​What is the Death Positive Movement? How will a Christian Death Doula training program use the platform to proclaim the gospel message and serve Christian communities with end-of-life care?

In America, there is an emerging movement called Death Positive. This movement first began in 2011 through The Order of the Good Death, a feminist society founded by mortician Caitlin Doughty.  The Order’s website (https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com) succinctly defines what it means to be death positive:  “People who are death positive believe that it is not morbid or taboo to speak openly about death. They see honest conversations about death & dying as the cornerstone of a healthy society.” The tenets of the movement also include measures of sustainability and equity.  To be sure, to be death positive does not mean we must positively accept death.  Rather, it aims to form a culture that provides society with the means to experience death with the necessary resources for care and grief support.  Such an initiative requires that “we push back and engage with the systems and conditions that lead to ‘unacceptable’ deaths resulting from violence, a lack of access to care, etc.” (12/14/22, https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positive-movement).

It is important to separate the potential for the movement from the conception of Doughty’s Death Positive ideology. According to her, this idea of death positivity was forged from her interest in sex positivity, which is a fascination with human sexuality and the personal relationship to sex.  In 2013, Doughty tweeted, “Why are there a zillion websites and references to being sex positive and nothing to being death positive?”  Doughty notes, “In the years since, death positive has become an international Movement that includes everyone from high level practitioners to members of the public” (12/14/22, https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positive-movement). Two examples of these community efforts are Death over Dinner and Death Cafes, which are organized gatherings where people come together to eat and share creative conversations regarding mortality. The conversation has sparked new ideas for body disposition. Traditional burial and cremation options are expanding to environmentally sustainable options such as green or natural burials, mushroom suits, and water cremation.  Beneath these methods is the desire for a virtuous death.  It is a giving back to nature to "be of use” as a personal act of salvation. According to Dr. Hannah Rumble, “Natural burial presents an opportunity for gift-giving and salvation in the context of death” (12/14/22, https://drhannahrumble.com/academic-research/). The movement has also produced the role of the Death Doula, a professional non-medical end-of-life care advocate for individuals and families.

The appeal of a Death Doula is to help individuals and their families and communities create a personalized ritual for the death bed and a ceremony following death. Personal choice is the capstone of the Postmodern death. The modern death was already moving in a more individualized direction with the Funeral Director replacing the traditional role of the Clergy, but the role of the funeral home as a one-stop-shop for every detail of the American funeral is now finding itself more of a helpful resource for navigating the bureaucratic process surrounding death as people look to retrieve more authentic and personalized rituals.  Authority in death has progressively moved from the Clergy to the Funeral Director to the individual. The Rev. Thomas G. Long suggests the emphasis on personalization appears like a healthy trend, but in reality, such an emphasis on the life of the deceased “may, in fact, be a desperate attempt to fill the aching void left by the collapse of a creed we once believed” (Thomas G. Long, “The American Funeral Today: Trends and Issues,” Director 69, no. 10 (October 1997: 10 -16.  Quoted in Kathleen Garces-Foley and Justin Holcomb, “Contemporary American Funerals,” in Death and Religion in a Changing World, ed. Kathleen Garces Foley (Armonk:  M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2006), 224.). As a Death Doula who is immersed in the Death Positive movement by default, I have a legitimate concern.  Doulas are trained to be the ones accelerating this shift.  

Death Doulas are also trained to assist individuals and families with future preparations including advance directives, and financial and legal planning. Implementing these plans before a person gets a terminal diagnosis is imperative. Not only can it provide peace of mind, but it is a way to take care of the future generations of a family.  If death arrives and no preparations have been made, the survivors of a dying person experience higher levels of trauma and grief. All of these tasks are much more palatable if undertaken prior to sickness or old age. While the ethos of today’s wellness initiative surrounding death is noble and practical, the secular rejection of God as the sovereign Being over humankind and death has created an aching void, which is lucidly pronounced not only in the denial of death but also in the efforts being made to reconnect to it.

