When You Are Dying A Personal Exploration of Life Suffering and Belief edition by Philip Wetherell Religion Spirituality eBooks
Download As PDF : When You Are Dying A Personal Exploration of Life Suffering and Belief edition by Philip Wetherell Religion Spirituality eBooks 
This moving book was written with great difficulty by an Anglican priest with motor neurone disease at the end of his life, and its ruthless honesty is challenging and compelling. It will be helpful to many who face life-shortening illnesses themselves or in those they love. Philip writes with transparent honesty about life and death, pain and suffering, faith and fear.
When You Are Dying A Personal Exploration of Life Suffering and Belief edition by Philip Wetherell Religion Spirituality eBooks
This is a gutsy work by an Anglican priest afflicted by motor neurone disease who, as his condition worsens, faces all the big questions. Why me? What are we here for? Is there really a God? A heaven? Is salvation just a selfish fantasy? Why bother to pray? Are there levels of belief?Philip Wetherell even goes so far as to wonder whether he is a Christian at all.
He deals unemotionally with suffering, finding no satisfactory answer in scripture as to why we suffer. He concludes that "although I am certainly not sinless . . . my condition is not the result of sin. God is not punishing or testing me . . . I am simply unlucky."
Philip's thesis is that we should live by principles, not by rules. He is among those who think that not all scripture has equal authority today. And, recognising that we tend to accept those parts of scripture which attract us and struggle with those that don't, he admits that his priority is the message of Jesus about the way we relate to one another in this world. What happens to us when we die should not be the priority issue. Problems are solved, he asserts, not by prayer but by considered action. And that means trying (fallible as we are) to follow not the "rules" found in scripture but the "principles" of Jesus. These he condenses to three, which govern all his subsequent reflections: 1) No one is excluded. 2) The vulnerable and outcast need more help than others. 3) The old ways are not good enough.
He draws his conclusions largely from his life's work in mission, having spent years visiting Christians in some of the world's most oppressed and impoverished communities, and also in inner-city London.
He quotes liberally from newspapers and Radio 4's "Thought for the Day", and tackles current ethical dilemmas head-on. The conclusions of a thoughtful man facing his own terminal illness are particularly poignant on issues such as stem cell research (a good thing) and assisted suicide (the Church's approach is wrong). But, Philip asks, "would I have the courage to ask for my life to be ended? At present I doubt it, but maybe that bit of me will change . . ." ).
The publisher's website* offers further chapters, reflecting on equally pressing contemporary issues: homophobia, interfaith relations, war and peace.
Philip died before the book was finished. Considering that towards the end he was totally paralysed, writing a single letter at a time with the aid of eye movements and a computer, it is not surprising that in patches the discussion becomes a little untidy. There are occasional repetitions and places where a chosen item of current affairs illustrates his argument only awkwardly. For example, some readers might call for more background to justify the author's passing assertion that Margaret Thatcher was responsible for "suffering on a vast scale". Again, is it perhaps a little unfair to accuse Cardinal Murphy O'Connor of implying that "truth is to believe what your are told and that it does not matter if that affects the way we relate to each other" - without giving the cardinal's words a little more context?
The courage of Philip's questioning and the searing honesty of his conclusions present an unsettling challenge ("Why is the church not following the commands of Jesus?"). Yet they also offer strange comfort, in that through all his doubt a firmer faith is forged - apparent to the reader although questioned to the end by the writer himself. His last word on hope: ". . . in the eyes of some Christians I would be ineligible for heaven. I hope they are wrong and I hope I am wrong!"
Tony Richmond
Abingdon, 17 August 2011
(...)
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When You Are Dying A Personal Exploration of Life Suffering and Belief edition by Philip Wetherell Religion Spirituality eBooks Reviews
This is a gutsy work by an Anglican priest afflicted by motor neurone disease who, as his condition worsens, faces all the big questions. Why me? What are we here for? Is there really a God? A heaven? Is salvation just a selfish fantasy? Why bother to pray? Are there levels of belief?
Philip Wetherell even goes so far as to wonder whether he is a Christian at all.
He deals unemotionally with suffering, finding no satisfactory answer in scripture as to why we suffer. He concludes that "although I am certainly not sinless . . . my condition is not the result of sin. God is not punishing or testing me . . . I am simply unlucky."
Philip's thesis is that we should live by principles, not by rules. He is among those who think that not all scripture has equal authority today. And, recognising that we tend to accept those parts of scripture which attract us and struggle with those that don't, he admits that his priority is the message of Jesus about the way we relate to one another in this world. What happens to us when we die should not be the priority issue. Problems are solved, he asserts, not by prayer but by considered action. And that means trying (fallible as we are) to follow not the "rules" found in scripture but the "principles" of Jesus. These he condenses to three, which govern all his subsequent reflections 1) No one is excluded. 2) The vulnerable and outcast need more help than others. 3) The old ways are not good enough.
He draws his conclusions largely from his life's work in mission, having spent years visiting Christians in some of the world's most oppressed and impoverished communities, and also in inner-city London.
He quotes liberally from newspapers and Radio 4's "Thought for the Day", and tackles current ethical dilemmas head-on. The conclusions of a thoughtful man facing his own terminal illness are particularly poignant on issues such as stem cell research (a good thing) and assisted suicide (the Church's approach is wrong). But, Philip asks, "would I have the courage to ask for my life to be ended? At present I doubt it, but maybe that bit of me will change . . ." ).
The publisher's website* offers further chapters, reflecting on equally pressing contemporary issues homophobia, interfaith relations, war and peace.
Philip died before the book was finished. Considering that towards the end he was totally paralysed, writing a single letter at a time with the aid of eye movements and a computer, it is not surprising that in patches the discussion becomes a little untidy. There are occasional repetitions and places where a chosen item of current affairs illustrates his argument only awkwardly. For example, some readers might call for more background to justify the author's passing assertion that Margaret Thatcher was responsible for "suffering on a vast scale". Again, is it perhaps a little unfair to accuse Cardinal Murphy O'Connor of implying that "truth is to believe what your are told and that it does not matter if that affects the way we relate to each other" - without giving the cardinal's words a little more context?
The courage of Philip's questioning and the searing honesty of his conclusions present an unsettling challenge ("Why is the church not following the commands of Jesus?"). Yet they also offer strange comfort, in that through all his doubt a firmer faith is forged - apparent to the reader although questioned to the end by the writer himself. His last word on hope ". . . in the eyes of some Christians I would be ineligible for heaven. I hope they are wrong and I hope I am wrong!"
Tony Richmond
Abingdon, 17 August 2011
(...)
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