will, restrained by no obligation.” an active terror: Sin, Edwards argued, even the most minute And, despite enlightened thinkers who tually; they needed to know it in their hearts; Edwards also includes children in his infraction of God’s law, was of great offense they needed to have a sensible understanding claimed that God’s justice would not permit The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; warnings of Hellfire: to God, who was infinitely holy and deserved of God’s justice and love, a “relish” or “taste” anyone to be cast into Hell, Edwards argues perfect “love, honor, and obedience.” An of divine ideas. Hell is one such divine truth the contrary: the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God offense against an infinite being was an infi- And you, children, who are unconverted, that needed not only to be understood intel- has so many different unsearchable ways of nite offense that required infinite punishment. lectually, but to be known sensibly as per- [sinners] deserve to be cast into Hell; so do not you know that you are going down taking wicked men out of the world and Hell, therefore, was both a rational and a jus- sonally real, threatening, and just. that divine justice never stands in the way, to Hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that tified response to humanity’s sin. To In his classic description of revivals, Faithful sending them to Hell… . Almost every dismiss Hell was to make light of sin, and .... Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud God, who is now angry with you every day Narrative, Edwards argues that a sensible natural man that hears of Hell, flatters thus to dishonor God, his dignity, and his The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the knowledge of Hell’s justice is essential to for an infinite punishment of their sins.... and every night? Will you be content to be righteous laws. To take Hell out of the uni- himself that he shall escape it; he depends salvation and that one of the surest signs of arrow made ready on the string, and justice 36 verse would be to take out jus- The sword of divine justice is the children of the devil… ? upon himself for his own security; … . They bends the arrow at your heart, and strains tice. If God were to let sin go every moment brandished over unpunished, God would cease hear indeed that there are but few saved, the bow, and it is nothing but the mere Absolving God that needed their heads, and it is nothing but to be both righteous and just. A Hell is one such divine truth and that the greater part of men that have pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, The editors of a recent edition of Edward’s righteous God could not look the hand of arbitrary mercy, and works refer to Edwards as “an American not only to be understood intellectually, but to be known died heretofore are gone to Hell; but each without any promise or obligation at all, upon evil; a just God could not God’s mere will, that holds it Milton, whose medium was theology as 26 one imagines that he lays out matters better that keeps the arrow one moment from let evil go unpunished. 30 surely as blank verse was Milton’s” and that, 32 sensibly as personally real, threatening, and just. back. 34 But it was not enough for for his own escape than others have done. being made drunk with your blood. “like Milton, Edwards sought a renewal in Edwards to defend the rationality English-speaking religion that would do Edwards follows this statement 37 of Hell against freethinkers. An awakened, truly converted persons is their In theory, the people knew that the odds justice to the Reformation.” This ambitious intellectual understanding of Hell was essen- of God’s justice in condemning sinners to The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, task included a defense of God’s justice, sense that God is just in damning them to Hell with graphic descriptions of damnation: were not in their favor— most were not elect, tial, but it was fruitless without a sensible Hell, despite their religious acts: so most would spend eternity in Hell. The much as one holds a spider, or some loath- despite the evil and strife that plagued even those Christians who attempted to obey understanding of Hell’s reality and justice. crucial problem for Edwards was that his some insect over the fire, abhors you, and is Edwards preached on damnation to awaken [T]o those in whom awakenings seem to The wrath of God burns against [sinners]...; congregants knew the threat of the “lake God’s biblical commands in cleansing the dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you Church of popish errors and purging the his congregants to just such an experiential have a saving issue, commonly the first the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, of burning brimstone,” but they were “not sense of Hell. In his Divine and Supernatural sensible of this.”33 The Hellish threat was not a burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy state of tyrannical rule. Milton’s attractive Light, Edwards describes the difference thing that appears .... is a conviction of the furnace is now hot, ready to receive Satan and Edwards’s vivid descriptions of compelling reality for most, for the majority of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; between an intellectual knowledge of divine the justice of God in their condemnation, them; the flames do now rage and glow. The of people did not expect that they were Hell were essential components in justifying truths, which included Hell since it was a he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you God’s ways to humanity. The goals in both appearing in a sense of their own exceeding glittering sword is whet, and held over doomed to Hell. Edwards opposes this false divine creation, and a spiritual understanding, sense of security with his personal, sensible in his sight; you are ten thousand times cases were to awaken readers and hearers to which involved not only the mind, but also sinfulness, and the vileness of all their them, and the pit hath opened its mouth their sin and to absolve God of bringing sin images. As Milton wants his readers to more abominable in his eyes, than the most the entire person, including the affections, performances… . Some have declared ... under them....The devil stands ready to fall experience the power of sin, Edwards wants into the world. inclinations, emotions, and will. Edwards hateful venomous serpent is in ours. …it is Milton and Edwards recognized that that God may glorify Himself in their upon them, and seize them as his own, at his hearers to “feel” Hell, to experience its contends that: threat in the sermon because the lack of nothing but his hand that holds you from mere intellectual appeals would not suffice. damnation, and they wonder that God has what moment God shall permit him. …The sensibility to Hell is a critical issue for salva- Milton realized that his readers knew the fall falling into the fire every moment. It is to narrative from Genesis, just as Edwards real- [T]o see the beauty and loveliness of spiritual suffered them to live so long, and has not devils watch them... they stand waiting for tion. Edwards, therefore, addresses his con- be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not ized that his congregants believed in election 28 gregation personally with his sensible things ...is not a speculative thing, but cast them into Hell long ago. them, like greedy hungry lions that see and understood that most people would suf- images of terror: go to Hell the last night; that you was suf-

