
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Travis Pickell explores the paradoxes of choice in modern dying and the ways Christian theology can aid in navigating the relationship between moral agency and dignity at the end of life.
Burdened Agency addresses the problem of death and dying through Christian theology and ethics. In previous centuries, death was something that simply "happened" to us. To choose how or when one died was the exception, not the rule. However, due to advances in modern medicine, individuals are increasingly required to make concrete choices about the nature and timing of death. Modernity, with its emphasis on individualism, complicates this further because we are increasingly bereft of cultural and religious guidance regarding death. This gives rise to the phenomenon of "burdened agency": the predicament of having to make such difficult choices with so little to help us.
This engaging book offers a historical and philosophical account of the origins of our situation of burdened agency, as well as a Christian solution to the problems that it raises. Looking to theologians such as Karl Rahner, Karl Barth, and Stanley Hauerwas, Pickell devises a radically countercultural approach to death and dying rooted in Christian theological commitments and enacted in the practices of baptism, Eucharist, and prayer.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Landscape of Modern Dying
- ONE Burdened Agency
- TWO Scripts for Dying
- THREE Persons, Freedom, and a Catholic Spirituality of Martyrdom
- FOUR Karl Barth on Agency in Dying: Accepting Creaturely Finitude
- FIVE Stanley Hauerwas on Agency in Dying: Ethics of Dispossession
- SIX Prayer, Baptism, and Eucharist
- Conclusion: Humanity Sub Specie Mortis
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index