Life's Living toward Dying: A Theological and Medical-Ethical Study

by Vigen Guroian

In the past several years our culture's long-standing prohibitions against suicide and euthanasia have been seriously challenged. A great tidal change in morality and law may be occurring as the courts seem to be creating a new right - the individual's right to die. In the fall of 1994 the people of Oregon voted to legalize physician-assisted suicide; Michigan's courts continue to acquit Dr. Jack Kevorkian for his involvement in the deaths of more than two dozen patients; and in several states federal appeals courts have struck down statutes that prohibited physician-assisted suicide. In Life's Living toward Dying Vigen Guroian responds to this challenge. He discusses society's moral confusion over the meaning of death and gives a Christian alternative for care of the dying that is consistent with the strong value that the Christian church has ascribed to human life.

Genres: Theology

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Vigen Guroian resides with his wife June Vranian in Culpeper, Virginia, where he mostly tends to his large perennial and vegetable gardens. June is an Interior Designer. Vigen and June have two children. Their son Rafi is 28 years of age, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, and employed at Cox Newspapers in Washington D.C. Their daughter Victoria is 24 years old, a graduate of Washington and Lee University, and employed at the NRA.

Dr. Guroian received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (1970) and his Ph. D. in Theology from Drew University (1978). He is presently Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Guroian was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia from 1978-81 and held a post there as well in the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has been a visiting lecturer at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and was the Seminary's Director of Academic Affairs from 1990-92. Dr. Guroian has served for many years as a member of and consultant to the Armenian Religious Education Council of the Prelacy of the Armenian Church of North America.

Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University teaching courses there regularly. For the academic year 1995-1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.

Dr. Guroian has been on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Religious Ethics, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and Christian Bio-Ethics. He has served terms on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the executive committees of the American Theological Society and Christians Associated for Relations with Eastern Europe. He has been active in both the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.

He is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University; Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan; Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum; and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson.

Recent significant consultations and projects on which Dr. Guroian has served include: "The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Project on Christian Jurisprudence," Emory University (2004-2009); "The Vocation of the Child," commissioned by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2005-2006); A Consultation: "American Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy in America," sponsored by the Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University and Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2004); Christian Jurisprudence Project on "Law and Human Nature: The Teaching of Modern Christianity," sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts (2001-2004); and "Consultation on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism," sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (2000-2003).

Dr. Guroian has published more than 150 articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, liturgy and ethics, marriage and family, children's literature, ecology, genocide, and medical ethics. He has authored a monthly column entitled "Really Human Things" on the Prison Fellowship Ministries' BreakPoint site. Dr. Guroian's books, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999) and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1998), received national press and media attention. Feature stories on his books have appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and more than a dozen other newspapers around the country. Dr. Guroian has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "T

Reviews

[Charles Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

About three years ago I got a diagnosis of liver cancer. I was easily treatable and thought that was it. But it wasn't. Earlier this. year (2021) another tumour popped up and it was treated with radiation and it too went away. Now I'm dealing with my third and fourth tumour and I find out soon what will happen...maybe surgery. I have spent a few years volunteering at a palliative ward in Toronto so I've seen death up close and also as part of a Catholic team I've spoken to patients about death and thought I did a decent job. Though "job" doesn't sound right. I think at times I was consoling and helped some to cling to their Catholic faith. But when I heard my cancer could be lethal and ultimately not curable (though it can be fought off) my own words to others was not enough. So...I went looking for books that could remind me that death is not the last word and reinforce my own deep faith. Priests were helpful but many of the books I read were facile. Something like a Disney version of death. Then I found Life's Living toward Dying: A Theological and Medical-Ethical Study by Vigen Guroian Guroian is an Orthodox Christian and a university professor. It's clearly the best book I've read. The author reminds us that as Christians we need to accept in our hearts what our faith teaches. He then goes on to reinforce all we are taught about death and the afterlife. By facing it head on the idea is to lose one's fear of death and accept what will happen to us all. It does not, of course, mean passively accepting death and doing nothing about it. Hardly. I means there is a point of no return when acceptance can banish fear. One interesting thing. The book was written before euthanasia became legal in Canada. So his focus at the beginning of this book is on the odious Dr. Kevorkian (Dr. Death). But he had the foresight to see the Dr. Death's campaign to kill the suffering would soon become the norm in many places. He also has some very good commentary about the problem of over-medicalization - when doctors will simply use patients as experiments. This book should be read not only by people like myself but young healthy people. Death should be accepted throughout our life not just when a crisis occurs

[Saint Katherine BookstoreVA]

“[Christ said] for this people's heart has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."- Matthew 13:15

Of course, the faithful try to harmonize their conscience with the phronema of the Church, in order to grow into 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph.4:13), yet this effort remains unfulfilled until the end of our lives. That is why, strictly speaking, the Orthodox faithful — and especially the theologian — are never entitled to call upon their conscience as the final criterion of truth… - Archbishop Stylianos of Australia

We live in a culture that at once embraces and denies death. If you don’t agree, allow Vigen Guroian to explain:

Death’s grip on life has deep roots and profound consequences involving much more than just the end of our physical existence. In the absence of faith, death gains strength and destructive power over life. It weighs us down with the suspicion that love and communion with others may not be real and that life might not be worth living. Death makes its home in the very midst of life like the rot that spoils fruit. (p.22)

Guroian makes his case with a remarkable breadth of analysis. He scrutinizes news items and death gurus like Jack Kevorkian and on to C.S. Lewis, Dostoevsky, W.H. Auden, Tolstoy, and the Church’s prayers. His conclusions are full of light and promise - Through the Church and our life in Christ, we can rise above the scrum of both pop theology and rabid secularism:

…death in Jesus Christ is a spiral that breaks free from the natural [nature’s- Ed.] cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The lowest point of the spiral is death. But then the line curves upward beyond earthly life into eternal life. Christ gave death this upward curve by recapitulating our living and dying and then adding something else – a new creation.” (p.51)

His eye for the insidious infiltration of secularism into modern Christian life is as keen as either Fr. Alexander Schmemann or Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Guroian challenges us to rethink what passes for 21st century wisdom and reclaim Christ’s ministry:

Christ left the church with a command to imitate and fulfill his mission of healing spirit and flesh. The church is called to convert the world not for its own sake but for the sake of all whom the Father wants as sons and daughters. (p.105)

[Debbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent study on the theology of death and spiritual care for those who are dying. I especially appreciated (and agreed) with his discussion on the difference between "allowing to die" and euthanasia, and that Christians should not be afraid of the former:
"Biblically rooted theism provides us with the conviction that God, the absolute source and sustainer of our being and our Redeemer, does not abandon us in death" pg. 78