 By Diane Singer|Published Date: October 05, 2009
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1 Corinthians 15:26
Something worse than death
Jonathan Swift’s classic tale Gulliver’s Travels was an instant hit when it first appeared in 1726, and it has continued to delight readers of all ages ever since – especially the first two voyages, which bring such vivid images to readers’ minds.
In Book One, the Voyage to Lilliput, adults and children alike are enchanted by the minute descriptions of a world one-twelfth normal size, in which a gigantic but kind-natured Gulliver must tread lightly to keep from injuring the inhabitants. In Book Two, the Voyage to Brobdingnag, readers share Gulliver’s terror as he strives to survive in a world twelve times his size – a world where dogs, babies, monkey, wasps, cats, birds, and rats pose a mortal danger at every turn.
Such vivid details allow readers to enter into those fantastical worlds and account for the popularity of Swift’s tale. Other aspects of the work, however, brought him a great deal of criticism, even the charge that Swift was a misanthropist. For Gulliver’s Travels is not merely an imaginative imitation of popular travelogues; in between passages of visual delight are sections of savage satire against mankind’s pride (considered the cardinal sin in Swift’s day) and against various political, social, economic, and religious abuses which Swift observed in his own society.
In Book Three, for instance, Swift’s pen becomes ever more sword-like as he exposes England’s harsh colonial policies against his Irish homeland and as he mocks a mechanistic view of education (and of human beings) in his satire of silly experiments conducted by members of the Royal Society of London. Finally, in what must be one of the longest running sight gags in all of literature, Book Four: Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Swift savages the Enlightenment claim that man is a “rational animal” by stranding Gulliver in a place where horses are supra-rational creatures and the humanoid Yahoos are their violent, lewd, and brutish livestock. By the time Gulliver returns home to England after his final journey, he is quite mad – hating the sight and smell of other humans, and choosing to spend hours in the stable whinnying to his horses.
One of the most memorable chapters in Swift’s tale, however, is Book 3, Chapter 10 when Gulliver learns about a race of immortal beings called the Struldbruggs. At first, Gulliver is “struck with inexpressible delight” at the prospect of meeting people who had no need to fear death; and he quickly imagines what their lives must be like. He envisions them spending a century or so accumulating wealth, not out of greed but out of a desire to one day stop working (and by thrift and management, to live off the interest) so they can turn their attention to more important matters. He imagines people who excel above all others in the arts and in learning – men and women who would become valuable advisors to kings and rulers because they were “a living treasury of knowledge and wisdom.” He delights in the idea of spending an eternity of days in the company of his brethren who will serve as a shining example to mortal humans of the best way to live.
Gulliver, however, is in for a rude awakening when his hosts inform him that he is completely mistaken because he supposes “a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigor.” The bleak reality is that the Struldbruggs never stop aging. They are, therefore, subject to “all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but ... [with] the dreadful prospect of never dying.” In time, everyone they love dies; their teeth and hair fall out; their eyesight and memory fail; and – because of changes in the language – they are unable to communicate with anyone who is 200 years older or younger than themselves. Decayed and cut off from all meaningful or enjoyable aspects of life, they are trapped in a state of never-ending misery. After seeing some of these piteous creatures – the “most mortifying sight [he] ever beheld” – Gulliver finds his “keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated”: instead, he wishes he could send two of them back home to England “to arm [his] people against the fear of death.”
With the Struldbruggs, Swift thus demonstrates that, for the Christian, there really is something worse than death: everlasting life in a fallen world, with all its attendant sufferings and no hope of relief1. He is appealing to his readers to accept with faith the inevitability of death and to remember that a heavenly home awaits all who have trusted in Christ.
Challenges of the day
While modern readers need this lesson as much as 18th century ones, what Swift’s tale doesn’t address are the complicated life-and-death scenarios we face today. In Swift’s time, medical knowledge was limited: doctors could do little to prevent patients from dying from what are today treatable injuries or illnesses. In fact, elsewhere in Gulliver’s Travels, Swift echoes a common complaint: that their ill-conceived treatments often hastened death.
Swift could not have envisioned the incredible advances in medical technology and treatments available to us today. He especially could not have imagined the difficult decisions we now face as we deal with end-of-life care: Should we do everything we can to prolong life, regardless of the cost in dollars or suffering? Should we “pull the plug” when treatment becomes too expensive – though such treatment could give the patient months or years of quality life? How do we know when it is time to “let Nature take its course” and allow a loved one to die?
The Culture of Death
Death and dying are much on the minds of Americans these days: critics of the president’s plan for healthcare reform, for instance, have voiced concern over the prospect of bottom-line watching bureaucrats making life-and-death decisions over who may or may not receive expensive medical care. This concerns senior citizens as well as advocates of the mentally or physically impaired, who may be deemed less productive or useful to society than their healthier counterparts, and thus less entitled to their share of what will surely be a rationed system of healthcare, as already exists in Canada and Great Britain.
Critics fear that decisions about life-saving healthcare – best left to individuals, family members, and personal physicians – will be snatched from their hands, resulting in earlier-than-necessary deaths. We want to believe such thinking – reminiscent of the Nazis deeming people “life not worthy of living” – can’t happen here. Yet that would ignore the existence of an insidious culture of death that has infected American life for the past several decades – whether it comes from Planned Parenthood, which supports the murder of 1.5 million unborn children each year, or from groups like the Hemlock Society which have successfully fought to legalize doctor-assisted suicide in several states. We even see the culture of death promoted in popular movies like Million Dollar Baby where murdering a severely injured person is viewed as an heroic and loving act, or The Hours, in which characters are praised for having the “courage” to end their lives when they become a burden to their loved ones.
It’s only a small step from making such a choice voluntarily to making it a duty or an imperative.
The Christian’s “no-fear” approach to death and dying
Christians should be legitimately concerned about any piece of legislation or trend in the culture which furthers the culture of death, and we should be actively advocating respect for life at all stages as well as ministering to the dying. However, our advocacy needs to be tempered by death’s reality. As C.S. Lewis once quipped, the mortality rate is 100%: no one escapes this life alive.
This is why Swift’s tale is so instructive: Swift knew that Christians should not fear death. Hate death, yes, because it is the pain-and-grief-producing result of the Fall. Fear death, no, since Christ has given us the victory (1 Corinthians 15:54-55). As John Donne famously wrote, for the Christian, death is neither scary nor particularly powerful: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
Countless passages in the Word offer Christians a victorious perspective on the fate that awaits us all, whether it’s David’s assurance of the Lord’s abiding presence as we walk through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4), or the comforting truth that the Lord views our death as something “precious” (Psalm 116:15) because it brings us into His presence, where there are no more tears, sorrow, or death (Revelation 21:4). The apostle Paul, however, offers the clearest perspective on both the Christian’s life and death:
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith.” (Philippians 1:22-25)
In other words, as long as the Lord gives us breath, we should thankfully embrace each day, seeking to live it in a manner which pleases Him. As long as the Lord gives breath to our loved ones – even if they are imprisoned by broken minds and bodies – we should honor that life with compassionate care and love until the Lord calls them home. And when the time to die is upon us, when we experience the sweet pleasure of walking with Him through that valley, we can be fearless as we anticipate going to that “far better” place where we shall finally – finally! – see Jesus face to face.
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1 This, of course, is not true for the non-Christian who faces eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire when he or she dies (Revelation 20:14). Swift – an Anglican priest who became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin – was writing to a predominately Christian audience.
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