34 THE SPIRE Fall 2003 35 19 fer in Hell. The task for both the poet and the University Press, 1985): 652–54. Among the many biogra- Fish, Surprised, 22; emphasis added. 20 preacher, therefore, was not to change minds phies of Milton, the classic remains David Masson, The Fish, Surprised, 41. life of John Milton: Narrated in Connection with the Political, 21 but to transform souls — not only to make Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time, 7 vols. (Lon- Fish, Surprised, xiii, 1. 22 readers and hearers think differently but to don: Macmillan, 1859). Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards. (Amherst: University of 2 transform them into different people. Milton Dennis Danielson, “The Fall and Milton’s Theodicy,” in Massachusetts Press, 1981), xxxii. 23 and Edwards worked within a Reformed Dennis Danielson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Milton “Editor’s Introduction,” in Jonathan Edwards et al., A understanding of the psyche in which it was (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven, CT: Yale University essential for Christians to stay on guard, con- 1999), 144. Press, 1995), viii. 3 24 stantly aware of sin’s prevalence and their John Milton, Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books, Second Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought own inadequacies. To be confident in one’s ed. (London: S. Simmons, 1674). Citations are noted by and its British Context (Chapel Hill: University of North book number followed by line number; thus, Book III, Carolina Press, 1981), 200. salvation was to risk damnation. And the 25 line 99 is denoted as III.99. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. 4 more one heard of sin’s power and human Marjorie Hope Nicolson, A Reader’s Guide to John Milton, Perry Miller and Harry S. Stout (New Haven: Yale depravity, the more dull such doctrines 1st Syracuse University Press ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1957-): 14:29. Edwards opposed became. As Stanley Fish notes, eventually University Press, 1998), 186. “freethinkers” who argued that “God would not go to 5 the constant “repetition of truth lessens its Quotations from Stanley Eugene Fish, Surprised by Sin: torment a poor creature to such a dreadful degree.” immediate and personal force, and the sinner The Reader in Paradise Lost, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, Hamp- Edwards, “ The Torments of Hell are Exceedingly shire: Macmillan, 1997), ix-x. Great,” in Works, 14:303. becomes complacent in a verbal and abstract 26 6 James G. Nelson, The Sublime Puritan: Milton and the See Fiering, Moral Thought, 220; Edwards, Works 4:278-9. contrition. Paradise Lost is immediate and 27 forceful in the communication of these Victorians (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974), 66–67. Edwards, Divine and Supernatural Light, in Edwards, 38 Blake’s quotation is from Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Reader, 121-22. unflattering truths.” Edwards’s purpose in 7 28 See Nelson, Sublime, 66–67. Edwards, Faithful Narrative, Reader 73-4., emphasis describing Hell in his sermons is similar. He 8 Fish, Surprised, ix. This book first published in 1967 and added. uses vivid images of Hell for his hearers 29 reprinted with an updated preface in 1997. Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 89-90. because they need to experience Hell person- 9 30 C. S. Lewis, APreface to Paradise Lost (New York: Oxford Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 91. ally; to taste and feel is a violent threat to 31 University Press, 1961), 94. Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 91-92. their complacency. Both Milton and Edward 10 Roger Ebert, review of Red Dragon, in Chicago Sun 32 worked to convict their audiences of their Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 93-94. Times, 4 October 2002. 33 Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 95. own culpability in an attempt to move them 11 Fish, Surprised, x. 34 from complacent self-confidence to an affective 12 Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 97. Fish, Surprised, x. 35 engagement with their own sin, the threat of 13 Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 97-98 A.J.A. Waldock quoted in Fish, Surprised, 4–5. 36 damnation, and the justice of God. 14 Edwards, Sinners, in Reader, 104. Fish, Surprised, 5. 37 15 Edwards, Reader, vii. Nicolson, Reader’s Guide, 197–200. A native of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, the 38 16 Fish, Surprised, 45. essayist earned his baccalaureate from Gardner- See PL, Book II. For commentary, see Lewis, Preface, 104–6. 17 Webb University and the master of divinity Fish, Surprised, 12. 18 degree from Duke University. Byrd received his Fish, Surprised, 14. doctorate of philosophy in religion from Vanderbilt University where he serves in the graduate department of religion as senior lecturer in Amer- ican religious history and as the assistant dean for graduate studies and information technology. He is author of The Challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecu- tion, and the Bible published by Mercer University Press.

1 This brief introduction to Milton is based on “Milton, John,” in Margaret Drabble and Paul Harvey, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford

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