Newsletter #109
On Health and Sickness
A brief meditation on an important, universal topic.
Just the Right Time
Last week I finished up a gem of a book, Christianity: The True Humanism. I love it when I come across books that no one else seems to know about, and they end up being excellent.
I learned of the book in the most unlikely of ways. I was watching a panel discussion online between an evangelical pastor-author, journalist, and historian. One of them advocated for what she called “Christian humanism.” It’s not actually a new term nor concept, but I suppose she has been trying to promote a particular understanding of it. Another panelist mentioned that he had a book on his shelf called, Christian Humanism, but he had never read it. As it turns out, it was the book above, co-authored by J. I. Packer and Thomas Howard.
Published in 1985, the authors attempt to show how Christianity is, in fact, the most humanizing force on earth. Contra secular humanism (whether an older, early-twentieth century version, or more recent militant kind), Packer and Howard show how Christianity offers distinct and satisfying answers to the questions which humanism raises, whether questions of human need, freedom, hope, virtue, dignity and worth, or more. Again, what a providential blessing it was to stumble onto this book!
Rather than offer a full book review, I want to focus on a part that has been especially meaningful: the chapter on health and virtue. The authors acknowledge that it may seem odd to link these two concepts. They seem like two different things to most people. However, the authors demonstrate that there isn’t a very wide gap between the two.
The primary way they argue this point is in the simple observation that “ill health of the person is more than ill health of the body. From a Christian standpoint, ill health of the person means deforming the image of God in him or her so that the image of Satan comes to replace it—in other words, it means moral and spiritual deficiency” (132).
This claim comes on the heels of quite a few pages of exposition of how Christianity deals with the issues of pain and suffering. The authors want us to (1) see such problems in the light of Scriptural truth; and (2) recognize how spiritual health [virtue] is a much more important form of health than any bodily state we may desire.
Consider these key claims:
1: Christianity is an invitation to trust God’s love at all times and in all situations because of the Cross.
2: Health questions test and challenge our faith in God’s love to the utmost.
3: The physical evils of sickness, pain, and unproductive suffering are bound up with the moral evil of sin.
4: This life is not the only life.
5: Christianity was from the first announced as the way of the cross.
6: Trust in God through the experience of ill health and suffering humanizes.
These six biblical claims culminate in the aforementioned claim about ill health being much more than a bodily concern.
There’s much more I’d like to say about the book. (Perhaps I will later.) However, this chapter was especially meaningful given the degree of suffering that has been experienced in our church family in recent months. Additionally, I feel as though in the last 18 months I’ve had more nagging, random, and strangely persistent health problems than any other period in my life.
Yes, I’m awfully close to 40, so there’s that. But we have come to associate productivity with vitality, and vitality with physical health. So aside from the general unpleasantness of physical ailments, they simply slow us down and hinder us from pursuing the daily work we feel God has given us to do.
Sickness costs us time, money, and energy. It makes us miss things. It frustrates our plans. It inconveniences others who depend upon us. More seriously, it makes us bump up against the realities of age and decay.
For those tempted to intellectualize the concept of suffering, please, just ask the Lord to make you sick for a while so you can properly emotionalize the issue. For those who simply haven’t thought enough about the profound range of biblical teaching on the subject, please, pick up a book like this and be reminded that God is far from silent on suffering.
There will always be attacks on a proper view of suffering and death. Some will be external, such as the euthanasia/medically assisted death crowd. Some will come from the Prosperity Gospel crowd. But most will come from within us: our own discomfort and frustrations with sickness and suffering will test us, tempting us to give into discouragement and despair. We need to be equipped to fight the battle on each of these fronts.
Packer and Howard’s book is a great tool to help us face the salvo.
Follow-Up:
In my last two newsletters I offered some reflections on Christian nationalism. This recent, outstanding article by Jonah Goldberg dovetails nicely with this. While it may seem a bit technical, it attempts to clear up some common misunderstandings about nations, states, and other related civic-historical-geographical terms—precursors to talking in depth about something like Christian nationalism.
What I’m Reading or Rereading:
Christina Thompson, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia.
Émile Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair McIntyre: An Intellectual Biography.
Quote of the Week:
Technology is a means to an end. The moment it became an end in itself, that is to say, the moment technology became the dominant partner in the religion of technology and took up the role of civil religion, at that moment our present moment became inevitable. When the religion of technology drives a culture, that culture, to riff on Thoreau, will eventually find itself directionless, with improved, and sometimes barely improved or even unimproved, means to nonexistent ends. It will eventually find itself fruitlessly focused on the incremental optimization of quantifiable measures of little consequence. It will eventually find itself in a crisis of meaning and characterized by various degrees of alienation and polarization.
Common Grace Wisdom (CGW): Stop Reading the (False) Headlines Only
Discussions about the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling on embryos are all the rage now. Predictably, precious few people read the actual ruling. And nearly as many misunderstood the reporting on the ruling.
The Center for Bioethics and Culture is an interesting non-profit that has been around for over twenty years, addressing a range of bioethical issues which concern millions of Americans. In this latest article, they very helpfully remind people, “NO, ALABAMA DIDN’T BAN IVF.”
The actual ethics of IVF are a legitimate discussion, one which I myself have strong views about. (Perhaps a future newsletter will explore this.) However, can we at least accurately report facts in the meantime?
Thank God for the common grace He gives to many reporters, journalists, and/or cultural observers.
Parting Shot
This week I’ll be attending the Missouri Free Will Baptist Ministers’ Retreat. I’m looking forward to joining upwards of 80 men in fellowship, praise, instruction, and rest.