This secular movement aims to redefine death and promotes spiritual teachings and the worship of death apart from God. There are significant differentiating factors between a Christian Death Doula and a non-Christian one. Christians believe God has come to us in Jesus Christ to rescue us from sin and death, and it is imperative that a Death Doula training program provides the essential theological training to support individuals, families, and communities in the face of death. Ultimately, death cannot be redefined outside of what is written in the Scriptures. The secular encouragement to embrace death as “natural” is not the Biblical view of death. I put quotes on the word natural because this is accurate from a medical standpoint of human mortality — all human beings will experience aging and death — but from a Biblical standpoint, death is not natural; it is a condition related to Original Sin. Sin and death entered the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God.

When I trained as a Doula, the program consisted of a New Age spiritualization of death: when death grows near, the physical body decreases, and the spiritual body increases.  As this change in energy occurs, the dying understand things differently; they see and feel connected to another realm with others where there is no judgment, and the experiences of the world make sense. This idea of “gnosis” is undoubtedly contradictory to the teachings of Christianity. In his work titled Against Heresies, the second-century Church Father, Irenaeus of Lyon, battled against the Gnostic subversion of the Christian gospel.  Irenaeus is considered to be the first systematic theologian for the Church, and his theology is themed on Christ, the new head of the human race, who recapitulates all of human history through his incarnation, death, and resurrection.  Christ existed from eternity, and therefore, Adam was created “in the image” of Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15).  As only a “type,” the original formation of Adam is brought to completion in Christ, which is the life he is to grow into “by learning through experience” (John Behr, “Irenaeus of Lyons,” In Christian Theologies of Salvation, ed. Justin Holcomb (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 43-44.). It is only by following Christ unto death that we fully recover the likeness of God and are truly made human.
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Irenaeus recovers the meaning of death in an era that has forgotten the meaning of salvation. I believe this budding movement is the platform for reviving Irenaeus’ recapitulation model in ministering to the dying and in a contemporary charismatic healing ministry for the Church and the world. Irenaeus’ recapitulation theology is ready for the secular movement, Death Positive.  Emphasizing the cross as the transformational experience of death and resurrection in the Christian life must be the future work of the Church and her theologians as death, the shared experience of every person, comes back into focus and conversation.  It is the theological foundation for a Christian healing ministry where a personal encounter with the Spirit of God through the action of the cross causes life-altering effects. Spiritual healing ministries abound in this age, but there is a need for a ministry that brings together the Sovereignty of God, the Passion of Jesus Christ, and the renewing work of the Holy Spirit. Here faith is deepened in the Kingdom message proclaimed by Christ: God has come to make you new (Rev. 21:5).

“The purpose of the cross is not to pay a debt which man owes for not making it to heaven, not to assist man in his aspirations toward some kind of religious perfectionism. The purpose of the cross is to create that faith which man has lost, that faith which enables him to live once again as a creature on this earth.” ~Gerhard Forde, Where God Meets Man

If I wish to stay healthy, a moderate routine of exercise and healthy eating will help me accomplish this goal. If I wish to live in my own home and fulfill my vocation as an attentive wife and mother then I must take care of myself and my home, watch my children, and love my husband. Merit-based rewards also follow the law-equals-results kind of thinking. If I work hard, I will be rewarded with a higher salary; if I study and train diligently, I will be recognized as an esteemed student-athlete. This is how our world works, and when we set goals, we benefit from this system of rewards in a lot of ways.

Most likely, we attempt to play along this same law(goals)-equals-results system in our relationship with God.  If I do this right, God will bless me.  In reality, we all have stories of failure.  We actually have more than we care to admit.  Still, there are times when we have seemingly done something right, but the bottom still fell out and we found ourselves in disadvantaged circumstances. God’s faithfulness is not contingent upon our efforts or what we achieve.

The truth of that statement hurts as much as it brings relief and hope. Our human nature is wired for success through the merit of our efforts. Such independence is the trademark of the Fall, when Adam and Eve took it upon themselves to be like God, to know good and evil (Genesis 3:5). Christians believe Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the new self or new creation in Christ, which lives by faith, already has merit by way of Christ’s sacrifice.  This merit is true merit although the lives of Christians may not display it in every action.

Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, brought this truth to light when he criticized the Catholic Church’s stance on salvation --  the authority of the Church does not undermine the authority of Scripture. Luther’s reformational recovery of St. Paul’s doctrine on justification — Christ’s atoning death justifies by grace through faith — is an essential element of The Death and Resurrection Doula theology for this training program. Prior to the Reformation, in the second century, Irenaeus of Lyons crafted his theology around the theme of recapitulation, which means that in becoming a human being Jesus Christ is the recapitulation of all of human history in an effort to safeguard the Church from her Gnostic opponents. Luther’s theology of the cross — the theology of the God who meets us in suffering — and Irenaeus’ recapitulation theology together enable us to see our stories in light of the fact that we are yet to be made complete. Our existence on earth, from birth to death is the experience of salvation.  Entering into our stories to see salvation at work can change the experience of dying for individuals, families, and communities.  We can face death knowing it ultimately holds no power over us because we have the promise of resurrection.  God’s death changes death. In Jesus Christ, God has gone before us and entered into death to save us from it.

Where are we in terms of talking about death in our Christian communities? Are equipped for these conversations?

​The dangerous phenomenon of nihilism taking place in postmodernism is evident in the way we no longer see or talk about death. It is time for a large-scale recovery of the conversation, and this task needs to be taken up by Christians.  Death Positive is a growing secular movement aimed at redefining death and it has already started the conversation. While the movement displays noble and practical goals, it is empty of any acknowledgment that God is the One who is completely sovereign over death. There is a direct correlation between seeing death and the stability of our faith. If death is a reality we choose to deny, then our faith in healing will be at risk.  When the ability to see death is taken away, in the context of the great commission Jesus gave to his followers, we should ask, "With our faith, how were we not able to raise the dead?” (Matthew 10:7-8).
It is critical for the Church and the world that contemporary ministries of healing speak about death. Christ’s healing ministry, which we witness through the Scriptures, is eschatological, and it cannot be separated from God’s mercy and forgiveness of sin. The in-breaking of God’s Kingdom on earth has already begun, and we are to be expectant of this reality permeating our experiences now.  Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s eschatological plan for creation provides a future beyond death.
Today’s theological treatises must take into account the present reality of Identity Politics, which I believe, is a detriment to the Church. Many Christian teachings are being confiscated by inaccurate theology in attempts to assuage the truth about the fallenness of humankind. The emergence of victim identities as a means of outsourcing the sin of the human race to other groups based on their identity curtails the Church’s mission of spreading the good news of the Gospel. All persons find their hope in Christ alone. Politics cannot replace God’s coming justice. The emerging theological discourses based on identity politics are found in Contextual Theologies of Liberation. These theologies give rise to voices that are considered to be marginalized in the Church such as women, people of color, gays, transgender individuals, and so on. Finding hope in the Christian message is imperative for marginalized groups and individuals, and it should be celebrated that the gospel is reaching into the deepest wounds of every community in the world.  Within these emerging theologies, something to watch and discuss is the removal of Jesus Christ as the TRUE Scapegoat who bears the sins of the world. Critical Theory lies behind these theologies, and they are quickly taking a prominent position within the field of eschatology.
The eschatological commitment of Contextual Theologies of Liberation is also concerned with the present relief of God’s in-breaking Kingdom of Heaven. I believe it is important to make an effort to discuss how my theology is similar in this important matter. Along with these theologies, I promote an eschatological “Now” theme as the underlying emphasis behind healing and relief.  Eschatology “Now” opposes a disembodied future tense of relief only in the heavenly realms.  Liberation Theologies heavily critique the Reformation’s prevailing emphasis on the effects of grace in the lives of sinners. I refute this critique because God’s creative love is for both the oppressors and the oppressed.
I recently spent two years in seminary where I learned there is considerable pressure to succumb to Identity Politics emerging within theology. I will analyze these theologies and share two stories of experience at the deathbed of a poor Black woman and a gay man with HIV-related cancer. In seminary, I was publicly called out twice for my orthodox views suggesting I was racist and homophobic. I made a formal complaint to the seminary but never received an apology from either student. Still, I did not fold to the theological pressures placed on me by the faculty and students, and I am quite sure that I was the only student in the school cleaning out buckets of vomit, rubbing feet, praying, anointing, and facing the fear of death with a dying person after-hours.  True work in the gospel is not academic — it is hands-on. This is what it means to serve as a member of the body of Christ.